Merde, the rustling was stronger now. Louis hadn’t moved from where he was standing just inside the main entrance. Backlit by the growing light of day, he was a perfect target.
Now louder, the rustling put one on edge. Louis jabbed with the Lebel to indicate something off to the side in front of him. An altar. Joss sticks, bowls, urns, rows and rows of short strips of thin, reddish-purple paper with vertical lines of writing on them-hundreds and hundreds of these hung directly above one another from horizontally mounted bamboo rods, forming a panel maybe a metre-and-a-half wide by two in height. ‘Token offerings,’ he whispered, all but mouthing the words. Promises to the dead, for when times get better, wondered Kohler; items given, even with the shortages; good deeds done in the eternal quest to influence one’s karma?
The fog must be clearing. Air was moving through the dinh and, as each gust passed by, it lifted the loose ends of the paper offerings, one after another, row with row, and carried joss smoke up from behind a curtained door halfway along that side.
‘Don’t kill her, Colonel. Let’s talk.’
There was no answer.
Curtains of block-printed red silk were parted. ‘Colonel …’
‘Put that gun down, Kohler. Don’t and she dies,’ said Delaroche.
Jeannot Raymond had a knife like no other at her throat, the kid in tears.
The Walther P38 made its sound as it struck the glossy-black lacquer of the table. ‘Louis,’ he called, throwing the name over a shoulder, ‘the bastards have got me.’ There’d been nothing else he could have done. Nothing.
‘Join us, St-Cyr,’ called out Delaroche.
‘He must have gone to check that passage,’ offered Hermann.
‘Then we’ll wait. You two … Why couldn’t you have done what you were supposed to?’
‘Find the Trinite victim and then those of the Restaurant Drouant but nothing else, not the killing of Max Auger at the police academy and that of Elene Artur, or those of Noelle Jourdan and her dear papa?’
‘Kohler, Kohler, why the hell couldn’t you simply have agreed to Herr Oberg’s request? A simple enough thing, a freshly baited little trap he still has in mind.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘False papers-did you really think Jeannot wouldn’t anticipate your trying to get this girl away from us? These are good, by the way. Proof enough of what you two are capable of. Boemelburg will have to see them.’
A little squeeze, was that it? ‘Don’t even bother, my fine one. I often pick them up on the black market to show the chief how the quality is always improving.’
‘Lie if you wish, but join us.’
‘With a French army MAS 1935A pointing at me? Eight of the 7.65 Long in the box and one up the spout? More than enough fire power to counter a Lebel 1873 with those old cartridges, eh, as this one must know?’
The shot when it came, filled the dinh with its sound. St-Cyr caught his chest, cried out, HERMANN! silently and said, a whisper, ‘Forgive me, mon vieux. I should have seen what they’d do because we gave them no other choice.’
Bob had been startled by the shot and had hunkered down beside that master of his, but now lifted woeful eyes as a hand was extended. Tentatively he sniffed at it, rejoiced, licked it eagerly and let his ears and chin be gently fondled.
‘Colonel, tell that son of a bitch to take that knife away from her throat and pull the gag before she chokes on her vomit.’
St-Cyr had still not come. ‘We also have the Van der Lynn woman, Kohler.’
‘Oona?’
That had startled Kohler. ‘Taken yesterday, but surely you were aware of this?’
The one with the knife hadn’t let up, but was it that these two still didn’t know what had happened at the Levitan? In too much of a hurry to grab the girl and get here? No time, then. No time. ‘We looked for Oona but couldn’t find her, Colonel.’
Then why not ask where she was being held? Instead, Kohler warily glanced from Jeannot to himself as if uncertain of where things would now lead, and in the end, again reached out to Bob.
‘Believe me, Kohler, we really do have that woman of yours.’
‘Just the one-is that it?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘The passage de l’Hirondelle killing a mistake?’
‘Giselle le Roy will be found and will pay for it.’
His cape thrown back, that mustard-yellow scarf worn loose, Delaroche’s free hand was still wrapped tightly about Bob’s lead. Jeannot Raymond’s watchful grey eyes were expressionless, the black overcoat open, the black turtleneck pullover and dark grey pinstripe jacket, black hair and high if furrowed brow not those of a worried man but of one who knew exactly what he had to do and would, no matter what. Much taller than the girl, who was being held tightly from behind, his chin didn’t even touch the top of her blonde head. His reactions would be instinctive, no matter what. That blade would slice deeply as it was drawn from left to right, the girl’s eyes registering shock first, then panic, then loss as life faded. Could nothing be done?
‘The Levitan, Colonel? Is that where you think you’ve got Oona?’
‘Salaud, what have you done?’
‘And not happy about it, eh?’
‘Must I remind you I’m the one with the gun? What went wrong?’
‘It being a Sunday, Colonel, the Komandant von Gross-Paris will still be at 26 avenue Raphael, the villa the Wehrmacht requisitioned for him. Every morning it’s the horseback ride first in the Bois de Boulogne, rain, snow or shine. Then it’s breakfast. Always the cafe noir avec les croissants chauds and the plum jam, no other, then it’s off to work, but on Sundays, I have to tell you, he stays at that villa a little longer. Sundays are always his bath days. No one is ever allowed to bother him. I hated to interrupt but …’
There was still no sign of St-Cyr. ‘I’m waiting, Kohler.’
‘As is that “partner” of yours?’
‘Get on with it, damn you!’
‘Mais certainement. Not only was a Wehrmacht guard detail disarmed and their weapons used against them, their uniforms were disgraced. The only possible recourse, since I was under his orders, was to send the perpetrators, minus one, to the villa under arrest and with Lagerfeldwebel Meyer bearing a note from me detailing the reasons. You and that Agence Vidocq of yours are for it, my friend. Bonne chance.’
Kohler would have done it, as would St-Cyr. ‘Bob, stay. Bob, sit.’
‘He’s upset, Colonel. Missing Elene, are you, Bob? Got the scent of the joss she used to burn here?’
‘And what of these four?’ asked Delaroche, indicating the boys on Louis’s street, the photograph and its negative.
Had the son of a bitch thought to barter? ‘They’ve already left town.’
‘Using false papers? Really, you do surprise me, Kohler. They’ll be hounded down and brought back. The Hoherer SS will be as definite about them as he will be about our showing up at that meeting tomorrow morning with the two of you and Giselle le Roy or Oona Van der Lynn. It won’t much matter which is used, will it?’
‘There are meetings and meetings, Colonel, papers and papers, uniforms and uniforms. This Occupier of yours has a thing about all of them, hasn’t he? Afraid of what Oberg’s going to do when he finds out what you and that agency have been up to behind his back and those of Von Schaumburg and Gestapo Boemelburg? Terrorizing the streets after dark? Making the Fuhrer gnash his teeth over it? Killing people, raping some of them first and raping others, too? They did, Bob. They really did. That one with the knife held Elene down while this one …’
‘Kohler, don’t even bother to try to unsettle Jeannot. Vivienne insisted that we take care of Elene in the manner and place she wished. We did what we had to.’
Louis … what the hell was keeping Louis? ‘And with Max Auger?’