Bellringer (27 page)

One by one the anonymous letters were thrown down, the door to the safe left open.

‘Do you deny what they say?’ demanded Weber. He’d show these two who ran things here. He’d not have them going over his head.

Becky knew he was going to send her to a concentration camp. There was now no longer any hope. ‘My name is Becky Torrence, Herr Untersturmführer, not Frau Rebecca Tarance or Torance, and the room number is 3–38 not 2–38 or 3–28.’

Would he hit her again or shoot her? she wondered. ‘I think if you look closely, Herr Untersturmführer, you will see that those which use my correct name have largely been written by Madame de Vernon, a few of the others by girls in the Vittel-Palace, yes. One gets blamed all the time for things they never did in that hotel you people keep us locked up in, and one has to defend oneself against unwanted advances, too, so hatred is born. But the other letters. . . especially those who have called me Rebecca and not spelled my last name correctly, have been written by girls and women in the Hôtel Grand. Again perhaps because I fiercely rejected their advances. Was Léa Monnier, who insists on looking at me the way she does, among your letter writers? She’s been here a lot. I’ve had to line up next to her time and again and suffer her closeness, and you know this!’

‘And you, Fräulein? You? Kohler, this is the lover of a Jew. She helped the boy to escape to the free zone that no longer exists. Antoine Rochon, mademoiselle? I have the proof.’

And Becky, her enemies, sighed Kohler inwardly. Again Weber went to that safe of his. An unopened tin of fifty Will’s Gold Flake cigarettes rolled out, another of Woodbines and then one of. . .
Ah, merde,
fine-cut pipe tobacco.

The telex on the regional office-to-office paper contained but a single line of heavy type and the name of none other than the Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie, Head of Section IV Lyon, and another old acquaintance they would rather not have met.

Kohler, having seen the name, thought Weber, had given that partner of his a warning glance.

SUBJECT ANTOINE ROCHON ARRESTED LYON EINSATZKOMMANDO 22 NOVEMBER 1942, DEPORTED MAUTHAUSEN KZ. HEIL HITLER
.

Becky was going to go all to pieces on them. Louis had extended a steadying hand. Obviously she had got Jill Faber to teach her a little
Deutsch,
yet still, one had best try to be gentle. ‘He’s in Austria, Becky. Working in a factory.’

‘Not a stone quarry and a concentration camp? Isn’t
KZ
the short form for
Konzentrationslager
?’ she asked, letting the tears fall freely.

‘Look, don’t do anything crazy, eh?’

‘Like throwing myself down an elevator shaft?’

Schiesse,
what the hell was this?

‘Maybe Mary-Lynn didn’t want to live, Inspector. Maybe she felt having a child here was just too much. Maybe Nora had convinced her that trying to reach her father was simply stupid.’

‘And Caroline Lacy?’ asked Louis.

‘Caroline. . . ?’ she asked, startled and turning to face him.

‘Did she know about Antoine, mademoiselle?’

Ah, no
. . . ‘Jill did, Nora did, and Marni, too.’

‘But not Caroline?’

‘Not unless Madame de Vernon had somehow found out.’

‘The bodies, Untersturmführer,’ said Louis firmly. ‘Have Corporal Duclos bring a stretcher to the Chalet des Ânes first, and one other to assist him. This young woman will identify each victim, as is necessary, you to be a witness.’

The snow was everywhere and through the trees the Chalet des Ânes looked as if it could never have been the site of a murder. To the northeast, Becky could see right across the Parc Thermal to the boundary fence beyond the soccer field the British insisted on calling the football field as if all Americans were simply ignorant of such fine distinctions.

To the west and northwest, and much nearer, were the casino from which they’d just come, then the Grand and the Vittel-Palace. The Établissement Thermal, whose round pavilions at either end marked the fountains that gave forth the waters of La Grande Source and La Source Salée, was but a short walk from the Vittel-Palace. These pavilions were joined by the covered promenade that was always popular. There were lots of internees about now, some even peering in through the spa’s windows in hopes of catching a glimpse of something to alleviate the boredom even though the Fermé sign was clear enough and they must have looked in there countless times. Surely the Germans could have opened that up, giving the girls such pleasure and employment too, but no, and as for Jill getting the swimming pool filled this coming summer, they’d best forget it. With Herr Weber advising him, the new Kommandant would never agree.

‘Inspector, do I really have to do this?’

