‘The full door-to-door and staircase by staircase,’ said Kohler.
‘But she hasn’t gone across the roofs, Colonel,’ said St-Cyr. ‘If anyone had bothered to reasonably ask Concierge Figeard, they would have discovered that she had left yesterday. She’s out there somewhere and if the avenue de l’Opera is any indication, has no intention of letting us find her.’
‘But you will,’ said Ludin, lighting a fresh fag from the butt of the last one. ‘Otherwise, Kohler, you can watch that train as it leaves from Drancy.’
The son of a bitch. ‘Are Oona and Giselle no longer at the villa?’
‘Let’s just say we’ll give them a few more hours. Then you can choose the cattle car.’
‘Louis …’
‘The hospital first, with Figeard, Hermann. It’s necessary and we mustn’t disgrace ourselves by not attending to a badly injured and totally innocent bystander.’
‘I’m warning you, Kohler.’
‘And I’ve listened, Kriminalrat, but we really do need time, so down another slug of that latest bottle and lay off the smokes. We’ll be in touch, but if you move Oona and Giselle as threatened, everything is off.’
‘And you’ll never find Annette-Melanie Veroche,’ said St-Cyr, ‘because I think this time you really do need us, Kriminalrat, if you and the colonel are to save yourselves.’
Morning had come, and with it this duty call, felt Anna-Marie. Apolline de Kerellec was smoking one of the wine-flavoured Belgian cheroots Etienne had brought her to sell and enjoy. Propped up in bed at 0950 hours, the suggestion of a cold coming on, she had done her hair and face as before, the knowing intensity of that gaze not just of the streets, but of the concierge she was.
‘So,’ she said at last, ‘here you finally are, and with Arie, but you didn’t sleep late. Instead you must have come in at a forbidden hour, only to leave at all but the same, and now to return but not as if on your knees. That left hand, please. Take off the fingerless glove this boy has made for you, perfect though it is.’
She’d been reading the day’s Le Matin but was clutching a volume of Fantomas, the title deliberately turned away until … Ah non, it was La Fille de Fantomas-Helene, the daughter of, and volume eight in the series.
Napoleon was singing.
‘Apolline …’ began Arie, only to have a silencing forefinger raised.
‘Mademoiselle, I suggested a little anisette when we first met, but as the bottle now finds itself empty, we shall have to forgo such a courtesy. A student, you told me. Arthritis, I believe.’
The book was left lying beside her, its jacket illustration shockingly lurid, the blue glass figurines above the bed as if watching.
Cold and pasty-feeling, the thumb that now probed the scars and counted the stitch marks wasn’t going to go away until she had been told the necessary.
‘Barbed wire,’ came the confession.
‘And where did you go this morning with such urgency?’
Only a straight answer would suffice. ‘The Gare de l’Est to warn someone that a certain place might no longer be safe.’
‘And were you able to “warn” that someone?’
‘Yes.’
Still gripping that hand, she then asked, ‘Quel est un Diamantensonderkommando?’
‘A special commando.’
Jeanne d’Arc would not have given any sign of fear either. ‘And the one who was executed in place de l’Opera last night?’
The press had let it out, and that could only mean the Moffen had allowed them to release details. ‘Un mouchard who was working for the Occupier.’
The Fantomas should now be fingered as if searching for clues to her psyche, felt Apolline, since she notices everything. ‘You don’t fool around, do you?’
‘I didn’t want to do that to him. Others decided and did.’
‘Others, and you let them. Are there photos of you posted in every Commissariat de Police? Am I, and all here at 3 rue Vercingetorix, to expect a visit?’
She’d never agree. How could she, but it would have to be asked. ‘I need to stay for just a little longer, madame, but must come and go. I’ve a task to do, a promise made.’
And again, said just like Jeanne. ‘What task, what promise?’
‘I’m to contact someone and give them something.’
‘Anything else?’
‘There’s a job I have to do for those “others.”’
A job. A sigh should be given, a distant look as well, and then the forefinger trailing itself across the book. ‘And this one and Etienne and that mouchard brought you all the way from Amsterdam.’
‘Did the newspapers say that?’
Ah bon, she was worried about Arie, for she had instantly glanced at him. ‘The papers are rubbish. No one believes them and there wasn’t a photo of you. Not yet, but the press are like men with virgins. They invariably get what they want.’
‘Give me a day or two, that’s all I ask, then I’ll leave and if they catch me in the streets, I’ll run like my Henki did and tell them nothing.’
‘Her fiance,’ said Arie.
‘What’s this?’
‘She was engaged.’
And just like Arie who had lost the love of his life and their little baby, but now he had reached out to take her by the hand, so things, they could well be on their way. Then, too, of course, there could possibly be diamonds. ‘Avoid the days, come only after dark.’
It couldn’t be argued, but sealing the bargain might be useful, especially as it would have to be broken. ‘Here is my dissertation, madame. Please guard it closely, but if you could have a read, I’d be interested in your opinion, especially as it looks as if I will never shy; be able to present it until after the Occupier has left, if then.’
After the epuration, which would come as surely as any dose of salts and with all of its hurrying even if bound up like concrete. ‘And you’ve not even tried to buy me. Arie, stuff this newspaper into the stove for its warmth. I’ve not seen it and know nothing of this matter-Absolument rien!-But will read this other anyway, just to see how good it must be.’
Fifteen hundred hours and the Jardin d’Hiver would come soon enough, felt Anna-Marie, but for now there was that promise and its delivery and she mustn’t let Arie come with her.
From the Arc de Triomphe and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with its crowds of visiting soldier-tourists and its circling bicycles, velo-taxis, handsome cabs and occasional staff cars and Wehrmacht trucks, the avenue de la Grande-Armee would take her to Neuilly-sur-Seine, the Bois de Boulogne and the boulevard Maurice Barres. Directly along from the Jardin d’Acclimatation, the children’s zoological garden, which had an entrance on that boulevard, was number seventy-two, the headquarters of Rudy de Merode. None of his henchmen were outside giving bonbons to the children, something they often did to garner favour. No cars were parked there either. Indeed, along from it, the boulevard, apart from three women on bicycles and a few others on foot, seemed all but empty except for herself. But were they all out combing the city for her, thinking, of course, that she would have seen the newspapers and would never have come anywhere near here?
Sickened by what she had heard of the utter sadism that went on in that headquarters, she turned away, and when she got to the address Mijnheer Meyerhof had given her, the villa on the rue Victor Noir was lovely. Its gardens would run right out to the Cimetiere Ancien de Neuilly where Anatole France was buried, and oh for sure it would be like living as near to silence as possible, but Monsieur Lebeznikov and that gang of Merode’s were far too close.
Anxiously pressing the gate’s bell, which made no sound, she waited. Far along the street two women were approaching and as they continued speaking, they noticed her. Remaining locked, the gate left only the questions of, Go back to Arie? Head for the Jardin d’Hiver? Wait? Hope?