Kohler knew exactly what had just run through Bleicher’s mind. ‘I’ve two sons at Stalingrad and a wife back home on her father’s farm near Wasserburg.’
‘Let’s dispense with the wife and sons.’
‘I want to clear my name, Colonel. I’m a good German. I can’t help the indiscretions of others. Like yourself, I …’
‘Dislike the traditional officer class?’
Bleicher was an NCO and had never risen above the rank of sergeant. ‘No, Colonel. Like yourself I was in the last war and taken prisoner.’
‘But did not try to escape?’
Ah merde, the bastard was tricky! Four times Bleicher had busted out of a camp near Abbeville only to be taken back because he’d enjoyed the intellectual exercise of beating his captors again! ‘Look, we need help. Delphane smells just about as badly as the corpse he let us find in that woman’s house in Bayonne.’
‘What corpse?’ asked Bleicher quietly. One could not reveal too great an interest.
Kohler dreaded what he was about to say, but knowledge of the corpse could not have been kept back for much longer. Someone in authority had had to be informed, otherwise the charge of hiding evidence and sympathizing with the enemy would have stuck.
In his heart of hearts, Louis would have agreed. Kohler could hear him saying, ‘One must take the lumps with the rest of the custard, Hermann, if the dessert of life is to be digested.’
He told Bleicher what the bastard must already know. ‘A British airman, Colonel. Dead for at least two or three weeks.’
Bleicher exhaled exasperation slowly. It would be best that way. ‘And you come to see me with such as this when you know the Buemondi woman was involved?’
‘We don’t know that, Colonel. Not really. Instead, we and others – yourselves and Gestapo Cannes perhaps – are being deliberately led into believing it.’
‘An escape line, Kohler. Is there anything else perhaps?’
Let’s have the whole of the dirty laundry, eh? ‘A whisper of the maquis in the Alpes-Maritimes but it’s not definite either.’
‘Suspicions have always been good enough in the past for the Gestapo?’
‘But not for the Abwehr, Colonel. For some reason the Wehrmacht still prides itself on doing things correctly. That’s why I’m asking you.’
This was heresy on Kohler’s part. So be it then. ‘Jean-Paul Delphane no longer works for us. Yes, yes, that one is of a good family, he’s a “good” Frenchman and of the Action Francaise but …’ Bleicher shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is that he felt he could better serve the Reich by working for the Gestapo Cannes.’
Or that of Bayonne? wondered Kohler. To ask more was to ask for the impossible. A man like Bleicher never laid all his cards on the table. But sure as that God of Louis’s made little green apples, the Abwehr had seen Delphane going into or out of that house in Bayonne and at some point – earlier perhaps – had put the skids under him. ‘You make me feel like I’ve just been taken to the cleaners, Colonel.’
One should not yield to flattery yet it was gratifying to know one’s reputation had spread even to the dingy corridors of the rue des Saussaies and what had formerly been the Headquarters of the Surete Nationale but was now that of the Gestapo in France.
Bleicher motioned to the lovely Suzanne who’d drifted into the study at some point in the discussion but had remained unobtrusively in the background. ‘Please show the Inspector out, my dear. We’ve taken up enough of his valuable time.’
She kissed her lover on the head and passed a lingering hand down over the back of his neck while smiling the Gestapo’s way. They made a lovely couple. The Abwehr and his collaborator. Ah yes. Kohler was glad Louis hadn’t been with him.
At the door she handed him one of the Abwehr’s small brown pay envelopes and when he thought it was money, held his fingers and his eyes. ‘Show it to that friend of yours, that Frenchman you so admire. Tell him that Colonel Henri wishes to express to you both this small token of interest.’
The thing had been licked shut and stapled for good measure.
‘Open it in private, yes? There are eyes everywhere.’
‘Is Louis being followed?’
She moved closely to brush her lips over his. Put his hand on her seat and pressed her middle against him as she leaned away. ‘Not by me. You were sufficient. Me, I have enjoyed our little affair and might wish for more, were you not so very worried about that partner of yours. Bring Hugo what he wants and me, I will see that you are justly rewarded.’
‘I’ll bet,’ said Kohler, giving her bum a pat. ‘Auf Weidersehen, Fraulein. Sweet dreams.’ Louis … where the hell was Louis?
She caught him by the arm. ‘Your friend is in Pigalle, Herr Kohler. If you look hard enough, you might just find him there.’
‘Then give me a lift, damn you. Delphane may be out to kill him.’
‘To stop him, I think, from finding Josette-Louise Buemondi, isn’t that so? Pigalle, Herr Kohler, the meeting place of the mannequins and others, too, of course. The Lorettes, the prostitutes.’
The city was dark.
St-Cyr threw his back against a wall and swore. There must be several of them after him. In spite of his going over the roof-tops of the rue du Terrage, they had picked up his trail as he’d come out of the metro. Now what was he to do? They had torches. They were the ones who shone them over the faces of the crowd. French Gestapo! Traitors … searching always for him. Running, shoving people aside … three … four torches. The leather trench coats and fedoras … others following them. Yes, yes … Ah Nom de Dieu! Were there still two groups, the one following the other and both of them after him?
He ran. He made it to the entrance of Les Naturistes and bowled the doorman out of the way. ‘Police!’ he cried. ‘A raid, eh? Out! Out! Vanish while you can, my friends.’
The girls screamed. The Wehrmacht’s soldiers, stunned into inactivity, hesitated then surged towards the exit. ‘Gestapo!’ he cried. ‘A raid! All leave is to be cancelled if you are found on the premises!’
He fought against the mob. Naked girls were being passed overhead from hand to hand. Screaming, shrieking … yelling at the top of their lungs. ‘Fire!’ shouted one of them as she was flung up into the tobacco smoke, her plump breasts jostling, then being squished by soldiers’ hands who honestly believed they were helping.
He reached the stage and ducked behind the curtains. He made it to a dressing-room that was all but empty.
‘So, my fine, what’s up, eh?’
The woman was in her mid- to late thirties. Tall and with the stretchmarks of several difficult children.
‘Madame, the revolver … Please, I … I am from the Surete. I’m on a murder investigation.’
She was totally naked and dragged off her blonde wig as she tossed her head. ‘The Surete? Hah! That’s a new one. Just what’s your game?’
‘That gun is illegal, madame. There are those looking for me who will arrest you.’
‘But you’re from the Surete?’ she said, scratching a thigh. ‘Why should they chase one such as yourself? Why should they not reward me for stopping you?’
A dangerous woman when unarmed; a menace as now.
‘The revolver,’ he reminded her, catching a breath and trying to hear beyond the deafening commotion in the club. ‘The badge,’ he said. ‘I have the identification but please … I cannot explain. I must get away. A young girl’s life is in grave danger.’
The painted eyes grew dark. The generous bosom swelled. ‘Which of my girls? Come, come, my little weasel, which one of them has been up to mischief?’
A shrug would be best but he didn’t have the energy, was suddenly exhausted. ‘None of them. A mannequin. The twin sister of a girl in Provence who is suspected of killing her mother.’
The revolver lifted slightly to nudge the air. ‘And someone wants to kill her?’
‘Yes. I am so very afraid that is exactly what will happen.’