Two of the remaining buttons on his open topcoat hung by threads and when he took it off because it was so warm, he was careful not to lose them.
A scorched hole, right through where the zipper ended on that brown suede pipe pouch was evidence enough. Fingering it as though longing for its daily ration of tobacco, he made sure the letters AMPHORA could be seen. A Surete chief inspector. Divorced once-wife Agnes-widowed next from wife Marianne, and their four-year-old son, Philippe, due to a Resistance mistake the Watchers of the Paris Gestapo had deliberately left in place.
Aram had been thorough.
‘He has chosen one of the most secluded of places,’ confided Emmi, ‘but one from which it will be impossible for me to get you out of there if I have to.’
The gravel path that led to that bench found it in the tightest of cul-de-sacs where leaves of every shape and shade of green sought the myriad panes of glass. ‘Then I’ll do it now since Aram has given me no other choice.’
‘Just don’t force me to have to shoot our way out of here.’
Emmi hadn’t wanted to come; Aram had insisted, yet now that she was alone with the chief inspector, he still hadn’t realized who it was and had definitely been expecting someone else.
En francais, she said, ‘Monsieur, may I sit beside you for a few moments? These shoes of mine, they don’t quite fit, and my friend has tired me out.’
Caught off guard and momentarily perturbed, the deep brown eyes under those bushiest of brows instantly became curious only to soften. ‘Ach, of course, Fraulein.’ And moving the shabby coat onto his lap, went on to say, ‘This is lovely, isn’t it? One yearns for peace and harmony.’
Had he still not realized? ‘It reminds me of the paintings of Henri Rousseau.’
At first he didn’t know what to say, so struck was he by her comment, but then, gesturing with the hand that held the pouch, he said, ‘And the irony of that is, Mademoiselle Vermeullen, that I, too, had been thinking the very same thing. The Blitzmadel uniform, side cap and black-and-silver Blitz brooch of a signals operator are perfect, the black leather shoes as well, but please don’t ever be caught in that uniform. The Moffen, the Boche, the Occupier, the green beans, SD, SS, Gestapo or whatever would not be appreciative. Even knowing you from so many photos, I didn’t think it could be yourself.’
‘So many photos?’
Her expression was one of utter dismay. ‘Please don’t worry unduly. My partner and I believe they now have only the two that were sent from Hague Central and date back to the general strike. Hermann and I made others destroy all copies of what they’d had taken.’
‘Others?’
Merde, were they to delve deeper and deeper into this when time was so short? ‘You hitched a ride last December in a bank van and then recently.’
‘And Monsieur Hector Bolduc had someone secretly taking photos of me in Paris, did he? I thought so on three occasions-I felt it, you understand-but could never prove it. Always whoever it was would vanish. All I did come to know was that Monsieur Bolduc must have been talking about me to his overseers and that mistress of his, and to those two with the van, for when they unlocked and opened that back door at l’Abbaye de Vauclair, the younger one grinned and said horribly, “Now you’re going to get what our chairman has repeatedly said you damned well need!”’
But would Bolduc ever be held responsible? ‘And in place de l’Opera last night?’
‘I did what I had to and yes, I tucked that stick of Nobel 808 inside Frans Oenen’s shirt front because if I hadn’t, those who have helped me so much would have turned their backs on me. I would never have killed him if left alone. I’d have tried to buy him off with what Mijnheer Meyerhof had given me for myself. Those twelve Hochfeines Weiss you also found at that spring, in their paper.’
She must have decided to be absolutely straight with him, but … ‘You didn’t give Oenen the grenade?’
‘That was Emmi, the one I’m with, and to make certain of the other which had a time pencil.’
FTP backup leaving nothing to chance, but she’d have to be warned. ‘You were stopped late last night outside the Sante.’
‘Fortunately I was able to tell one of the others that the place we used was no longer safe. At least, I hope what I said to him reached all of them, the boss especially.’
‘You’ve a pistol in that handbag?’
‘Frans’s gun. A Browning FN Hi-Power, the Pistool M25, No. 2. There are eleven rounds of the nine-millimetre Parabellum left and if I have to, I’ll shoot myself.’
She had meant it too. ‘I’m not a threat and neither is my partner. We’re on your side.’
How dangerous of him to have said it, for if captured and tortured she could well cry it out. ‘I’ve brought you something and am now going to open that handbag. It’s also from Belgium, but Arie Beekhuis, the driver of that truck, felt we’d better not give you the tin, only its contents, so I’ve wrapped it in a kerchief of mine.’
A fortune. ‘Old Belt Virginia, but with added touches of an Oriental and a little Perique and Latakia. It’s superb and I am totally in your debt. Merci bien.’
Already he was packing that pipe of his. ‘Having found the life diamonds and the others that I hid at that spring, Chief Inspector, why did you then leave them for me with all my little scraps from home and that kilo of boart and the one of borderlines?’
Having lit the pipe and appreciatively paused, felt St-Cyr, he would tell her exactly how it had been. ‘Because those scraps speak volumes, mademoiselle. My partner and I, having discovered where you were living and under what name, have been desperately trying to keep that information from the special commando that are looking for you.’
‘They having deliberately left me free to leave Amsterdam because they had an informant both Arie and Etienne, and myself at first, didn’t know of. The “black” diamonds don’t exist, in so far as I know. What I have belongs only to the daughter of Mijnheer Josef Meyerhof. Enough, he hoped, for her to get Diamant Meyerhof restarted when this war is over. Until he had told me of her, however, I would never have thought it of him, for he was, I’m sure, very much in love with Mevrouw Meyerhof and they did have a son. Unfortunately, Michele is not in Paris with her mother and stepfather, but is in Barbizon at the home of Monsieur Laurence Rousel, Josef’s former notary. The house is right across the street from the small museum that celebrates the painters of the Barbizon School, but … but I don’t know how I can possibly get to her.’
‘We’ll help if we can, but I should tell you that Barbizon has its nest of collaborators and is a much-favoured spot of the Occupier especially because of those painters.’
‘And is that partner of yours not of the Occupier?’
‘Hermann is simply Hermann and unique, but they’ve made things exceedingly difficult. They’re holding his Oona and Giselle hostage and threatening Drancy, and it has to be weighing heavily on him, but we’ve been up against such people before and he has always pulled through.’
Yet now, what now-was that what was worrying the chief inspector? ‘Where is he-watching your back as Emmi is watching mine?’
‘Would that that were true, but he’s near the Sante. Another house-to-house, not because he wants to be any part of it-please don’t misunderstand-but because, like myself, he has continually to walk a knife edge.’
The 14th and far too close to the Gobelins and the tannery.
* An adjacent suburb just to the east of Paris.