Carnival (36 page)

‘Had the best of reasons for wanting that girl dead,' said the chief inspector sadly. ‘A daughter in Clermont-Ferrand. One of the
Mischlinge
.'

‘Then why call us in?'

‘If not knowing we'd be certain to point the finger at Alain Schrijen.'

‘Since that one had every reason as well,' sighed Herr Kohler, ‘but wouldn't have dared to do it at the camp or ski lodge, not the Kommandant's personal secretary.'

‘And knowing, too, Hermann, that Alain's father had every reason to want her silenced, but quietly.'

And Sophie? wondered Victoria. Did these two not consider that Sophie might have done it? Sophie who had come to realize that her father must have learned of what his daughter and her committee had really been up to?

‘Mademoiselle, when I went through Eugène Thomas's pockets, I found a bankroll of four hundred and seventy-one Lagermark.'

‘They'd not have been of any use outside the
Arbeitslager
,' muttered Herr Kohler.

‘But they were, Inspectors. You see, there are among Colmar's tradespeople, some who will accept Lagergeld.
Bien sûr
, it's risky and they try to do it as unobtrusively as possible, but still …'

‘Then the money wasn't to pay Martin Caroff for crafting the wedding ring Thomas wore?' asked the chief inspector.

She could not smile though she wanted to. ‘It was for toothbrushes, tooth powder, hair combs, medicines and other personal items at the pharmacy.'

‘Lucie Ferber, Louis. I might have known.'

Hermann's pharmacist, but now was not the time to console him. ‘And the two rose-coloured buttons that were torn from Mademoiselle Ekkehard's dress last August?'

‘Eugène found them in our field office and put them in the fruit jar with the others. I … I then gave them to Sophie who always kept them close as a reminder of what had happened. She would have been beside herself with grief at Eugène's death. He was like a brother should have been to her. Always kind, always helpful …'

‘Would she have had to see his body, mademoiselle?' asked Herr Kohler.

‘But why?'

‘Tell her, Louis.'

‘
Ah,
bon
. Because I then found those buttons in his pockets.'

‘But after Rasche had had him laid out and had gone through the damned things himself,' said Herr Kohler.

‘He having called Paris, she then wanted us to look a little closer at things, mademoiselle.'

‘But was Thomas murdered, Louis?'

It would not hurt to tell them, thought Victoria. ‘As a fire warden, a
Luftschutzfeldwebel
, Inspectors, Werner Lutze can come and go at the Textilfabrikschrijen any time he likes and has a blanket pass for just such visits.'

‘Whereas you have none,' said the chief inspector.

‘That is correct.'

‘Then what about that scrap of notebook paper, Louis?'

‘
Ah,
bon
. Your notebook, mademoiselle. Trace for us, please, how it came to have chemical equations for the viscose process written across the corner of an otherwise empty page and then—'

‘The formula for picric acid?' she asked.

‘A yellow dye,' said Herr Kohler blandly.

This could not be avoided. ‘When Sophie decided that Renée and myself should serve on her
Winterhilfswerk
Committee, she asked Renée to find out what she could of my background and I, learning of this, told Renée to take the notebook to her. But … but that was in the late spring of 1941. That is how long I've been on her committee.'

‘But did her father see it then?' asked St-Cyr.

‘He must have, Louis. That's why his daughter asked for it. Löwe Schrijen told me he hadn't approved of his daughter's choice.'

‘Inspectors, I've known Sophie for years, through the bookshop. She had no need to find out anything about me, and didn't let her father stop her from asking me to join her committee.'

‘And when was it written in by others?' asked St-Cyr.

‘Eugène apologized for having done that. Sophie can sometimes be very impulsive. You've seen how she is. He had been teaching her everything he could about the viscose process—she was new to it all in that spring of '41. They needed a bit of paper and Sophie had my notebook in hand and thrust it at him, he then jotting down the sequence of equations for her as they went over them.'

And weren't the simplest of explanations often the most elusive? ‘And the formula for trinitrophenol?' asked St-Cyr.

