As one of the Occupier, control of the Citroen had passed instantly into Hermann’s hands. They were capable, of course, and occasionally Hermann did let him drive his own car just so that he wouldn’t forget how to. And yes, they had become friends in spite of it and of everything else. Two lost souls from opposite sides of the war, thrown together by the never-ending battle against common crime.
‘War does things like that,’ he said aloud and to no one but the darkness of the street. ‘We’re like a horseshoe magnet whose opposing poles agree to sweep up the iron filings. All of them.’
The city proper held about 2,300,000; the suburbs perhaps another 500,000 and yet, even with 300,000 or so of the Occupier, on any night at this hour or just after curfew it was so quiet it was uncomfortable. And at 4.47 Berlin Time, it was all but ready for the first sounds of those departing for work. Not a light showed, and the time in winter was one ungodly hour earlier than the old time; in summer it was two.
Boots would soon squeak in the twenty degrees of frost. The open-toed, wooden-heeled shoes of the salesgirls, usherettes and secretaries would click-clack harshly, though most had long since lost interest in how they looked or in trying to find a husband, what with so many of the young men either dead or locked up in POW camps in the Reich.
After more than two and a half years of Occupation, nearly three and a half of war, hunger was on everyone’s mind unless some fiddle had been worked, or one slept with the enemy or had one living in the house. The system of rationing had never worked and had been open to so much abuse, most existed on less than 1500 calories a day.
Yet they had to get up at 4 a.m. the old time, six days a week.
He turned his back on the city. He went into the stone-cold house, saying softly, ‘Marianne, it’s me …’ only to stop himself, to remember that she was not asleep upstairs but dead. ‘Ah merde, I’ve got to watch myself,’ he said. Fortunately there were still a few splintered boards left from the explosion that had killed her and their little son. Hermann had had the Todt Organization repair the damage. With pages torn from About’s The King of the Mountains – a tragedy to destroy it – he lit a fire in the kitchen stove.
And searching the barren cupboards found, at last, one forgotten cube of bouillon.
‘Things like this build character – isn’t that what you always said, maman?’ he cried out for it was her house. It had always been hers even after she had passed away, and hadn’t that been part of the trouble with the first wife and with the second?
‘No. It was the long absences. The work. The profession, and I was determined to succeed, but if one does not climb the ladder, one soon slides down it.’
Flames lit up the room and, cursing himself, he ran to draw the black-out curtains Madame Courbet across the street had thoughtfully left open to brighten the place while cleaning it.
The Gypsy had done the Ritz robbery between 8.15 and 8.47 p.m., Monday, but the flic who had found Cartier’s front door open had not done so until today at 0127 hours. Lots of time, then, for the Gypsy to have been as thorough as possible, yet he had left things behind, had definitely not taken all he could have.
‘And that’, breathed St-Cyr, ‘is a puzzle, unless he was trying to tell us something.’
The bouillon cube was old and so dry he had to remove a shoe to smash it with the heel, only to worry about damaging the footwear. Scraping the crumbs into a hand with the blade of a dinner knife, he fed them to the pot from the surface of whose cup of water rose the first tendrils of steam.
More wood was added to the stove, and from his pockets, guiltily now, the half-dozen lumps of coal Hermann had pilfered unseen from the cellars of the building that housed Cartier’s.
Hermann had kept six for himself – he was like that. He wouldn’t take what was his right as one of the Occupier, the Citroen excepted, and certain of his meals. He would go without but ‘borrow’ from those who had.
Idly St-Cyr wondered if his partner had picked up a little bauble or two for Giselle and Oona. Underwear, yes – silk stockings if they could be spared and the victim found in such a state only one pair would be necessary for the funeral if the coffin was to be left open. If.
‘But why Cartier’s?’ he asked himself, removing his overcoat at last but keeping the scarf tightly wrapped around his throat, the chest covered thickly. The flu … one never relaxed one’s vigilance for it was serious. So many had died of it last winter.
Cartier’s was close to the Ritz but Van Cleef and Arpels was on place Vendome and much closer, other world-famous jewellers too, yet the Gypsy had settled on that one.
He had left the cigarette case for them to find – St-Cyr was certain of this but as yet had no proof. ‘Tshaya,’ he said, and blowing on the cup of bouillon, ‘Vadni ratsa.’
Kohler heard the telephone ringing its heart out in the hall downstairs. The sound rose up the stairwell floor by Christly floor until, tearing himself out of bed, he ran to stop it. Down, down the stairs, he pitching through the darkness rather than have Madame Clicquot bitch at him any more. The rent, the lack of coal – ‘Why will you not see that we receive our proper share?’ Et cetera.
They collided. The candle stub flew out of her hands; the stench of garlic, onions and positively no bathing was ripe with fortitude. ‘Monsieur …’ she exhaled.
‘Madame, forgive me. Allo … Allo … Operator, put the bastard on. Gestapo … yes, I’m Gestapo, eh? so don’t take offence and hang up.’
‘Louis … Louis, what the hell is it this time?’
A moment was taken. And then, ‘Cartier’s, Hermann. The Opera, June of 1910 and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The Scheherazade. The Thousand and One Nights, The Arabian Nights.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I was there with my parents. It was magnificent!’
‘I’m still listening.’
‘Bakst put such colours into the decor. Nijinsky was the black slave.’
‘Continue.’
‘Louis Cartier, the grandson, was so impressed he revolutionized Cartier’s style and the way we see gems and semiprecious stones. He and his assistant, Charles Jacqueau, began to create what were then very daring combinations of onyx, jet or pearl and diamond, with malachite, jade and amethyst or lapis lazuli. That’s why he hit Cartier’s.’
‘You’re not serious.’
‘The Club Scheherazade, idiot! Tshaya, Hermann. Nana Theleme. She was wearing a dress with stag-horn buttons and a belt of goid links. Those are gypsy things. Their most powerful talismans are not man-made but natural. A polished bit of antler, a beach pebble bearing its tiny fossil …’
‘A plaque of amber with its entrapped fly, eh? Hey, mon vieux, I’m going back to bed. Your French logic is just too much for me!’
Tshaya was Nana Theleme? Ah! Louis was crazy. Too tired, too overwrought.
The flat was freezing. Giselle wore three sweaters and two pairs of woollen trousers, kneesocks, gloves and a toque. Oona also.
There was no room for him in the bed – there hadn’t been when he had arrived home. Ah! the three of them didn’t share the same bed. Those two would never have put up with anything like that! not even in this weather …