Gypsy (27 page)

‘The Generalmajor …' breathed Boemelburg.

‘
What about him
?' leapt Louis, alarmed.

The Sturmbannführer studied these two in whom he had invested such patience. Louis and he had worked together with the IKPK before the war but old alliances and friendships could count for nothing. ‘I want him questioned thoroughly. I want no more surprises. I want the location of those explosives and the names of the terrorists who took them. I want the cyanide capsules returned in total, and I want the hiding place of this Tshaya and her safe-cracker, and I want, yes, all those who have helped them in the slightest even though misguided they might have been.'

Gabrielle and Nana and Suzanne-Cécilia … ‘And your sense of things, Walter?'

‘Is that now he'll go underground and make us wait for his next surprise.'

‘Louis, why doesn't he just have us arrested and put an end to it?'

‘Because he knows we're his only chance of getting the Gypsy, and because he has trusted us in the past. If he admits to having been wrong, he condemns himself. Now leave me. Let me do this myself. Please. It's for the best. We'll meet up later.'

Beneath the rue des Saussaies there was a vault, and within its sturdy iron grille, a solidly bolted door.

‘St-Cyr, Sûreté, to see the prisoner Arcuri.'

The guard took his time. Ah! it was a distraction and everyone knew this Sûreté and his partner were for it. Key by key the search went on, the suit ill-fitting, the cheeks unshaven, the greeny-brown deceitful eyes full of mischief. ‘Open it.'

‘That is what I am trying to do. There is no hurry.'

Reluctantly the key grated in the lock, the hinges squeaked. Repeatedly a boy, a young man, cried out from somewhere until there was the sound of a wooden stave solidly cracking a tibia or femur.

‘
Talk
!' came the shriek. ‘
Tell us where your friends are
?'

The stones were yellowish-grey, the light dim. Fresh vomit lay pooled on the steps, blood also. In a cell whose door was wide open, a skinny, rib-showing, naked human being with dark curly hair was suspended by the thumbs from a meat-hook. He had pissed himself, had shat himself, and the bastards who were his interrogators, their breath billowing in the frigid air, were stripped to the waist and
sweating
!

The guard paid the prisoner no notice, but as they passed the cell, he hawked up phlegm which he spat against the wall down which bloodied, now frozen pus had run. More steps led to another iron grille, beyond which sat one of the
Blitzmädels
from the Reich, the ‘grey mice' who had come in their droves to catch a man and help out as secretaries, telegraphists and prison warders, ah so many things.

Sucking on a tooth, she surveyed the visitor with disdain. Had she seen the films of Marianne and the Hauptmann Steiner? wondered St-Cyr in dismay. Had she seen his wife fornicating with that one and crying out for more?

The laughter in the
Blitzmädel's
blue eyes reinforced his thoughts. The warder's baton indicated he was to follow. It beat upon the doors. It slammed them, and when the woman came to the far end of a corridor, she shrieked, ‘
Achtung, Hure. Schnell! Schnell! Aufstehen
!'

The palliasse was filthy, the cell no more than the length of the iron bed. In
deutsch
St-Cyr said, ‘Leave us.'

‘
Das ist verboten
.'

‘Get out!'

He heard her lock the door. ‘Ah
merde
,' he said and began immediately to pull off his overcoat. Tearing the filthy blanket from Gabrielle's shoulders, he wrapped the coat about her, pulled off his scarf and gloves, and made her take them. ‘Forgive me,' he said, ‘but I've come to take you upstairs. A few questions.'

‘Nothing difficult?' she croaked but seemed to imply, You're one of them, aren't you?

A tin pail served all needs. There was ‘coffee' in the morning at 5 a.m. Soup followed at noon, with perhaps fifty grams of soggy, mouldy black bread and a piece of gristle floating in the watery broth among the shredded cabbage leaves. Then at 8 p.m. there was more ‘coffee', nothing else.

Seepage had formed oozing runnels of badly stained ice on the walls. High up, and with a pin or secreted carpenter's nail, someone had scratched the warning,
Silence á tout prix
. Silence at all cost.

