Salamander (50 page)

Chantal and Muriel, he wrote. I must take the photographs to them. What photographs? she wondered and saw him write, Mannequins … clothing …the manner in which the photos were taken, the sequence, Gabrielle.

And then …
Leave word for me with them if possible. Always a warning if you're in trouble, eh? Simply a Yes if the Resistance knocked off that bank, or a No. We must find out so as to eliminate the possibility or include it.

He struck a match and burned the slip of paper. He destroyed the ashes by rubbing them in his palms and then blowing them towards the door. They held each other. They wondered when they would see each other again. His moustache tickled when he kissed her ear—never on the lips, not with him. Her voice, the influenza season … he was too conscious of her well-being, a worrier.

Without a word he left her and for a time she was alone. Chantal and Muriel had a shop on place Vendôme. They were old friends and knew the fashion business like few others. He would go to them for information and advice as he always did when necessary. She would leave something there for him if she could.

Poor Jean-Louis, she said silently. He is a cop whose partner, though now a friend of mine too, is of the Gestapo. That alone will tear him apart every time he thinks of me.

Lighting a cigarette, she sought out each of the Gestapo's bugs and counted them again before worrying about their interest in her and if there were any she hadn't found.

3

I
N THE MORNING, BOEMELBURG WAS WAITING FOR
them. They had only just parked the Citroën in the courtyard off the rue des Saussaies, when an orderly approached and gave them the order.

‘He isn't happy.'

‘Is he ever?' snorted Kohler, hung over and taking a last drag before carefully stubbing out his cigarette and hiding the damp remains in his little tin. A real
Kippensammler par excellence.
The things one did these days to keep nourishment at hand.

Butt-collecting had become a national pastime, a preoccupation shared by those of their German masters who had fallen from grace and were without a regular supply.

‘Pharand is to be bypassed. Go straight to the Chief,' said the orderly.

Pharand was Louis's boss, a file-minded, territorial little French fascist who was insidiously jealous of his turf and believed firmly in the system of wealthy friends who had put him at the top.

‘Our luck,' snorted Louis. ‘Maybe I'll keep my job, Hermann, and maybe I won't.'

It was always the roll of the dice of whim these days. Pharand had lost his cushy office to Boemelburg who had moved in on the day of the Defeat and had kicked him out and down the hall, so that when the little twerp had found the guts to come back to Paris, he had found there had been a few changes.

Humiliated by the loss of status, Major Osias Pharand had elected to make up for it in other ways.

‘Don't worry about it, Louis. I'll protect you.'

‘Grâce à Dieu,
that's exactly what I'm afraid of!'

They went into an office that was spacious and once filled with Chinese porcelains, Japanese prints, ivory fans, chopsticks—little mementoes of colonial days years and years ago. Other things too, of course.

But now all chucked out in favour of the utilitarian. Maps detailed every nook and cranny of France with pins and flags. Telexes hammered. Telephones waited. From the office next door came the machine-gun sounds of four secretaries typing reports already at 0700 hours Berlin time, 0600 hours the old time, 0500 hours in summer, Christ!

As Head of SIPO-SD Section IV, the Gestapo in France, Boemelburg had the power of life and death over every living soul in the country. A giant, like Hermann, but well over sixty years of age and with an all-but-shaven grey bullet of a head, sagging jowls and puffy sad blue eyes, France's top cop had been a detective for much of his life, but had included some years in Paris as a salesman of heating and ventilating systems. He spoke excellent French, even to the slang of the
quartiers
and, what was far more important, could think like the French when needed.

Depending on his mood, however, it could either be French or
deutsch.
This time he chose the former. One never quite knew with him, and of course, to have known and worked with him before the war on the IKPK, the International Organization of Police, had been more of a detriment than an asset. Boemelburg had known only too well the capabilities of God's little detective and had put him to work but had given him Hermann as a watchdog.

The voice was gruff. ‘So, Louis, a matter of eighteen million and the disappearance of a neighbour?'

Turcotte in Records must have filled him in.

‘Walter …', began St-Cyr.

