She screwed up her face in doubt. ‘Why did the other one kill the mother? It’s not a very nice thing to have done.’
Ah Nom de Dieu, must he spend all night discussing the case with her? ‘I’m not even sure she did. There’s a weaver who might have done it.’ He caught a breath. ‘And also the father … Yes, yes, that one. My partner feels the father, he has been at one of the daughters. The one with the epilepsy, but me, I am not so sure of this.’
She waved the revolver, motioning him to a chair, but at some sound above the tumult, said, ‘The laundry basket and quickly!’
The wicker sighed and screamed as she sat on it and he lay among the cast-off garments, the little shreds of clothing the girls wore perhaps in some jungle tableau. Smelling of face powder and cheap perfume, other things too, of course. Ah merde!
‘Where’s he gone?’ shouted someone harshly.
‘Who?’ she asked, lighting a cigarette and crossing her legs.
‘The one from the Surete, you slut!’
‘I am not a slut, monsieur. There has been no one through here. If there had been, I would not be taking my break.’
The gaps in the wicker provided but glimpses of Delphane. St-Cyr knew it was him.
‘You’re too calm, madame. Is it that you are so cold, the threat of a raid does not disturb you?’
‘He went out the back.’
The slap was brutal and it almost knocked her to the floor. ‘Batard!’ she shrilled. ‘Enjoy chasing him. I hope he shoves that revolver of his up your ass!’
Others followed Delphane, and then still others. Hesitantly St-Cyr climbed out of the basket. Her lips were bleeding. The mascara ran. ‘You shit,’ she said more quietly but quivering with fear. ‘That one will kill me if he finds out I’ve helped you. He’s desperate, monsieur. Never have I seen a man with such hatred in his eyes.’
St-Cyr thought to give her his handkerchief but realized his presence would be established by it and withdrew the offer. ‘If he comes after you, tell him he will have to answer to me, Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale.’
‘Go! Just go, damn you, and leave me to myself.’
When the revolver went off, he knew exactly what she’d done. He stopped. The image of Chamonix struck him. He saw the weaver’s eyes trapped in mirror after mirror. He said, ‘Ah, Jesus, Jesus, madame, why did you have to do it?’
Then he ran. He saw her lying on the floor of that dressing-room among the scattered jars of face cream and the tins of talcum powder. Her legs were twitching. Water was passing rapidly. Blood ran from her mouth … Ah, Jesus … Jesus …
He crouched. He said, ‘What is it here, madame? Why were you so afraid they’d come back for you?’
There was no answer but one. She’d been involved in the Resistance. She’d been afraid that under torture she would have revealed things.
Tormented by the thought he’d brought this upon her, St-Cyr desperately searched the room, running his eyes quickly over everything. Tried … tried to find another reason.
He picked up the revolver that lay near her hand and only then realized it had not been fired.
The laundry basket, he said. The basket …
Snakes … was it to be a day for snakes? Kohler flicked his eyes over the boisterous crowd, then returned his gaze momentarily to the stage of the Sphinx. Two boa constrictors writhed about a naked virgin who was chained to the wall of some pharaoh’s tomb amid jars of embalming fluid and a sarcophagus that looked all too suspiciously like an altar. A high priestess, wearing top-heavy headgear and nothing else but see-through gauze, was threatening the poor girl with a butcher’s knife that had seen better days, while an assistant tormented the poor kid by lashing her toes with a papyrus wand – was it papyrus? Did they use such stuff for such things?
He thought not. Baskets … yeah, yeah, they made baskets out of it. Remember Moses, eh? And paper. Yes, yes, paper.
Louis? he asked. Louis, where the hell are you?
The air was full of tobacco smoke and boozy catcalls. One young crew-cut of a tank boy with unbuttoned tunic and open shirt collar stood teetering on a table-top, fumbling with his flies and belt. ‘Hey, me,’ he shouted at the stage in throaty German. ‘Let me at her. Let the Afrika Corps show the young maiden what to expect from the Sultan!’
They hooted, they jeered and seethed from side to side as a totally disinterested band played someone’s idea of songs from the Nile. The huge curtain, upon which had been painted a turquoise sphinx, came slowly down to the sound of gongs and nasal flutes.
He could not stay for the second act. At the Nouvelle Eve the girls prepared for bed while a Teutonic Caesar sang Roman arias under an aluminium moon and naked ladies-in-waiting stood like statues going round and round on pedestals that squeaked.
Again there was no sign of Louis. A rush of feet and shoulders. Others looking so hard for the Frog they failed to notice his friend and partner. Ah yes.
Pigalle in winter and in the black-out. Torches flickering over the faces of the crowd. Girls selling themselves. Boys out to buy. Painted lips and flashing eyes caught in the beam of someone’s torch. The lips red … red … the teeth white, the girl laughing now.
Kohler hit the man solidly on the back of the head and the torch spilled away. The girl vanished.
Josette-Louise Buemondi had been a mannequin, among her other professions. Custom brought such girls to the Place Pigalle when in search of work. It was here that the artists and sculptors came for a look when in need of the real thing in the flesh, ah yes. The girls would stroll outside in better weather during the days, or sit outside any of the cafes or round the fountain. Laughing and talking, preening themselves and hoping for a job that might last more than two hours. Now, of course, they’d be inside or at home in bed.
Yet Louis had come here and the Abwehr’s tail had let Bleicher know of it.
Kohler moved away from the man he’d hit, leaving that one in the gutter. French of course – all of them would be French. Even the Abwehr used them.
He lost himself in the crowd, asked where the hell would Louis look for the Buemondi girl?
From a vent above the windows of a bakery, the smell of baking bread and rising yeast rushed down over famished sparrows who gathered in rapture at the vapours. ‘It is so good,’ said one. ‘Heaven,’ said another. ‘Me, I would gladly sell myself for twenty francs, monsieur.’
He felt his arm being tugged. The girl whispered shyly, ‘Anything, monsieur. I will do anything.’
‘How do they make the smell?’ he asked.
‘With the essence,’ she said. ‘One of the cooks, he puts a few drops on the stove and voila, we smell the baking bread even though there is none to be had except for the usual stuff and then only if you get here very early in the morning. Fifty francs, monsieur, and I will …’ She pulled his head down and pressed her lips to his ear. ‘Honest,’ she said. ‘For you I would really do such a thing.’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘Right now I’m kind of busy.’
The smell of sweat, garlic, onions and tobacco … pipe tobacco intruded, the man much shorter than himself. the shoulders squared … Louis … was it Louis?
Delphane! Doubling a fist and lifting a foot, St-Cyr kneed the bastard in the groin, slammed him squarely on the nose and stamped on a foot! Ignored the babbled, ‘Louis …! Gott im Himmel, idiot, that was me!’ Disappeared muttering, ‘I should have killed him! Merde, why did I not do so? He shot that dancer. He killed her, a mother of six children!’
On the pavement outside the Canada where one used to get onion soup equal to that of the tiny stand-ups in les Halles before this lousy war, two charcoal braziers glowed softly. There were a few chairs, a few of the little round tables. He could not see much, but the Canada had always been a place for the little people of Pigalle. Waitresses, dancers, doormen, Lorettes and mannequins all came here to warm the toes and the soul, but always in a hurry and never for long enough.