‘Jean-Louis, I've given them my statement. I don't know anything else. I was abducted. I was forced to drive him to Senlis, to a quarry nearby. It's crazy of them to keep me here. My voice … I've a radio broadcast tonight – it is Friday, isn't it?'

And then, a moment later when he could find no answer for her, ‘They'll cancel it.'

She bowed her head to indicate the door and he turned to see the
Blitzmädel
watching their every move through the slot.

It was slammed shut as he approached it. He said aloud, ‘
Grâce à Dieu
,' and when he went over to sit on the edge of the bed, he pulled Gabrielle to him and let her weep. ‘
Courage
,' he said. ‘You must have courage.'

‘Walter, forgive me for intruding, but isn't it a little unwise to leave Paris's
première
chanteuse in the cellars? The General von Schaumburg, the General von Stülpnagel and yes, even the General von Paulus at Stalingrad, will all be most upset if she should lose her voice and fail to sing for the men.'

Boemelburg took his time. ‘What would you suggest?' he asked warily.

‘The villa at Neuilly. You keep it for your most distinguished guests. At least let her go there.'

‘Then she's a suspect and you're convinced of this?'

‘I … I'm not sure. Not yet. We need more time.'

‘Those three women have been up to no good, Louis. Please don't try to shield them.'

‘We don't know what, if anything, they've been up to, Walter. Is it that you
want
the whole of the OKW down on your neck?'

‘The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht …?
Verdammt
! would you go to them?
Would you
?'

Ah
merde
… ‘Stalingrad is all but lost, Walter. The morale of the front-line troops not only in Russia, but in North Africa, Sicily, Greece, Italy – wherever there is fighting of any kind – needs bolstering. Do you want the rage of their officers and men by
silencing
the Songbird of Montparnasse at such a time?
Certainement, mon vieux
, we've a terrible crisis on our hands but why make it greater than need be? Von Schaumburg and von Stülpnagel will know you have been telling Berlin you hold them both responsible for the explosives. The one for not finding them yet, the other for not having had them destroyed in the first place and for patently ignoring the repeated warnings of the
garde champêtre
of a little village.'

How could he say this to him? How could he
? demanded Boemelburg silently. With great deliberation the quartier de l'Europe was outlined in more red crayon on the wall map behind the desk. Sector by sector the city was being searched.

‘Very well, see that it's taken care of but first, Herr Max would like to sit in while you question the Arcuri woman.'

‘Then let us do that at the villa. Let her have some clean clothes and a little warmth.'

‘Don't try to save her, Louis. You do that and you and Kohler will go down with her.'

It was the end for them. Kohler saw Louis bring Gabrielle up from the cellars. Christ! what had they done to her? He hurried along the corridor to catch up with them but Louis signalled otherwise and soon Herr Max had joined them and they were getting into a car.

There was no hope. They were for it. Abwehr and Gestapo Paris listeners would raid the zebra house and find the wireless set and that would be it. Proof positive.

He took a breath. He tried to still his racing pulse. He said, ‘At least I can tidy things up here. At least I can do that for Louis.'

The sound room was unattended. Pick-up spools turned constantly but there were no films here now, no projectors …

Kohler ran up the stairs and along a corridor. He took another set of stairs, sent a shower of reports from the arms of a
Blitzmädel
, and barged through the door whose hammered Gothic letters told the world this was the
ARCHIV
of Gestapo Paris-Central.

Morning coffee and a little tête-à-tête were disturbed. A hand was glued to a silk-stockinged knee …

‘The films of Marianne St-Cyr and the Hauptmann Steiner.
Vite, vite, imbécile
. Von Schaumburg is demanding them again and this time it's final.'

The parasite behind the desk removed his hand. The secretary, all of forty-seven and straight from the cowsheds of Saxony, hesitantly tidied her bleached blonde hair and grey skirt.

‘It's all right, Ursula. Leave me to deal with this one. Come back later and we'll finish our conference.'

‘
Conference
…? Verdammt!
The Chief had better clean up this little nest. Fornicating, were you, behind the shelves
?'

Her cheeks grew red, her painted lips began to quiver.

Kohler ignored her and leaned on the desk she had vacated. ‘Your boss is becoming too territorial,' he said darkly of Turcotte in Records. ‘This used to be Glotz's domain until he was sent to Kiev to face the partisans, at Old Shatter Hand's insistence. Now give me the films, all six copies, and all others.' Fingers were snapped.

