Clandestine (41 page)

Dropping the butt, Ludin lit another. ‘A buried river.'

‘The sewers and a tannery,' said Kleiber, having made the mother kneel, the muzzle of his pistol now pressed to the back of her neck.

‘To the east of us a little,' said the interpreter. ‘There are several just off the rue des Gobelins. Ask the
flics
to show you.'

The tannery was in the Parisian usual, how could it have been otherwise? felt Kohler, uneasy at the thought of this warren of butt-to-butt, corner-to-corner, courtyard-to-courtyard buildings, some ancient, others not quite but all pinch-penny and needing repairs. Towering over it all was a nearby tenement from whose upper-storey­ windows possible accomplices could look down on everything, while against the sky the oft-struggling forest of rusty metal chimney pipes from the ateliers and small-scale factories below sought relief.

Otherwise, the whole damned area had fallen silent, Kleiber having readied the troops.

Number 17's courtyard ran straight in and south from its iron-barred, padlocked gate. A hexagonal, grey-stone tower was at the nearest corner of what had once been
la maison de la reine blanche
, but it didn't look inviting.

‘Ah mon Dieu, mon vieux,'
said Louis, ‘that tower simply holds the staircase to the first and second storeys and those attic dormers. That's why there aren't any windows. The courtyard does, however, if I remember it correctly, take an abrupt turn to the right.'

Trust Louis to have said it but not, ‘And out of sight.'

‘
Ah oui
, it ends in a cul-de-sac where there is, indeed, a manhole cover, but also iron-barred windows and locked doors. That's where, on 13 June 1935, I was …'

‘Later, Louis. Later. Colonel, there are still far too many avenues of escape, not just the sewers.'

‘Is that cowardice I'm hearing?' asked Kleiber, checking to see that all were finally in place. ‘If so, I can only warn you.'

Probably never having ridden in a car before, the woman's daughter had been ordered into the back of the tourer and was now too afraid to even look out its side windows. ‘She knows she lied, Louis, but given the way I'm feeling, there could well be an element of truth.'

‘Let's let them go ahead. We have to talk, and the sooner the better.'

‘There isn't time. Ludin's ordered me to stick close to Kleiber, and has already made certain Oona and Giselle will be in Drancy and on their way to Mauthausen tomorrow at 0500 hours. I could have stopped it, Louis. I didn't and am hating myself.'

‘And for that Anna-Marie would thank you.'

‘You
did
meet?'

‘Have a whiff of this but don't let any of them see you.'

His tobacco pouch, but the lock on that gate had been cut and the rush was on, the entrance to that former mansion being given just enough plastic to lift away the ornate bronze doors of antiquity.

Down in the cellars, six plain wooden chairs stood in a semicircle facing a single one. Brimful, and reeking of sodium sulphide and hydrated lime, two of the vats that had been sunk into the floor were on either side of that chair, and from the wooden rods that lay end-to-end across them were steeping cowhides that when lifted, looked as if things had just begun.

Effluent would run along the drain that led to a manhole next to the far wall. Elsewhere the vats were empty.

It was Kleiber who found the blindfold and gag that had been cut away, Ludin who noted that beside an outermost chair in that semicircle, whoever had sat in it must have been wearing mud-caked boots.

‘Ach, Kriminalrat,'
said Kleiber, ‘there is also the note you insisted be sewn into the turn-ups of Oenen's trousers in spite of my having definitely told you not to do such a thing.'

Scrapings from hides lay about, wooden barrows, too, one of which looked oddly out of place and as if, in spite of the tannery's having been closed, it had recently been used.

So, too, an oil can and its wick.

‘Louis, I wish our Anna-Marie was here to tell us what's different.'

‘These cowhides are mildewed.'

Sounds came from the art gallery above and then the sounds didn't, thought Anna-Marie. The voices were in Deutsch and French and accompanied by footsteps, and always there was this desperate need to listen should any be on the stairs to these cellars. Yet there was also this equally desperate need for haste when apparently none could be taken.