‘That was jotted down much later. About a week after Renée had come back from the party, I noticed that the notebook was again missing. I really didn't know what to think. It wasn't like Renée to have taken anything of mine. She was distraught and badly frightened. Herr Lutze … I did wonder if he might have taken it, for he'd come that week to check the house and shop for the fire-prevention measures in case of an air raid, but I had stayed with him every step of the way because he had asked it of me.'

‘And Sophie?' asked Herr Kohler.

‘Was keeping her distance.'

‘And then?' asked Louis gently.

‘There it was. I went through it page by page. Someone had written the formula for trinitrophenol under the equations. Raymond … I was certain it must have been Raymond Maillotte.'

‘And a warning to our second victim to cooperate with his combine or else, Louis, but did Löwe Schrijen then get another look at it?'

‘He … he might have,' said Victoria. ‘I … I really don't know, nor why Sophie couldn't have simply asked me for it herself that second time.'

She hadn't because her father
had
asked her for it again, said Kohler silently, and Renée Ekkehard must have inadvertently let Rasche know of the interest. ‘Mademoiselle, I think you know very well why Sophie didn't.'

Raymond and a highly unstable and very violent explosive—she would have to tell them, thought Victoria, since St-Cyr had gone through Renée's bedroom with her. ‘In her haste to join the other students in Clermont-Ferrand before the Blitzkrieg of 1940, Geneviève Lutze left some of her chemistry textbooks behind. One of them gave me the formulas. Renée …'

‘Was the Mademoiselle Ekkehard with you at the time?' asked St-Cyr.

‘It would not have mattered, not in the state she was. Outside of her room, Renée could barely control her despair, alone with Sophie or myself, or both of us, she invariably broke down.'

And Yvonne Lutze must have known of it, and of the formulas, thought St-Cyr.

‘Wasn't Sophie keeping her distance by then?' asked Hermann.

‘She
was
. She would, in any case, have thought of it only as a dye stuff, but what, please, were Martin and Gérard and the others planning? To escape? If so, then why would they have condemned Eugène to death?'

‘That's something we've yet to answer,' muttered Herr Kohler, ‘but if what you say is true, Colonel Rasche must have learned of Löwe Schrijen's interest and decided that he had better have another look at that notebook himself, and when Yvonne Lutze got it for him, he tore the corner off that page and left it for us. I might have known, Louis!'

‘Our second victim, Hermann. Hanged with full pockets and a fisherman's knot!'

South of Sélestat, and now within twenty kilometres of Kolmar, the snowfall suddenly ceased. One minute it was there and comforting, felt Victoria, the next it had vanished and with it all thought of the freedom that must someday come. On the road ahead the snow was rutted, hard-packed and had been glazed over by earlier traffic. Herr Kohler was driving, his greatcoat still wrapped about her, and it was warm and kind of him, but St-Cyr was constantly nervous. Every time the car skidded, he flinched, she did too, there really being very little room to spare and she keeping herself as far from Herr Kohler as possible for fear of breaking one of the ampoules. Every time the car speeded up, the chief inspector would suck in an impatient breath at such a terrible driver, yet still his inquisition of her hadn't let up.

‘This fête, mademoiselle,' he asked. ‘Were any of those men who helped the three of you to have run the booths?'

Model prisoners were always considered useful by the Nazis as examples to others, especially visiting delegates from the Red Cross and other organizations. Seldom, if ever, though, were
Arbeitslagern
visited by them, in part because the numbers of men were much greater in the other camps. ‘Sophie did ask Colonel Rasche if he would allow such a thing, but he flatly refused. “The security alone would be far too tight,” he said, “with the Gauleiter Wagner officiating at the opening.”'

‘And with Löwe Schrijen there too, Louis, and himself.'

‘And Kommandant Zill, Hermann, and the Schutzhaftlagerführer Kramer.'

‘One happy little gathering,' said Herr Kohler, speeding up again as they entered the Forêt de Colmar, the Kolmarwald.

