‘And Tshaya – how did he feel towards her?’
‘She was forbidden. She was not for him. When she was fourteen her father agreed to marry her off to someone younger from a neighbouring kumpania. They were third cousins, I think. Tshaya wanted no part of the boy but the bride-price had been paid and was soon spent lavishly on drink and food to celebrate.’
Kohler helped her over some fallen branches. ‘So she ran off to Paris after Janwillem.’
‘At the age of fifteen, and has been running after him ever since.’
Kohler pulled her to a stop. ‘She disgraced her family yet they took her back when the Spade came for her?’
Nana’s head was shaken. ‘She was considered marhime, as was her family.’
‘So her father let the Spade beat her?’
Why must he demand answers now? ‘Janwillem wasn’t there to stop it, nor do I think he could have, though he always regretted his not having done so.’
A sigh was given. ‘The kumpaniyi gathered and had a trial,’ said Kohler. ‘Her father was a Rom Baro. They threw her out. They banished her but De Vries still loved her.’
‘Not in that way. To him she was like a sister. It was she who wanted him as a woman wants a man.’
‘You’re only saying that because he left you for her.’
‘To commit a robbery, yes, but has he now discovered the truth about her? Has he?’ she demanded.
‘And what of the others who are supposed to be with them? What of the three who went from the quarry to Paris in Gabrielle’s car?’
What of the car and of the explosives? ‘I … I don’t know. I … I wish I did.’
Once among the caravans, it was easy to see what had happened. There were human remains among the bloodstained, torn and rodent-infested eiderdowns and dresses. Some of the braids had come undone, others were tied together …
‘Come on, let’s find Louis and get this over with.’
‘Look, I’m … I’m sorry I spoke out like that. All I want is to see Janwillem a last time. When he hears what I have to tell him, he’ll understand I didn’t betray him, nor would I ever have done such a thing.’
Oslo, 20 April 1938, then the Mollergaten-19, prisoner 3266, cell D2 and cell C27. Well over four years until Herr Max paid visit after visit to finally offer a Gaje deal that couldn’t be refused.
‘He must have told Tshaya we were to have a child and be married. This … this she could not allow.’
With the stirring of the wind, the snow was gently swept across the floor of the arcade. Depressions were soon filled; others uncovered. Footprints led down the length of it to a staircase. St-Cyr hesitated. Alarmed, he strained to listen. There were at least two sets of footprints. Were De Vries and Tshaya waiting for them in the chapel? The others? he asked. Were there tripwires?
Gabrielle’s eyes, of the softest shade of violet, were full of apprehension. Suzanne-Cecilia gazed warily at him, searching for the slightest sign of what? he demanded and wished again that they had confided fully in him and Hermann. Was it doubt she sought? he wondered.
He went on. They had to follow. And when he crouched to pass exploring fingers over one of the footprints, he looked up first to Gabrielle and then to Suzanne-Cecilia with only the heartfelt sadness of a detective doing his job.
‘These are at least two days old,’ he said. Whispering to themselves, they trailed behind – he could hear them doing so. Are there no guns? he cried out silently to them. No other gypsies? Ah damn you, damn you. I thought you were my friends.
Light bathed the little chapel, passing through a ragged hole in its once eloquently decorated ceiling where faint black swallows still flew in premonkish paint.
The rope was coarse, the trailing diklo crimson. The benches were ancient, grey and heavy – carved and covered with dust and rubble. A handprint was here, a gap was there. Some of the chairs had had to be moved.
Tshaya stirred but slightly in the softly eddying wind which carried the granules of snow down from the belfry above to pass them over her body. Her hair was long and braided and blue-black but not glossy in this light. Her face was slightly puffed, the expression placid, the brow wide and strong, the jet black eyebrows fierce perhaps but not now, the eyes dark and wide and bulging only slightly, the lips a dark blue. Frozen … the corpse was frozen.
The rope had been thrown up and over a sturdy yet worm-eaten timber. It had been knotted about her throat, the knot placed on the right side so that the head was crooked to the left and the diklo trailed that way and would have caught the saliva as it drained from her mouth.
Thursday … had it been done then? he asked himself.
Her bare feet were together. The ankles had not been tied. Though her wrists had been secured behind her back, it seemed she had put up little if any struggle. Had there been three or more of them and she with no chance of doing so, or had she simply defied them to the last?
There were bloodspots, the petechiae that were caused by ruptured blood vessels immediately below the skin. He looked for mucus which should have issued from her nose, for signs of saliva draining from her mouth – for urine and faeces. Had they all been washed away?
Rigor had set in. Two days at least, he thought. The dark brown skin of her back and buttocks, and of her bare arms and shoulders was blotched and covered with a mass of glistening scars.
‘Help me,’ he said. ‘We must cut her down.’
‘Louis, don’t! Leave her for the Chief. It can’t matter now.’
St-Cyr reached out to him. ‘Merde, I thought you had gone from me. She had had the flu, Hermann. She had not been able to go with Gabrielle and De Vries to the quarry.’
Turning, he said swiftly to Nana, ‘What did you do with the flypapers you bought in Tours? Damn it, you tell me!’
She threw Gabrielle a desperate look. ‘They … they were for the school of dance,’ she tried. ‘Mother … mother wanted them. We can’t get them in Paris any more. I … I bought all I could, thinking I could sell what we didn’t need.’
‘Oh yes, oh yes.’
‘De Vries, Louis. The belfry. We’d better find him and quickly.’
But was the Gypsy still playing with them? wondered St-Cyr sadly. And why had he tried to make it look as if he had hanged Tshaya if not to hide her having first been poisoned, and to indicate she had been punished for betraying her family and himself?
From the belfry there was a clear view of the surrounding countryside. Down from the forest, up from the willows, the men advanced. There was no way of stopping them. If De Vries and the others had rigged the place, several were bound to be killed.
‘Killed, do you understand?’ swore St-Cyr, still demanding answers.
Gabrielle shouted, ‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that!’ Suzanne-Ceclia said, ‘Look.’
‘Look where?’ swore Kohler.
‘The inner courtyard. Under the arcade at the far corner.’
Ah nom de Dieu.
Hermann used the telescopic sight. Thinking he was about to shoot at them, the men threw themselves to the ground. Schmeissers opened up. Bullets struck the stone tower. They ducked. They cringed. One of the women shrieked, ‘I’ve been hit!’
Fresh blood spattered the timbered floor next to her. ‘Ah Christ, cut it out!’ cried Kohler, waving the white flag desperately. ‘It’s wired! Stay back!’
Sniper fire singled him out. He ducked. Stone splinters flew. Hesitantly Louis raised the white flag above the lip of the ruined wall. There were gaps through which they could be easily hit.
‘Hermann … Hermann, I think there is a lull.’
Hermann was staring down through the hole in the floor at the corpse. Louis shook him. ‘Here, give me the rifle,’ he said.