Carnival (13 page)

‘
Ach,
don't get fussed. I only thought it might help if you felt the warmth would last the rest of the night.'

Tomorrow, today. They had left the house, had overslept and taken only one cup of coffee each and black—had refused the milk she had offered, had said, ‘We're no longer used to it,' and she had understood that to request such a thing in Paris would have been to tell others one hadn't been in France for very long and definitely draw attention to oneself.

Otto had already left by then, having taken Werner with him. Otto had known she was afraid the detectives would go through Renée's things before leaving the house, but they hadn't. Renée had used Geneviève's bedroom which was on the floor below and across the staircase landing from his. In the autumn of 1940 the girl had come from Strassburg, hadn't known anyone in Kolmar and had needed a place to stay. What else could one have done—told Otto that it wasn't a good idea, that the arrangement was contrary to army rules? Kommandant and secretary living opposite each other, their doors opening in the middle of the night. ‘They had, Otto,' she murmured as if he were there beside her. ‘Moonlight fills that room in summer when the blackout drapes are open as Renée had liked and had lain there all but naked, her nightdress rucked up, the white gauze of the mosquito netting you'd found for us her only defence as you stood watching her sleep, listening to her every breath. Did you see me in her, Otto, the girl I once was? Just what made you stand there so long and at other times?'

St-Cyr had left to interview Victoria Bödicker. Kohler, having taken two thick slices of bread and some Munster, had gone to the Schrijen Works in the repainted, grey-green French Army Citroën front-wheel drive that had been found for them. What remained of their presence in this room was so little, their absence filled her with despair.

‘That notebook, Inspector. That page from which a corner had been …'

Downstairs, down, down their steepness, the front door opened, but she hadn't heard anyone cross the catwalk, hadn't heard a knock or the pull of the bell-chain. ‘Inspector … ?' she managed from the foot of the stairs.

‘My tobacco pouch,' said St-Cyr, affably gesturing an apology. ‘I seem to have forgotten it.'

Though empty.

4

Wehrmacht helmets soaked up sunlight in the eastern watchtower, while polished jackboots squeaked on hard-packed snow. Challenged at the gate, Kohler handed over the blanket pass and his papers, but Jakob Dorsche hadn't come to meet him and that could only mean there had been trouble.

‘
Einen Moment, bitte
, Herr Hauptmann Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter,' grunted the Feldwebel. No youngster, he had seen enough of the Russian front to be ever mindful of it.

The cranking of the field telephone came from the guardhouse. Most of the prisoners on the day shift had now been at work for hours but two lines of waiting details were under guard and probably replacement woodcutters though they carried­ no axes or saws and only miserable bundles tied up with rags. They were
Ostarbeiter
, eastern labourers—Poles and Russians mainly and considered
Untermenschen
(subhuman) by the Nazis.

There had been thousands of Wehrmacht POWs in the camps to which he had been consigned during the rest of that other war. Though it had never been a picnic, and they had often been cold, hungry and definitely starved for female company, there had still been a camaraderie. But here? he had to ask. Here the men just looked gaunt, lonely, forgotten, badly frightened and entirely without hope.

Uncanny as it was, he did sense trouble. It had always been like this behind the wire. A look or gesture—intuitively there would be a collective understanding that serious trouble was afoot and this thought would permeate the camp like wildfire. ‘
C'est une priorité, ein
Grossfahdung
,' he sighed. A high-priority search. Dorsche was busy.

Had the Lagerfeldwebel been told to go through the French POWs' things thoroughly before this
Kripo
got a chance to look at them? Had orders come from Löwe Schrijen via Lageroffizier Rudel, seeing as Rasche would most likely not have wanted it done?

When he returned, the Feldwebel was less than friendly. ‘Herr Kohler, you are to follow me.'

Three men sat in the panelled, memento-decorated office that faced east and was full of the winter's sunlight—Schrijen­, Karl Rudel and one other. None of them were happy and all had been impatiently waiting for him, the coffee in their porcelain cups cooling, the plates of the sliced sweet and the savoury­
Kugelhupf
lonely on a side table where the latest news from the centre of the world was also laid out. The
Berliner Tageblatt­, Zeitung­, Morgenpost
and leading daily,
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung­
.
Das Schwarze Korps
too, the SS newspaper.

Löwe Schrijen did the talking.

‘Well, Kohler, it's kind of you to pay us another visit, but now it's time for a few answers. Was it murder, as my daughter stubbornly believes, or suicide as Karl, here, insists?'

The accent was very much of the Ober-Rhein, the
Deutsch
so fluent he must have used it all his life. ‘Both deaths, Herr Schrijen, or just the one who died but thirty or so steps from your office?'

‘Karl, you were right about him. A real smartass.'

