And? Ah Mon Dieu, the weaver – did they know Viviane Darnot had been with him? Had they taken her into custody?
Delphane asked for a refill and drank again from the Gestapo’s glass. Never once did he take his eyes from St-Cyr.
Munk enjoyed the evident hatred that existed between the two men. St-Cyr could know nothing yet. Kohler would be found. Paris would be satisfied and Berlin more than pleased.
He stood up. ‘So, gentlemen, a matter of resistance. I give you three days before we move into that village to eliminate it.’
‘Four days,’ said St-Cyr unwaveringly.
Munk’s look was cold. ‘Then take them, Inspector, but remember, please, that every day you delay is one more the escapers can use. They must still be somewhere in the hills, since the woman’s death will have prevented them from leaving. If they are not found, I will personally hold you responsible.’
‘And Jean-Paul?’ he asked.
‘That one also.’
The Gestapo left in two cars, and Jean-Paul let them go without a word of objection, though it was a substantial hike back to the city. He knew he was being dismissed for the moment – humiliated yet again – and only stood on the terrace staring emptily after them.
When he returned to the grand salon, he found St-Cyr amid the gold and glitter. Louis did not turn, but chose to face him in one of the mirrors.
‘So, my friend, what exactly is going on here, eh?’ asked St-Cyr. ‘By rights, your Gestapo chief should have had the living daylights beaten out of me for nearly breaking his arm.’
There were several reflections thrown back and forth. Delphane had the uncomfortable thought that Louis was trying to trap him in the mirrors. He brushed an irritated hand over his crinkly iron-grey hair, said to himself, Look at me then, Louis. Try your best to strip away the layers of paint the years have given.
‘You are on dangerous ground, Louis. Me, I owe you nothing, but I give you that much since it is near to Christmas.’
St-Cyr clucked the tongue of impatience. ‘Who fired the shot that killed Stavisky?’ he asked. ‘Come, come, my old one. You and Pierre Bonny – France’s top cop – were there in Chamonix. Bonny was always one step ahead of the law he represented, and you, my friend, one step ahead of him.’
‘That business is finished, Louis. Finished! Bonny works in Paris for Henri Lafont, as you well know.’
‘For the French Gestapo! Stealing, killing, raping and torturing! Why? Why do you persist? You of all people, Jean-Paul? The good family, the upper crust … You, whom I trusted. Me! You played me for a fool and now are attempting to do so again.’
‘Cognac? Come, come, Louis, get down off that high horse of yours and let’s talk a little business.’
‘No deals. Ah no, my friend.’ He waved a reproving finger. ‘With you I am finished!’
‘Then I’ll let Munk have the weaver, Louis. The surveillance on this place was mine, not the Gestapo Munk’s. Viviane Darnot will have been seen leaving by that back door she thinks is so secret – a door, my friend, that has been used often enough by Madame Buemondi’s escapists.’
The image of him standing there was so like that of Hermann. Splintered just as Viviane Darnot’s image had been, the woman staring at him now through the gossamer of memory. Delphane overlapping her image as the mind played its tricks upon God’s little detective.
Viviane Darnot had been in Chamonix with someone. When asked whom, she had replied, ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Leave the weaver out of it, Jean-Paul, and I will not mention again to Herr Munk the fact that you have been lying.’
‘They’ll have found Kohler by now, Louis. They’ll be working him over.’
‘Hermann? Is Hermann such a threat to you or is it simply the things he has taken?’
‘You said you would make no deals, Louis, but this time, my friend, I greatly fear you must set aside those precious principles of yours. Already Kohler will have dug himself too deep a hole and as for the weaver, she is as good as dead unless you co-operate.’
Kohler let himself into the dusty lecture hall at the School of Fine Arts, only to find that the lecture had been cancelled. The steep little amphitheatre of miserable seats cupped a paltry stage and lectern. One lonely glass of water stood sentinel, waiting for the ice to form.
Carlo Buemondi – ‘Il Professori’ to the woman on the desk – had not been in his studio or office either.
Not liking the husband’s absence, he let his eyes drift over the place and only then noticed the girl.
She was sitting, very still, on the other side of the lanternslide projector, and at first he did not think she had noticed him. But then she flinched and though she did not turn, he knew she was aware of him.
About twenty-two, he thought. The hair was amber in the last of the sunlight. All frizzed out into a thick mop of waves and curls, the face pale.
He noted the choker of dark brown velvet, the beige camel’s-hair overcoat and silvery-grey silk scarf that had been dyed so many other colours.
‘So where’s he gone?’ he asked at last, his voice unintentionally loud in that empty theatre.
Her neck stiffened. She still did not turn. ‘The … the mud baths, I think. Look, Monsieur Whoever-you-are, me, I do not always keep track of him.’
‘But only sometimes?’ he asked, still standing up in the gods, off to the left of her.
‘Just what the hell do you want?’ she asked, her voice shrill.
‘Nothing, really. I came from Paris about the lessons. He told me to meet him here.’
She would not believe one word of it! Never! ‘You are Gestapo, monsieur. You are here about the murder.’
‘Then who the hell are you?’ he asked more quietly, still not completely stepping down to her
‘Angelique Girard. Student.’
The name meant nothing to him. ‘Assistant?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Sometimes. When … when he does not choose one of the others. It … it is his way of letting us earn a little money.’
Still she had not turned to look at him and he had the thought that it was not simply fear that made her do this.
He took a seat five rows behind her and she heard him sitting down, heard the clash of the hard wooden seat as it was unfolded into place. ‘What’s on the slides?’ he asked.
‘His work. The body casts, the masks, the self, the inner self and the truth.’
‘Let’s have a look. There’s no need to draw the curtains.’
She turned and, in that moment, revealed both sudden anger and defiance in large brown oval eyes and tightened cheeks that quivered. ‘Oh but there is, my fine inspector! The black-out, isn’t that so, monsieur? You will not trip me up on that one, ah no, my fine detective, so, please, allow me.’
He put a foot on the back of one of the seats and watched as she went over to pull the heavy cord. Of medium height, her figure was all but hidden by the coat, and he had the thought then, that the coat was someone else’s and a lot like that of the dead woman. ‘Don’t try to run away Angelique Girard.’
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Me, I have no reason to do such a thing. My soul is clear as is my conscience.’
He heard her coming back through the darkness but she did not sit down again. Instead, she climbed the stairs and squeezed along the row until she came against his upraised knee. ‘So now, monsieur, you will tell me, please, why you are here.’
Kohler listened to the sharp intake of breath; he felt her trembling fingers as they touched his cheek and then his lips.
She waited. He caught the smell of her perfume – it was light and heady, it was so many things but only Louis could have identified it. ‘Look, I just want to see the slides,’ he said. He felt the hem of her overcoat, a buttonhole, felt the trembling urgency in her fingertips.
‘Carlo didn’t kill her, monsieur, and neither did I.’
‘But now he’s gone off with someone else?’