Mayhem (22 page)

‘He's probably snoring it off in the toilets then.'

‘Not likely. Try the sound room. They've set up a projector and matched the film with the recording. Your partner's wife has an ass like a full moon, Hermann. Round and beautiful. You can see right up it.'

Son-of-a-bitch! ‘I'm getting to like it here less and less.'

Schultz grinned. ‘From what I hear, we won't have the pleasure of your company for long. Oh, hang on a minute. A note from our boss. The Sturmbannführer Boemelburg will see you at 8 a.m.'

‘I've got to see von Schaumburg first.'

‘Orders, my dear Hermann. Orders.'

‘Fuck your orders. I've more important things to do.'

‘We'll be sure to let him know.'

‘You do that then!'

Kohler went down the marble steps to the basement. There was blood and hair on two of them; some poor bastard's front tooth on a third. A small pool of blood and vomit lay at the bottom.

Screams in the night, the sound of truncheons and then silence. Absolute silence.

As he passed one of the interrogation rooms he couldn't help but see through the open door. The girl was naked and hung by her wrists from a meat hook. There was blood all over her back and rump. Her face had been badly battered. Her breasts were bruised …

‘
The names of your accomplices
?' shrieked the interrogator.

The girl found the will to mumble, ‘Never!' and they laid right into her. While one grabbed her by the hair and savagely yanked her head back, the other one hit her across the breasts and stomach. You'd think they hated her. You'd think she'd done something to them personally.

‘Dead,' shouted Kohler. ‘She's dead. You've broken her neck, you stupid bastard. She'll not tell you anything.'

The eyes were wild. Sweat poured from the brow. ‘Escapists … British pilots … there's a gang of them operating out of the Gare de l'Est. They send the bastards through from Brussels.'

‘Maybe so, and maybe not, eh?' snapped Kohler. ‘But that one's finished, so you'd better cut her down.'

He was glad Louis wasn't with him. Apart from the interrogator, who was Gestapo, the enforcers were French, real tough guys when it came to wires and ropes and kids.

Glotz was eating sausage and having a beer while watching a rerun of the latest film. He'd just got to the foreplay part. Marianne St-Cyr was still wearing most of her things – an open blouse, a slip whose shoulder strap had been brushed down over the smooth contours of her flesh, no skirt, meshed stockings that went up under the slip, a brassiere and underwear. She was leaning back against something, a table perhaps, a bureau – it was hard to tell. Her legs were spread for a better grip, the feet planted firmly. She had good pins.

Steiner was fully clothed as befitted a German officer, but he wasn't in uniform. His hands were on her breasts. The couple were kissing, teasing each other.

They weren't in the bedroom – so Glotz's boys must have set up more than one camera.

They were in the dining-room perhaps. It was still too hard to tell.

Glotz affected a bored air. ‘The slip's crimson, the stockings are black, and the brassiere and briefs are white. It's a pity we couldn't get it in colour for you, Hermann, but we're trying.'

Kohler switched off the spool but not the lamp. Glotz dropped the sausage and spilled the beer as he leapt to prevent the film from burning. ‘Idiot! What the hell do you think you're doing?'

The Bavarian's pistol was levelled at him. ‘Merely borrowing the film, my friend, for a meeting with von Schaumburg.'

‘You wouldn't…'

Glotz was aghast. The Wehrmacht would gladly turn back the Gestapo's clock. ‘Oh, wouldn't I?' said Kohler.

‘We've copies – two of them. Berlin will hear of this.'

The carp's eyes were popping. ‘So will von Schaumburg.'

‘A truce?' blurted Glotz. He didn't like the look in Hermann's eyes.

‘A truce? Why? I don't owe you a thing.'

‘Then perhaps you'd better see what else we have.'

Ah,
merde
! ‘Weren't the two of them alone?'

The man from Special Unit X, the Watchers, knew he had the Bavarian by the short hairs but he wouldn't smile. He'd be serious about it. ‘Why not wait and see? After all, Hermann, if you're going to blow the whistle on your friends and comrades in the Gestapo, you should know exactly what else we have. Old Shatter Hand will only ask. He'll want you to be thorough. There's no sense in your going off half-cocked, now is there?'

