He did not approach the cafe too closely but stood in the darkness letting the noisy, jostling crowd brush past him, catching but glimpses through the black-out of the glowing coals and of forbidden cigarettes cupped surreptitiously in hands that should have known better. The sudden burst of a lighter took hold, a cheap one, the flame torching up only to be hastily extinguished, for all such lights were illegal and the offence punishable by an indefinite stay in prison.
When he noticed the girl sitting in deepest darkness behind one of the braziers, it was only because she had momentarily given in to the urge to warm her fingertips and had leaned forward.
Then she dissolved back into the darkness and St-Cyr saw her in his mind’s eye. On the run, hungry and afraid – destitute but with a friend in the Canada who would turn a blind eye to her spending the night out here.
Garlic came to him and he awoke to the fact that there were two of them, one on either side and yet … Ah Nom de Jesus-Christ, was it really Josette-Louise in that darkness?
‘Pardon, messieurs,’ he said, gruffly pushing his way between them. ‘The pissoir, eh? Could you be so good as to direct me?’
Their heads cracked solidly. One gasped, the other swore, but by then he had raced between the braziers, knocking them over. A woman shrieked, a man howled. He darted into the darkness only to find the bird had flown. Ah no! No!
A fight had broken out. Whistles were being blown. He raced along the rue Pigalle, knocking people aside.
When a velo hit him, he slipped on the ice, fell flat on his back and skidded off into the darkness.
Dragging himself up, St-Cyr caught the breath of the condemned. That left knee … Ah damn! Hermann … where the hell was Hermann when needed most? Drinking, whoring, gambling with the money of others?
Firefly lights in the darkness, the pinpricks of velo lamps constantly passed him by. ‘Have you got a woman, monsieur?’ said someone. ‘Would you like to come with me? It’s just around the corner.’
He brushed her away and when he found the girl, cowering in a doorway, she was weeping softly. Two Wehrmacht soldiers stood over her. Young boys, timid boys. Paris and a first taste of forbidden love.
He pushed his way between them. ‘Surete, gentlemen. Gestapo, eh? This one is wanted in connection with a murder.’
They vanished. He crouched. Reaching tenderly out, he touched her cheek. ‘Mademoiselle Josette-Louise, is it really you?’
He felt her nod. ‘Then listen, please. I have come as a friend and know of a place where you can safely stay.’
Necessity drove them to hurry along the rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, the girls teasing, catcalling after them. ‘What will she do for you that I can’t, my fine monsieur?’ ‘Take both of us, eh?’ cried another out of the darkness. ‘Such hurry!’ cried yet another. ‘Bang, bang, my horny elephant. Don’t break her in half!’ ‘Take her here in the slush, eh?’ The slush … ah yes. It was freezing.
The rue Henri-Monnier was no better but by then they were running on more ice. The girl went down and he dragged her up. ‘My stockings!’ she shrilled. ‘My very last pair!’
‘Forget your stockings! We are being followed by killers!’
She felt him clap something cold and hard around her right wrist. She heard him grunt, ‘There, ah there now, my little one, the bracelets will unite us as never before!’
Handcuffs, ah merde! He ran, she tried to keep up with him. They broke into the Place Pigalle and crossed the boul’ de Clichy, dodging the bicycles and velos. Now it was the rue Houdon, she thought. ‘Please …‘she managed. ‘My chest, monsieur. I cannot keep up.’
‘You must!’ Ruthless … he would have to be ruthless with her. Delphane … was it Delphane behind them? That woman at Les Naturistes, he cried out to his conscience. Delphane murdered her but you will receive the blame, ah yes.
They hit the rue Foyatier. One lonely blue-washed lamp glowed softly up on the hillside between the thousands of stone steps. High above it, the Butte of Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur were in total darkness.
‘Try!’ he said, dragging her after him. ‘We must escape or all is lost!’
They climbed, they slipped and climbed again. Step after step, the steepness of the staircase robbed the breath and strained the thigh and calf muscles until they screamed in agony and he stood with her crushed against him in darkness, their breath mingling as that of lovers.
‘Hush,’ he whispered, an impatient gasp.
‘He is still down there, monsieur,’ she shrilled breathlessly. ‘He has fallen twice and now again but is dragging himself after us.’
A cheek and ear were hot against his smothered lips. ‘Only one man?’ he managed, catching a doubtful breath.
She nodded, allowing herself a moment in his arms. ‘The bracelets,’ she gasped, hoping he would unlock them, but he only shook his head.
‘Come on, now. Let us try to outwit him while he’s tired.’
In the days before the war there had been wrought-iron handrails and ornamental chains to help the weary up the stairs but these had all been taken to the Reich to be melted down into submarines and tanks.
They ran without help, on ice, climbed up and up, and when they reached the Basilica, slid to ground against its stones.
First one and then another silhouette appeared, hunting in the darkness. A lover gasped, a couple kissed.
Josette-Louise Buemondi stood so still, he could but sense some further trouble.
By the barest jerking of the bracelets, she telegraphed the danger. A silhouette stood out against the darkness of the city, shade upon shade. St-Cyr felt her quiver. The suddenness of fresh tears told him it was Delphane. The height, the shoulders, the bare head – the size of it, the very way the man stood still for so long … Hermann, could it possibly be Hermann?
They waited but saw no more of him.
Kohler removed the bloodied handkerchief from his throbbing nose but still stared at the ceiling of the tiny dressing-room. He’d come half-way across the city, right back to Montparnasse, hoping to find Louis and the girl with Gabi at the Club Mirage on the rue Delambre. But they hadn’t been here.
Now the chanteuse was on deck singing her heart out like a nightingale while he soaked his beleaguered feet in warm and soapy water.
Gingerly he explored his nose as he listened to her. Had Louis broken it this time? A logical mistake of course. But why did he have to stamp on the toes as well as knee him in the groin?
He shut his eyes and marched or waited beside the guns of both sides in this lousy war as she sang ‘Lilli Marlene’. He saw his two boys in better days, picked apples with them – hey, they’d had such a good time then. One of those rare weekends he’d been home. They’d gone fishing – yes, yes. Gerda had packed them a fantastic hamper. Beer, schnapps, cold ham, hard-boiled eggs, pickled beets.
A tear fell and then another and he said, ‘Jesus, Louis, what the hell are we going to do? It’s a set-up, my old one. Delphane is trying to frame us.’
He took out the Abwehr’s pay envelope and ripped it open, dropping the handkerchief into the foot-bath, still dropping blood too.
Bleicher had given him the dead airman’s identity disc. Flight Lieutenant Charles Edward Thomas. A serial number followed. Lost in thought, Kohler ran a worried thumb over the thing, asked, Why had Bleicher given it to them and, knowing of the airman’s body, why had he not jumped on Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi himself?
Jean-Paul Delphane had been after her. Yes, yes, but he was working for Gestapo Cannes.
Bleicher’s been watching Delphane. Bleicher suspects him of something. Gestapo Cannes are playing a wait and see.