‘Cherie, have you said anything about it to Agnes or Josiane? Her school friends, Inspector.’
‘And neighbours, Maman. No, I haven’t. Not yet.’
‘Then don’t. Promise me you won’t. They wouldn’t understand. No one would. They and their parents would only think the worst as some of them already do.’
The tears were wiped away, the forehead kissed and held. At last Maman said, ‘There, you see how it is, Inspector? For warmth and comfort, Annette and I share the bed her dear papa and I once shared, she to have his pillow always, we both asking God to bring him home and quickly. Since I’m a victim of our streets, I wanted Father Marescot to hear from me that I had done absolutely nothing to warrant such an attack, nor have I ever done such a thing.’
A breath was sucked in and held by Herr Kohler. There’d been the absences from the house, and certainly the inspector must be wondering about those, but all he said was, ‘And did he believe you?’
‘Obviously not. Rene-Claude was baptized in that church, though not by that … that priest who only came to us in the autumn of 1939 when Father Bouchard felt he had to volunteer again and is now a prisoner of war himself. We attended regularly, as did and still do, my husband’s father and mother. When Rene-Claude was taken, where else was I to have turned? Days pass, months come and go, a year, two years and now more than the half again and still he’s not home. Inspector, my husband must be well aware of what some of the prisoners’ wives in Paris and elsewhere are doing to combat their loneliness or make ends meet, and when he insisted in a letter that I let Annette take confession after myself, I … I felt he must need that reassurance and said I would see to it, as she has now for almost a year.’
There wouldn’t have been any argument, not in France. Here a wife was to do as told by her husband, no matter what. ‘Is Father Marescot in touch with the Stalag?’
‘He’s in contact with as many as possible. He takes it upon himself as a “special duty,” and has fought this battle twice, he says. First during the Great War, and now again.’
A fag was desperately needed, but searching the glove compartment only turned up one stick of ersatz chewing gum. Unwrapping it, Kohler found Annette’s hand. ‘Orange,’ he said. ‘It’ll help us think. Let’s share.’
She had better get the division right, thought Annette. She had better not make a mistake!
‘Merci, monsieur,’ came the faintest of responses with a shudder, but the job had been done perfectly, a good sign.
‘In the old days, Inspector-the really old ones-there used to be a special early-morning Mass for those who lived in this district and worked the streets. Father Marescot has insisted on reviving it, but also offers one in the late afternoon for those who can’t make the other.’
And are too dog-tired and hung over, but they’d heard of the Mass and had come from all over the city. ‘Was he a veteran of that other war?’
‘How, then, could he have held his special Masses?’
She had a point but it was freezing in the car. Kohler knew he was tempted to give them everything the press had left in the backseat but mustn’t. Nor could he speak on her behalf to that concierge of hers or threaten the bastard. Even at the end of this Occupation, and it would come some day, she could well be accused of consorting with the enemy, though she hadn’t done anything of that nature, or had she? ‘Those absences of yours from the flat, madame.’
He had remembered. ‘Are a private matter, if anything in that building of ours can ever remain private, but are nothing much. I have a part-time job as an usherette in a cinema. I make myself available, you understand, and beholden, yes, by checking in with its manager who thinks he may get more out of me. If there’s work, I go there in the evenings, but only until closing at ten. I don’t stay a moment beyond that and never have.’
A pittance and only the tips she’d receive. ‘Does your husband know of it?’
‘If he did, he would order me to stop. He’s the provider, isn’t he, the one who brings home the money even though the wages he is paid for his work in that camp are in Lagergeld and can’t be sent home? Annette and I must make do on the thousand francs a month the government of the Marechal Petain in Vichy doles out to families like ours.’
The Lagergeld was less than a pittance in any case. Common soldiers weren’t paid much even when fighting. ‘What about Ciment Morel?’
‘Gaston? He’s among the kindest of men and sincerely wants to help.’
‘Papa used to drive one of the monsieur’s big cement lorries,’ said Annette, momentarily having parked her chewing gum. ‘The monsieur says that it’s among the most difficult of jobs and that skilled men like Papa are very hard to find and should be sent home. He … he has asked for this many times.’
‘In 1933 I went to my stepsister, Inspector, and begged Henriette to see if Gaston could give my husband a job. We’d been without for more than two years.’
The Great Depression.
‘The Cafe de la Paix is convenient for both of us, since Gaston must frequently call in at the Kommandantur on business.’
‘And the driver of the taxi?’
Take Me. ‘Gaston pointed him out long ago and said that if ever I should need anything, I was to go to that one only and he would see that I got it. Inspector, when Madame Guillaumet asked if I knew of a reliable velo-taxi driver, I instinctively pointed him out. We’re to help each other, aren’t we, us wives of prisoners of war? We’re in the same boat and now … now are both victims!’
‘Don’t cry.’
‘I will because I must! I have seven stitches in my arm, three in the back of my hand, and will have terrible scars!’
‘Maman …’
‘Cherie, you are all I have!’
A moment was needed. Kohler knew there was absolutely nothing he could offer. Cash would only raise eyebrows, but as sure as they were sitting here and he was feeling utterly useless, Denise Rouget, their social worker, must have brought the two women together.
‘Until yesterday I didn’t even know of Madame Guillaumet, Inspector, or that the wives of some of the officers who were in the camps could be having the same difficulties as myself.’
‘Did she tell you why she needed that taxi to pick her up after school?’
‘Only that she had to go somewhere. One doesn’t ask of such things, isn’t that so? Instinctively one understands the need for privacy and doesn’t condemn.’
They came through the pitch-darkness and the rain of the rue Laurence Savart. St-Cyr could hear them as he got out of the Citroen. They knew this street he loved, didn’t even need a single light.
‘Monsieur l’Inspecteur, a moment, s’il vous plait.’
The caller was Antoine Courbet’s mother. ‘Madame, please don’t get drenched. Quickly, quickly, inside the house.’
Last to enter was Herve Desrochers’s father, Lucien or Luc, who stopped him in the darkness of the tiny foyer. ‘A moment, Inspector. The one whose velo-taxi was stolen has sublet mine for the evening so that I could be present to tell you about my Herve. He’s a good boy, you understand, but a bit of a follower. Those other boys, that Antoine …’
‘Yes, yes. Later, I think, after I’ve heard from them.’
The St-Cyrs had always felt themselves better. This one was no different, thought Desrochers as they crowded into the kitchen. The vacuum flask of soup was opened by that tongue, Madame Courbet. A plate and spoon were produced, the woman knowing the house and having free run of it, a napkin smoothed and two chunks of the grey National set beside it.
‘Sit, please, Inspector,’ he interjected quickly. ‘First the soup and the bread, as we have all agreed, and then the …’