Tapestry (14 page)

The tears were wiped away, the forehead kissed and held. At last
Maman
said, ‘There, you see how it is, Inspector? For warmth and comfort, Annette and I share the bed her dear
papa
and I once shared, she to have his pillow always, we both asking God to bring him home and quickly. Since I’m a victim of our streets, I wanted Father Marescot to hear from me that I had done absolutely nothing to warrant such an attack, nor have I ever done such a thing.’

A breath was sucked in and held by Herr Kohler. There’d been the absences from the house, and certainly the inspector must be wondering about those, but all he said was, ‘And did he believe you?’

‘Obviously not. René-Claude was baptized in that church, though not by that … that priest who only came to us in the autumn of 1939 when Father Bouchard felt he had to volunteer again and is now a prisoner of war himself. We attended regularly, as did and still do, my husband’s father and mother. When René-Claude was taken, where else was I to have turned? Days pass, months come and go, a year, two years and now more than the half again and still he’s not home. Inspector, my husband must be well aware of what some of the prisoners’ wives in Paris and elsewhere are doing to combat their loneliness or make ends meet, and when he insisted in a letter that I let Annette take confession
after
myself, I … I felt he must need that reassurance and said I would see to it, as she has now for almost a year.’

There wouldn’t have been any argument, not in France. Here a wife was to do as told by her husband, no matter what. ‘Is Father Marescot in touch with the Stalag?’

‘He’s in contact with as many as possible. He takes it upon himself as a “special duty,” and has fought this battle twice, he says. First during the Great War, and now again.’

A fag was desperately needed, but searching the glove compartment only turned up one stick of ersatz chewing gum. Unwrapping it, Kohler found Annette’s hand. ‘Orange,’ he said. ‘It’ll help us think. Let’s share.’

She had better get the division right, thought Annette. She had better not make a mistake!

‘
Merci,
monsieur,’ came the faintest of responses with a shudder, but the job had been done perfectly, a good sign.

‘In the old days, Inspector—the really old ones—there used to be a special early-morning Mass for those who lived in this district and worked the streets. Father Marescot has insisted on reviving it, but also offers one in the late afternoon for those who can’t make the other.’

And are too dog-tired and hung over, but they’d heard of the Mass and had come from all over the city. ‘Was he a veteran of that other war?’

‘How, then, could he have held his special Masses?’

She had a point but it was freezing in the car. Kohler knew he was tempted to give them everything the press had left in the backseat but mustn’t. Nor could he speak on her behalf to that concierge of hers or threaten the bastard. Even at the end of this Occupation, and it would come some day, she could well be accused of consorting with the enemy, though she hadn’t done anything of that nature, or had she? ‘Those absences of yours from the flat, madame.’

He had remembered. ‘Are a private matter, if anything in that building of ours can ever remain private, but are nothing much. I have a part-time job as an usherette in a cinema. I make myself available, you understand, and beholden, yes, by checking in with its manager who thinks he may get more out of me. If there’s work, I go there in the evenings, but only until closing at ten. I don’t stay a moment beyond that and never have.’

A pittance and only the tips she’d receive. ‘Does your husband know of it?’

‘If he did, he would order me to stop. He’s the provider, isn’t he, the one who brings home the money even though the wages he is paid for his work in that camp are in
Lagergeld
and can’t be sent home? Annette and I must make do on the thousand francs a month the government of the Maréchal Pétain in Vichy doles out to families like ours.’

The
Lagergeld
was less than a pittance in any case. Common soldiers weren’t paid much even when fighting. ‘What about
Ciment
Morel?’

‘Gaston? He’s among the kindest of men and sincerely wants to help.’

‘
Papa
used to drive one of the monsieur’s big cement lorries,’ said Annette, momentarily having parked her chewing gum. ‘The monsieur says that it’s among the most difficult of jobs and that skilled men like
Papa
are very hard to find and should be sent home. He … he has asked for this many times.’

‘In 1933 I went to my stepsister, Inspector, and begged Henriette to see if Gaston could give my husband a job. We’d been without for more than two years.’

The Great Depression.

‘The Café de la Paix is convenient for both of us, since Gaston must frequently call in at the Kommandantur on business.’

‘And the driver of the taxi?’