Three … had there been three of them in the flat, apart from St-Cyr's son and the nursemaid? A ménage-à-trois? Ah no …

Glotz waited. Somehow he had to find out what Kohler and St-Cyr had come up with on their unauthorized trip. Berlin was insisting they be kept informed. He needed details of the murders, details of Ackermann's position in things. ‘The girl, Hermann … The wife of your partner … It's not on that spool of film.'

It was a lie, of course, which the Bavarian was only too quick to sense.

But was it really a lie? Kohler knew he couldn't take that chance. ‘Okay, so let it roll. I'll watch.'

Glotz heaved a sigh. ‘While I'm rewinding this, Hermann, you can fill me in on things. I gather Ackermann paid the Château Thériault a little visit only to find you there?'

‘Why's Berlin so interested?'

‘A hero, why else? One of the Waffen-SS's finest. Ackermann's been on to them about the murders. They want results, Hermann. They're insisting on it.'

‘Yet they've issued St-Cyr and me with marching orders?'

The General Ackermann was upset with your handling of the case. I gather you made an unauthorized search of the Arcuri woman's flat?'

‘We didn't find a thing. I still say Berlin's too interested. What's Ackermann done that he shouldn't have?'

So it had got to that already? ‘Why not wait to see the film?' Baiting Kohler – whetting his appetite – was enjoyable. ‘She's really quite a handsome woman, this wife of your partner. St-Cyr will see these, Hermann. This I can guarantee you unless …'

Glotz would do it too. ‘Gabrielle Arcuri's maid was murdered in Fontainebleau Woods by the Resistance. We've several new suspects in the murder of the boy.'

‘The Countess Thériault?' asked Glotz, running the film through the rewind.

‘Yes, her. She's only a distant cousin.'

‘Once a cousin, always a cousin. Who else?'

‘The boy's sister – Gabrielle's maid – and perhaps one of the monks at a local monastery.'

‘But you said several
new
suspects?' demanded Glotz. ‘The Arcuri woman?'

Kohler hated himself. ‘Yes, her, of course, and someone else but I'm not saying who it is.'

‘Oh? Then you'd better see this, and you'd better remember that St-Cyr will see it before he heads off to the salt mines. It's all up to you.'

‘Ackermann … we're not sure of him. He's far too close to things.'

The sausage lay beside the beer. ‘Ackermann's only trying to look out for the countess, Hermann. He has his cousin's best interests at heart.'

‘And Berlin?' asked Kohler quietly. ‘Whose interests has Herr Himmler at heart, other than his own and those of the Führer?'

‘The Reich's of course. This you shouldn't have to question,but I'll be sure to let them know in my reports. Now put the peashooter away and stop eyeing my sausage and beer.'

The film began to turn. Glotz clapped on the earphones and fussed with the tape recorder before handing him a spare headset. ‘How's that for volume? We wouldn't want to hurt your ears.'

The volume was just fine and the focus perfect. Kohler pried one of Glotz's earphones off. ‘There was a diary. Louis still has it, but it clearly spells out the boy's meetings with someone over the past eight months and it gave as one of the locations, the place where the maid was murdered.'

‘A diary and a pouch of diamonds,' said Glotz, sucking on a tooth. ‘Who's the someone?'

It was Kohler's turn to grin and as he did so, he shook his head.

So be it then. Watch and learn, you bastard. Berlin would hear of everything!

Glotz cranked the volume up. From all around him Kohler could hear the harsh, quick breathing of Marianne St-Cyr. It was like thunder to him, like agony. Then she gave a soft murmur – a melting as her lips parted and the kiss drained the breath from her. Wet … Jesus, the woman must be wet. But where the hell were the two of them? The rumpled bed was empty, the lens of the camera focused on the sheets and pillows while the action went on somewhere else.

‘A minor difficulty we've rectified,' said Glotz, though Kohler couldn't possibly have heard him.

Naked, the woman appeared, draped over the footboard of the bed. There was no mistaking who it was. The screen was full of her – lust and passion in the wide blue eyes, the blood pounding in her cheeks, her chest heaving as she sucked in another breath.

Steiner now stood behind her with his hands on her buttocks. Moulding them, caressing them.

It began. It was going to go on and on.

‘The diary, Hermann. Who wrote it?'