This was Kohler of the Kripo, Kohler of the whip-scars, the prostitute Giselle le Roy and the Dutch alien, Oona van der Lynn. Two superb pieces of ass and one of them up the stump. ‘Copies, Inspector? What copies, please?'

‘I'm waiting,' breathed Kohler.

‘Then wait. Produce the pink slip signed by Directeur Turcotte and I will carry out his instructions to the letter!'

Ah
Gott im Himmel
, this idiot was but one of the occupied!

The Walther P38 was taken out and lain on the desk with its muzzle pointing the right way.

‘Accidents …' managed the custodian, swallowing tightly as he stared at that thing.

‘They happen all too often in wartime. I've tried my damnedest to get our armourer to fix the safety on that weapon but you know how things are.'

A
Gauloise bleue
was hesitantly fingered but quickly set aside. ‘Two copies were sent to Berlin. Don't ask me to whom. It was before my time.'

The lying son of a bitch! ‘Hey, Gaspard – that is your name in bronze, isn't it, and bronze is needed in the Reich? – you'd better tell me or I'll help myself to your cigarettes and say the accident happened as you were taking them out of your jacket pocket. Everyone here knows too much benzedrine has made me jumpy. Everyone will tell that to your wife and kids at the funeral.'

‘Herr Goebbels. He and … and Herr Himmler expressed an interest in viewing the films, as did Gestapo Mueller.'

Pour Louis, poor Marianne. Nothing could be done about the copies in Berlin. Uncoiling canister after canister, Kohler struck a match. ‘
Idiot
!' cried the custodian, darting for the metal waste basket in which to catch the ashes, such as they were.

‘Now get me the negative, or whatever it's called. We wouldn't want to leave temptation up there on that shelf.'

Marianne had been a Breton. Blonde, blue-eyed and a lot younger than Louis, she'd had a gorgeous figure and yes, she had succumbed to that little love affair, had been so lonely. But all such things must come to an end. Even Giselle and Oona? he asked himself, and yanking a final spool from a waiting projector, pulled out its leader to hold the film to the light and sadly shake his head. ‘Gaspard, what's become of this once proud nation of yours? Such dishonesty can only bring its own reward.'

He made the bastard torch the last copy and, with the pistol pointed at his head, swear there were no others. It felt good to burn the bridges down behind himself, terrific to be rid of those films. Everyone would be thoroughly pissed off but now if only he could find Louis a bottle of pastis, a last present before the firing squad, a tin of pipe tobacco too …

‘
Oeufs à la Duchesse
,' whispered Gabrielle, tears starting from her for it was the simple things in life one valued most and this … why this meal had far exceeded her modest request. ‘Poached eggs on little rafts of potato cakes which have been baked a golden brown,' she said in fluent
deutsch
. ‘The whole to receive its delicate rain of veal stock and butter. Oh
Mein Gott
, Jean-Louis, I …'

Bathed and wearing pyjamas and a pale blue silk dressing-down, her hair put up in a towel, she looked much better, thought St-Cyr. But at no time could he warn her that Herr Max had let the Gypsy out of jail and that what she and the others had thought was London answering at the last, had also been a
Funkspiel
, a Gestapo
Mausefalle
, a
souricière
. ‘Eat,' he urged. ‘The questions can wait.'

‘
No they can't
! snapped Herr Max. Boemelburg had obviously been afraid of offending too many, and Berlin, who should have known better, had reluctantly agreed that she should be brought here. ‘We haven't time. Too much is at stake.'

‘Of course, but as one experienced detective to another, might I not gauge when the moment to begin is appropriate?'

‘
Gestapo Mueller will hear of this! I've got you and Kohler pegged, so don't forget it
!'

‘We could hardly do so.'

Jean-Louis sat down and took up the
procès-verbal
she had given and had signed on Thursday afternoon at the Invalides Commissariat de police on the rue de Bourgogne. Gabrielle started to eat – she would have to, she told herself. The room grew quiet. The one from Berlin lighted a cheroot but did not take his eyes from her. What was he thinking? she wondered. How much does he really know?