Me, I’m a coward, he said, a fool who is still in love. Would they sleep in the nude? he wondered – they’d have plenty of heat, no shortage of coal. Perhaps they’d dined out this evening at Maxim’s or at the Ritz? Places he could never have afforded.
Perhaps they’d gone to the theatre, she in a new red dress, new red shoes, black lingerie – new everything. Steiner in uniform.
Perhaps, perhaps – ah, Mon Dieu, what was he to do? Intuitively he knew he mustn’t intrude, that to disturb her would be the worst possible thing, that given time she’d decide to come back to him and that all would be forgiven. He’d have to make certain of that, couldn’t hold it over her. Ah no, of course not. One had to be big-hearted about such things, one had to bury one’s pain.
He blew on a fist and cursed himself for not having thought to bring his gloves and hat. He’d catch a cold. To hell with colds.
Still feeling very much the coward and the cuckold, he began to walk the bike away. The sprocket made its tiny clicking noise, magnified greatly by the silence as he crossed the avenue Henri Martin and went around the corner on to the boulevard Emile Auger to number 45, the flat of Gabrielle Arcuri.
It was strange that the two most important women in his life at the moment should live within a stone’s throw of each other. Fate had a way of doing things like that. Fate and the war.
Once more he stood on the walk gazing up at the darkened silhouette but now questions of a different sort started coming at him. What was the relationship between the singer and the General Hans Ackermann? Who had written the diary? Who had had the meetings with the boy and why had they been so well documented if not for reasons of blackmail?
Why and where had the boy been killed? Why hadn’t he, a chief – no, an inspector – of the Surete – damn Pharand anyway – questioned the type of stone in that boulder? Had it been because of Marianne, a subconscious worry that something was going on behind his back? Had he known it then?
At any rate, he’d been sloppy. Never mind Hermann’s desire for haste and the seemingly inconsequential nature of the murder.
Ah, it was far from inconsequential now. Berlin, no less. Von Schaumburg – the whole of the Paris Gestapo probably and, not the least but still not well defined, the Sonderkommando-SS, the Sicherheitsdienst over on the avenue Foch.
The General Oberg’s boys, the Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Knochen and the Secret Service of the SS.
Oberg and Ackermann had both been involved in the Polish campaign. Strings that could be pulled, hence Ackermann’s freedom to move about whenever he pleased and his knowing he could call on the powers in Berlin any time he chose.
Berlin seemed such a long way from such a small murder. One monk perhaps, one hastily grabbed boulder and one dead nuisance – a mistake of course, or had it been?
But who had taken the boy’s body to Fontainebleau Woods? Who had offered the use of their motor car, if such a request had been made? The countess would seem a logical choice, but Ackermann, what was his position in this, eh? And what of Gabrielle Arcuri?
But why choose Fontainebleau Woods? Why, indeed, except that several of the meetings had been there and the purse, with its contents, had been deliberately planted.
Had that really been the case? If so, then Yvette Noel had much to answer for and her prayers would have been filled with remorse.
But why in the name of Jesus had the girl changed her clothes? She must have known who her assailant was, yet have suspected nothing.
There were so many questions, so many answers to find. Hermann would have to buy them time, that was all there was to it. Somehow von Schaumburg must be convinced of the necessity of their staying to finish the case.
And that, of course, meant putting a stop to Marianne’s little love affair. Or did it?
Once a month von Schaumburg and his aide inspected the forty brothels the Germans kept busy in Paris. Some were exclusively for use of the upper ranks, others for the common soldier, the Luftwaffe, the Kreigsmarine and so forth.
Some were also reserved for the SS and it was to one of these that he invariably went first. At 8 a.m. The place was on a side street just off the Champs-Elysees.
No self-respecting whore in her right mind would be up at that hour, yet there they all were, herded in their nightdresses and pompom slippers. Coughing, swearing, taking quick drags on their fags, gesticulating rudely and cursing the German High Command.
A doctor moved among them selecting an overtired eye – or was it too deep a cough? – as a farmer would a diseased animal.
The whore was then forced to strip, to lie on the table, knees up, legs wide as the doctor probed for unwanted microbes and other things.
No one else but the madam bothered to look. The other girls simply turned away in a huff. ‘Wider … Wider, please. Yes … yes, that is better,’ said the doctor. In with the swab and up. Deeply. ‘You’ve gonorrhoea. Those sores …’
‘I’ve always had them.’
‘Since birth?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then you ought to be blind!’
‘None of my girls have the clap. You’re crazy!’ shouted the madam.
Oh-oh, here we go, said Kohler to himself. ‘General, could I have a private word? A matter of great urgency.’
It was Kohler of the Gestapo come to sing for his breakfast. Old Shatter Hand fitted the monocle to his eye. ‘Well, what is it?’
‘About the murder of that boy, General. There’ve been some new developments.’
‘Why aren’t they in your report? Why wasn’t it on my desk at 0700 hours yesterday morning as I requested?’
A raging argument was now in progress but von Schaumburg appeared stone deaf to it.
‘General, we’re being pulled off this thing to hide the identity of the real murderer. It’s our belief the General Hans Ackermann of the Waffen-SS was involved.’
At last, Ackermann.
‘In what way?’ asked von Schaumburg cautiously.
Kohler knew it was now or never. Glotz had been specific – shut up or else – but they had no other choice. ‘It’s our feeling several homosexual liaisons took place,’ said Kohler blithely.
‘“Your feeling”,’ said von Schaumburg quietly.
‘Boys with men, General.’ The girls were beginning to take notice.
‘Ackermann?’
God help them now. ‘We need time, General, to sort out the truth. There were teeth marks on the boy’s right thigh.’
‘The marks of one of these,’ snorted von Schaumburg, indicating the bevy of whores most of whom had now taken a decided interest in the proceedings.
‘Or the marks of the boy’s male lover, General.’
There’d been rumours out of Berlin, idle chitchat – gossip – far too great an interest in far too small a murder. Insistence from von Richthausen, the Kommandant of Barbizon, that the murder be looked into in detail. ‘Not Ackermann. No … No, this I cannot believe. Besides, it is forbidden. You ought to know this, Sergeant.’
‘Then why is Berlin trying to protect him by pulling St-Cyr and me off the case and sending us to the far ends of the earth?’
‘Silesia is not so far and neither is Kiev.’
‘General…’
‘Yes, yes, I get your meaning, Sergeant, but I cannot believe what you say. Ackermann would have been discovered long before this. He’d have been shot or asked to take his own life.’
Kohler knew he was desperate. In spite of Glotz’s warning, he had to say it. ‘General, there’s another thing. Your nephew, Steiner, is running around with my partner’s wife. St-Cyr’s in such a state he’s useless as a detective – one of the best brains in the business! If you were to stop the love affair, I’m sure he’d settle down and we’d sort things out quickly.’
The whores had stopped breathing.
‘The Ackermann business,’ puzzled von Schaumburg as if he’d only just heard it. No one could forget how in the winter of 1938 the Secret Service of the SS had tried to tie the label of homosexuality to the Colonel General Werner von Fritch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, when the Fuhrer had needed an excuse to get rid of that very able man for objecting to his ambitious plans for war. There’d been such a stink, the air had still not cleared. And now two gumshoe detectives were willing to suggest the SS had one of their own! Gott in Himmel, it was almost too good to be true. Himmler would have to hide his face in shame.