Tapestry (41 page)

The forehead had been opened in a five-centimetre gash but what the hell had done it? Blood would have blinded her in that eye. The nose had been broken, the bony, pasty knees and thighs badly scraped. Fibres from her skirt or coat were still glued to the legs, black hairs also, black pubic hairs …

‘TAKE A LOOK AT HER, DAMN YOU,’ he cried. ‘COME ON. SEE FOR YOURSELF WHAT YOU AND DENISE ROUGET AND THOSE MOTHERS OF YOURS HAVE HELPED TO CAUSE!’

Germaine de Brisac turned away and had to be caught. Dragged back and forced to look, she gagged. Madame Guillaumet’s eyes hadn’t yet been closed, the darkness of the lips matching that of the bruises on the neck of this … this officer’s wife who would sell herself to another, her head forced back as the rapist had …

She coughed, she cried, she threw up the
pommes d’amour flambées à l’Amaretto
, the
salade d’endives de Belgique
,
canard à la presse
,
caviar russe malossol et bisque de homard à l’armagnac et huitres à la florentine
, the Romanée-Conti also, or Nuits-Saint-Georges and the champagne, mustn’t forget that, thought Kohler. They’d a fabulous cellar at the Tour d’Argent. Legendary, Louis had once said, though he’d never been able to afford such a place.

Her throat still stinging and eyes still watering, Germaine could see that the woman’s mascara had been smeared by the rain and the rapist’s fingers. The pencilled eyebrows were grotesquely crooked. There were scars from two Caesarean births, that of an appendectomy. Moles, warts, the red blotch of a nasty birthmark …
Ah, Sainte-Mère
, what the hell was this?

‘Smell her,’ demanded Kohler.

‘No! I refuse!’

‘INSPECTOR!’ shouted Thibodeau. ‘PLEASE EXHIBIT SOME RESPECT!’

‘I am.’

‘Inspector,
please
. I beg you …’

Herr Kohler grabbed the corpse’s toe tag and she heard him reading it out. ‘Location: Pigalle, eh? Date: the thirteenth; Time: 1020 hours? This isn’t—I repeat, isn’t—the body of Adrienne Guillaumet, you idiot, so tell us where the hell she is and don’t keep us in suspense any longer?’

‘Not her? But …’ managed Thibodeau. Something would have to be said, some rational explanation given. ‘Since her name was known, Inspector, the remains must have been consigned to the funeral home of the next-of-kin’s choice or …’

‘Cremated—is that what you’re saying?’

‘There is no necessity to raise the voice!’

Ach, mein Gott,
the French sometimes! ‘There is every right,
mein Lieber
, but just tell me. I thought the
Hôtel-Dieu
put them into no-name coffins.’

‘
Ah, oui, oui
,
certainement
, especially those without known names, and certainly bureaucratic mistakes are unfortunately made from time to time, and certainly the earth will, perhaps, be frozen or soaking wet and inopportune for such excavations. As a consequence, and with due process, I assure you, some are despatched to a crematorium.’

Ach, mein Gott,
Louis should have heard him! ‘Which one?’

To suggest something close would not be wise. ‘La Villette’s. I have it on good authority that there is one there, I think. The greater the distance from the city centre, the greater the economies, since the state and taxpayer must …’

‘La Villette.’

‘Oui.’

And out by the abattoir and just to the northeast of the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, home territory to the boys on that street of Louis’s. ‘Would the family have been notified?’

‘Of course.’

Oona would really need him, if only for a few minutes. ‘Come on, you, and don’t argue.’

‘I won’t,’ managed Germaine, her lower lip still quivering. ‘I … I’ve seen enough not to.’

‘Good. Then you can be the one to tell her kids who was responsible.’

The others had gone on ahead in this flat, this place Denise knew she had heard so much about over the years but never seen until now, but why had the chief inspector not wanted to follow? Surely he must realize she would be needed?
Maman
would continue to say things that must never be said.
Maman
would tell
Papa
to look closely at that dead lover of his and understand what he had caused her to have done, that she could no longer have lived with his philandering and squandering her family’s fortune, that he had to stop if for no other reason than his own safety and position but that he must also think about those he ought to love and protect. Things could not continue as they had. These days one had to be so very careful.

