Only then did he hesitantly open the other sack, carefully setting its tie aside and spilling a little into a hand.
Clear white to off-white, and among them the exceedingly rare coloured diamonds, there were stones of every description and size up to and including those of two carats. ‘Mine and river rough,’ he managed, still stricken. Many of the crystals were octahedral, others dodecahedral, cubic, modified cubes and even hexoctahedral, but there were still others of a flattened triangular shape that, with their natural facets and colour, looked ready for setting in jewellery but could well have been used as industrials too.
As with all of them, sunlight flashed, giving myriad telltale glints. However, from himself there was only despair. Oona, Giselle, Gabi and her son were all at risk, but how had this girl come by them, only to then make a repeat journey, and what, please, had she intended?
‘Un mouchard, mademoiselle. One your passeur and his firebox feeder didn’t know about but you finally did, causing him to leave his operatives a note wrapped around a rijksdaaler? Since they didn’t stop that truck from leaving Amsterdam, there has to be something that Sonderkommando desperately need you to do and that can only mean Hermann and myself are being dragged deeper and deeper into it.’
Through the silence of the abattoir came the constant dripping of those verdammte taps and the muffled coughing of that boy. Too many smokes and a complete loss of nerves had put Hartmann right on edge, the stench here rank enough to permeate the skin. It was now 16.32 and Dillmann hadn’t arrived. To stay any longer was crazy. Louis would have said, Hermann, get the hell out of there while you can. Dillmann can’t be trusted anyway. If Heinrich Ludin has his hands on him, he’ll readily sing whatever tune is necessary.
Flinging the empty cigarette package away, his second, Kohler found the boy sitting on those boxes of fags into which he’d been dipping. ‘Give me one of those and don’t argue. Light it first.’
‘They’ve all been arrested. It’s Russia for sure. My mother warned me. She said they’d do that to me if I ever got in trouble. Ach, Scheisse, I would drop your cigarette. Why isn’t the Oberfeldwebel here?’
‘Hang on. We’ll wait another five minutes.’
‘Not me. I’m going, but where? With these eyes of mine, I haven’t got a chance.’
‘Steady. Here, take a couple of breaths and leave the fags alone. You’ve got too much nicotine in you. Now go and stick your head out between those doors and have a look. Maybe that’s a truck I heard.’
Actually, there were three of them, two from farms and one from the Wehrmacht, but all drove in as if it were the end of the world, to slam on the brakes and leave engines running.
As Hartmann closed the big doors, men piled out and went to work, the tarp’s being flung back. ‘Bonzen shrieking at Bonzen held us up, Kohler,’ shouted Dillmann, tossing his cigarette away. ‘Einen Moment, bitte.’
Suckling piglets ready for the spit were chased by whole sides of beef and pork. Cages of chickens were noisy, those of ducklings too. Squash, carrots, cabbages and potatoes followed-liebe Zeit, were there no shortages? Onions by the sack came next, beets, too, for that much-loved borscht, sugar also and pears, apples, eggs, cheeses, grapes by the box but wine by the barrel this time.
All of it was swallowed up in exchange for the grease, oil and gasoline needed, the thumbs-up given and a ‘beat it’ until next time.
‘Everything is organized because it has to be,’ went on Dillmann, taking a breath and grinning from ear to ear before breaking out the cigars, even to lighting them. ‘Within the hour, their half will be sold on the streets or to the shops, restaurants and hotels, our half as well.’
‘Since it only takes about ten minutes to drive from one side of the city to the other, eh?’
‘Maxim’s, the Ritz, the Hotel George V, the Boeuf sur le Toit and the Grand Vevour for us, the Druant, too, others also, of course.’
‘Chez Rudi’s?’
‘Ach, you’re not here to find out about my travels, but that place too, since it’s right across the Champs-Elysees from the Lido and Rudi’s a valued customer as is the Lido. But rumours are flying, my Hermann. A gazo, a Schmuggler, and a person who a Standartenfuhrer and a Kriminalrat want so desperately they would hold up traffic for hours and hours? Kaltenbrunner must have told them not to say a thing to anybody, so let me hear from yourself what you’ve thought to involve me and my men in without first asking.’
Everything was rumour these days, Mundfunk* its primary source. ‘We simply don’t know, that’s why I’ve come to the fountain.’
Rudi was that and everyone knew it. ‘Flattery I don’t need, not when that truck of mine should be leaving.’
‘Then if you were a Schmuggler using a gazo they wanted what would you do?’
‘Stop and change trucks. Use one that burned diesel or gasoline, or take the time out to change over the original.’
‘And get you to let them in?’
A dark look should be given but there wasn’t time. ‘Or someone as capable. I’m not the only one, Hermann. Surely you know this?’
‘That package has a cut on the hand or forearm.’
‘That why you wanted Schutze Hartmann’s first-aid kit, the one he was wearing on his belt when I dropped him off here and told him to obey me and no one else?’
‘That package may need it’s antibacterial.’
‘And big words, is it? Such a concern tells me that package is a skirt but is she eine Judin, Hermann?’
‘Eine Halbjudin, we think.’
‘From the Netherlands, is it?’
‘That too.’
‘And have they a Spitzel aboard?’
‘We think so.’
‘You think a lot, but that must be why they haven’t posted photos of her.’
‘Probably.’
‘Not probably, mein Lieber. For Herr Kaltenbrunner to send a Sonderkommando after a skirt, she has to be carrying something really big or about to lead them to it, since silence is the order of the day.’
‘Just don’t ask me what it is, for we haven’t a clue, but don’t broadcast what you’ve found out either. Let us find her first. Look for that cut and let me know if they come in through that entrance of yours or any of the others you might hear about.’
And a deal, was it? ‘A blonde and a perfect Nazi breeding ground if they were to overlook that other half?’
‘Just leave a message with Rudi. Tell him where we can meet up.’
‘You and that partner of yours go there often, do you?’
‘Louis has to eat and so do I.’
Hermann could have him by the balls any time he wanted, but it was also good to know where he could be found. ‘I’ll have to tell Herr Sturmbacher there’s something in it for himself. For myself and my men, of course, the half of what that girl is carrying or leading the others to, yourself to pay Rudi out of your share, not ours.’