Kohler whipped off the earphones. ‘What? What was that?'

Steiner was now milking Marianne St-Cyr's splendidly ripe breasts. She was pushing herself up against him. Did she like it that way best? he wondered. More contact? Poor Louis …

‘The diary, Hermann? Who wrote it?'

‘We don't know.'

‘Was the other party named?'

Kohler found he couldn't take his eyes from the screen. As Marianne St-Cyr turned, she raised her arms and wrapped them about the tall, blond Aryan's neck. God, she had a gorgeous ass.

‘No … No, the other party wasn't named.'

‘Any ideas?' asked the film director.

Kohler wet his throat. ‘None … Not at the moment. A lover, that's all.' Damn Glotz anyway!

‘Could the diary have been kept by a third party?'

The couple were now lying across the bed. Marianne St-Cyr's head was over the edge. Steiner was spreading her legs. He was kneeling between them. His cock was as stiff as a hammer handle.

‘A third party?' shot Kohler, surprised not by the possibility, only that Glotz should have such an idea.

‘The countess, for instance,' said Glotz, ‘or the Arcuri woman?'

‘We hadn't thought of that,' said Kohler, lying through his teeth but lamely.

‘Blackmail?' demanded Glotz.

The diamonds … ‘Perhaps. Who knows?'

Steiner had parted the lips. The bastard was blowing on the woman's clitoris. St-Cyr's wife was running her fingers through her hair like a crazy woman. She was pushing her mons up at him, was rocking her head from side to side and straining for it. ‘Erich … Erich … Ah, Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, I love it when you do that to me!'

Steiner turned the woman over on to her stomach and the fun really began.

Paris at 3 a.m. was like nothing on earth. One might as well have been in Fontainebleau Woods for all the noise there was.

The whisper of the bicycle's wheels was St-Cyr's only company. There were no patrols, though he wasn't particularly afraid of meeting them. There was simply no one but himself, no light but the occasional blue flame of a kerbside pot. Nothing from the stars. No lingering moon.

Not even the added hush of falling snow.

He passed the Opéra. To meet no one on the boulevard Haussmann was eerie. When he reached the Arc de Triomphe, the eternal flame gave ghostly shadows to the innermost recesses.

He took the avenue Victor Hugo – wondered whether the war would erase the writer's work from the face of the earth. All those stoves in Paris alone; women like Madame Courbet who'd never read a book in their lives and had no appreciation of such things.

When he came to the avenue Henri Martin, St-Cyr got off the bike. At first it was a little hard to pick out the individual apartment blocks. Number 33 was just like all the others and when he'd finally located it, he stood on the walkway looking up at its dark silhouette.

Marianne would be asleep in the Hauptmann Erich Steiner's arms. Was he to wake the concierge, to cause a fuss? Marianne would be so embarrassed, she'd start to cry. She'd never come back to him if he did such a thing. After all, she had her pride as well as he, and Philippe would be bound to awaken.

The Resistance … It wasn't likely they'd use explosives. Far better the bullet and the fast getaway, hence tonight's motorcycle.

Hermann was just being his thorough Bavarian self. Taking charge of things as if he always knew what was best. He would have asked countersubversion to watch the house. He'd have filed a report on the incident. So, was the trip across town all for nothing? Simply an exercise in futility, a need to get out of that house, to do something? Anything?

St-Cyr remained rooted to the walkway, willing himself to go through with things, yet arguing everything would be okay and she'd not be in any danger should she chance to come back to the house for some of her things.

Me, I'm a coward, he said, a fool who is still in love. Would they sleep in the nude? he wondered – they'd have plenty of heat, no shortage of coal. Perhaps they'd dined out this evening at Maxim's or at the Ritz? Places he could never have afforded.

Perhaps they'd gone to the theatre, she in a new red dress, new red shoes, black lingerie – new everything. Steiner in uniform.

Perhaps, perhaps – ah, Mon Dieu, what was he to do? Intuitively he knew he mustn't intrude, that to disturb her would be the worst possible thing, that given time she'd decide to come back to him and that all would be forgiven. He'd have to make certain of that, couldn't hold it over her. Ah no, of course not. One had to be big-hearted about such things, one had to bury one's pain.