‘No sound comes from that innermost bedroom, does it?’ said this Sûreté. Having deliberately packed that pipe of his, he now lit it but watched her closely through the smoke before saying, ‘Sit down, Mademoiselle Rouget.’

Must he stand in front of the mantelpiece so as to further draw attention to the framed poster of that … that dancer
Papa
had been so infatuated with, he would have had children by her had it not been for
Maman
’s having had the slut arrested and convicted of theft?
Une nuit à Chang-Rai, 7 Mai 1926
at the Magic City. Chantelle Auclair, ‘Didi’ to her friends.
‘Une sacré bonne baise,’ Papa
had yelled at mother once too often: a damned good fuck! A handbag containing jewellery and banknotes to the tune of 250,000 old francs had been found in this ‘Didi’s’ dressing room, found,
ah, oui, oui
, by Colonel Delaroche and then by the police he had summoned. Prison hadn’t been good for the career, and the long absence of even those three years had put an end to the affair, especially as brief encounters had been readily found for
Papa
by that same colonel.

But the inspector would know none of this. At last he waved out the match and, having wetted it with spittle, tucked it away in a jacket pocket—a creature of habit? she had to wonder.

To ask if Élène Artur had suffered more than he had already stated would only invite his, Why not go and see for yourself? To ask if there was blood everywhere in that room would elicit but, Can you not smell the carbolic?

She could give him only what he wanted. Nothing else would suffice.

‘A few small questions, mademoiselle. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’

How could he be so calm?

‘The forensic staff and our coroner will be able to pin things down,’ he said, indicating the bedroom. ‘That stamp collection, Mademoiselle Denise Rouget.’

‘Actually it is Catherine Denise Rouget, Inspector.’

‘After your mother’s lifelong friend.’

‘That is correct.’

The wavy, permed, thick auburn hair, carefully made-up, chiselled face and big brown eyes that could, at times, be soft perhaps, were there but so was the strain. ‘
Ah, bon
, mademoiselle. One tries, doesn’t one? While at the Tour d’Argent your mother stated that she had purchased the stamps only after much deliberation and from a very reputable source. Her statement indicates that she viewed the collection on more than one occasion.’

Must he be so pedantically precise?

‘Well?’ he asked.

‘That, too, is correct.’

Companionably the pipe-hand lifted. ‘You helped her to choose it?’

Ah, merde! ‘Oui.’

‘From whom, please?’

‘I … I’d rather not say.’

‘Then let me remind you, mademoiselle. To not answer is to …’

‘The Baron Kurt von Behr. He and Colonel Delaroche are friends—good friends. More than acquaintances, you understand.’

And wasn’t that a cosy way of putting it? From Mecklenburg and speaking fluent French, this son of an aristocratic family was totally unscrupulous and as a consequence, had recouped the family’s fortune tenfold. ‘The Baron …’

‘
Oui
. Colonel Delaroche … Abélard put us in touch with him.’

But she and her mother and Germaine de Brisac and others would have met von Behr at any number of the socialite parties that had been thrown for his benefit and that of his British wife, or thrown by them, since extravagance was their style and everyone who was anyone always said that people should see what Von Behr was up to. ‘You first viewed the collection where?’

‘At an office on the avenue d’Iéna.’

And but a short stroll from the SS and the avenue Foch. ‘Number fifty-four?’

Did he have to hear it from her? ‘Yes!’

Head Office of the French branch of the Reich’s Ministry for the Occupied Territories, but one must be pleasant. ‘And then?’

‘Again, but … but at a large warehouse on the …’

‘A former store whose owners once specialized in making furniture?’

And whose large, once neon-lit letters atop the building hadn’t been removed but simply overhung by a huge swastika. Once again the chief inspector was making her say things. ‘
Oui
. In … in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin.’

‘The Lévitan?’

‘If you know, Inspector, why force me to admit it?’

‘Because, Mademoiselle Rouget, you and your mother must have known you were buying stolen goods.’

