There would have been plenty of other taxis she could have taken after her little liaison, but this one must know the stepsister of Gaston Morel’s wife had sent the woman to him and that he would have had to wait. ‘ “The half-hour, the three-quarters of an hour,” she said. She didn’t know exactly how long it would take, but felt not too long. She was worried about leaving her children alone at home and said, “I’ve never done anything like this before.” ’
But had she? Didn’t the wife who was having an illicit love affair often worry about her children? wondered St-Cyr. His wife had, his Marianne.
Hermann wasn’t going to like what had turned up but where was he?
The judge was still not happy, the rise in blackout crime due entirely to the ineptitude of the police and a total lack of moral fibre among the citizenry in the face of hard times. The salon and adjoining study, however, were draped in the tassels of a cushioned fin de siecle.
‘Delinquents, Kohler,’ he went on. ‘Girls as young as thirteen.’ He gave the daughter a stern glance. ‘Boys of ten. Not a week ago the savage mugging of a Blitzmadel in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. Four of them attacked her. While the one shoved her back on to the toilet, another snatched her cap away, another the handbag, the last one darting in to pummel her breasts and yank her hair. Bruises, I tell you. Bruises, Kohler.’
Mein Gott, Rudi hadn’t been the only one to know of it!
‘ “Boche pig,” they shouted,’ continued Rouget. ‘ “Fascist scum! Communist-killer! Go home where you belong.” ’
He’d take a breath now, decided Rouget. He’d show this Kripo how lawless the city had become. ‘I ask you, Kohler. What, please, would you do if you were me, when these boys were brought before you? Understand that when cornered, one of them brandished a knife.’
Louis’s boys … The cognac, normally long in its breath, burned the throat, the Choix Supreme offering no comfort. The judge, wife and daughter were all watching him closely. Madame Rouget-Vivienne, he reminded himself-having taken command of things had suddenly lost it with the judge’s opening barrage and now sat so tensely, she was unaware of constantly picking at her fingernails, the daughter sitting like a harried little mouse, but something would have to be said. ‘Judge, my partner and I haven’t yet been briefed on the assault. We’ve been kept busy ever since we got in last night.’
‘We’ll come to that.’
‘Was this Blitzmadel able to give the investigating police accurate descriptions of the boys?’
Had it been a plea for extenuating circumstances? ‘Surely you must be aware, Kohler, that in such cases everything happens far too quickly. The girl was in shock-mon Dieu, who wouldn’t have been? Her stockings were ruined.’
‘Yes, but …’
Was it clemency Kohler wanted? ‘They will be caught. They will definitely be brought before me along with their parents. Communists, are they? The Hoherer-SS and Polizeifuhrer Karl Oberg is insisting on the severest of sentences and will expect it of me. A uniform has been disgraced. It’s no small matter.’
Uniforms were sacred and, yes, Oberg did have designs on taking over the French police, but … ‘Judge, just how sure are you that the girl was threatened with a knife?’
‘Very. Two days ago I was in Karl’s office to discuss another matter. He had the girl brought in to tell me herself. He’s being considerate, I must say, and doesn’t want the case publicized until it’s settled. Now what, exactly, was it that you wanted to ask my daughter?’
‘Yes, please do ask,’ breathed Vivienne.
Whereas the judge was corpulent and big-boned, the wife was delicate and definitely one of les hautes, yet defiantly wary and absolutely under that one’s thumb-was that it, eh? The soft auburn hair was worn swept up and back. The eyebrows were perfect, the eyes not mud-brown like the judge’s but azure, the lips tight as a quick breath was impatiently held, the chin defiant under a scrutiny she didn’t appreciate.
‘Inspector, I asked you to tell us,’ she said.
‘Ah, bon, madame. For some reason your daughter, having arranged for two of last night’s victims to meet in the afternoon at the Cafe de la Paix, chose not to be present. I’d like to know why.’
Had Hercule not put him in his place? wondered Vivienne. ‘There was no reason for her to have been present. Madame Guillaumet needed a velo-taxi driver she could depend on; Madame Barrault knew of such a one.’
But was it as simple as that?
The judge, as if deliberating in court, had bowed his head to study knitted hands that could well have been those of a plumber. The double chin and jowls drooped, the forehead was wide and high, the jet-black, greying hair well oiled and combed back to frame the grimmest of countenances, the full lips drawn into a pout, the eyes half-closed, so deep was he in thought and waiting for detective questions.
‘Madame, how was it that your daughter even knew Madame Barrault would be familiar with that cafe or know of the taxi driver?’
‘Henriette …’ began the daughter, like a frightened little mouse.
‘Denise, let me,’ said the mother firmly. ‘Madame Henriette Morel has many times informed my daughter of that woman’s “familiarity” with the cafe, Inspector, and the company that stepsister of hers chooses to keep. It seemed the most suitable of rendezvous. Denise merely put forward the suggestion to both women during each of their respective counselling interviews.’
‘I’m with the SN, Inspector. I’m …’
‘Denise, offer nothing. Your mother is before the bench.’
‘Papa …’
‘Daughter, hold your tongue.’
‘Hercule, please,’ said Vivienne. ‘I must be allowed to continue. Denise has advanced degrees in social work, Inspector, and is employed by the Famille du Prisonnier, which is now under the Secours National, the National Help, whose Maison du Prisonnier is on place Clichy.’
The maisons, though few and far between, were one of those rare places where the wives of prisoners of war could go for help they invariably wouldn’t get, but what the hell was bothering this little family other than the immediate presence of an uninvited Kripo?
‘I have my office there, Inspector. Madame Morel drops in from time to time.’
‘She makes a nuisance of herself and is not of our class,’ said the mother, raising a forefinger to silence the daughter. ‘Her stepsister is a good twenty years younger and quite naturally the woman is concerned.’
‘Marie-Leon Barrault hasn’t been sleeping well,’ offered the daughter stubbornly.
‘Worried about her husband, is she?’
Would Herr Kohler really understand? wondered Denise. ‘They all are. Certainly those who have been …’
‘Running around?’
‘Denise, did I not instruct you?’ demanded the judge.
‘Judge, leave it,’ said Kohler with a sigh, and then …
Vivienne waited.
‘Just how certain are you, mademoiselle, that Madame Barrault and Madame Guillaumet were really up to mischief behind their husbands’ backs?’
‘Denise thinks …’
‘Let her answer, madame. You, too, Judge.’
‘Adultery is a very serious crime, Kohler, for which the marechal and our government in Vichy have seen fit to strengthen the law.’
They had done so in 1942 and had made it stiff for the delinquent wife, not nearly so for the husband even if he wasn’t away on holiday in the Reich, but would nothing shut the judge up?
‘Please do not forget that there are more than one-and-a-half million of our boys in your prisoner-of-war camps, Kohler. Fully sixty percent of them are married; most between the ages of twenty and forty, so their wives are also young but have urges they can’t seem to control.’