‘Inspecteur …’
‘VERDAMMTER FRANZOSE, BEFEHL IST BEFEHL!’
Damned Frenchman, an order is an order, but Gott sei Dank, Louis wasn’t here.
‘Henri-Claude Martel, maitre d’,’ managed Martel.
All eyes were now on them. The lieutenant with the coffee in his lap was furious but afraid to say a thing, so good, ja gut! Martel waited as he should. Tall, ramrod stiff, stern and unyielding behind his specs, this lantern-jawed billiard ball on stilts was well up in his sixties and wasn’t going to be easy. ‘This cafe,’ said Kohler, indicating the crowd. ‘I’m surprised the terrorists haven’t tossed a grenade into it.’
Taken aback, Martel blurted, ‘They … they wouldn’t dare. It’s just not possible.’
‘Oh, and why is that?’
‘They simply wouldn’t. The cafe is too close to the Kommandantur.’
‘And an obvious target.’
‘Monsieur …’
The things one learned by taking a shot in the dark. ‘It’s Herr Hauptmann Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter Kohler. Please don’t forget it.’
Give him a moment now, Louis would have said. Let the gravel you’ve fed him work its way down to the crop. After all, it’s the time of the ostriches in France, isn’t that so? Now tell him what you’ve just discovered but don’t emphasize the management’s threatening the local troublemakers should they have a change of heart. ‘Your bosses have quietly paid off the Resistance, my fine one, and have an absolute guarantee that no such thing will happen to discourage business and create costly repairs. No, don’t argue. You think I’m not aware of what’s been going on under the carpet? Just give me what I need or I’ll have the Kommandant von Gross-Paris shut this place down so hard you’ll all be heading east for a little holiday.’
Again Herr Kohler paused. He hadn’t touched either the cafe noir or pousse-cafe he’d been given. Patting his pockets, he relieved the lieutenant of one of his cigarettes and took time out to light it.
Indicating Le Matin’s photo splash, he said, ‘I’m certain this woman came here yesterday. You know it; all of your staff do. She sat at one of the tables with a companion, and now you are going to tell me who that companion was.’
‘Another woman. One with a young daughter. Not wealthy. Certainly not as well dressed as … as that one was.’
That one being the Trinite victim, but the things one learned with a little pressure. ‘And?’
‘They asked for a glass of milk for the child but as we had run out, the one with the briefcase suggested an eau gazeuse citron vert and that was brought instead.’
A lime fizz and ersatz unless the limes had been flown in from somewhere, but let’s not forget the Trinite victim had a briefcase. ‘Do you mean to tell me you let them sit here, having ordered nothing else?’
‘I did, yes.’
But not without good reason. ‘And then?’
‘The one in the photos went out to the taxi stand.’
‘Time?’
‘At about five thirty in the afternoon.’
‘Ah, bon. At last we’re getting somewhere. Now tell me, did they come here often?’
Martel shook his head. ‘Only the poorly dressed one and not often, but … but not always with the child.’
Oh-oh. ‘The cinq a sept?’
The customary hours from five to seven for les liaisons sexuelles. The detective could think what he wished but would have to be told a little so as to get him out of here and quickly. ‘Then and earlier. Sometimes the monsieur is busy and telephones to say he can’t make it. Sometimes he can only spare a moment to say hello to his wife’s stepsister, paying her bill as he leaves. At other times they have the half-hour, never more, so the order is always taken quickly to his table. He presses food upon the woman and she always puts most of it into her handbag. And always he tries to give her money and always she refuses and says, “You know I will only leave it on the table.” ’
‘M. Gaston Morel of Cimenterie Morel?’
‘Oui.’
The finches were gone from the cage, and in their place were gerbils. Handful by handful, Noelle Jourdan spread wood shavings and sawdust, having saved the soiled for the stove.
‘They like to burrow,’ she said, knowing that the questions would come and that there was nothing she could do to stop them. ‘They make good company and love to play.’
‘Noelle, please don’t get too attached to them,’ rasped the father, Jourdan having taken one of the two cane chairs in the tiny kitchen, the daughter having drawn the black-out drapes as soon as she had got to the flat.
‘They all know me, don’t they, and trust me as a friend, but I won’t,’ she said, scattering rosehips for the captives, a little treat she had somehow acquired. ‘I mustn’t, must I?’
Two rabbits occupied the small, screened airing cabinet that had, in better days, held the bread, butter, cheese, milk and meat, et cetera, to keep the flies, the cockroaches and mice from them. A single electric bulb hung above the plain deal table, its height being adjusted by a sliding lead weight along the frayed cord that passed over a pulley whose block was hooked to the wall. As far as one could determine, there were few if any other lights.
Supper consisted of a stew, which had, no doubt, been put to the boil at 4.30 a.m. on the building’s communal stove downstairs and had then been placed in the hay box up here to cook all day in its own steam and juice.
She was capable, this Noelle Jourdan. She was everything a father such as hers needed, but had she any life of her own?
Three rutabagas, some half-rotted cabbage leaves, a scattering of sow thistle roots, a few carrots and a bulb of garlic tumbled from the string bag, the sum total perhaps of the hours of standing in line. A parsimonious bit of sawn soup bone was removed from a pocket, two thin handfuls of macaroni, six Brussels sprouts and a cloth-clad lump of chevre that oozed goats’ milk on to the counter. Felix Picard had said he thought she had brown hair but must have been totally mesmerized by the stamp collection.
She was une belle. The brow was high, smooth and wide, the eyebrows richly dark and perfectly arched. Modigliani would have longed to use her as a model, Picasso to seduce her. Though the chin was determined, it was soft, the eyes of the darkest Midi olive shy;, their lashes long. Certainly, even after Jourdan’s comments about the Trinite victim, the girl must still be a worry, what with the way things were on the streets during the blackout. The ears were free of earrings-had they, too, like so much of the family’s things, been sold off piece by piece? The hair was jet black, not brown at all, and worn with a natural wave that suited admirably, the skin of the softest shade of Midi brown, the mother either from the south of France or Italian perhaps, or Spanish. There wasn’t a hint of lipstick or eye shadow. Had the father insisted on this?
She was of just a little more than medium height and delicate, yet not delicate, though hiding her thoughts perfectly under such a scrutiny. Bathes regularly, he would have said to Hermann had the two of them been discussing her. Visits the local bathhouse at least once a week. Insists on it even though the cash of such a modest expense is desperately needed. ‘Mademoiselle, you sold a stamp collection.’
‘Noelle, what is this, please?’
‘It wasn’t mine, Papa. I found it on the metro.’
‘And didn’t turn it in to the lost property office?’
‘Papa, I was working the night shift. I didn’t want to be late. I …’
‘Sergeant, a moment, please. Am I correct in concluding that you didn’t know about this “grandmother’s” stamp collection?’