‘Three hundred thousand.’
‘That is a little better but still I have ordered-Men, did you all hear this?’ he called out.
Like parrots, their replies came in rank by rank.
‘I have ordered them to withhold all fire once the prisoners are again locked up and the one you wish has been released into your custody.’
‘The Baron von …’
‘Behr? He will not want any of these beautiful things of his to be damaged by the thoughtlessness of an exchange of fire that need not have happened, especially as such a disturbance would most certainly bring further attention down on what he and the ERR have been up to, yourselves and others as well, I understand.’
Must everything have its price? swore Garnier silently. ‘Four hundred thousand.’
Eight million francs. ‘It’s a lot, Louis,’ whispered Kohler. ‘I’d no idea our boys were so corrupt.’
‘Of course you did, but can they be corrupted further?’
‘If offered the fuses they need?’
Like most big stores, the Levitan had a pneumatic system for the cash, cheques and paperwork each floor had to send to the head office which was here at the back of the ground floor. Hermann had been going to feed the fuses into it for safekeeping when voices had been heard, thanks, no doubt, to one of the prisoners holding a portal open, or had it been the Lagerfeldwebel himself?
‘Garnier and Quevillon can’t be armed, Louis.’
Inevitably the Occupier was reluctant to arm even its most fanatically loyal supporters. The Agence Vidocq might work for Boemelburg and Oberg but that didn’t mean they had powers of arrest, even if hunting down resistants, and in any case, they could be armed on the spot, if felt necessary.
‘I’ll try to negotiate,’ said Hermann.
This wouldn’t go well, St-Cyr was certain, but the tube was blown into. ‘Achtung, achtung, Lagerfeldwebel. Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. Release Madame Van der Lynn and tell her we’re here. Garnier and Quevillon, and those three behind the trolley, are all under arrest. Lock them up and we’ll let the Kommandant von Gross-Paris know that good German boys have helped with their capture. He wants them, meine lieben Herren. Our orders come straight from him.’
‘And not from Gestapo Boemelburg?’ shouted Garnier, his voice muffled by distance.
‘From the chief also.’
‘But not from the Hoherer SS Oberg who wants to be rid of the two of you.’
‘Eine kleine Mausefalle, eh?’
‘What does it matter, then, how that happens?’
Garnier had a point, but why would he waste time talking about it … ‘WATCH HIM, LAGERFELDWEBEL!’
The warning was too late. A burst from a Schmeisser raked the air, screams, shouts and commands pouring from the tube. ‘YOU, YOU AND YOU, INTO THE LOCKUP NOW. YOUR PISTOL, LAGERFELDWEBEL. VITE! VITE!’
‘AND IF I REFUSE.’
‘YOU WON’T!’
‘I might just as well.’
‘Idiot, no one need know. Just leave us to deal with those two and we’ll give you back your weapons.’
‘Bochmann, since you were foolish enough to have lost yours to this one, please go and release the prisoner into their custody.’
‘He snatched it away from me, Lagerfeldwebel. I wasn’t expecting …’
‘Yes, yes. It’s all right, Bochmann. We’ll do as we have to and deal with it later.’
‘Russia … They’ll send me back, Lagerfeldwebel.’
‘I know, but it can’t be helped. Kohler, the fuses, where are they?’
A sensible man. ‘Lying here on the former director’s desk. Let the prisoners go to their work stations and ask among them for someone to show you the way, if needed.’
Angry shouting followed, then silence, then a whispered, ‘Kohler, the woman has managed to run from them. Garnier and the others have taken our torches but have not, I think, yet found her.’
‘Louis, did you hear that?’
There was no answer. He had already left.
Crouched, half-hidden, St-Cyr eased the Lebel’s hammer fully back. Garnier and the others-the cook, his two helpers and Quevillon-weren’t just shining their torches into and along each aisle. They had spread out in a line, aisle by aisle, room display by display, and were crossing the ground floor in unison, moving inevitably towards the director’s office and Hermann, who might not yet know this but might anticipate it.
Garnier had dropped right back into being the sergeant he’d been in that other war. The cook and sous-chefs were also veterans-one had but to glance at them to see this. The former now carried a Schmeisser, the latter two had the Lagerfeldwebel’s Luger and the rifle.
Alone of them, Hubert Quevillon had been allocated the cook’s knife and relegated to the farthest aisle and immediately to Garnier’s right, that one still wanting to keep an eye on his subordinate or better still, to use that weakest link to advantage.
Looking down from the first floor at the head of the escalator he had somehow found in the dark, St-Cyr knew Garnier was being thorough. That one would use everything he could including, especially, that Oona had gone to ground.
Torchlight from the cook raced along the row of Boulle armoires but came back quickly to settle on one of them and then on another and another. One of the doors to this last hadn’t quite been closed. Had he found her?
Gingerly this cook teased it open. Caught in the mirror, the torchlight momentarily threw back its reflections. Blinking, he jabbed the muzzle of the Schmeisser deeply into the armoire. He didn’t call out, this man with the stomach of a barrel. Though one had at first felt he might have done, the soldier within him was too ingrained and brought only silence.
The line advanced. Its having all but reached the halfway point, Monsieur le Chef de Cuisine would have to hurry if he was to keep up. He showed no concern.
A torn piece of the lining from Oona’s woollen dress was fingered, the cook looking back along the aisle into darkness before teasing it out. He shone the light into the first of the vitrines whose curved glass doors and contents gave back their glints. He tried the next armoire but suddenly decided to retrace his steps.
He was counting off the armoires and when, at last, he came to the one next to where the torn fabric had been found, its doors were tightly shut. Perhaps it was a game to him, perhaps it had its sexual overtones. Harshly on the air came the pungency of the black bread he and the other two had toasted for the prisoners, burning, caramelizing what sugars there were in those round, hard loaves. The smell of too many Gauloises bleues was here, too, that of anise and sweat and garlic and pomade. A heavy man. A man of this Surete’s height and close now, very close. A little more … only a little and then the bracelets, that bit of cloth stuffed into the mouth to guarantee silence.
Oona’s right shoulder had been laid bare and had been badly bruised by Hubert Quevillon. There were bruises on the slender throat. Her lips had been split, her cheeks revealing where she’d been struck. She didn’t cry out but blinked at the light, dismay registering in those bluest of eyes, was all but bent double, would have difficulty getting out of the armoire.
‘Un moment,’ she softly said, the accent still there as it always would be, the memories of the Exodus from Rotterdam constantly with her, the loss, the endless days, weeks, months, years of never really knowing if her children would be found alive or in some hastily dug, unmarked grave a farmer might accidentally come upon years later.
She didn’t look past this cook who had found her. She stood before him, he shining the light over her. ‘My hair,’ she said. ‘It’s come loose. Please give me a moment, monsieur.’