‘A glimpse, that’s all,’ said Kohler. ‘I’ll be right with you.’

Had he thought she would bolt and run, a Gentile who had had a Jewish fiancé, a girl who had inadvertently kept the Star of David she had removed from his coat? ‘Caroline would have felt the chalet offered no threat, Inspector. Corporal Duclos was to have met her. On Friday afternoon I. . . I only followed her from the room to see that he did.’

‘And then?’ he asked.

He was watching her closely now because those brief moments when Brother Étienne had left Caroline and walked the
petrolette
over to Duclos and Sergeant Senghor for repairs were critical. ‘I was satisfied they had seen her. I. . . I turned away and went back to our hotel.’

‘Meeting Nora on the way?’

He’d be sure to ask Nora. ‘I. . . I didn’t see her then. I. . . I don’t know where she went. She must have been cold, had been out a long, long time, walking the perimeter fence. Always she gets as far away from everyone and everything as she can, but. . . but I didn’t meet up with her.’

And maybe did. ‘Went back to the room, did you?’

He wasn’t going to leave it. ‘I went into the shops on the Terrace of the Grand.’

‘Weren’t they closing?’

In time for the curfew for visitors and shopkeepers. ‘We had about an hour.’ There was nothing in his eyes now, absolutely nothing.

‘“We”? Who was we?’

Ah, merde!
‘I meant me. Collectively the others. British and. . . and Americans, and some from the Hôtel de la Providence. They’re now allowed only the last hour once a week, on Fridays. Colonel Kessler used to let them go there just like the rest of us but Herr Weber, he. . . he made the times for them far more restricted.’

‘Can you name any of them who could vouch for you?’

‘Me? For obvious reasons I tried always to keep my distance. I had to, didn’t I?’

‘But not on that Friday, not when Caroline was killed. Stopped about here, did you, before turning back to those shops?’

Would he miss nothing? wondered Becky. They were still among the trees, had yet to reach the circular clearing the donkeys would have trod. ‘Here, I think. Yes, here. A bit of the bark had been torn off this beech tree. Look, someone’s been at it again.’

‘Fire starter?’ he asked.

Nora had been the one to tell them that the inner bark could be eaten, but she would just nod and say, ‘We’re always in need of it.’

‘Nervous was she, this most recent bark puller?’

‘All right, it was me.’

Duclos, Senghor, Weber, and Louis were now at the chalet, the two guards opening its doors, the stretcher being carried in. A last glance from Louis said,
Don’t be long but don’t spare her even though she’s young and vulnerable.

‘Who opened that padlock? You must have arranged for that as well.’

‘
I didn’t know!
All I was asked to do was to get someone to meet her in that. . . that place, that Caroline had something she absolutely had to tell the new Kommandant, and that. . . ’

‘
Something,
mademoiselle? Wasn’t it that she was certain Mary-Lynn had been pushed?’

‘Yes, oh yes!’

‘And the padlock?’

‘I. . . I think Jill must have arranged it with one of the guards. He was to unlock it, but leave it hooked through the hasp as if still locked. Duclos would then duck in and wait for Caroline who didn’t at first know whom she would be meeting. French or German, until I told her Corporal Duclos had agreed.’

‘So at the last moment she
did
know whom she would be meeting?’

‘Yes, but. . . but she must have seen Sergeant Senghor and the corporal walk away with the bike towards the wood compound.’

‘And Brother Étienne?’

‘Did he duck into the chalet?’

‘Or did you follow her in and deal with her? You had every reason, mademoiselle. More, no doubt, than anyone else.’

‘Even the killer of Mary-Lynn?’

‘Especially that one, if both are the same.’

They started out again and only then did Herr Kohler say, ‘Before Louis and I got here from Paris yesterday, you must have gone to have another look. After all, Caroline hadn’t returned to the room on Friday evening, had she? Madame de Vernon would have been beside herself with worry.’

A little of the hard, crystalline snow blew from the chalet’s roof. Underfoot, it had been trampled. ‘At first Madame thought that Caroline was with Jennifer, but when Jen was found, that. . . that wasn’t so.’

‘Out with it, please. Better here than in there with Weber.’

She nodded but could no longer face him. ‘I. . . I went out early Saturday morning, as soon as we could leave the hotel. The doors to the chalet were closed, the padlock hooked through the eye of the hasp, but open and probably just as it had been left. I waited. I picked at the bark of that tree. I dreaded what I would have to do. No one was about, not even Nora.’

