But one must always reveal enough to satiate curiosity and dull inquisitiveness, thus keeping hidden that which must never be exposed.
‘Brother Matthieu apologizes for misleading you about Xavier, Inspector,’ he said to Kohler. ‘The boy, as I’m sure you have discovered, didn’t run away but had returned to us on Monday at dawn.’
Did Rivaille know everything they’d discovered, wondered KohJer, uncomfortable at the thought of their being constantly watched.
‘You found a reed warbler’s nest in an alcove of the Grand Tinel, Inspector. Please don’t look so dismayed at my knowing. Salvatore is a most dutiful and loyal servant.’
‘The clochette …’ blurted Kohler.
‘I have Xavier’s absolute loyalty too, and that of Brother Matthieu. My Nino is such a trouble. Always she runs off by herself — it’s in a beagle’s nature to stray, is that not so? but she’s such a wanderer. Repeatedly I tell myself I must put her down, but … ah! we’re all mortal. She and Xavier are inseparable. When he first came to me at the age of five, I gave him to her as a puppy and let him name her. The boy hadn’t even realized her sex. Another of our little secrets.’
He had, you dummkopf, thought Kohler, and you’ve just contradicted yourself by saying you have their loyalty in an age when none can be trusted. But I’m an idiot, aren’t I? You’ve led me right to the trough and now I have to eat the swill by saying it. ‘Might I see the dogs, Bishop?’
Isn’t that why you’ve come? challenged Rivaille silently. ‘But of course. That door will lead you to them. Keep always to the left until you reach the bell, then pull its chain.’
The stone staircase was steep and of another time. The air was dank and held the smell of long-cut hay, of sage, sawn lumber, fermenting wine, horse piss, old harness and dogs. There was dust … the ever-present dust of a stables, and this filtered through the winter’s light from an iron-grilled window.
Kohler couldn’t help but think of the frightened little boy who would have had to climb these stairs in those first few weeks of his new life. The iron grille would have brought a meagre moment of relief but could the kid have even reached it on tiptoes to stare out into a courtyard no peasant could ever understand but only marvel at? The night sky too.
Then Xavier would have had to continue timidly on up the stairs to knock, wait and enter into what? Benevolence or rape? And never mind fingering the hair of some young girl while staring at a photograph of her breasts and dreaming of the Virgin Mary!
Rivaille didn’t look the type to bugger about with little boys, but then, priest or layman, they seldom did.
The cloister must at one time have housed a hundred or so. Now most of the storerooms were empty. Barrels of Côtes du Rhône were patiently waiting to be bottled, aged, kept, and the years of the bishop’s cellar went back. A fortune.
Rivaille had trusted Xavier. He must have for there was no lock on the wine cellar. Brother Matthieu, too, had been trusted.
Long before he reached the dogs, they barked, but the musical tinkle of their clochettes was silent, for they would only wear these when on the hunt.
A corridor off to the right led to the street. Easy access, then, and no one the wiser if you slept with the dogs. Trust again. Unwavering loyalty.
The boy didn’t appear, and there was no sign of the beagle, only of harriers whose kennels and run were clean and laid with freshly cut dried reeds, not winter grass or lavender or any of those things.
‘Bishop …’
It was now or never, thought Rivaille, and one must gradually raise the voice to shouting and give the Sûreté the look of one who is about to crush a scorpion. ‘No, you listen, mon cher detective. I know everything about you.’
‘Divide and conquer, is that how it’s to be, Bishop? Hermann to look in on the dogs, myself to face the music of the Church? That black woollen cassock you wear may be of the hills and centuries, and doubtless it is warm, but frankly what you say is out of place.’
‘Bâtard, do you think you can trifle with me? You, a cuckold? A man whose second wife fornicated repeatedly with a German officer and moved in with him? In, mon fin. Taking your little son with her.’
Ah merde, he was serious. ‘The couple were secretly filmed by Gestapo Paris-Central, Bishop, but only last week my partner saw to the destruction of those films. Now she rests in peace and that is how it is to be.’
‘She was naked! They copulated! The films were seen by many! She begged for more, St-Cyr. More! In … in with the thrusting. The child was witness to it!’
Nom de Jésus-Christ! How had he come by this? A courier from Paris? Oberg, Head of the SS in France … Gestapo Boemelburg, Hermann’s boss, or simply through Alain de Passe? And certainly too many knew of it but …
Rivaille was watching him closely, the hatchet of condemnation fierce. ‘Bishop, let us calm down and set the matter straight. First, Philippe was in a nursemaid’s care at all times and had found in the Hauptmann Steiner the friend I couldn’t be due to the constant and lengthy absences both common crime and the Occupier demand. Second, as a Breton living in Paris, Marianne was terribly lonely, the depths of which, I readily confess, I didn’t realize until it was too late. Third, she knew I would forgive her and that I loved her far too deeply not to have understood. When Steiner was sent to Russia-’
‘By his uncle, the Kommandant von Gross Paris!’
‘Who is a prude and a stickler for the morals of his family and its honour, Bishop, which, incidentally, was why the Gestapo’s Watchers took interest in the couple. Their interest had really very little to do with our battles with crime, but stemmed from their constant need to get the better of the Wehrmacht’s High Command.’
‘Steiner was killed in action.’
‘My wife was coming home-’
‘Home, yes, and to a Resistance bomb that, though you are no collaborator and loud about it, was meant for you. Oh bien sûr, it was a mistake, but-’
‘A tripwire. I-’
‘Get down on your knees, my son. Beg God’s forgiveness before it is too late.’
‘You hypocrite! I won’t! I can’t! Gestapo Paris-Central, though they knew of that wire, had deliberately left it in place for me, Bishop. For me!’
‘And?’ asked Rivaille softly.
‘I … I hadn’t been able to warn her. I was too late in returning to Paris, damn you.’
There were tears. Overwhelmed by what he had failed to do a good two and a half months ago, St-Cyr was trembling and couldn’t hide his outrage at being so savagely driven into a corner. Both he and his partner were still reviled by many in Gestapo Paris-Central, and this one was still hated by some of the Resistance whose internal communications were, at best, paltry. ‘Ah bon, we understand each other perfectly. You and Kohler had defied the SS. Someone had to pay.’
And was that the crux of it? For pointing the finger of truth at them, the SS had used a rawhide whip on Hermann and had left a bomb in place.
‘That partner of yours lives in sin with two women, one of whom is a Dutch alien without proper papers.’
Hermann should have been here. ‘Bishop, the threat is understood. Oona Van der Lynn, the woman of whom you speak, lost her two children during the blitzkrieg to Messerschmitts that were clearing the roads of refugees. Her husband was then taken in Paris two months ago by the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston and murdered.’