Schrijen had kept his dark blue eyes impassively fixed on this delinquent Kripo. He may have been the son of the firm's founder but nothing had been taken for granted. Having grown up under the Kaiser, Schrijen had seen things change hands at the close of 1918 and then swing back in 1940. A survivor, a realist who had held on to the family firm throughout, he would put its welfare first. The nose was prominent and fleshy, the round, cleanly shaven cheeks ruddy, the hair thin, grey-white and cut as short as peach fuzz, the brow sun- and wind-burnt. A man of the hills and vineyards? wondered Kohler. A good fifty-eight years of age and weighing probably in excess of 130 kilos in blue serge, he filled that chair of his like concrete, the hands big, the wrists thick. A square block with Nazi Party pin and the gut of a Munich brewmaster.

It would be best to apologize but prod him a little, for men like this didn't fool around and had their own agendas. ‘Herr Generaldirektor, my partner and I regret that we haven't yet been able to come to a firm conclusion about either victim. With cases of hanging it's always difficult, but if the Lageroffizier Rudel has ordered Lagerfeldwebel Dorsche to do what I think he has, that can only hinder the investigation and prolong it.'

Liebe Zeit
, Kohler had a tongue after all, thought Schrijen. A peace offering and—or—the threat of a long delay!

A nod so slight it wouldn't normally have been noticed was given to the harried, greying individual in the black suit with matching tie and specs who immediately left the office, probably as quietly and unobtrusively as he'd come into it.

‘Herr Bremer is my chief accountant, Kohler, and especially at times like this, my right hand. Now, please, where were we?'

‘The suicides,' prompted Rudel, the jet-black hair glistening with pomade and combed well back and to the left of that high forty-year-old brow the shrapnel had spared, the eyes dark brown and swift, the fingers long and thin. A Prussian aristocrat? wondered Kohler. Of a ‘good family' anyway.

Schrijen took out a small cigar and paused to light it; Rudel found himself another cigarette and crossed his knees, having to pull the right leg over the other, causing this still standing Kripo, thought Kohler, to glance at the cane—an ice ax,
mein Gott,
that the bastard had to use when walking.

The dark blue pinstripe was Swiss and immaculately tailored, no uniform today, not even a wound badge.

‘Kohler,' hazarded Schrijen, looking up from his desk, ‘Paris tells me you're the realist, St-Cyr the patriotic dreamer. This Works of mine …' He waved the cigar hand to indicate the constant source of the hydrogen sulphide and noise of shuttles, whistle blasts, log shredders and lorries that were doubtless perfume and music to him. ‘It can't stop for a moment, can it? Not for anything. Had it been my Sophie, what would I have done, you're wondering? Certainly the girl's upset and understandably mistaken.
Ach
, who the hell would want to kill her?
Führerin der Frauenschaften, Direktorin der Gemeinschafts-verpflegung und der Winterhilfswerk
. A tireless volunteer in addition to everything she has to do here to fill the shoes of a brother who is in the Services.'

The SS at Natzweiler-Struthof for the last of those, but Leader of the Women's Auxiliaries of the Nazi Party for the other, the Red Cross catering service at the hospital too, and the Winter Help. A busy lady.

Rudel had, of course, heard it all before but had the decency to sympathetically nod, though he kept silent, waiting for his cue no doubt.

‘When my daughter came to me with her request for help with the
Karneval
, Kohler, I had the colonel in and asked if he would agree to free up a few of the men. A day, two days a week—we would find a way to cover their tasks here. Months they've been at it. Months, let me tell you. And now what is he saying? Not one but two murders when even his own detectives, having thoroughly examined both deaths, have concluded otherwise?
Ach
, against stupidity even the gods fight for nothing!'

And a very Germanic saying. ‘Herr Generaldirektor, a moment, please. Am I to understand that early last September your daughter first came to you with the request for help and that you then had to ask Colonel Rasche?'

‘Who is it who stamps the passes and then signs them? Everything has to be done through the Kommandant von Ober-Rhein and, in this case, our Reichsarbeitsdienst.'

The local labour recruiting office Rasche had made no mention of since it had probably not even been asked!

‘I pay the men, of course, and feed and house them as is my duty.'

Still looking puzzled, this Kripo found his little black notebook but had to borrow a pencil from the stein on the desk. ‘I'd best get it straight. Colonel Rasche didn't come to you with the request, you went to him?'

‘He came to see me at my request, of course, but as to the order of things, is not the chain of command necessary at all times? Sophie and her committee had already settled on what they thought best to do, but a formal request could only have come from myself to Colonel Rasche.'

‘And what was his reaction?'

‘Since Gauleiter Wagner had judged their holding a
Karneval
an excellent fund-raising idea, your former commanding officer could but agree to give the necessary permission.'