She had best tell them something, felt Victoria, so as to give the lie of cooperating while holding back what couldn't be revealed. ‘The fête is to be held in what we used to call
place
de la Cathédrale. Since the
Polizeikommandantur
is right there, and it would be good for relations with the public, the colonel was going to let some of the staff help out.'

‘Diess and Paulus?' asked Herr Kohler sharply.

‘Why, yes, their … their names were on the list he had drawn up. The Gauleiter Wagner and Herr Schrijen are to light the ceremonial torches and then he and Herr Schrijen and the colonel are to have a game of
Jeu de massacre
, after which they will spin the Wheel of Fortune.'

‘As will Zill and Kramer, Louis. Those torches, mademoiselle. Have they already been made?'

‘Gérard …'

Softly he swore, but did not slow the car, simply said, ‘
Verglas
, Louis.'

Black ice lay beneath the snow, the tree trunks dark and crowding closely. If they went off the road, could she try to get away long enough to … ‘Gérard and … and Raymond looked after those,' she said. ‘Beeswax and tallow Herr Lutze found for us; dried rushes and sticks they had gathered in the Kastenwald and had tied into bundles with vine-cuttings Sophie had brought from the Schrijen vineyards. The torches are almost the length of the wagon they are stored in.'

‘And behind them, Louis, pyramids of papier-mâché balls.'

‘Why, yes, and … and charcoal braziers at which to warm the hands before throwing them.'

‘They thought of everything, didn't they, Louis? Packets of nails as prizes. Lots of them. Teddy bears too, and bottles of wine.'

‘And each packet tied with a bowstring knot, Hermann, some of them done by the colonel himself. It was perfect, wasn't it?
Mon Dieu
, who would have suspected there would be any problem?'

‘Musicians, Louis. Tambourines.'

‘Recorders and drums,' Victoria heard herself saying hollowly.

‘Everything that would be needed to distract them,' said Herr Kohler, the car now skidding round and round, they holding on tightly and gasping as lights ahead were flung over the road, the branches of the trees now in shadow, now not.

A horse-drawn wagon had been hit by the first of the lorries; the second completing the destruction. Dead, one of the horses lay entangled in its harness, the other neighing in terror, poor thing, and trying to get up. Firewood logs, destined for Sélestat, were scattered everywhere, the wagon now matchwood. Two of its wheels protruded from the edge of the forest, a third was propped against one of the lorries whose left front tyre was flat, and whose headlamps, bonnet and windscreen had been smashed. There were bandaged SS heads, a broken arm …

‘No one's happy, Louis,' said Herr Kohler, his gaze, like hers and the chief inspector's, fixed on the wreckage. Perhaps two hundred metres separated them from the SS, perhaps a little more, the Citroën having miraculously turned to face them.

Caught in one of the floodlights, the driver of the wagon did not look well. Slumped against the back right tyre of the other lorry, he must have broken something too. A leg? she wondered. One of the SS trained a Schmeisser on him. Others had begun to clear the road but had stopped to take note of their arrival and to await further orders. Still others had gone into the forest to search for someone.

‘I'll deal with it, Louis. Stay here and that's an order.'

‘I'll just get behind the wheel again.'

‘Don't. The least little thing could set them off.'

He got out of the car, no coat, only a rumpled grey suit and that fedora of his to ward off the cold. He walked toward the horse that kept trying to get up and, though Schmeissers and Bergmanns and pistols were anxiously touched as he took out his own pistol, put an end to the misery, the shot crashing and rolling over them, St-Cyr sucking in a breath and still concentrating on his partner, willing him to remain safe? wondered Victoria.

Alain Schrijen was standing next to the Obersturmführer Meyer. At a sharp command from the latter, her handbag, coat, scarf and hat were brought from the first lorry and given to Herr Meyer, her scarf accidentally falling at his feet to be left lying in the road.

‘Mademoiselle …' began St-Cyr, only to feel her hand grip his own.

10

From the depths of the woods came the cry of, ‘
Halt!
' and then a burst of firing, from the road, a stillness as every man paused in what he was doing and the driver of the wagon looked up with hesitation at the man who was guarding him. Was there nothing he could do to stop the madness? wondered Kohler.

