Carnival (25 page)

The wind was down, the silence of the carnival absolute. On the ring of keys Hermann had taken from Sophie Schrijen's desk there were those to the executive offices and others in the administration block, but also those to various sheds and storerooms, even one to the garage, no doubt, and those to the houses in town and in the country. And if left once in haste on that desk of her brother's, could they not have been left another time and copied by that combine's assistant machinist so that doors that needed to be opened for trinitrophenol could be, or was her association with Eugène Thomas so trusting she simply let him borrow her keys when needed? Certainly she would miss them, but would she ask Frau Macher if they'd been seen, would she dare to ask that father of hers, since by now she must have realized who had taken them?

Six others, all nearly identical, were to the padlocks on the wagons here, only two of which they had yet been in and yes, Renée Ekkehard must have had a set of her own, though no mention had been made of them by Colonel Rasche. Had he taken them; had her killer?

The bread was hard, coarse, sour, and being dry, rather difficult to swallow. Gripping the chunk between his teeth, he found the appropriate key and, ignoring the Wehrmacht no-entry notice, removed the padlock only to pause, to listen again and to look over a shoulder. The bare branches of the Kastenwald being nearby, one could not help but think of that girl going in there on skis, but had she done so in the afternoon of that Saturday or only after dark, and why, please, had she been out all night, if not to escape her killer or killers?

With the wagon's door tightly closed behind him and one of the full-length, heavily framed mirrors leaning against it for good measure, the coffin screws came undone and its lid was gently drawn halfway back.

‘So that I can use it as a table,' he said. ‘We haven't much time, mademoiselle. I greatly fear we are about to have company.'

Her face was now more livid and swollen, the lips of a darker plum-purple. Decay would be rapid if she was allowed to warm. The blotches would meld and take on iridescent hues, the sprays of petechiae also; the once sea-green eyes that must have been lovely and full of life would soon collapse and drain.

More flecks of gilding and sawdust had fallen into them, and for this he apologized. ‘An autopsy,' he muttered. ‘We absolutely must have one but are being denied it.'

Setting the bread aside, he opened Hermann's little sack and arranged everything on the lid. ‘Boudicca,' he said of the carving. ‘
Bien sûr
, nothing seems new in this world of ours, does it? Stripped of her family's holdings by the Romans, she objected loudly to the loss and was publically flogged naked and forced to watch as her daughters were raped. In rebellion, she rose up to lead most of the Celtic tribes of the British Isles against them. Camulodunum, the Roman capital, fell and was sacked and burned, other hillforts and settlements too, their collaborationist Celts put to the sword, and then Londinium, but in
A.D.
62 she was betrayed, it is said, by one of her own. Rather than suffer capture, she and her daughters took poison. Three females, mademoiselle. The number three just keeps turning up, doesn't it? Three ravens, the three of you on that
Winterhilfswerk
Committee?'

He would give her a moment, would run his eyes down these stained scraps of newspaper Hermann had gathered from the living quarters of those men, would smooth each of them out.

‘As a boy of five I was rather sickly,' he said, for sometimes it helped to recount such things to a victim. ‘Cod-liver oil was of no use, iron tonics neither, and not just the stone-filings from a carpenter's nail. Fifteen francs a bottle my dear papa paid for that stuff. Weeks in bed were prescribed. “He needs rest,” the doctor said, giving my poor mother little to hope for but a lifetime of nursing, and
grand-maman
little patience. “Courage,” she said to
maman
. “Don't flood the house with your tears. The boy can't swim though I've warned him he'd best learn.”

‘She read to me.' He indicated the carving. ‘Of course at such a tender age the word
defilement
meant little, but to be stripped and flogged by an enemy was sufficient for what my grandmother most wanted to implant. That wherever oppression exists, there will be those who rise up against it.
Boudicca
is from the Celtic word
bouda
, meaning
victory
, mademoiselle. In English, the equivalent name is, of course, Victoria. Many of those from Lille, and from Brittany too, have Celtic/Gallic ancestors. Was it the assistant machinist who carved this as he did the buttons for the waistcoat the colonel was having made? A boar, a stag, a salmon … these too.'