‘And then? Come, come, mademoiselle.’

‘I ducked inside, but. . . but it was too dark to see anything. I whispered her name and. . . and when my foot touched hers, I stumbled.’

‘And?’

He wasn’t going to believe her, but she would have to try. ‘I ran. I got back to the Vittel-Palace and went down into the cellars, then up into the laundry, where I’d left the things I had told the others I was going to wash. I didn’t tell anyone about Caroline. I couldn’t. I. . . I hid that because I knew I would be blamed if I didn’t.’

But would she, as the killer, have returned at all? wondered Kohler. Louis would have said it’s possible, but then. . . Yet that Star of David had been crammed into Caroline’s pocket as though in anger. The hurried use of the only weapon available had been there, the impulse of it, the fierce determination of that moment—didn’t all of these seem to say she had done it?

‘Nora didn’t know I’d arranged for Caroline to meet Bamba, Inspector, nor did Marni or even Jill. Earlier Caroline had asked me to find someone and knew that I would because before Bamba told me my fortune that last time, she had caught me taking things from our pantry to pay him for it.’

Weber having then singled out those very items, which had to mean that he either had been told of them by Duclos after the fact, or by someone else, yet the others in Room 3–38 had genuinely expressed surprise when Becky had said she’d gone back for a third reading all by herself. Jennifer Hamilton, then—she must have told Weber, Caroline having let her know.

‘Somehow I would have explained to the others that I’d taken those things, Inspector, that they’d not been stolen as they’d thought. Somehow I’d have paid them back, but Caroline, she. . . she didn’t blackmail me into asking Bamba to meet with her. She didn’t even know who would until just before it happened.’

But if Weber had known beforehand of the meeting, what would he have done?

Louis was waiting for them, the corpse laid out as before. Weber, the collar of his greatcoat up, stood in the aisle in front of that middle stall, having impatiently lighted a cigarette.

Duclos and Senghor kept their distance as much as possible but obviously didn’t like being there. Neither of them dared to look toward the victim, nor did they look directly at Becky or anyone else.

Nudging the girl forward, Kohler laid a steadying hand on her right arm.

To gasp in shock and turn away was normal, to want to be sick too, thought Becky. There were livid blotches on the lower parts of Caroline’s face and neck. Blood had run from a corner of the lips but had since been frozen.

‘Mademoiselle,’ said Chief Inspector St-Cyr.

There was a tearful nod, a faintly blurted, ‘Yes, it’s Caroline.’

‘She spent time getting herself ready for the meeting,’ said Louis, not sparing her. ‘You must have watched.’

A moment had to be given.

‘Caroline. . . Caroline had wanted to look her best in case she’d be taken straight to the new Kommandant. Yes, I watched her, as did Madame, who kept asking her why she had to go outside at such an hour. “A
cold
. . . you are coming down with another,” she said. “That chest of yours is far too weak and you know it!”

‘Caroline answered, “It’s not what you think. You’ll find out soon enough.”’

‘She was raped, wasn’t she?’ seethed Weber, flinging his cigarette down at the foot of Senghor and Duclos. ‘You and those others from Room 3–38 set it all up. This one held her, while this one went at her, then they took turns.’

As implied earlier by Madame de Vernon, thought Kohler, but
lieber Gott,
he was serious! For all his life since the age of ten, Weber must have dreamt of just such a moment.

Becky Torrence was now a wreck.

It was Louis who said, ‘Raped and then tidied afterwards, Untersturmführer?’ A
sûreté’s
hand was held up to silence the sergeant and his corporal.

Contemptuously Weber said, ‘It’s of no consequence. Someone else must have done that. These two are guilty. One look at them is enough.’

‘We didn’t touch her, Boss,’ said Senghor to Kohler but evasively flicking a glance at St-Cyr. ‘Corporal Duclos told me what he had agreed to do but, as he was under my orders, I advised against it. We took the brother’s bike to the shed and repaired its flat.’

‘But first you made use of her,’ said Weber. ‘A white girl, a virgin.’

‘There was no evidence of a struggle, Untersturmführer,’ said Louis, giving Senghor a look that said
Don’t ever lie to me again
. ‘Though she’s been tidied as before, it’s common practice for us to take a victim’s temperature so as to estimate the time of death. When I did that, I checked for semen. I am also certain that whoever does the autopsy will find she was still a virgin.’