Emmi was among those in the gallery; Emmi who had found the contact who had brought them here, yet to the pencil and tracing paper there was but total patience, for no line, letter or shading could be out of place or overlooked.

Monsieur Auget, for that was the name he had given, had placed the letter from Kaltenbrunner on the light table and had fixed the tracing paper firmly above the stamp mark of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt­. Later he would make a woodcut or rubber stamp of it, but for now the tracing paper copy would have to do.

The Galerie Dumail, formerly that of its original owner but now run by his assistant, was but one of several scattered amongst the antiquarian bookshops of the rue Guénégaud. A favourite haunt of the Occupier, as were those on the rue Mazarine off which this street ran, the quartier de Saint-Germain-des-Prés readily confronted­ one with its history. La Monnaie, the Mint, was just across the street. ‘And handy,' Monsieur Auget had said. ‘Skilled engravers, as I was myself until a year-and-a-half ago, but those people wouldn't dare do work like this, would they? Instead, it's been left to myself to whom Maréchal Pétain himself pinned this in that other war.'

The Médaille Militaire.

‘But in this one with the defeat, he has had no need of me.'

Shoving his eyeglasses up to perch precariously on his brow, he said, ‘Now stop watching what I've been doing. Look away and think of something vastly different. A piglet or a chicken. Describe it to yourself in detail. That little fellow isn't just greedily suckling, squeezed as he is amongst his brothers and sisters. He's dug his hind legs into the straw and is pressing them firmly against the floor so as to get an even more possessive grip.'

Arie would have said, ‘I was thinking of a goat.'

He kissed his fingertips and threw that hand.
‘Chèvre,'
he said with longing. ‘A Chabichou du Poitou from the Loire. It has a delicacy that is sublime and is perfect with a freshly sliced, fully ripened pear and a glass or two of the Pouilly-Fumé. My Leah and I when on holiday would always enjoy such a repast right after our swim, then enjoy each other, of course.'

‘Your wife …'

‘She was there at home and I was here: 17 July last year. Operation Spring Wind, they called it—who would have thought of anything other than a pleasant stroll?'

The Vel d'Hiv round-up.

‘Now forget that goat and look again at what we've before us. Concentrate hard, for lives depend on it, not just your own. Is there anything I've missed? Anything, even the tiniest of nicks or a gap across one of the letters that might indicate that the typeface had been worn or poorly cast?'

The tracing seemed perfect.

‘Now let me show you something you may need to know when people like me are no longer available.'

Turning the tracing paper over but now using jet-black copy ink and pen and that same care, he produced a mirror image of the stamp's impression, but in reverse. Blowing on it a little, he then held it positioned over the letter he had written and typed up on a German machine, an Olympia, and carefully turning the tracing paper over, laid it down where it absolutely had to be and gently pressed the heal of his hand against it before teasing the tracing paper away.

‘Now for the signature that will free those two if, and I say this with great respect, you manage to get there before the real truck to Drancy does. But please, even with such a need for haste, don't distract me. Take a look at your newpapers and start to memorize the details. You are now Annette-Marie Schellenberger from Cernay in Alsace. It's a small town just to the east of Thann and it suffered greatly in the Great War, so you will know all about its cemeteries
.
Just to the north is Hartmannswillerkopf, what the French
poilus
called
Vieil-Armand. It was Alsace's Verdun, so look into it if you have time since your mother must have told you repeatedly where and how the father who never saw you had been killed. Oh, I almost forgot. I've given you a few years you don't yet have, but they might just help. Who knows?'

The photo of herself, taken and developed by an assistant, showed her as she now was dressed: severe and uncompromising.

Taking up the letter he had typed, he said, ‘I've put the two you are to collect and take to Drancy as down for the Stutthof KZ. It's in what was once north-central Poland. An administrative centre and forced-labour camp, it has at least a hundred sub-camps, so there will be plenty for your two to do should they ever reach such a terrible place. The SS have one of their armament's factories there and it's rumoured, we understand, that early next year work will begin on a Focke-Wulf aircraft plant.'

Kaltenbrunner's signature when compared with the original was perfect.

