Kohler pitied them. For all his visits of inspection to the Wehrmacht’s brothels, Old Shatter Hand was a prude. Infidelity ranked very high among his most despised sins.
‘You said to Monsieur Julien that he must kill me, madame. I heard you,’ said the child earnestly. ‘You were in the folly together. I … I was up on the balcony making plans to escape and live the life of a brigand. You … you were standing right below me in the dark. Pompom was peeing against a table leg.’
‘When?’
Startled, the child flinched. ‘In the third week of December. On a Sunday night. Uncle … Uncle, he was away on business in Clermont-Ferrand, I think.’ She pointed at Vernet. ‘Your … your lover Julien didn’t want to kill me, but you … you made him say he would. You slapped his face. You said-’
‘I did no such thing! This is-’
‘Bernadette, let the child finish. Is it not enough to have killed her little friend and Liline? What more do you want?’
‘Tears …? You who are so cruel, are shedding tears, Antoine? Hah! Drink them, then. You will get nothing from me.’
The child could not look up. ‘You … you said his name would appear on the lists of those to be sent to Germany to work, madame,’ she whispered. ‘You said he probably wouldn’t come back and that … that only you could see that this did not happen.’
At a nod from Louis, Rébé was brought in to stand in leg irons and handcuffs, ashamed, afraid and in tears himself. ‘A former bicycle thief, a gigolo, General,’ said Kohler softly.
‘Boy, state the truth, then take your choice of the bullet or the rope.’
Rébé’s knees buckled under him. Dragged up, held up, he wept and managed to blurt, ‘She made me do it. She made sure the other one got it, too!’
‘Take him out. Let him make his choice. He may have a priest if he wishes,’ grunted von Schaumburg. ‘Just don’t waste time with him. The Santé will do.’
Old Shatter Hand was grim. St-Cyr studied the quartz crystal the child had had in her coat pockets. It was one of those ‘diamonds’ of the curious stone and mineral trade, a dipyramidal crystal perhaps two centimetres by one and a half, six-sided and pointed at both ends but grown awkwardly and full of internal fractures that caught the light and sparkled. ‘General, what madame says of our courts is only too true. There is always a penchant to excuse a betrayed wife or husband on the grounds of insanity due to jealousy. In such cases-’
‘There is only one solution. She waits her time. One cannot blame the child within her.’
‘Then let it be born in the Reich, General,’ urged Vernet. ‘Attend to her there after its birth.’
The bastard …
‘Ah no … NO!’ shouted the woman. ‘You cannot do that to me. You can’t! This house is rightfully mine, do you hear? Mine!’
Again the crystal was searched. ‘Madame,’ said Louis sadly, ‘you knew your niece had discovered who the Sandman was, yet you did not speak out. Instead, you plotted her death and used that information to blackmail Violette Belanger and her pimp into helping you with Liline. The sum of two hundred and seventy-five thousand francs changed hands. I have it here.’
One by one the bundles of notes were arranged on the table. Then he took out the envelope that had been left at the solicitor’s for Vernet. ‘Mademoiselle Chambert’s underpants, General. A last touch Madame Vernet could not resist presenting to her husband.’
When she spat in Vernet’s face and stamped a foot, she was led away. ‘She’ll be on the evening train to Berlin. That is all I can promise,’ said von Schaumburg gruffly. ‘These things are never easy, and once out of my jurisdiction, her fate falls into the hands of others.’
She could well become the toast of Berlin, thought Kohler ruefully, and, taking the little roulette wheel, pushed in the plunger and let the ball bounce and land where it would.
At another nod from Louis, the General found a letter and, handing it to Vernet, said simply, ‘Sign it. Refuse to do so and you will join your wife on that train.’
All it said was that should any harm come to Nénette Micheline Vernet, her uncle and guardian would forfeit all interest in the family holdings.
He signed without a murmur. It would have to do, but could the child remain in the same house with him?
‘You will move to your club on the Champs-Élysées,’ said von Schaumburg. ‘You will bear the ridicule your associates will heap on you. You will have no further contact with your niece, who will remain here in her home. That is an order.’
They met in secret in the Bois near the Carrefour des Cascades overlooking the Lac Supérieur. Three days had passed, three days of rest, reports and healing of bruises that still caused St-Cyr to limp.
‘Jean-Louis, it’s good to see you.’
‘You also.’
He took her arm in his and it felt good to be here with her. Gabrielle Arcuri tossed her head to indicate the coming rain. He said, ‘It does not matter.’
‘Then walk with me to my place. I’m cold.’
‘Don’t prolong things, please.’
‘Very well. The message from London was received on the fifteenth at oh-one-fifty hours. When decoded it read, “No news of Henri-Claude Vernet and wife other than official view. Sorry. Better luck next time.”’
‘Then the child’s parents were really killed in the bombing. I had hoped … An industrialist like that, a brilliant designer, a maker of weapons at a time when they are needed.’
‘Ah, stop worrying. If it helps, I don’t think so. The official view is simply what they had to give us. The “better luck” tells me her parents are alive and well but that you cannot give her such information.’
‘Even though she needs it?’
‘A suggestion perhaps.’
‘Will you come with me?’
‘It’s a long walk. Let’s take a vélo-taxi.’
‘Those things are too easily followed. Besides, the Gestapo’s Watchers are often lazy. We can talk on the way and cut through the woods. The child will give us tea.’
‘And cakes?’
‘Yes, cakes.’
The child presented them with the crystal of clear quartz. ‘It is magic,’ she said seriously. You will need it, I’m afraid, for the cards, they are not good. A visitor is to come into your lives-both of you. This person will pit you against each other with terrible consequences. Please do not forget this. Remember to be true to each other.’
It was von Schaumburg’s chauffeur who caught up with them on the way back to hand St-Cyr a telex Heinrich Himmler had sent to Mueller, Head of the Gestapo in Berlin, who had then sent it on to Walter Boemelburg, Head of the same in France, and it was really for Hermann, who wouldn’t want it at all and was probably asleep in some freezing cinema while his Giselle and his Oona watched with rapt attention some tired rerun from the thirties.
MOST URGENT. REPEAT URGENT. IKPK HQ BERLIN REPORTS INTERNATIONAL SAFE-CRACKER GYPSY REPEAT GYPSY HAS REPORTEDLY SURFACED. LAST SEEN TOURS 1030 HOURS 14 JANUARY HEADING FOR PARIS. APPREHEND AT ONCE.
HEIL HITLER.
The IKPK … the International Criminal Police Commission thought to have ceased to exist at the outset of the war …
‘Gypsy …?’ blurted Gabrielle, sickened by the message. Jean-Louis, he could not know the Resistance had received a wireless message tacked on to that about the child’s parents. GYPSY … REPEAT GYPSY DROPPED TOURS NIGHT OF 13 JANUARY. PROVIDE EVERY ASSISTANCE. MOST URGENT. REPEAT URGENT. WILL HAVE EXPLOSIVES. GIVE FULL PRIORITY. CODE NAME ZEBRA.
‘Hold my hand,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
‘Please remove your mitten.’
‘It’s too cold. Here, put your hand in my coat pocket with mine. I’ve emptied it.’
Emptied it of all but the child’s crystal.