He set Thomas's wedding ring and one of the spoons down on the lid. ‘Let's admit that this artist and artisan remembered the centuries of his ancestors, but what is more important, did so deliberately and not just to improve the lives of his comrades. And as to his having instructed you in such things, though you loved the woods, you constantly felt a forbidding presence, and in this the colonel was, I believe, telling us the truth.'

Three ravens, three crows … The Phantom Queen.

‘The supreme goddess of all that is perverse and horrible amongst the powers of the supernatural. My second wife was a Breton and at times very superstitious, as are many Bretons.'

Morr'igan …

‘And Badhbh, the Crow-Raven, and Nemhain, that of Frenzy and Panic. There are always the three, though really they are but one and the same.'

Morr'igan. But showing herself as three solitary ravens or crows.

‘Was it that assistant machinist who pumped you full of Celtic mythology? More importantly, please, why did he do so? Admit it, you were desperately afraid, mademoiselle. You knew that what you and the other two were involved in could only end in disaster, but did he and the others then find out and plan to use it for themselves?'

Sophie was being followed. …

‘That father of hers learned what the three of you were up to, didn't he? That is why those two detectives of the colonel's came and took my partner.'

But did Colonel Rasche also find out? Did Werner and Yvonne? A
Winterhilfswerk
fête, a little
Karneval
of our own? Games of chance, target shooting and a
Jeu de massacre?
A Bottle Fish …

The carving of the chariot and its rider had a short round peg under it and could not be set quite upright. ‘My partner and I haven't had a chance to discuss things thoroughly, mademoiselle. There are still things he knows that I don't; those that I do, and he doesn't.'

Opening the cutthroat which must have come from that barbershop for it was every bit the same, he flashed its blade and asked, ‘Did you know of this? Come, come, you weren't exactly the blithe spirit you wanted others to perceive.'

Staring at the ceiling, surrounded by hideously garish masks, murals and distorting mirrors, she lay silent.

He'd sigh, then, thought St-Cyr, and say, ‘You didn't know about this razor, did you? You're as shocked as I am that those five men for whom you and Victoria and Sophie would risk so much, should in turn contemplate betraying you with something like this. Admit it, mademoiselle, of all of those five men, Eugène Thomas had the best chance of taking it, since he had the confidence of Sophie Schrijen.'

The Primastella's engine didn't idle well. Each time the engine faltered, the beams from its headlamps would dim and a breath would be held, but then the damned things would brighten.

‘You should have that looked at,' said Kohler. Caught in the light, he waited, facing them, and as they advanced, their shadows were thrown ahead of them: pulled-down fedoras first and then the rest; Gauloises bleues being sucked on, tobacco smoke drifting into the cold night air, the one much taller, bigger in every way than the other who was to the right.
‘Ach
, can't we talk this over?'

They hesitated. A split second passed, but on they came and well apart. The tall one would start it, the shorter one would wait but momentarily. Breath billowed—his own. Light from the car was blinding him. Silent still, they drew closer. Both cudgels would now be raised. The tall one would hit first and high—the left shoulder or forearm. The other one would try for the back of the right calf or knee. They would want him to fall over.

The headlamps dimmed, the engine coughed. Kohler lunged at the tall one, grabbed the cudgel in mid-stroke, felt the jar of it, the pain, found himself slipping, losing balance as he cried out. Over and over they rolled, fists flailing, hands grabbing, forehead trying to smash him and smash him. The bastard was too strong, too heavy. An ear was bitten, eyes were gouged, blood tasted, a hand thrust under a bristled chin to force the head to stop butting him, the other one's truncheon glancing off a shoulder. Now his back was being clobbered and instinctively each time it was hit, it arched, causing him to lose his grip.

From one side of the road to the other, they rolled, grabbing, choking, punching, struggling, the tall one trying desperately to tear the shoelace from around his throat but the cord cut too deeply.

Knees jammed hard against the son of a bitch's back, Kohler spat hard and tried to avoid the other one's truncheon, had best kill this one. Couldn't avoid it.
Verdammt!

