Is that understood? One could read this in the Sturmbannfuhrer’s gaze.
‘Certainly, Walter.’
‘Can I count on you?’
Ah merde! ‘Yes. If …’
‘If I let you work on the girl, eh? Is it to be a bargain with the Devil, Jean-Louis? You, a patriot who must betray his own kind or find himself elsewhere?’
There could be no backing away from it this time. If there was a Resistance connection, he would have to be told. It was either that or forget about Joanne …
‘There can’t be any in-betweens, Louis. Either you’re one of us or you’ll be kept on elsewhere only until such time as your usefulness ceases.’
The brown ox-eyes lifted to a ceiling sculpted in plaster. Doves and whorls, harps and cupids, a naked Venus with snakes in her hair or was it Medusa?
Moistening, the eyes asked God, why must You do this to me? Then they were lowered to Boemelburg, and he lied. ‘Yes. Yes, of course, Walter. Joanne first before France. You have my word on it.’
‘Gut! Because if you don’t inform on the Banditen in this matter and all others, I will personally make you eat those words, even though that same Resistance for the most part still hates your guts and still has you on their list!’
Ah no, their hit-list … There were cells and cells. Each was very small and seldom connected to more than one or two others at the most. Gabrielle would not be able to contact more than a few people to tell them the accusation of collaborator was totally false!
Boemelburg’s rapid switch to deutsch hadn’t been without its cruel effect. The Sturmbannfuhrer was only too aware of her interest in this Surete. He would know only too well that Gestapo Central had bugged her dressing-room and probably her flat. But while they might have their suspicions, they were apparently content simply to watch her for the moment as they did so many others.
‘Now take a look at the photographs on that table, Louis. Records have spent the night digging them out for me as a favour to you for old times’ sake.’
A favour. How nice …
In black and white, and corpse by corpse, were the grisly bodies of nearly forty women. Some were so badly decomposed only teeth and bones and shreds of flesh and clothing remained. Others were quite fresh. Some had been shot, others strangled, still others bound and gagged then knifed or smothered. Not all were naked-indeed, most were clothed or partially clothed and in only six were the dresses rucked up, the underwear and stockings yanked down, the blouses and brassieres ripped open or otherwise dishevelled.
Long hair, short hair, curly and straight-all was spilled over muddy ground, wet grass, concrete, carpeting or floated among tendrils of weeds. Arms and legs slackly sprawled, heads that were crooked at odd angles, eyes that were open in some cases and blindfolded in others or simply closed.
No sign of Joanne as yet … None. ‘Are … are they all from after the Defeat?’ he managed. Could Talbotte be shirking his duties as prefet so much?
‘They bracket the Conquest, Louis. Most are from afterwards but it’s for you to decide exactly how long this affair has been going on. Ah, it’s about time, dummkopf!’ he shouted at Hermann.
Beneath each photograph on the table was the respective dossier. Some were barely a page or two, others quite thick. It was Kohler who said, ‘Most of these can be discarded, Sturmbannfuhrer. We’re looking for potential mannequins of the ages of eighteen to twenty-two.’
‘Then look. Spread out the ones you have from the house of Monsieur Verges, and the next time you think to slap a verboten notice on a door whose lock you have smashed, remember to ask my permission.’
‘We were in a hurry.’
‘Don’t backtalk your superior officer! Good Gott im Himmel, have you not had enough lessons for one lifetime?’
It was a sore point and nothing more needed to be said. Grumpily Boemelburg spread single photos of each of the fourteen girls out in a row below the others. Then the three of them began rapidly to search for the corresponding photographs or to dig into the files. From time to time there was a grunt, a, ‘Ah, there she is,’ or, ‘No, it can’t be this one.’
Eight of the fourteen girls were accounted for. All were naked. Though some had been left lying face up, others were face down. All had had their breasts removed but these were absent from the scene and had not, apparently, been recovered.
Four were still bound and gagged and had been butchered on the spot, their clothes scattered about the rain-soaked trampled grass of an abandoned field or vacant lot.
Renee Marteau had not been the first to die. At least three others had come before her-one as early as 7 October 1940 and missing since 15 August-fifty-three days and nights of terror.
A gap had then occurred until 21 December 1940.
‘Then 3 March 1941, Louis,’ said Hermann, ‘and then another gap and Renee on 15 August 1941.’
‘The day that one went missing, Hermann, but a year later …?’
‘Some kind of anniversary?’ asked Kohler.
‘Perhaps, but then … Ah, Walter, Walter, even if there is no connection to the robbery, is not the case of these girls and that of Joanne sufficient?’
Boemelburg reminded him of the robbery’s priority.
‘Of course. How stupid of me to have forgotten.’
Kohler felt he had best say something before Louis hanged himself. ‘It looks like the kidnappings began after the fall of France.’
Not the conquest? Was Hermann trying to be kind? wondered St-Cyr, alarmed.
‘Point is, did their murderer figure he could get away with it now?’ asked Hermann with all that such a question implied about the Occupation. Giselle had suggested it.
‘Or did he feel such women, and what they stood for, had betrayed France in her hour of greatest need and sought to punish them?’ asked Boemelburg. There had been a legacy of bitterness after the Defeat of June 1940, the accusations of cowardice all too common. ‘There has to be a rationale, Louis. Violent hatred such as this must have its roots in a deep psychosis.’
Walter couldn’t yet know of the son of Monsieur Verges or of the boy’s fiancee. ‘Have Ballistics come up with anything?’ asked St-Cyr.
There was a nod. ‘A typical terrorist gun, just as Hermann said to Talbotte in that bank. An officer’s gun that wasn’t turned in. A Lebel Model 1873.’
And as common as dust.
‘But was it from the First or the Second War, Walter?’ asked St-Cyr gravely. ‘That is the question, since the gun, as you well know, was used in both.’
‘But not with any of these,’ grunted Boemelburg, indicating the eight of the fourteen victims.
With each of those whose bodies had been found, the hair had been cut off in fistfuls and disposed of elsewhere, with the breasts perhaps.
Four of the bodies had been moved after death, but only Renee Marteau’s corpse been found in water, in the Seine.
Two of the girls had been strangled with silk stockings. An axe had been used with the two whose heads had been removed. A single blow in one case, three blows in the other.
One girl had been smothered by having her face pushed into mud. Another had been forcibly drowned, in a bathtub, perhaps and her body dumped elsewhere.
‘And one was so badly burned with acid, Louis, she must have died in agony,’ said Hermann, ‘though not a drop was spilled on her face.’
Ah nom de Dieu, wondered St-Cyr, what was he to tell Joanne’s parents? Acid … A drooler who hated young women …
‘Louis, I’ve had the dossiers and the photos copied for you as a gesture of our willingness to co-operate in this matter,’ said Boemelburg.