‘And you wouldn’t have been able to collect the insurance.’
‘We can’t. They’re claiming it’s a criminal matter and now, thanks to you and St-Cyr, I’m to be hauled up before Hercule the Smasher. Hercule whom I had counted among my closest associates and most loyal of friends. Bottle after bottle of the Vieille Reserve; cork after cork of nothing but the finest from the Haut-Medoc and Medoc, the hams, the truffles …’
President du Tribunal Special du departement de la Seine, Vichy’s top judge and hatchet man in Paris, and an old acquaintance from last February. Louis should have heard him.
‘Hercule presides over the black-market violators, Kohler.’
‘And the night-action courts.’
Those where resistants and other troublemakers were tried and sentenced, Hercule loving nothing better than to condemn them. ‘Photos, Kohler, and not just of myself, my garage, the tenements I own and my vans and bank, but of the wife, too, with the threatened divorce, and my little Didi and Yvonne. Both of the girls are constantly in tears.’
His daughters, the one named after his secretary and primary line of defence but obviously no longer present, since the wife was her sister.
‘Paris-Soir, Le Matin, Le Petit Parisien-even Le Cri du Peuple. All have been running photo after photo and column after column of sensationalism and outright lies.’
That last being the PPF newspaper to which he had donated plenty.
‘And now, you ask? Oh for sure it will be Je Suis Partout this coming Saturday. They’re always berating the police to arrest those guilty of such things and telling them where they can be found. Pariser Zeitung will also be at it, as will Radio Paris, even Radio Berlin. The shame, the humiliation-am I to be stripped naked and paraded through the streets before stretching the neck under the widow maker?’
Sanctimonious as always, Vichy’s Ministry of Provisioning must have needed a scapegoat to calm the masses. ‘Ach, it’ll soon be forgotten. Heros are what’s needed and Louis and me are about to make one of you. Just have than van over to Kleiber in good time-1500 hours is what he wants-and don’t forget to lock him into the back. We don’t want anyone holding you and Lebeznikov up and stealing all of that cash or those Congo cubes.’
‘That one’s a gangster and you know it.’
‘But for what I have in mind, he’s perfect and he’ll keep Merode and the others at bay. Now I’d better find Louis. This is going to need all of us.’
The rue Vignon wasn’t far but the Wehrmacht’s boys were two by two right up the staircase and along the corridor to that little kiosk at the far end where the cash was taken, the room assigned, and the regulation grey Kondom and postage-stamp towel handed over, jugs of disinfectant being in the rooms.
Evangeline Rocheleau, the flimsy negligee open and revealing all, couldn’t have cared less. Reddened, soon to be giant bruises on her breasts, and a newly swollen left eye and chin, were evidence enough. That husband of hers was far from happy and still favouring a broken tooth and battered lips of his own. Louis hadn’t just made himself an enemy. He had guaranteed it forever.
‘That Kriminalrat will have taken him to the Bois de Vincennes,’ spat Rocheleau, having at last wiggled the tooth free. ‘He’ll have given the salaud exactly what he deserves and me, I’m glad, do you hear? Glad!’
Ten minutes … would it take that long to find Louis and could he really leave her under a thumb like this?
Hauling Rocheleau out into the corridor, he told the boys to do the necessary, since this ‘husband’ of hers had spoiled their fun and ruined her income.
Closing the door, he said, ‘Get dressed. I’ll be back. I guarantee it. Pack what you still have and we’ll find you a job as a seamstress, but if he touches you again, I’ll kill him.’
Louis would have said, Hermann, don’t you dare make such promises, given what you now have to do.
Had he done the unpardonable? wondered St-Cyr. Had he given away innocent lives in but a stark gamble that Hermann would not only pull off that sale and bring Anna-Marie here, but somehow deal with this ulcer of a Gestapo?
Dark blood had now found its way thoroughly into Ludin’s handkerchief, each cigarette butt bearing further evidence. That the spasms were not only more frequent, but all the more intense was clear enough, the lack of that last bottle of bitters a regretted moment of forgetfulness, but not by this prisoner.
Shackled-chained with that Bois-de-Vincennes extra bicycle chain and the bracelets too, and tightly-he was unable to straighten and had to remain squashed up against the passenger door and its window. As if to mock him-and God would do things like this-the late afternoon light over the Barbizon plain was everything that Millet and others of the Barbizon School had found. Sketching out-of-doors had not been common in the mid-1880s. Scandalous, mocked too, they had carried on anyway, but was there nothing he could do? Ludin wouldn’t just kill him, he’d shoot that daughter of Josef Meyerhof and Monsieur Laurence Rousel, the notary who had risked his life to hide her. But would Ludin wait first to see if Hermann did get here with Anna-Marie?
‘That ulcer of yours has eaten its way through the lining of your stomach, Kriminalrat. You’re not just in urgent but desperate need of medical attention. Are those spare cans of gasoline to get you to Lausanne? If so, make sure you can still drive a car and that you don’t ignite the fumes!’
‘Sei Still! If this is another of your lies, I’ll shoot now, rather than later.’
‘Since the gun is yours, it’s either one or the other and of no consequence, but you will never make it to the Swiss border on your own. Take my advice and use the train. There’s a rapide every now and then. The station at Avon is only two kilometres from Fontainebleau, and that is not more than twenty from here. Let’s just hope the Resistance don’t leave a little something on the tracks.’
Instantly the fear of being shot was all too clear. ‘Now show me where Kohler is to bring that girl.’
‘There’s really only one long street, this one, the rue Grande, and it cuts right through the centre of the village since there are only about six hundred residents. Plus the Occupier, of course, for it’s a favourite of theirs, as it is of Parisians, myself included in the old days before the defeat. Rommel, Keitel, Stulpnagel and others have all dined at the Hotel Bas-Breau and Hotel les Pleiades, and stayed overnight, for the cuisine is still said to be exceptional even with all of the terrible shortages.’
‘And the name of Meyerhof’s notary?’
‘It won’t be on any nameplate, but I do know where the house is.’
A few small shops, one general grocery, a tabac, a PTT, a scattering of other restaurants and a small museum that celebrated those painters all drew the camera-totting Wehrmacht who were on holiday. Cars were of interest, though, to everyone, the locals tending to avoid the tourists since those constantly behaved as though they owned the place and emptied the shops.
Of a storey and a half, ancient and of stucco, the house stood right up against the pavement as did most others, even to the windows that were closed off by shutters. ‘That wooden gate to the courtyard, Kriminalrat, will but offer a tight a squeeze and be solidly locked in any case. Pounding on it will only attract unwanted attention.’
Unfortunately a lane ran alongside the property. Masses of tall lilacs, climbers and a stone wall gave further privacy, the picket fence and its gate at the back, one of stout limbs, though offering access for a car.