‘Don't!' yelled Hervé Paulus, backing away a little. ‘Serge, I'll try to get him to stop.'

Arms flailed, eyes bulged, the tall one's struggling began to slacken … ‘Toss that thing of yours away. Don't and I really will kill him.'

‘Serge …' hazarded the shorter one, pitching the truncheon to the road but not far enough.

‘Your gun,' managed Kohler, catching ragged breaths as the weapon bounced and skidded to the edge of the road but didn't bury itself in the snow like it should have. ‘Now go and put your hands flat on the bonnet of the car. Stand with your back to us.'

They weren't done with Kohler, swore Hervé Paulus. Serge would get his breath back and come at him when he least expected it. And then Kohler would get a fistful of handcuffs in the mouth. They would both fall on him and beat him senseless.

Coughing, his chest heaving, Serge Deiss toppled over and lay there repeatedly flexing himself into the fetal position as he clawed at his throat. Blood from his right ear stained the snow and oh for sure, it wasn't good, that ear, thought Kohler. They would really hate him now, these two, the Kolmar SS as well and even Kramer at Natzweiler-Struthof.

The flame of the lantern stirred but otherwise there wasn't a sound. Though he listened hard, St-Cyr swore he could hear nothing. The wagon was indeed like an ancient, albeit garishly decorated and cluttered tomb—a long barrow of its own, he thought, remembering the Gallic and pre-Gallic tumuli and standing stones of the Quiberon Peninsula and the Morbihan in Brittany.

‘
Ah,
bon
, mademoiselle, a crudely fashioned coat-hood with its insulation of daily newspapers. Inoffensive and logical enough under cursory examination, nor does it matter particularly if the hood was that of Eugène Thomas instead of one of the others, but did he often go into Sophie Schrijen's office? Isn't that where he first discovered these newspapers? “Karen is at the age where she desires children.” Loves Wagner, mademoiselle? “Beate is blonde.” Likes
Das Rheingold
and
Die Walküre
, from Wagner's magnificent tetralogy,
Der Ring des Nibelungen
? Wants a man, a lover who will appreciate the same? “Guidance” is needed. In each of these personal messages it's more or less the same, yet they are separated by many others and by time and location from city to city forcing me to ask, Is this how you three were contacted?'

She gave no answer. Quickly he glanced over the lid of the coffin. The carving was to the left, then the personals columns and that partly masticated papier-mâché ball. The phosphorescent swastika button was next, after it the desperate bead of solder Hermann had found and the weeks and months of secrecy and planning it must imply.

Spread open at its torn page, the school notebook of Victoria Bödicker made him murmur. ‘
Bouda
, Munich, the
Münchner Neueste Nachrichten
and freedom.'

Again St-Cyr read the chemical equations for viscose rayon and the single formula for picric acid. ‘It was Raymond Maillotte who wrote this last, wasn't it? He came into the lab to lean over Eugène Thomas and remind him of it. Only he and Thomas had passes to be there.'

Again she offered nothing. ‘There are also these,' he said. ‘The tip of the glass ampoule that cut my partner's finger and the earring that was taken from that biscuit tin, most probably to distract you. And then, there are these.'

He held up the three delicately stemmed liqueur glasses, but did not ask who had sat down beside her in that other wagon. Instead he said, ‘Those men were planning a break-out, mademoiselle, but for some reason Eugène Thomas refused to do what they had asked of him which is unfortunate, for they could not have known of the pistol Sophie Schirijen keeps in the glove compartment of her brother's car when that one is not around, and yes, she would not have told anyone of it, not when desperately afraid for her life. Which leaves us with the cutthroat, doesn't it? And an explosion. A big one.'

Frau Oberkircher's suitcase had never been much, yet as he took it from the Primastella, Kohler remembered he had gotten such a kick out of talking to her on the train. It had really felt like coming home, like it used to be.

And now? he wondered as he set the case on the bonnet. ‘Now what have you two done to her, a war widow well into her sixties?'

‘Contraband,' spat Hervé Paulus. ‘She was planning to sell them on the black market.'