‘And the reason for his “getting in a huff”, Préfet?’
Jean-Louis was serious. ‘This I have already mentioned, Chief Inspector. The money, yes? Is time of so little value to you?’
‘Time is to murder what salt is to an open wound. One or both of you cried out the name of a Madame Charbonneau. This was heard by the daughter and the mother also, I believe, though that one steadfastly denies it.’
Exasperated, Kerjean blew out his cheeks and tossed the hand of inconsequence. ‘And the former, Jean-Louis? That little slut? Paulette le Trocquer would lie for the sheer pleasure of seeing if she could get you to believe her!’
‘What do you think was in the briefcase?’ asked Kohler.
Startled by this new direction of attack, the Préfet’s eyes narrowed swiftly. ‘The money? Is this what you two think?’
‘I’m asking.’
‘Then I do not know, Inspector. Since the Captain’s money has been missing for some time.’
‘How long, please?’ asked St-Cyr.
Would the two of them keep it up? wondered the Dollmaker. So far so good.
‘I … I can’t be sure, but at least eight weeks. Its absence was discovered by Monsieur le Trocquer just before U-297 returned to the Keroman bunkers on the 5th November. Privately he accused his daughter of the theft. The girl still denies it and did so then.’
It would be best to shift the direction of attack. ‘Was the submarine badly damaged, Préfet?’ asked Louis.
Again there was that swift, dark look from Kerjean. ‘Why not ask the Captain? Let him tell you.’
‘Perhaps I will,’ said St-Cyr, moving the cigarette package until it was directly in front of him. ‘I want first to settle one thing, Préfet. Since you and Monsieur le Trocquer argued about Madame Charbonneau what, please, is your relationship with her?’
Me, a married man with six children, is that it, eh? wondered Kerjean. It was. Ah, Jean-Louis, how could you do this to me? ‘That is a private matter, Chief Inspector. I am not on trial here, nor am I under suspicion, or am I because of the word of a girl who wants only to escape the boredom of her little life?’
Why must he be so difficult? wondered St-Cyr, greatly troubled by him and saddened, too, at the thought that perhaps the Préfet was trying to protect someone or had done the killing himself. ‘It would help if you told us.’
Ah damn that girl Paulette. ‘Madame Charbonneau is a friend, that is all. I have many friends in the Morbihan. I make it my business to know the people with whom I may one day have to deal on matters of the law.’
It had been spoken like a good cop, yes, of course, but … ‘And the husband of this woman, Préfet,’ asked St-Cyr, ‘is he a friend also?’
Prepare yourself then, Louis. Prepare yourself my fine little buzzard from Paris. ‘Both Sous-Préfet le Troadec and myself have many times returned him to her, Chief Inspector, and that is the extent and the beginning of my friendship with them. They are lost, yes? Like so many who ran from the invasion of 1940, they cannot find the will or courage to return to Paris. Like all great artists, Monsieur Charbonneau seeks in the things around him the inspiration for his work and the reason for his being. He “hears” a symphony he wishes to write. Who am I, a simple policeman, to question such as him? But when the weather is very bad and I find him out in it digging for bits of pottery and old bones or flint axes among the megaliths, I take him home to his wife and daughter.’
‘You did it,’ said Kaestner flatly. ‘You killed that shopkeeper.’
‘I did not. I had no reason to but it’s interesting you should think to try and put the blame on me. You who are on such familiar terms with her, Captain. You who do not go home on leave to see your family but spend all your free time making dolls or visiting the wife of another.’
Kaestner sprang. So swiftly did he lunge at him, Kerjean had only time to grip him by the wrists as the Captain’s hands closed fiercely about his throat.
The table went over. The girl shrieked, Kohler rammed the two of them, sending them into the wall. ‘Enough!’ he shouted.
Choking, plum-red in the face and clutching himself by the throat, the Préfet sat on the floor slumped against the wall. ‘Bâtard! he raged. ‘You’ve been fucking that poor woman against her will. Admit it! Fucking her, you bastard! Forcing her! Le Trocquer found out and tried to blackmail you into forgetting about the money or giving him more time to find it.’
Merde, thought St-Cyr, what have we now? Kaestner backed away as if struck. Freisen said, ‘Johann, is this true?’
The girl tried to find her pencil and pad.
‘A glass of marc, I think,’ breathed Kohler, ‘and some coffee. Louis, ask the Obersteuermann to see that we get it and are not disturbed otherwise. No one is leaving.’
‘I… I must.’ Embarrassed, the girl looked so helpless.
Kohler gave her a nod. ‘Take a few minutes. Here, have one of these. You’re due it.’
Fortunately no one had stepped on the cigarette package and when she timidly took one, her big blue eyes glanced uncertainly at him before flicking warily to the Captain.
You sweet thing, thought Kohler. That’s just what I figured you would do.
Freisen had noticed her reaction too and so had the Préfet.
Louis was pleased but chose to hide this by brushing himself down and finding his chair. And when the coffee and the brandy were brought in steaming mugs, he asked Baumann for enough tobacco to fill his cherished pipe. ‘It helps me think, and that is something we all must do.’
At a nod from his Vati, the Obersteuermann yielded up his tobacco pouch and muttered in German, ‘It is okay, yes? I have another somewhere.’
St-Cyr wondered if they were going to have to take on all fifty-two members of the crew.
French toilets were always filthy but the boys from U-297 had made this one spotless, which only proved — yes it did, thought Elizabeth Krüger — that the French were inferior.
Yet I cannot stop myself from shaking, she said and bit a knuckle.
It had been clever of the Captain to have done that — a desperate move, yes, of course. But he was like that. He took chances. He assessed things coldly, rapidly, thoroughly, then, having weighed up each situation, struck when and where least expected.
The Préfet, fool that he was, had blurted out his feelings for this Madame Charbonneau who spoke German so perfectly, the Captain liked to visit her. A touch of home.
The Préfet had as much as confessed to the murder. Now everyone would think he had done it. Yes, everyone. So, good. Yes, good.
But me? she asked, nervously drawing on the cigarette and wishing that the Captain would see how she felt about him. ‘I, Fräulein Elizabeth Krüger, Special Assistant to the Kapitän zur See Freisen, am afraid.’
Toilets did that to one sometimes, made them confess things best left unsaid. Had he really been fucking the Frenchwoman against her will or with it? Did it matter so much to herself? It could not last in any case. No, it couldn’t.
The dossiers of the two detectives had not been good. Herr Kohler, in spite of having two sons missing in action at Stalingrad and presumed dead, had a reputation for going against authority. He was no Gestapo, no Nazi though a member of both by force of circumstance.
And his friend, his partner? she wondered. That one was even more so a hunter of the truth. A patriot even though the Resistance still had him on their list and had killed his wife and little son.
He had a new girlfriend in Paris, a chanteuse, a Gabrielle Arcuri whom he had met on a case at the time of his wife’s death, which only showed that war speeded such things up greatly and there still might be hope for herself.
But did St-Cyr feel guilty about it? Could this be used against him? His wife had been unfaithful, a German, a Hauptmann. Most Frenchmen would hate their women for such a thing, a patriot only more so. The wife had been a Breton. The mistress was a White Russian who had fled to Paris as a teenager at the time of the Revolution.