Having first made damned certain Rasche
would
give his sanction, those ladies on that committee had then known exactly the right buttons to push. Schrijen first, then Wagner, since the former would have insisted on telephoning the Gauleiter, then Rasche, a mere formality even though he had been the start of it all!

‘The French POWs who work here are paid for their labour,' said Rudel, ‘and are treated correctly as is laid out by the Wehrmacht's ordinance that covers the use of prisoner-of-war labour, so you see, Kohler, ultimately it is Colonel Rasche to whom one must go if even incidental labour is to be freed up, no matter how just the cause.'

And no one else was to blame. ‘My partner and I will need to talk to those four men, Generaldirektor, and to the guards who accompanied them on each visit to the
Karneval
site. Your
Werkschutz
too.'

The work-police, and still no mention of the two laboratory assistants, thought Schrijen, or of the
Postzensuren
and other office staff Eugène André Thomas had most certainly come into contact with on a daily basis, but was Kohler keeping that to himself? ‘You and your partner could be here for a very long time,
mein Lieber
. Questioning this one, that one, getting so many conflicting stories, for they'll all conflict, won't they? Men behind barbed wire like to play games to alleviate their boredom, and that is one of them. An answer here, another there and great fun in the confusion created, the testimony of their guards contradicting every one of them because the POWs will have agreed on what to say beforehand. Two suicides, two murders, or one and one, which is it to be?'

Attract the least attention possible. Leave it at suicides and go home smiling. ‘We'll need to interview your son and daughter, Generaldirektor, and to have nothing but your fullest cooperation.'

The
Schweinebulle
had spoken like a man on the way to his
Heldentod
—the hero's death. Paris had said that St-Cyr and Kohler were sticklers for the truth but that if the right means could be found, the Bavarian, being close to home, might wish to pay his ex-wife a visit and be convinced to switch horses. Paris, of course, did not know everything about Herr Kohler, especially the pharmacist's daughter who had nursed him back to health before his tour of duty in Elsass with a bomb-disposal squad. ‘Karl, why not leave us for a little? Come back in a half-hour. If Herr Bremer should cross your path, tell him he won't be needing any of that
Quatsch
that lady pharmacist gives him for the stomach ulcers. She's good, of course, and has her doctorate, having grown up in her father's pharmacy.

‘Some coffee, Herr Kohler? Frau Macher … Frau Macher, refresh this, would you please?' he called out to the secretary in the outer office, his first line of defence. ‘Sit,' he said. ‘A cigarette? How are you getting on at that boardinghouse of the colonel's? Frau Lutze is, I gather, an excellent cook.'

‘An old friend,' said the Chief Inspector of the tobacco pouch he had deliberately forgotten—Yvonne was certain of this. He stood before her in that rumpled brown fedora, threadbare overcoat, prewar trousers and shoes … the right one bearing a split seam and sole and leaking meltwater onto the terra-cotta tiles.

‘Two pairs of socks are also needed, I'm afraid,' she heard him saying, the
Deutsch
without hardly a trace of a French accent. Removing his shoes, he went quickly past her and up the stairs but did he suspect she had just been through their things, had she put them back exactly as they'd been?

He made no sound in a house where sounds always carried: Geneviève running down those stairs to greet Otto during the interwar years when her ‘fabulous uncle' would come from Magdeburg for a visit; Geneviève calling out, ‘
Mutti
, I can see him! He has turned onto the quay and is hurrying. He has
two
suitcases and a big bunch of flowers, has brought me a cockatoo,
Mutti
. A cockatoo!'

Otto, to give him what little due he deserved, had never forgotten the child. Money had come every now and then, money she had hated to receive though necessary.

‘Madame …
Ach
, I would forget French is forbidden. Frau Lutze …'

The Inspector was right behind her. He had come down those old stairs without a sound, had avoided the third step from the first landing, the seventh too, and the one before the last and final step, but as to his having forgotten the ban on French …

‘It's all right. We can speak it behind closed doors if you wish. My daughter …'
Ah,
Sainte Mère
, had he tricked her into saying it?

He waited, the mildly puzzled frown neither demanding answer nor allowing one not to be given.

‘Is away. A student,' she heard herself bleakly saying in
Deutsch
.

‘In Clermont-Ferrand?' he asked pleasantly enough.

‘Her final year.'

He did not say that it was odd the child should have gone to the university from a home like this, he simply nodded as if the information was of polite interest but of no consequence and begged her to get him a little of the colonel's tobacco, if possible.

Intuitively he had sensed that she would not want to do this, that Otto was bound to find out and discover that he had come back to question her in private unless she was very careful and did not spill any or take too much.