The son of a bitch, but it would have to be said. ‘Agreed. Now tell me about those vans the Banque Nationale de Credit et Commercial sends through yourself and your boys.’
Hartmann must have said something. ‘Bankers are like whores, Hermann. Questions only make them curious. Both are dishonest.’
‘Each driver hands you the envelope, does he?’
‘No questions are asked, no answers given.’
‘But I’m still the one who’s asking and now I’m telling.’
He would do that too. ‘Ach, that bank brings people in as well as stuff for the schwarzer Markt. Since its Chairman Bolduc is far better organized even than myself and has far too many friends in high places, and others as well, I tend to look the other way. Now give me that bundle of 5,000-franc notes you’re still clutching. I’ll get the one note from Hartmann so that there’ll be nothing missing from it and no further misunderstanding.’
‘There are still the sardines, the champagne and …’
‘For yourself. We haven’t time.’
At a shout, the big doors were again shoved open by Hartmann, the truck backing out, Dillmann leaving him with, ‘Ja, mein lieber Hermann, Chez Rudi’s it is,’ so that the words hung on the air like a horse about to be slaughtered.
Louis had better have found out something.
There was still no sign of Hermann. Though the war was going badly for the Reich, and some day soon this Occupation would end, here at Chez Rudi’s during the Saturday cinq a sept, most would never have known it. Beer-hall big and full of uniforms, everywhere there was boisterous talk and bustling waitresses, but at this table, having drained the last of a bottle of Jagermeister, an uninvited Heinrich Ludin fought off another stomach spasm to light yet another cigarette, offering none and waiting impatiently for that empty chair to be filled.
Having ordered a plate of crackling, the Gestapo chose a piece, but found that the teeth and stomach rebelled. ‘Verfluchte Franzose, don’t you dare fuck with me! I want everything you and that disloyal Kripo know, since he has apparently forgotten he was to meet you here.’
Hermann must have seen him, but to ask who had informed on their meeting here would not be wise.
‘Just cut the Quatsch and tell me where the hell he went after that bank’s garage.’
‘I have absolutely no idea. Hermann and I often work independently, only to meet up in places like this.’
‘And yourself, where did you go?’ Another spasm led to the cigarette’s falling to the floor where it couldn’t be recovered.
‘Myself? Ach, here, there, and forced to discover how the city’s bus fleet has again been cut. With every second metro station closed to save power, time means nothing, even if in a bicycle taxi.’
‘Did I not say don’t bugger about with me?’
‘Then let me remind you that this is a murder inquiry and that if you have needed information, by law in France, you are required to impart it.’
The avenue Foch had said that neither Kohler nor St-Cyr would cooperate unless a lot of squeeze was applied. ‘Lieber Gott, Schweinebulle, have you not realized what I can have done to that Russian songbird of yours?’
Stage name, Gabrielle Arcuri; maiden name Natalya Kulakov-Myshkin until she’d become Madame Theriault and a war widow first encountered in December last. ‘Are you threatening me as you did Hermann?’
‘We’ll include those two old lesbians at the shop Enchantment that Kohler’s got looking after his women. The KZ at Dachau or the one at Mauthausen would suit, and if not those, then the furnaces at Auschwitz since the Fuhrer has absolutely no regard for such filth nor do I. And as for that songbird, not all White Russians are above reproach. Cough up or she’ll become just like one of these.’
Breaking a crackling in half, grimacing due to the stomach, Ludin set the pieces in front of him. Golden brown, crisp and well salted, they were to have gone with the untouched steins of Dortmunder that Rudi had sent to the table, the beer flown in on yesterday morning’s Lufthansa’s early flight from Berlin since today it had been far too foggy.
‘Don’t continue to be troublesome,’ said Ludin. ‘Gestapo Paris’s shy; Watchers have an impressive dossier on that songbird, even to the infrequency of the two of you getting together. All I have to do is indicate to Gestapo Boemelburg that it can no longer be overlooked even if our boys love to listen to her as do others in the Reich and at the front, thanks to Radio Paris and Radio Berlin.’
Something would have to be yielded. ‘I went to Saint-Ouen, to the flea market with this.’
A flat metal tin was slid across the table, the nude on its lid clear enough. ‘The Kippenzinn of whom?’ asked Ludin.
‘That is what I was hoping to determine. You see, Kriminalrat, we found it at l’Abbaye de Vauclair.’
And Kohler, being Kohler, had said nothing of it! ‘And?’
‘Several of the dealers gave me names and possible addresses of its buyer and the price paid, and of course each wanted to buy it back since they immediately realized I was a Surete.’
Opening the box, probing the butts with a nicotine-stained forefinger, Ludin said, ‘A traveller.’
‘A firebox feeder, we think, but not the killer.’
Touching the butts brought him so close to what must be the end of this nightmare, felt Ludin, the ulcer was momentarily calmed, for it had to be the box of Arie Beekhuis, the alias of Hans van Loos, age twenty-eight from Rotterdam. A former engine-room operator on a tanker, the Stukas had changed his mind 14 May 1940 when they had wiped out nearly a thousand in that city, putting an end to the young wife and their brand-new baby.
‘Everything, mein Lieber, or I’ll let you listen to that songbird’s screams.’
No doubt he would. ‘Then start by pulling the canvas from those two corpses. Tell us who their killer was. Ein Spitzel, Kriminalrat? You’ve been following that truck since it left Amsterdam. At each stop he’s told you of, your informant leaves a rijksdaaler in a designated place unless, and I must emphasize this, things are not going well. Then, and only then, is a note added and with it a bit of mud to secure the paper. What’s so important that Herr Kaltenbrunner would demand total secrecy from you and that colonel even though you, yourself, now desperately need our help and are insisting on it?’
‘An order is an order.’
‘Why is it then that you have failed to distribute copies of those photos of that girl to every Commissariat de Police for posting? What does she know or carry that is so vital you can’t even let Rudy de Merode and his gang or any of the others know of it or of her? Instead, they attempt to follow us knowing only that there’s something big in the air because you and that SD colonel have virtually locked down every entrance to the city.’
Gut, that Dutch whore of Kohler’s had found the photos and the three coins and this one had finally realized he would have to yield what little that partnership of theirs now knew. ‘Keep the tin and enjoy the beer and crackling. Tell Kohler he has two days but that he is definitely to drag that sorry ass of his over to 84 avenue Foch first thing tomorrow morning, Sunday or no Sunday, or I will have those women prove it to you both that you will cooperate fully or else.’
Rudi Sturmbacher was swift. No sooner had Hermann taken a chair, then that booming voice and mountain of aproned flesh had descended on them, flour up to the elbows. ‘Helga, my beautiful young sister, the roast pork, the potato dumplings and spiced red cabbage for these two and a bottle of-ach, make it two-of the Schloss Johannisberg. Founded by Benedictines in the year 1100, damaged thoughtlessly by those shits in the RAF last year, that Schloss is still thumbing its nose at the British and providing us with pure magic.’