The lifeless eyes grew cold. The frame, big and big-boned, with flesh hanging under a dishevelled grey suit, straightened ponderously.

‘Herr Sturmbannführer,' said the Sûreté's little mouse, ‘we're not certain yet if there is a connection between the disappearance and the robbery.'

‘Then make certain of it. Otherwise you'll devote yourselves entirely to the robbery.'

‘And the préfet?' blurted the mouse.

‘You leave Talbotte to me, Louis. Kohler, how was the fucking last night? Did you bang the both of them? How dare you tread on such thin ice? A whore and a Dutch alien?'

‘I … I fell asleep before … Well, you know,' shrugged Kohler, managing to look foolish. ‘They were both disappointed.'

‘Then perhaps we have your undivided attention after all.'

Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ,
was it a warning of things to come? wondered St-Cyr. An old and much trusted friend of Gestapo Mueller in Berlin, it fell to Walter to send them on their way when need arose which was always these days. Alas, and with no extra pay, not even a mention of it. Just the blitzkrieg because that was the way the Germans wanted things done.

Boemelburg indicated a side table and said, ‘Kohler, go out to that car of Louis's and bring us a selection of your fourteen victims. Don't waste time.
Use
it!'

He waited for the Gestapo's Bavarian sore thumb to leave, then said, ‘Louis, this business mustn't be taken too close to the heart. There's a war on and I have my priorities. Though Talbotte says he's convinced there isn't a terrorist connection to the robbery, I want the matter fully cleared.'

Is that understood? One could read this in the Sturmbannführer's gaze.

‘Certainly, Walter.'

‘Can I count on you?
'

Ah
merde!
‘Yes. If …'

‘If I let you work on the girl, eh? Is it to be a bargain with the Devil, Jean-Louis? You, a patriot who must betray his own kind or find himself elsewhere?'

There could be no backing away from it this time. If there was a Resistance connection, he would have to be told. It was either that or forget about Joanne …

‘There can't be any in-betweens, Louis. Either you're one of us or you'll be kept on elsewhere only until such time as your usefulness ceases.'

The brown ox-eyes lifted to a ceiling sculpted in plaster. Doves and whorls, harps and cupids, a naked Venus with snakes in her hair or was it Medusa?

Moistening, the eyes asked God, why must You do this to me? Then they were lowered to Boemelburg, and he lied. ‘Yes. Yes, of course, Walter. Joanne first before France. You have my word on it.'

‘Gut!
Because if you don't inform on the
Banditen
in this matter and all others, I will personally make you eat those words, even though that same Resistance for the most part still hates your guts and still has you on their list!'

Ah no, their hit-list … There were cells and cells. Each was very small and seldom connected to more than one or two others at the most. Gabrielle would not be able to contact more than a few people to tell them the accusation of collaborator was totally false!

Boemelburg's rapid switch to
deutsch
hadn't been without its cruel effect. The Sturmbannführer was only too aware of her interest in this Sûreté. He would know only too well that Gestapo Central had bugged her dressing-room and probably her flat. But while they might have their suspicions, they were apparently content simply to watch her for the moment as they did so many others.

‘Now take a look at the photographs on that table, Louis. Records have spent the night digging them out for me as a favour to you for old times' sake.'

A favour. How nice …

In black and white, and corpse by corpse, were the grisly bodies of nearly forty women. Some were so badly decomposed only teeth and bones and shreds of flesh and clothing remained. Others were quite fresh. Some had been shot, others strangled, still others bound and gagged then knifed or smothered. Not all were naked—indeed, most were clothed or partially clothed and in only six were the dresses rucked up, the underwear and stockings yanked down, the blouses and brassières ripped open or otherwise dishevelled.

Long hair, short hair, curly and straight—all was spilled over muddy ground, wet grass, concrete, carpeting or floated among tendrils of weeds. Arms and legs slackly sprawled, heads that were crooked at odd angles, eyes that were open in some cases and blindfolded in others or simply closed.

No sign of Joanne as yet … None. ‘Are … are they all from after the Defeat?' he managed. Could Talbotte be shirking his duties as préfet so much?

