‘Later, Louis. Later. Colonel, there are still far too many avenues of escape, not just the sewers.’
‘Is that cowardice I’m hearing?’ asked Kleiber, checking to see that all were finally in place. ‘If so, I can only warn you.’
Probably never having ridden in a car before, the woman’s daughter had been ordered into the back of the tourer and was now too afraid to even look out its side windows. ‘She knows she lied, Louis, but given the way I’m feeling, there could well be an element of truth.’
‘Let’s let them go ahead. We have to talk, and the sooner the better.’
‘There isn’t time. Ludin’s ordered me to stick close to Kleiber, and has already made certain Oona and Giselle will be in Drancy and on their way to Mauthausen tomorrow at 0500 hours. I could have stopped it, Louis. I didn’t and am hating myself.’
‘And for that Anna-Marie would thank you.’
‘You did meet?’
‘Have a whiff of this but don’t let any of them see you.’
His tobacco pouch, but the lock on that gate had been cut and the rush was on, the entrance to that former mansion being given just enough plastic to lift away the ornate bronze doors of antiquity.
Down in the cellars, six plain wooden chairs stood in a semicircle facing a single one. Brimful, and reeking of sodium sulphide and hydrated lime, two of the vats that had been sunk into the floor were on either side of that chair, and from the wooden rods that lay end-to-end across them were steeping cowhides that when lifted, looked as if things had just begun.
Effluent would run along the drain that led to a manhole next to the far wall. Elsewhere the vats were empty.
It was Kleiber who found the blindfold and gag that had been cut away, Ludin who noted that beside an outermost chair in that semicircle, whoever had sat in it must have been wearing mud-caked boots.
‘Ach, Kriminalrat,’ said Kleiber, ‘there is also the note you insisted be sewn into the turn-ups of Oenen’s trousers in spite of my having definitely told you not to do such a thing.’
Scrapings from hides lay about, wooden barrows, too, one of which looked oddly out of place and as if, in spite of the tannery’s having been closed, it had recently been used.
So, too, an oil can and its wick.
‘Louis, I wish our Anna-Marie was here to tell us what’s different.’
‘These cowhides are mildewed.’
Sounds came from the art gallery above and then the sounds didn’t, thought Anna-Marie. The voices were in Deutsch and French and accompanied by footsteps, and always there was this desperate need to listen should any be on the stairs to these cellars. Yet there was also this equally desperate need for haste when apparently none could be taken.
Emmi was among those in the gallery; Emmi who had found the contact who had brought them here, yet to the pencil and tracing paper there was but total patience, for no line, letter or shading could be out of place or overlooked.
Monsieur Auget, for that was the name he had given, had placed the letter from Kaltenbrunner on the light table and had fixed the tracing paper firmly above the stamp mark of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt shy;. Later he would make a woodcut or rubber stamp of it, but for now the tracing paper copy would have to do.
The Galerie Dumail, formerly that of its original owner but now run by his assistant, was but one of several scattered amongst the antiquarian bookshops of the rue Guenegaud. A favourite haunt of the Occupier, as were those on the rue Mazarine off which this street ran, the quartier de Saint-Germain-des-Pres readily confronted shy; one with its history. La Monnaie, the Mint, was just across the street. ‘And handy,’ Monsieur Auget had said. ‘Skilled engravers, as I was myself until a year-and-a-half ago, but those people wouldn’t dare do work like this, would they? Instead, it’s been left to myself to whom Marechal Petain himself pinned this in that other war.’
The Medaille Militaire.
‘But in this one with the defeat, he has had no need of me.’
Shoving his eyeglasses up to perch precariously on his brow, he said, ‘Now stop watching what I’ve been doing. Look away and think of something vastly different. A piglet or a chicken. Describe it to yourself in detail. That little fellow isn’t just greedily suckling, squeezed as he is amongst his brothers and sisters. He’s dug his hind legs into the straw and is pressing them firmly against the floor so as to get an even more possessive grip.’
Arie would have said, ‘I was thinking of a goat.’
He kissed his fingertips and threw that hand. ‘Chevre,’ he said with longing. ‘A Chabichou du Poitou from the Loire. It has a delicacy that is sublime and is perfect with a freshly sliced, fully ripened pear and a glass or two of the Pouilly-Fume. My Leah and I when on holiday would always enjoy such a repast right after our swim, then enjoy each other, of course.’
‘Your wife …’
‘She was there at home and I was here: 17 July last year. Operation Spring Wind, they called it-who would have thought of anything other than a pleasant stroll?’
The Vel d’Hiv round-up.
‘Now forget that goat and look again at what we’ve before us. Concentrate hard, for lives depend on it, not just your own. Is there anything I’ve missed? Anything, even the tiniest of nicks or a gap across one of the letters that might indicate that the typeface had been worn or poorly cast?’
The tracing seemed perfect.
‘Now let me show you something you may need to know when people like me are no longer available.’
Turning the tracing paper over but now using jet-black copy ink and pen and that same care, he produced a mirror image of the stamp’s impression, but in reverse. Blowing on it a little, he then held it positioned over the letter he had written and typed up on a German machine, an Olympia, and carefully turning the tracing paper over, laid it down where it absolutely had to be and gently pressed the heal of his hand against it before teasing the tracing paper away.
‘Now for the signature that will free those two if, and I say this with great respect, you manage to get there before the real truck to Drancy does. But please, even with such a need for haste, don’t distract me. Take a look at your newpapers and start to memorize the details. You are now Annette-Marie Schellenberger from Cernay in Alsace. It’s a small town just to the east of Thann and it suffered greatly in the Great War, so you will know all about its cemeteries. Just to the north is Hartmannswillerkopf, what the French poilus called Vieil-Armand. It was Alsace’s Verdun, so look into it if you have time since your mother must have told you repeatedly where and how the father who never saw you had been killed. Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve given you a few years you don’t yet have, but they might just help. Who knows?’
The photo of herself, taken and developed by an assistant, showed her as she now was dressed: severe and uncompromising.
Taking up the letter he had typed, he said, ‘I’ve put the two you are to collect and take to Drancy as down for the Stutthof KZ. It’s in what was once north-central Poland. An administrative centre and forced-labour camp, it has at least a hundred sub-camps, so there will be plenty for your two to do should they ever reach such a terrible place. The SS have one of their armament’s factories there and it’s rumoured, we understand, that early next year work will begin on a Focke-Wulf aircraft plant.’
Kaltenbrunner’s signature when compared with the original was perfect.
Pushing across the table two of the diamonds Mijnheer Meyerhof had given her for herself, she saw Monsieur Auget shake his head. ‘That’s generous, but you’ve brought us something of inestimable value and certainly it was the reason I immediately agreed to drop everything and see you, but one will be sufficient. You might need the other yourself.’
‘My life diamonds.’
‘And a very apt name. Bonne chance, Fraulein Schellenberger. Take a few moments to mingle with the gallery’s crowd, then quietly leave with your associate.’