‘Ackermann, Hermann. Did you have to accuse him of being a homosexual?’
So much for wind in a guy’s sails. ‘It was just talk, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer. I had to buy us time. Glotz …’
Boemelburg chose his moment swiftly and turned on him. ‘Yes, Glotz, Hermann. The brother of the wife of one of Herr Himmler’s brothers. What about Glotz, Hermann? Glotz, you dummkopf!’
‘He was going behind your back and reporting straight to Berlin. There’s talk, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer …’
God help him now!
‘Talk of what,’ seethed Boemelburg.
So Glotz was related to Himmler … ‘That you’re becoming forgetful – it’s garbage, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer. We in the ranks …’
‘Hermann, skip the crap and tell me the truth.’
‘That you’re becoming forgetful and will have to be replaced.’
‘By Glotz? Gott in Himmel, Hermann, if it were not so silly I’d be furious, but all the same, Gestapo Mueller will hear of this.’
‘No doubt he has, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer. He’d have ordered Glotz to investigate St-Cyr’s wife.’
‘Films,’ muttered Boemelburg, running an irritated hand over the all-but-shaven dome of his blunt head. ‘The woman should have known better. Von Schaumburg has demanded the films. In a hand-delivered note, Hermann. Stamped with the seal of the Kommandant of Greater Paris and written in such terse terms a child could read them.’
Again Boemelburg turned his back on him to study the maps. Glotz would have to be dealt with but first this business must be settled. ‘So I’m forgetful, am I, Hermann?’ He seized another pin and drove it into Barbizon, the start of this whole affair. He strung yellow ribbon from there to Paris, said, ‘Kommandant to Kommandant, Hermann, and the Army out to sink the Gestapo in France! Did you and Louis not think the General von Richthausen had some axe to grind? The Hotellerie du Bois Royal in Barbizon, Hermann? July 8th – was that not in your little diary, eh? Ackermann, Hermann. Ackermann and that boy feeding their faces while von Richthausen said hello.’
‘Herr Sturmbannfuhrer, your blood pressure …’
‘Never mind my blood pressure, Hermann. You’ve opened the wasps’ nest with that little tete-a-tete you had with von Schaumburg. Accusations of unnatural sexual practices among the heroes of the Waffen-SS! Oh, Mein Gott, how stupid can you get? Did it never cross your mind that Ackermann could have been up to something else? Information, Hermann. Information for the Sicherheitsdienst!’
He turned, but didn’t pause. ‘If Ackermann doesn’t kill you and Louis, the Resistance will. And if not them, the salt mines and the partisans in Kiev. You’ve gained yourself one week. That is all! Now open that envelope and take a look at its contents. Worry about your own blood pressure. I want everything, Hermann. No more of your little secrets, no more things like a few uncut diamonds that have been conveniently put out for evaluation and not mentioned in your report! Your loyalty, Hermann. The oath you took.’
And the penalty for breaking it: that of desertion but not the firing squad as with the Army. No, the Gestapo reserved for themselves the choice of using the wire and slow strangulation or the axe. What they did to others, they did to those few among them who dared to betray the cause.
One never knew which method it would be until the very end, so there was always that little extra bit of suspense.
Kohler shook out the contents of the envelope but found he couldn’t speak.
Boemelburg waited. There were forty-three copies of the photograph of Kohler and St-Cyr at the edge of a road in Fontainebleau Woods. The body of the boy, looking as if it had just been bagged, was between them, and the photographs had been gathered up from all over Paris. ‘You fool, Hermann. What did you think you were playing at? A memento to send home to that forgotten wife of yours? Do you know what’s happened? Can you even guess?’
‘The Resistance have the negative,’ he managed.
‘They’ve more than that.’
‘They’ve made copies and had them circulated,’ he said, swallowing with difficulty.
‘At least two or three hundred of them. Who knows? Some left in the Metro, some posted on our billboards, but … what am I thinking of? Please don’t be shy. Turn one over and read what it says.’
In pen someone had printed the words, Down with Gestapo killers like these!
‘They’re blaming you and St-Cyr for the murder of that boy.’
‘But…’
‘No buts about it, Hermann. Of course the matter’s got out of hand, but then, so, too, were your accusations.’
In the name of Jesus, what were they going to do?
‘You’re going to sit down, Hermann. You’re going to take your time – pretend I’m the Reverend Father of that monastery – the Abbey of Saint Gregory the Great, wasn’t it? If my memory serves me right. Everything about the man who took this photograph, Hermann, and then …’ Boemelburg gave him a moment. ‘And then, Hermann, everything about this pair of broken shoes St-Cyr’s housekeeper found in his kitchen.’
Glotz … had Glotz interrogated the woman who lived across the street from Louis?
‘We’ll be using Louis as bait, Hermann. You’re not to tell him, no matter how much you seem to have slipped from our ways. All Resistance must be crushed, even if it foolishly hovers in the small recesses of what you might think to call a brain.’
‘Theriault,’ shouted St-Cyr impatiently. ‘A captain from the Vouvray area, age about thirty-six, killed in May 1940, during the breakthrough at Sedan, I think.’
‘You think!’ shrilled the walnut. ‘And what am I to think, eh? Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dead, my fine monsieur, and you, like millions of others, want me to pluck one certificate from among them? Well, look yourself, Inspector. See what it’s like.’
Angrily the man tossed an arm to indicate the first of the dingy rooms in the cellars beneath what had once been the Ministry of Defence. Rows and rows of damp wooden filing cabinets held the legions of the dead back to the first of the Napoleonic wars. Apologetically St-Cyr said, ‘Hey, my friend, I know it’s not easy, eh? But surely the Ministry and the Germans wouldn’t have left you in charge had they not thought you capable?’
Margarine was it? The walnut merely shrugged and went on with sorting the stacks of mail – all similar requests for the proof absolute! ‘I didn’t ask for this mess,’ he said acidly. ‘The records will be destroyed down here and everyone knows it but no one gives a damn. The Minister of Defence and his colleagues should have taken them to Vichy when they ran away.’
‘A cigarette?’ offered St-Cyr. ‘Me, I know what you mean. It was the same with the Surete. A few of us stayed while the others scooted, including my chief who is still the chief.’
It took two hours of patient encouragement and searching but in the end he had it.
Captain Charles Maurice Theriault, born 25 August 1902; killed in action, Sedan, 13 May 1940.
Several others from the Vouvray area had been killed. St-Cyr pulled out their certificates as well and went to work comparing them with the captain’s. The stamps on Theriault’s certificate looked genuine, so too, the signatures, but purchasing a fake death certificate, particularly in the confusion of the Defeat, would have been relatively easy especially if one had the money and the determination.
‘That one died,’ said the walnut, only too familiar with the possibility. He fingered the certificate as a bank teller would a questionable note. ‘Three requests were made for proof of death. See?’ He tapped the bottom left corner.
The number three had been scribbled on the certificate.