‘They bracket the Conquest, Louis. Most are from afterwards but it's for you to decide exactly how long this affair has been going on. Ah, it's about time,
dummkopf!
' he shouted at Hermann.

Beneath each photograph on the table was the respective dossier. Some were barely a page or two, others quite thick. It was Kohler who said, ‘Most of these can be discarded, Sturmbannführer. We're looking for potential mannequins of the ages of eighteen to twenty-two.'

‘Then look. Spread out the ones you have from the house of Monsieur Vergès, and the next time you think to slap a
verboten
notice on a door whose lock you have smashed, remember to ask my permission.'

‘We were in a hurry.'

‘Don't backtalk your superior officer! Good
Gott im Himmel,
have you not had enough lessons for one lifetime?'

It was a sore point and nothing more needed to be said. Grumpily Boemelburg spread single photos of each of the fourteen girls out in a row below the others. Then the three of them began rapidly to search for the corresponding photographs or to dig into the files. From time to time there was a grunt, a, ‘Ah, there she is,' or, ‘No, it can't be this one.'

Eight of the fourteen girls were accounted for. All were naked. Though some had been left lying face up, others were face down. All had had their breasts removed but these were absent from the scene and had not, apparently, been recovered.

Four were still bound and gagged and had been butchered on the spot, their clothes scattered about the rain-soaked trampled grass of an abandoned field or vacant lot.

Renée Marteau had not been the first to die. At least three others had come before her—one as early as 7 October 1940 and missing since 15 August—fifty-three days and nights of terror.

A gap had then occurred until 21 December 1940.

‘Then 3 March 1941, Louis,' said Hermann, ‘and then another gap and Renée on 15 August 1941.'

‘The day that one went missing, Hermann, but a year later …?'

‘Some kind of anniversary?' asked Kohler.

‘Perhaps, but then … Ah, Walter, Walter, even if there is no connection to the robbery, is not the case of these girls and that of Joanne sufficient?'

Boemelburg reminded him of the robbery's priority.

‘Of course. How stupid of me to have forgotten.'

Kohler felt he had best say something before Louis hanged himself. ‘It looks like the kidnappings began after the fall of France.'

Not the conquest? Was Hermann trying to be kind? wondered St-Cyr, alarmed.

‘Point is, did their murderer figure he could get away with it now?' asked Hermann with all that such a question implied about the Occupation. Giselle had suggested it.

‘Or did he feel such women, and what they stood for, had betrayed France in her hour of greatest need and sought to punish them?' asked Boemelburg. There had been a legacy of bitterness after the Defeat of June 1940, the accusations of cowardice all too common. ‘There has to be a rationale, Louis. Violent hatred such as this must have its roots in a deep psychosis.'

Walter couldn't yet know of the son of Monsieur Vergès or of the boy's fiancée. ‘Have Ballistics come up with anything?' asked St-Cyr.

There was a nod. ‘A typical terrorist gun, just as Hermann said to Talbotte in that bank. An officer's gun that wasn't turned in. A Lebel Model 1873.'

And as common as dust.

‘But was it from the First or the Second War, Walter?' asked St-Cyr gravely. ‘That is the question, since the gun, as you well know, was used in both.'

‘But not with any of these,' grunted Boemelburg, indicating the eight of the fourteen victims.

With each of those whose bodies had been found, the hair had been cut off in fistfuls and disposed of elsewhere, with the breasts perhaps.

Four of the bodies had been moved after death, but only Renée Marteau's corpse been found in water, in the Seine.

Two of the girls had been strangled with silk stockings. An axe had been used with the two whose heads had been removed. A single blow in one case, three blows in the other.

One girl had been smothered by having her face pushed into mud. Another had been forcibly drowned, in a bathtub, perhaps and her body dumped elsewhere.

‘And one was so badly burned with acid, Louis, she must have died in agony,' said Hermann, ‘though not a drop was spilled on her face.'

Ah
nom de Dieu,
wondered St-Cyr, what was he to tell Joanne's parents? Acid … A drooler who hated young women …