St-Cyr stood at the kerb waiting to cross over. Ever since arriving at Le Bourget aerodrome, he and Hermann had known they were being followed. They’d split up. There was nothing new in this, the work always shared. But Hermann, he was better at deception. Instinctively the Bavarian could tail or lose a tail better than anyone.
The car was down the street no more than five lampposts. Beetle-black and ugly, a Citroen just like the one he’d once had. Son of a bitch! Could they not leave them alone long enough to draw breath or pass water?
Delphane … Did he have such resources at his command? And if so, then why … why the need to tail them?
Perhaps it was someone else? Gestapo Paris, on repeated requests from Herr Munk in Cannes? Perhaps old friends who had been associates of Jean-Paul’s during the Stavisky business? Pierre Bonny and the boys from the rue Lauriston, eh, my friend? The French Gestapo!
Would they not leave things well enough alone and let an honest detective get on with the business at hand?
Mercilessly the velos-taxis with their heavy loads were pedalled or pushed through the eight centimetres of fast-freezing slush. One old horse that had escaped the Russian Front had ice so thick around its hooves, the poor creature could barely lift them. Hermann would have bullied the driver of that antiquated open carriage. The whip would have been threatened and the Hauptmann in the back told off in no uncertain terms. Ah yes. Hermann had a way with him when aroused by such passions.
The couple kissed. The Hauptmann laughed. The girl stepped daintily down, bravely refusing to acknowledge that those same eight centimetres of slush were now rushing through the open toes of high-heeled shoes best worn in summer.
Her pockets bulged with treasures – secreted pate stashed into a napkin, some of the bread, a bar of precious soap or tin of anchovies. He could not find it in his heart to censure her as some would do. The coat was cheap, the dress too thin but, ah Mon Dieu, there were no young Frenchmen to take the Hauptmann’s place and likely as not her husband or lover was either in a POW camp in Germany or dead.
The girl had a bad cough and when she passed him on the way to the entrance of the metro, he turned quickly aside and held his breath for good measure. Automatically the mind, it leapt to thoughts of the influenza, the croup, the crisis of the running nose. The maladie terrible to which the Surete Nationale’s petty little dictator and chief paid not the slightest concern unless personally threatened!
St-Cyr almost wished he hadn’t turned away. He could have passed it on to Pharand. That arch little file-minded Fascist had been a boyhood friend of Jean-Paul Delphane. Another ex-choirboy. Ah yes. Singing up in the gods but singing such a tune.
The horse started up, the slush splashed grey upon the grey. The whip Hermann would have seized flicked harshly but by some miracle of miracles, all four clods of ice suddenly broke from the hooves and the old horse stepped out lively.
Another car had arrived, a Daimler, but held itself back from the first. He couldn’t lead them to Josette-Louise Buemondi. Was she even at her old address?
He couldn’t have them following him everywhere.
Dodging the bicycles and contraptious velos, St-Cyr bolted across the street. Slipping and sliding, he darted in among the drab, bundled mass of uncaring humanity. A car started up. A car door opened. Someone blew a whistle. Someone shouted. He ran, pushing his way deeper and deeper into the crowd. He must lose them. He must not lead them to that girl but why … why should they want her? Or did they?
Nearly out of breath, he raced into the rue du Terrage. The crowd thinned. Number 22 … 22 … He tossed a look over a shoulder, stepped between two hurrying clusters of pedestrians and eased the courtyard door shut behind him. Put the lock on and waited. Waited … Ah the chest, the lack of vitamins and minerals these days. The itching. Had he caught that young girl’s influenza? Had he?
The courtyard was very rural – peaceful even in its times of peril. Terracotta flowerpots had held tomatoes, herbs, lettuces and cucumbers in season. Grapevines climbed the walls where the sun would be trapped. The roofs leapt up and up on all sides, bars or closed shutters on the lowest windows, but at the far end, a door exposed two oblong panes of glass.
He started out, threw yet another look behind. Cast-iron drainpipes carried sewage down the outer walls of these older houses, but were hopelessly vulnerable in weather such as this. The one nearest the door to Number 22 had been bashed with a hammer in a fit of rage and now leaked a half-frozen pus of effluent. A bad sign if one was looking for a concierge with heart.
The man, like Shylock in a shoebox, was huddled over his dinner, guiltily rubbing half a grey loaf of that other national curse with a handful of garlic that had been poorly crushed.
The garlic, of course, gave one that sense of the full stomach when the bread had been eaten. Some swore it lasted nearly all day.
‘Well, what is it?’ demanded the concierge fiercely. ‘You’ll get nothing here! Don’t tell me my rights, monsieur. I am not Father Beaumont for nothing!’
A defrocked priest. Ah Nom de Jesus-Christ, could nothing go right? ‘A moment of your valuable time, eh?’ snarled the Surete, immediately regretting the slip of manners.
‘A moment?’ shrilled the man, tossing the hand with the garlic. ‘Then start the meter running, my fine flic with the slush on your shoes, and while you’re at it, tell me who is going to clean the place up?’
The beard jerked, the grey eyes were livid. There’d been a notice on the door, ah yes. Please remove the galoshes.
Six sweaters and three pairs of trousers hid the concierge. The belt had not been sufficient and a frayed bit of rope held the last of the trousers up.
Beaumont wore no boots, shoes or carpet slippers. Instead, his feet were wrapped in woven straw that had been stuffed with the same.
‘It’s warmer than anything else,’ he said testily. ‘Our ancestors crossed the glaciers with such as these.’
Was he some kind of historian?
Above the tiny cast-iron stove he had pinned his coal card – 25 kilos a month if one could get it. Enough perhaps to heat this one small room for about two hours a day.
‘This girl,’ said St-Cyr, showing him the photograph Hermann had rescued from the Gestapo Munk. ‘The last address we have is …’ He threw a look down the stairwell at some noise or other.
‘What’s she done now?’ hissed the man, forgetting the wad of garlic which shot across the threadbare carpet to land in the slush.
‘Pardon?’ offered the Surete, not bothering to pick the thing up. ‘You said “now”, monsieur. Please take the trouble to explain yourself.’
The head jerked fiercely. ‘She tried to get away without paying the rent. Twice it’s happened but me,’ he tapped his head, ‘I have seen too many bare asses in this place for that, monsieur. No one secretly smuggles a few clothes outside, then tries to shoot the moon in my place while leaving all the rest of their crummy baggage behind!’
‘Ah, yes, the moon. And what did you do, eh?’
Merde! Must he use the eyes of the bishop? ‘Me I faced her with the problem, monsieur.’
‘And?’
‘I …’
‘You said you were going to tell the police.’
The man nodded. Head bowed, he said, ‘That one wept when I undressed her. The moon, I said. Me, I will show you what shooting the moon is like.’
‘The room,’ breathed the Surete with barely controlled fury. ‘Take me to it at once.’
The man was shrill. ‘Oh you needn’t look so pious, my fine Inspector. I did not fornicate with that cheater of cheats. Me, I would never do such a thing. The vows … they are still sacred.’