Take Me. ‘Gaston pointed him out long ago and said that if ever I should need anything, I was to go to that one only and he would see that I got it. Inspector, when Madame Guillaumet asked if I knew of a reliable
vélo-taxi
driver, I instinctively pointed him out. We’re to help each other, aren’t we, us wives of prisoners of war? We’re in the same boat and now … now are both victims!’

‘Don’t cry.’

‘I will because I must! I have seven stitches in my arm, three in the back of my hand, and will have terrible scars!’

‘Maman …’

‘
Chérie,
you are all I have!’

A moment was needed. Kohler knew there was absolutely nothing he could offer. Cash would only raise eyebrows, but as sure as they were sitting here and he was feeling utterly useless, Denise Rouget, their social worker, must have brought the two women together.

‘Until yesterday I didn’t even know of Madame Guillaumet, Inspector, or that the wives of some of the officers who were in the camps could be having the same difficulties as myself.’

‘Did she tell you why she needed that taxi to pick her up after school?’

‘Only that she had to go somewhere. One doesn’t ask of such things, isn’t that so? Instinctively one understands the need for privacy and doesn’t condemn.’

They came through the pitch-darkness and the rain of the rue Laurence Savart. St-Cyr could hear them as he got out of the Citroën. They knew this street he loved, didn’t even need a single light.

‘
Monsieur l’Inspecteur,
a moment,
s’il vous pla
î
t
.’

The caller was Antoine Courbet’s mother. ‘Madame, please don’t get drenched. Quickly, quickly, inside the house.’

Last to enter was Hervé Desrochers’s father, Lucien or Luc, who stopped him in the darkness of the tiny foyer. ‘A moment, Inspector. The one whose
vélo-taxi
was stolen has sublet mine for the evening so that I could be present to tell you about my Hervé. He’s a good boy, you understand, but a bit of a follower. Those other boys, that Antoine …’

‘Yes, yes. Later, I think, after I’ve heard from them.’

The St-Cyrs had always felt themselves better. This one was no different, thought Desrochers as they crowded into the kitchen. The vacuum flask of soup was opened by that tongue, Madame Courbet. A plate and spoon were produced, the woman knowing the house and having free run of it, a napkin smoothed and
two
chunks of the grey National set beside it.

‘Sit, please, Inspector,’ he interjected quickly. ‘First the soup and the bread, as we have all agreed, and then the …’

‘The confessions,’ countered Jeanne Courbet, daring him to say another word in his son’s defence.

They stood and watched from the other side of the table. They dripped water on the floor, but wasn’t that what kitchen floors were for, and Madame Courbet would see to it anyway.

The soup, a purée of leeks and potatoes—how had they managed them?—was not only excellent but exactly what he needed. Each family would have contributed an equal share. Madame Courbet would have seen to that. A powerhouse.

Not until the flask was drained and the plate wiped clean with the last morsel of bread, would he let the proceedings of this little court begin.

Judge, lawyer for the defence, the plaintiffs, too, and the prosecution’s attorney were all present, but a court secretary was needed­ to read out the indictment, a jury too, of course, though that could be dispensed with. ‘Madame, would you …’ he hazarded­, setting the spoon aside at last.

‘Inspector, first the
évidence
.’

A practical woman who was really worried and with good reason. Go on, she motioned to her son. ‘You first,’ she whispered.

One by one they would approach the bench. Drained of tears, Antoine’s expression was that of the condemned who knew only that the blade awaited. Item by item, and there were several of these, the boy laid out his share of the loot. The torn half of a ticket to the UFA Palast, a room key, a cigarette case, a half-empty packet of Kamels—would temptation gnaw at this judge? wondered St-Cyr.

Lastly, at a severe nudge, Antoine unfolded a newspaper advertisement, torn from
Paris-Soir
. It was one of Hermann’s many appeals for help in locating Oona’s children.

Monsieur Louis lifted gravely troubled, questioning eyes to her—he couldn’t help doing so, Jeanne Courbet knew—but he said nothing as he fingered that clipping, wondering as she had and still did, why this German girl had had it in her handbag. ‘Antoine, he and the others, didn’t tear it from the newspaper, Monsieur Louis.’