Dragged to his feet, forced to run on that bad leg, the wagon driver stumbled and lay prostrate. ‘My son …' he babbled. ‘My Étienne …'

Struck in the back by the Schmeisser's fire, he arched his spine, stiffly flung out his arms, coughed blood, clutched snow and lay still.

Meyer flung his cigarette away in disgust. ‘These black marketeers, Kohler. They will never learn.'

The urge to throw up was there but wouldn't be wise. Maybe Meyer was forty years old, maybe ten years younger than the grey and stubbled driver of the wagon, but one thing was certain. As Head of the Political Department at Natzweiler-Struthof, he was independent of the camp administration and considered a law unto himself. Interrogations were always overseen and often personally conducted by Meyer. Hence he'd been on the road to the Textilfabrikschrijen not just to catch up with them but to interrogate Martin Caroff and the others and to take them back with him. Hence the hurry too. Had Deiss and Paulus sent him a little something?

They must have, hence Alain Schrijen's helpless look, the lamb too, and ready for the slaughter if necessary, and Meyer taking in the two of them at a glance before saying, ‘That woman in your car, Kohler, is wanted for further questioning.'

‘She doesn't know anything. She's just a bookseller who once a month is allowed to visit a sick mother.'

‘Then why did you bring her to Natzweiler-Struthof?'

‘To hear what this one has to say about his fiancée.'

Meyer didn't start shrieking, he simply smirked. ‘Really, I must insist, Herr Hauptmann der Kriminalpolizei. You see, we feel she has been a party to top secret information and therefore cannot be allowed to leave the camp.'

‘She's with us. You don't need to worry.'

‘If she knows nothing, her conscience is clear.'

Victoria Bödicker's coat, hat and handbag were thrust at Alain Schrijen, the boy, the young man startled and now uncomfortably looking off toward the Citroën, for of course she knew far more than she was letting on and Alain Schrijen knew it too, but also what he had kept from this one when questioned himself at the camp, otherwise the whole can of worms would have had to be opened.

‘Untersturmführer, I believe I gave you an order,' said Meyer. ‘Please see that it is carried out.'

‘My scarf …' blurted Victoria helplessly.

She had every reason to be sickened, felt St-Cyr. The scarf still lay at the Obersturmführer's feet but now not only was Alain Schrijen coming toward them, others of the SS were dragging the body of a teenaged boy out to the road.

‘Mademoiselle, was there anything in that handbag of yours that you wouldn't have wanted Herr Meyer to find?'

‘I … I'm trying to think.'

‘Your papers … There wasn't anything wrong with them, was there?'

‘Why should there have been?'

‘Please just answer.'

‘None, then. My compact, it … it has a small mirror.'

‘Which could have been used to see if anyone was following you—that is what he can and will claim.'

‘My cigarette case. It's of silver and could have been used for the same purpose, I suppose.'

‘Given to you by whom? Come, come, mademoiselle, before Alain Schrijen reaches us, it's best you confide everything.'

‘Blaise Oberkircher gave it to me on my birthday. Its … its inscription reads, “Victoria, our traverse has only begun.” And … and then there is “with much love” and his full name and the date, “27 May 1939.”'

The inscription wasn't good and she knew it and need not be reminded. ‘A lipstick?' he asked. Schrijen, though heading straight for them, seemed uncertain, his stride not the usual for an SS with more than enough support behind him.

Tersely the chief inspector repeated the question, but why had he to persist? ‘A lipstick, no. At least, I don't think there was one.'

‘You seldom use it,' he muttered, reminding her that he never forgot a thing and that Renée's farewell note had been written in lipstick. ‘Anything else?'

‘An Opinel. Ah, no, I'd lost that. I'd set it down when we were last making up the packets of nails and … and forgot I'd put it on the table.'

‘In the wagon that was used as a field office?'

‘
Oui
. It … it was Mother's and had been in our kitchen for years.'

Hermann had found just such a knife in the trunk from which the rope had come that had been used to hang Renée Ekkehard. ‘The colonel, mademoiselle, could he have taken it?'