Pushing across the table two of the diamonds Mijnheer Meyerhof had given her for herself, she saw Monsieur Auget shake his head. ‘That's generous, but you've brought us something of inestimable value and certainly it was the reason I immediately agreed to drop everything and see you, but one will be sufficient. You might need the other yourself.'

‘My life diamonds.'

‘And a very apt name.
Bonne chance
, Fraülein Schellenberger. Take a few moments to mingle with the gallery's crowd, then quietly leave with your associate.'

For now she would have to hang onto her old papers as well since to get to Arie and the truck, she had first to change out of the uniform and only later, back into it. But would those two have already been taken, and if so, what then would they find at that villa?

Emmi hadn't been able to contact Aram to even ask his permission.

From the cellar of the tannery the sewer must run out to the rue des Gobelins, felt St-Cyr, to then connect with that one and from there, link up with the larger that carried the Bièvre, but it wasn't good. A pair of worn-out leather work gloves had been left near that manhole grill as if quickly cast aside, the cover itself not quite settled back into place and indicating that someone—a
résistant, ein Bandit
—had thought to tightly close it after himself, but hadn't quite managed.

‘Louis …'

‘Hermann, it's far too deliberate. Refuse to do what Kleiber's ordered. Tell him he has to first send in a Wehrmacht mine-disposal­ squad, orders or no orders.'

‘Kaltenbrunner is insisting I be the one because of my trip-to-heaven bomb-disposal experience at Vieil-Armand, but what Klie­ber has failed to notice is that whoever filled those two steeping tanks and left the rest for us to find, also uncovered enough of his background to know that the sewers would tempt him.'

‘
Bien sûr
,
but we're obviously dealing with someone who knows exactly what to do.'

‘If I let him.'

On his hands and knees, and with everyone else having taken­ cover, Kohler ran his fingers lightly round the grill that dated from 1869 and just prior to the Franco-Prussian War, not that Kleiber or Ludin would give a damn about such an irony, but that wire might be of interest if left and so might the other one. A good five centimetres below the first, it ran along a seam between the paving stones and down into the sewer so that when the first was safely removed, the second would take care of things.

Both took time, as did climbing down into the sewer to work his way carefully forward. Passing a red-brick lateral that must date from two hundred years ago and drain other areas into this one, he felt it had better be left for now, though it could well have been used. But when he found uncapped ten-litre glass jugs of concentrated sulphuric acid resting on a wedged-up plank above, they were balanced so lightly it could only mean there could well be others.

More than half-full, the sewer was blocked by something. Prodded from behind by Kleiber, he said, ‘Pass these jugs back and up and be careful. He'll be long gone, given what he's already left.'

‘Is it that you're refusing to continue?'

‘
Ach
, don't be so dyed-in-the-wool. With these flashlights, if he was down here, he'd have shot us. Since he hasn't, he must want something else or has simply buggered off.'

‘He's hiding, or hiding something he doesn't want us to find.'

Above, and endlessly chain-smoking, Ludin kept his gaze rivetted to that open manhole, noted St-Cyr, as did the others, their machine-pistols cradled. Using a rope, one of the men carefully hoisted a full jug of acid and set it to one side, then another, the wooden workings of this steeping floor remaining fixed in position as if but waiting for the whistle. Yet there were rows of empty steeping tanks in the floor.

Hides were in the blockage, hair from the scrapings, too, felt Kohler. Thick, heavy and waterlogged, the mush had been deliberately dumped into the sewer, but why? Simply to slow them down?

When he found the charge, he knew the worst and said, ‘I think we'd better leave while we can.'

‘Defuse it.'

‘
Ach
, listen, you. He's waterproofed it with a
Kondom
to make sure the time pencil and plastic remain bone dry. Since we've no idea of the pencil's setting, I'll either have to leave it here or take it up above, so which is it to be?'

‘Cut it open.'

‘You must really want a hero's death, but those diamonds don't even exist. They're nothing but a rumour.'

‘Then understand that when arrested in Nice, Meyerhof's son said otherwise. Under the reinforced interrogation of his wife and children, he readily confessed.'