‘The sheen is also perfect,’ he said, having briefly flashed a light. ‘It also has the deckle edges of handmade paper.’
‘And the ink is clearly Frankfurt black, as the Bank of England would have used, the pigment made from German charcoal, from grapevines that had been boiled in linseed oil.’
This wasn’t good; it was terrible. ‘The SD must be having them made in one of the Konzentrationslager. Few will know of it, certainly not two dumb Schweinebullen like us. If we do what she has asked, we leave ourselves wide open to knowing of something that is so secret, only Kaltenbrunner and a few others know anything of it.* And that can only mean, even though they already have enough on us, Kleiber will be sure to mark us down for the piano wire, and if not him, Heinrich bloody Ludin or Kaltenbrunner himself.’
They did have reason to worry. ‘We still have to try.’
‘She might not have been able to do anything-had you even considered that?’
‘Yes, but how else are we to solve this investigation and negotiate a way out of it not just for ourselves, but for Oona and Giselle, if rescued, and for Gabrielle? A murderer who is murdered but with the help of a victim like that? Diamonds that do exist and others that may or may not, but will have to remain hidden if they do? Surely she deserves our continued help.’
‘You sound like a saint but have forgotten to mention the robbery of that van and that Sergei Lebeznikov took his son and that girl to this very restaurant.’
‘I am merely saying that we have no choice. We need to find and speak to Rheal Lachance and Emile Girandoux before Kleiber or Ludin try to stop us. Besides, it’s late and this place has a reputation.’
Pungent with the collective aromas of food, perfume and tobacco smoke, Chez Kornilov was also loud, and through the din came the sounds of cutlery and plates, the shouts of white-bloused waiters wearing peaked peasant caps, colourful sashes about the waist and trousers tucked into brown leather riding boots. Crossed cavalry swords, Cossack uniforms with bandoliers, beautiful carpets and displays of knives adorned the walls, with brass samovars seemingly everywhere. And on the wall facing all who entered, a large colourful map showed Saint Petersburg and the Bay of Neva and river of the same-Leningrad to the Bolsheviks, and no mention of the endless siege being briefly lifted on 18 January of this year, the population dying at a rate of 20,000 a day.*
Instead, there was a portrait photograph of Czar Nicholas II and family, and the silver-headed eagle of the Romanovs.
‘It’s like a monument to the past, Hermann.’
Picnic after picnic, palace after palace, thought Kohler, and not a reminder anywhere of the brutal murders of that family on 16 July 1918. France had opened her doors to fleeing White Russians, among them the young teenager Louis’s songbird had once been.
An absolutely gorgeous hostess wore a tightly belted dress of dark blue woollen herringbone with silver threads that emphasized her figure. Brushing aside a lock of ash-blonde hair, her amber bracelets catching the lamplight, she gave them a slightly puzzled but knowing look and said, ‘Messieurs, I am Ulyana Alexandrova, but are you here to dine or make an arrest?’
‘Kohler, Kripo Paris-Central, mademoiselle or madame, and none other than my immediate boss, Chief Inspector Jean-Louis shy; St-Cyr of the Surete. Since a meal here must cost more than 2,000 francs, please show us to that crowded table. Ach, ja, that’s the very one with the secretary who looks as though she’s being shared by both of her bosses.’
‘That would be Madame Lucie-Marie Belanger.’
‘Do those of the Organisation Todt also share her?’
The builders of the Atlantic Wall and lots of other things, but this one needed a suitable answer. ‘Peut-etre, but please wait here until I have asked if such as yourselves would be welcome.’
Did their curiosity extend to diamonds? wondered Ulyana. Diamonds, since everyone else was talking of them and these two were the sworn enemies of Serge de Lenz, the alias of Sergei Lebeznikov whose son, Pierre-Alexandre, had adored that student and had even hoped to marry her and been rejected.
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of carats that no one knew of except for those two from Berlin, Herr Ulrich Frenzel and Herr Johannes Uhl who had claimed, Sergei had said, that the student was a Halbjudin from the Netherlands named, not Annette-Melanie Veroche as she had claimed, but Anna-Marie Vermeulen, the very girl, however, that Mademoiselle Jacqueline Lemaire, former fiancee of the banker Hector Bolduc, had wanted shy; desperately to join her escort service so that his two friends and fellow partners, the overseers of his bank, could have the use of her.
Un mouchard, a bomb in place de l’Opera, and now … what now? she wondered.
Sergei would be more than pleased to learn of their presence, as would poor Hector whose vans would so often drop off things necessary to keep a place like this going, but would they ever find that girl and those diamonds, and if they did, would they be willing to share a few?
Arie had tucked the truck out of sight in the former stable next door and now, thought Anna-Marie, they were alone in the safe-house at the end of the courtyard at 3 rue Vercingetorix. But it wouldn’t do to reach out to him in relief, though she desperately needed to. Instead, she must say it plainly.
‘I want you to leave early tomorrow morning right after the curfew has ended. You’re to take the truck, and a bike, and use that same entrance we did with Etienne and Frans.’
She was in earnest, but … ‘Why not come with me while you can?’
‘Because whoever it was Frans gave that coin to will know who I am and be watching for the truck, and we mustn’t leave it here. Also, I still have to do what I have to, but when I ordered those two to climb into the back and Emmi threw their suitcases in, that cook-housekeeper deliberately made sure she had a good look not only at its licence but that it was a faded red Renault 3.5-tonne with canvas tarp, so it’s only a matter of time until they find it. Give whoever it was this, and make sure you tell him I’m still very much in Paris, and he’ll let you go because he’ll understand, I think, that something far bigger must be afoot.’
It was a beautifully cut, clear-white diamond.
‘Then as soon as you can, ditch the truck and use the bike but keep to the back roads. Try for Martine and the farm, then vanish, but know that if I could, I believe I would come to love you as much as I still do my Henki.’
Instantly she held up both hands to stop him.
‘It’s neither the time nor the place and I can’t for a moment forget what I have to do.’
‘And the cash from that bank van?’
Etienne had taken some. ‘Leave it beyond what you need.’
‘Apolline won’t like your walking out of here in that uniform.’
‘I won’t but must come and go for a little. In the morning I’ll make sure she understands why you left without saying good-bye, and that she really has no other choice, but since I still have ten of those, a few will convince her. I won’t tell her of the cash. Let’s let her find it later.’
‘And the things in that tin you trusted me to look after when you weren’t here?’
‘Will just have to take care of themselves, but with me.’
Tray after tray, plate after plate went to that table where Hermann was getting to know everyone: roast pork, grilled beef and mutton on skewers, a terrine of chicken with pork, then something called salmon shy; kulyebyaka, baked cod, too, with horseradish, and finally a glazed pike-perch in aspic under a garnish of sliced cucumber. And the wine … Ah, mon Dieu, the Chateau Lafite, Chateau Mouton and Chateau Latour and wasn’t Hector Bolduc interested in chateaux and vineyards near Pouillac and Bordeaux, and was that who Ulyana Alexan shy;drova was now trying desperately to reach on a telephone that would most certainly be listened in to by the Gestapo’s Listeners?