A nod would be best, but Luc Desrochers was watching him closely. Behind the mask of worry there was the light of temptation in Hervé’s
papa
. Could the document be used to his son’s advantage and that of the family? These days nothing was sacred­.

‘Fräulein Sonja Remer,’ said the judge he had become. ‘The name is on her clothing card.’ He mustn’t hesitate, mustn’t be struck down by this … this scrap of newsprint. Not yet, but Rudi Sturmbacher had told them to find and return the girl’s handbag complete with its contents or face the consequences. He’d have to tell them something, couldn’t avoid it.

The look he gave would never leave them, Dédé knew. It was like that of a priest before the condemned.

‘
Mes chers amis,
she is an employee of the SS on the avenue Foch, a secretary, a
Blitzmädel
, one of the grey mice.’

Had God deserted them entirely? cried Jeanne Courbet silently but wouldn’t let tears fall. She wouldn’t!

When they did, Monsieur Louis looked not at her but at each of the boys and then at Hervé’s
papa
.

It was that one, Jeanne knew, who said, ‘Hervé, please return to the inspector your share.’ To give the knave credit, his voice was that of one before the firing squad.

‘Yes, Papa,’ came the faintest of responses but Hervé couldn’t find the courage to look at the inspector. ‘Forgive me, Monsieur Louis. It … it was my idea to steal the German lady’s handbag. I … I persuaded the others. I know we have all let you down terribly and that you will never kick the soccer ball back to us again but … but will let it roll down the street to where it will be stolen by the other boys or flattened by a German lorry!’

There was no money. There were no stale cigarettes or spent condoms. There was only one thing and when he saw it, Monsieur Louis lost all colour, the throat constricting tightly, he letting escape a breath of despair before silencing himself.

The barrel was shiny and grey, the grip mat black—of Bakelite? wondered this judge he’d become. Not crosshatched as most were, but with parallel ridges closely set and extending the length of the butt.

A date was clearly stamped 1936, the weapon’s number: 20524.

‘A star,’ he said and there was a depth of sadness to him that couldn’t be plumbed. ‘Russian,’ he went on, the detective in him taking over. ‘A Red Army Tokarev TT-33, 7.62 mm semiautomatic. The TT stands for Tula Tokarev, Tula being a city to the south of Moscow that’s known for its artisans, the designer’s name Fedor Tokarev, but this gun’s history goes back well beyond 1930 when it was first produced. You see, the Russians and their czar bought up lots of Mauser pistols from the Germans before the Great War, and far more ammunition than was needed.’

He paused. He gave the weapon the look of one whose life was lost.

‘So much ammunition that they then found they had to have pistols and submachine guns of their own just to use up the leftover cartridges. The 7.62 and the 7.63 of the Mauser are interchangeable, the TT-33 being adopted by the Red Army in 1933.’

He touched that thing. He said, ‘This isn’t a lady’s gun. The recoil, the kick, is similar to that of a much larger calibre weapon—the American Colt .45 perhaps—and as a result, it’s not a comfortable gun, especially for a woman.’

The question of why she, a mere secretary had it, was written all over him. ‘The boys didn’t disarm it, Inspector,’ said Luc Desrochers. ‘I did when I discovered it in Hervé’s school briefcase.’

Out from a clenched fist tumbled the cartridges, all eight of them, and then the broken words from the son. ‘There … there wasn’t one up the spout.’

‘Good. The Russians are often quick to action, so this thing doesn’t have a safety, beyond that of the half-cock.’

The Parc Monceau was utterly dark. Elsewhere bicycles and bicycle-taxis were about, pedestrians too, but if he stopped someone to ask directions, Kohler knew they would only send him on a wild goose chase. That social worker, Denise Rouget, lived at home with her parents and he had to talk to her, but where was home?

Ach,
he’d best get out and walk but would he be able to find the car afterwards? ‘Hey, you.
HALT! IHRE PAPIERE, DUMMKOPF. SCHNELL!
’

He grabbed the bike. The
vélo-taxi
jerked and skidded to a stop. The street became deserted, its scurrying little blue lights and cigarettes vanishing. ‘Look, guide me to this address and I’ll let you go.’

A light came on to read the scribbled page of this one’s notebook. ‘The judge?’ asked Didier Valois, owner-operator of the
maréchal
’s Baton, taxi number 43.75 Butte-Montmartre.