She had given a signed statement to the police.
The Seine seemed not to care about his or anyone else’s troubles. When Kohler found him not in the nearby cafe as agreed but staring bleakly at the river, he steeled himself and, putting an arm about Louis’s shoulders, said, ‘They’re holding her in a cell at the rue des Saussaies. Boemelburg is saying that since she’s the only one who has had recent contact with De Vries, her life is in danger.’
That was simply Gestapo jargon for polite arrest. Sonderbe-handlung. ‘And the other two?’ asked St-Cyr, not looking up from the river.
‘Now under constant surveillance in hopes they’ll lead them to him.’
‘But … but they’d have been under surveillance anyway?’
‘Not entirely. Not by far. Some idiot got slack, but now it’s round the clock.’
Fortunately Hermann still had his inside sources at Gestapo Paris-Central, but must have paid dearly for the information. And what price exactly had he paid? His undying loyalty? His renewed oath of allegiance to those monsters? ‘What of Tshaya?’
‘No one knows. She’s probably with De Vries. Everyone’s asking what they’ll do next, where they’re hiding, and who’s helping them.’
‘And Gabrielle’s car, what of it?’
‘The Wehrmacht and the prefet’s boys are doing another sweep of the city. All courtyards, passages, garages et cetera. She gave them a detailed list of the explosives.’
‘Freely?’ demanded Louis, his eyes full of tears.
‘Freely. No torture. Not yet.’
‘And who did she say the resistants who stole it were? She must have described them. She did, didn’t she?’
‘Easy, eh? Easy, mon vieux. The car was stopped at a roadblock on their way out from the quarry. She was blindfolded. She had a pistol pointed at the back of her head. All six of them wore bandannas over their faces and carried rifles.’
‘And rucksacks too?’
Louis was really upset. ‘Look, the six of them didn’t pile into that little car of hers. Only three of them did. The others stayed behind to remove the road-block. She and De Vries were driven right into the city where she alone was let out at the metro, at the Saint-Francois-Xavier station.’
‘It’s closed. Did they not know that? The Mabillon, Chambre des Deputes, Solferino – every second station has been closed to save electricity. If you had to take the trains, you’d know!’
When Kohler didn’t say anything, Louis blurted, ‘Did she try to warn us, Hermann? Was that why she dropped that handkerchief?’
Was it proof she’d been there with De Vries and against her will? ‘She had no choice but to take him there, Louis. He still had enough nitro with him to fragment that little car of hers.’
‘And Boemelburg believed this? And Herr Max?’
‘I … I don’t know. I wish I did.’
‘And what about the controls? Surely they must have been stopped? Their papers … their laissez-passers …?’
‘You’re forgetting De Vries wore uniform. A Hauptmann … He’d have done the talking.’
Kohler fished about in his pockets and, finding a mangled cigarette he had cadged from Giselle, broke it in two, lit up and passed one half over. ‘Don’t draw on it too hard, eh? Give it time. Slowly, Louis. Make it last.’
They could have been back in the front lines waiting for each other’s artillery barrage to begin at dawn. ‘This is what happens when those in authority decide to let criminals out of jail for purposes of their own, but you’re holding back on me, Hermann. Like the river, you’re keeping the corpse I need from rising.’
‘They’re to raid the zebra house. It’s to be a combined Abwehr-Gestapo operation to show the Fuhrer that those two organizations really can work in harmony. They’ll find that wireless set.’
‘Suzanne-Cecilia will be arrested, and since I have been fool enough to share my mother’s house with her, I, too, will be arrested.’
A fait accompli.
‘Giselle says she’s going to kill herself and the baby by leaping from the belfries of the Notre-Dame. Oh bien sur, it’s the notion you’d expect from an hysterical lorette, not a sensible, practical girl like her, but Oona says she means it.’
The last of Louis’s half of the cigarette was not saved for another time but crumbled to dust and given to the river as the offering of the desperate. ‘And herself?’ he asked.
‘The Seine, I think. I don’t know. There’s another thing, Louis. Boemelburg’s out for our blood. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten. Berlin have been dinging his ears with our disloyalty. There’s more talk of his being “retired” early.’
‘And Herr Max?’
‘Hides behind the flak knowing he’s the son of a bitch who took it upon himself to let that bastard out of jail in the first place. We’re what he has to have out of this, and all the rest.’
‘The loot.’
‘That car full of explosives. The wireless transceiver. Those three women … What’s to happen to their children, to the Countess?’
‘Why did Gabrielle not confide in us?’
‘Because I’m one of them and suspect though a friend.’
‘What else is there? Come on, Hermann, give it to me.’
‘Then read the headlines. Our boy’s been busy in our absence.’
Kohler showed him Wednesday evening’s Paris Soir. GYPSY STRIKES AGAIN. WEHRMACHT PAY TRAIN PLUNDERED IN THE SMALL HOURS.
Thursday’s Pariser Zeitung hit with their own little lament but not as a headline, as an article tucked away on the back page. Late-night break-in at villa in Saint-Cloud nets gold bars, jewels, cash, identity cards and passports.
Both robberies had been committed on Wednesday. It was now Friday the twenty-second.
St-Cyr thrust the papers back at him. ‘Like you said, he’s been busy.’
‘Read further. That villa was Nana Theleme’s.’
‘The party. Tshaya was there.’
‘And must have found out where the safe was and its combination.’
‘Cyanide, dummkopfe!’ hissed Boemelburg, purple with rage. ‘One hundred capsules, and now the terrorists are in possession of them!’
‘The villa robbery …’ croaked Kohler, only to be silenced by the savage lift of a fist.
‘But how many are to be poisoned? All officers at the Ritz? All those at the Claridge? Who, please, is to receive one-half to one-third of a capsule?’
Never mind the threat of explosives or the loss of so much loot. Like cancer, syphilis and tuberculosis, the Occupier most feared poison, and Paris was his playground. Berlin must really be tearing their hair. ‘We’ll get on to it, Sturmbannfuhrer. We’ll find them.’
‘Passports,’ breathed Boemelburg. ‘Identity cards – Ausweise, you idiots – and all necessary franking stamps to make the forgeries appear genuine to the most careful scrutiny. Four British Webley revolvers also, and eighty rounds – yes, eighty!’
Ah merde …
The Webley, along with the Lebel, was the Resistance’s weapon. During the Defeat of 1940 God alone knew how many of them had been quickly passed from hand to hand. But the presence of the Webleys in that safe confirmed beyond doubt that the SS of Nana’s villa in Saint-Cloud had been equipped for counter-subversion – for infiltrating reseaux by providing their infiltrators with high-quality documents and a suitable British weapon. A Sonderkommando, then, a special unit. Had they been helping Herr Max in this little venture? Of course they had.
Kohler had worked it all out and so had St-Cyr. Boemelburg told himself again that he had had need of these two in the past, but now? he demanded. Now what was he to do with them?