‘Renée and Colonel Rasche had been tying the packets. Sophie and I had been counting them.'

‘And Eugène Thomas?'

‘Was standing at the drawing table with Raymond Maillotte. They'd been going over the schedules. Eugène had turned to ask Sophie something, but … but then didn't. He … he just gave me the oddest of looks and turned quickly back to the table.'

Having seen Sophie Schrijen or the colonel pocket the knife, or had either of them? ‘And when was this? Come, come, mademoiselle. We haven't much time.'

‘Before Christmas. A week, I think, or ten days. I … I can't remember.'

Because you don't care to? he wanted to demand, but asked, ‘Well after the party?'

‘Yes.'

‘Anything else? Women's handbags invariably contain countless items yet you've had trouble mentioning three.'

‘Some sticking plasters. I always try to carry a few, though one can't buy them easily now. Before the war, I used to help Mother parcel books in the evening to take to the post the next day. That brown paper we used was always sharp. I … I often cut myself.'

A creature of habit who has an answer for everything if pressed—was that how she was? Hermann had, of course, found a used sticking plaster in the drawer of Alain Schrijen's desk, in the only corner his sister had set aside for herself, and Hermann had cut himself on the spine of an ampoule while searching through the jewellery.

‘Matches?' asked St-Cyr as Alain reached the car.

‘Yes! But … but I'd no cigarettes and don't use them often. Only when I …'
Ah,
Sainte Mère
, why had she let him make her say it? ‘Only when I feel the need.'

Cigarette ashes had been found on a corner of the tin trunk that the killer and Renée Ekkehard had sat on. ‘It's stuck, Untersturmführer,' said St-Cyr of his side windscreen. ‘
Ein Moment, bitte
.

‘Photographs?' he asked her.

‘I … I can't remember.'

‘Not even one of Claudette Oberkircher's son?'

Would that, too, be used to condemn her? ‘Of Blaise, yes. In uniform, but … but also the telegram Claudette received. It was she who came to tell me of our loss.'

Meyer was far from happy and could hardly wait until Alain Schrijen was out of earshot.

‘Kohler,' he shouted, jerking up on the toes of his jackboots for emphasis, ‘what has been going on at the Textilfabrikschrijen of that one's father? Kommandant Rasche asks Section IV in Paris for you and that French
Schweinebulle
to investigate what are clearly suicides? Prisoners are being given unheard of freedoms without proper security clearances and now … now those same men are being held in
Straf
?
Straf
, Kohler! And I receive no official notification of this and no request for any such clearance but must learn of it from Kriminalinspektor Serge Deiss and Kriminaloberassistent Hervé Paulus? Seasoned detectives who investigated the deaths and concluded they were suicides? Detectives, Kohler, who had advised Colonel Rasche of this very fact and who, I must add, you saw fit to nearly beat to death!'

‘It was all a misunderstanding, Obersturmführer. Deiss and Paulus mistook me for someone else. I simply defended myself—you'd have done the same. Finally I was able to convince them to listen.
Ach
, they even apologized for the mistake, as I did too, of course.'

And trust Kohler to try to lie his way out of it! ‘Deiss believes that bookseller of yours was also involved in highly illegal activities. That is the reason—the very reason, let me tell you—why the Untersturmfuhrer Schrijen's father had them follow her.'

And not his daughter Sophie, eh, which could only mean Deiss and Paulus had been bought off by Löwe Schrijen but then … why then they had let Meyer know of the men in
Straf
just to cover their own asses in case needed! ‘Look, at present my partner and I have to take things a step at a time. Berlin …'

He'd teach Kohler not to shoot good guard dogs but to execute
N und Ns
. ‘Berlin, Kohler? Berlin has insisted that the matter be settled. The men in
Straf
are to be given reinforced interrogations after which the Untersturmführer Schrijen is to be allowed to take the body of his fiancée home. A corpse, I might add, Kohler, that Kommandant Rasche clings to for highly dubious reasons, even to sitting with her out at that carnival, thinking he was alone and not being watched by others.'

By Deiss and Paulus, but had Rasche been blind to their presence, or had he damned well known of it?

He'd known. He must have. Hence his call to Paris-Central.

‘A hearse has been arranged to take the body to the station, Kohler, at 1000 hours. We are to be the guard of honour at the funeral.'

‘You think of everything, Obersturmführer. I'm sure the boy and his father and sister will be grateful.'

‘As will the Gauleiter Wagner,
mein lieber Detektiv
. The very one who personally requested that I form the guard, and who is to attend the funeral himself along with Colonel Rasche, of course. Kommandant Zill, Schutzhaftlagerführer Kramer and Frau Kramer will also attend.'

Every seat taken and still no mention of Renée Ekkehard's family. ‘When?'

‘The day after tomorrow.'

Friday, 12 February. Even a blizzard wouldn't stop them.

‘In Strassburg Cathedral, Kohler. After which the body is to be cremated.'

With a tired but dismissive wave, Kohler left the bastard. It would be the longest walk ever to get to that car and Louis. Meyer was going to have them killed. Berlin must have ordered it. Eliminate Kohler and St-Cyr, get rid of the Bödicker woman. Silence them, but first find out what's been going on. Once they got to the Schrijen Works, Meyer would soon pry answers from those boys in
Straf
. If not one, two would confess, or three. Not only had they planned to escape, they'd factored in the perfect assassination of the Gauleiter Wagner and all those who were to be with him. Nearby citizens too. Men, women and children.

Rasche would have to admit to having inadvertently assisted the
Winterhilfswerk
Committee; Löwe Schrijen to having harboured a daughter who was one of the
Banditen
, a
résistante
.

They'd all be taken to the quarry. Meyer hadn't just brought the honour guard along for Renée Ekkehard's funeral, he had brought enough men to take care of everything.

When Kohler reached the car and opened the door, he found his greatcoat neatly folded on the driver's seat. No one said a thing. Alain Schrijen, sitting behind her, had a pistol jammed against the back of Victoria Bödicker's head. ‘Louis, Meyer doesn't know damn all yet but thinks that boy in the back needs a little help and is willing to go that far, even to giving him the task of making sure we follow them. Trouble is, what's going to happen when he does find out?'

‘Hermann, just hand Herr Schrijen your gun and get in.'

‘Or he'll blow her brains out and shatter the windscreen?
Jésus, merde alors, mon vieux
, hasn't he realized we're all he's got? Can't he see that if he kills Victoria, he has to kill us and then he and that father of his will have no one? The sister too? Not Deiss and Paulus, and certainly not Meyer or Kramer or the Kommandant Zill.'

‘Monsieur,' said Louis, ‘those men in
Straf
were planning to escape on 6 March.'

‘The fête … ' gasped Victoria, wincing as the muzzle of Alain's pistol was pressed harder against the back of her head.

‘They'd stolen a cutthroat,' said Kohler.

‘And had planned, I think, to cut his sister's throat,
mon vieux
. You see, monsieur …'

‘It's Untersturmführer, damn you!'

‘
Ach
, one forgets the little things, doesn't one, Hermann?'

‘Just tell him, Louis.'

One by one, on the road ahead, the floodlights were being extinguished as the SS prepared to leave. ‘You see, Untersturmführer, Eugène Thomas was close to your sister. He had, I'm certain, become her trusted friend. She, in turn, genuinely wished to make his life easier and had gone so far as to let him read his mail before the censors in the office got at it. This had to have happened after hours, but Thomas often worked late, as did your sister. She by choice perhaps, he out of necessity, but also to avoid the cramped living quarters and close company of his fellow prisoners. At times he would go into your former office to discuss plans for the carnival with your sister, or some problem with the Works. More often, the two must have met in the laboratory where it was safest for them to have been seen together.'

‘Sophie couldn't stand to have Eugène being hurt by the constant teasing,' said Victoria, ‘and by a censor who wanted only to get back at us French, but if he read his mail—and please, I was not aware of this—didn't the men of his combine know of it? Surely he must have told them?'