‘It wasn’t stolen! It had been legally expropriated!’

The day of reckoning would come—one had to believe this, otherwise what hope was there? ‘Look on it any way you like. This reputable source of your mother’s is none other than the director of that office you went to. Until last month, though, the Baron Kurt von Behr was also deputy director of the Einsatzstab Reichlieter Rosenberg to which he will have retained close ties since he is a much-valued associate of the Reichsmarschall Göring, for whom he often finds important works of art.’

Paintings, Old Masters, porcelains, coins and tapestries, thought Denise, all of which had been ‘stolen’ and to whom, everyone who was anyone knew, Von Behr and his wife had gone to Berlin last year on 12 January, the forty-ninth birthday of Göring, to present to him the original of the Treaty of Versailles with all its signatures.

‘A letter to Napoléon III from Richard Wagner was also included, mademoiselle,’ said St-Cyr, having read her thoughts. ‘He moves in nothing but the highest of circles, this reputable source of your mother’s. Oh please don’t trouble yourself about the mess in that bedroom and what is delaying your parents. The Standartenführer is patiently explaining to them that they must understand that the Höherer SS
und
Polizeiführer Oberg has only their best interests at heart and that the Sicherheitsdienst are watching over them at all times, even to having tidied things up so as to deny my partner and myself the victim’s corpse as proof and to allow that father of yours to continue to pronounce nothing but the stiffest of sentences.’

‘The night-action courts …’

‘And those trials of juvenile delinquents, mademoiselle, that come before him, the littlest of black marketeers also, and unlicenced prostitutes, especially those unfortunate enough to be married to absent prisoners of war. The price of the stamps was negotiated, wasn’t it?’

‘Colonel Delaroche …’

‘How much did your mother give him to deliver to the Baron von Behr?’

‘Three hundred and fifty thousand francs.’

‘Old ones?’

‘New ones. Mother … Mother had me count them for her since …’

‘You had contributed your share.’

Must he continue to blame herself?

It could only be said with sadness but one had best sigh heavily and then let her have it. ‘A new folio was ordered but the stamps went missing and the colonel discovered who must have taken them.’

‘Please, I … I don’t understand?’

‘Of course you don’t, but for now that is all I want from you.’

Through the rain and darkness, the headlamps shone fully on the Fountain of Mars. Kohler rubbed away the fog that kept collecting on the inside of the front windscreen. Germaine de Brisac was cold and soaked through yet hadn’t complained, had kept silent since the
Hôtel-Dieu
except for having guided them through a city that had shut down so hard, they’d met but one patrol and had had no further difficulty. Simply empty streets at 0221 hours Sunday and not a soul.

‘Hygeia,’ he said of the fountain as if relieved to have found it at last.

‘Inspector, do I really have to apologize to those children of Madame Guillaumet’s? I’ve two of my own and know how they must be feeling.’

‘Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, is it? My partner brought me here in the autumn of 1940. He was “educating” me, showing me a city he said I had not only to get to know, but also love, and even after everything the two of us have had to go through, I still did until now.’

‘It is beautiful. It doesn’t always rain.’

‘Old soldiers counted most for us then and still do, since we’d both had enough of war and of this one also.’

Old soldiers … ‘Former
compagnons d’armes
?’

‘Former enemies, Mademoiselle de Brisac. Stay here, then, but I’ll have to switch off the headlamps and the engine, and take the key.’

He didn’t trust her. He got out of the car and left her for what seemed with each passing minute to take longer and longer. She would say nothing further to him, because she had already said far too much. What should have been a simple assault, a lesson, a rape, yes! had turned into the murder of Adrienne Guillaumet, and Denise and herself were as guilty as any since they’d both known Vivienne and
Maman
had gone through the case files to find names for Abélard to deal with and then … yes, then, Denise and she had hired the Agence Vidocq themselves for Madame Morel.

‘I’m a murderess,’ she softly said to herself. ‘I’ve allowed my hatred of a dead husband and my yearning for a father I hardly knew but blamed for betraying Mother come to this, and my children will learn of it if I don’t do something.’

What could she do to stop Kohler and St-Cyr? What would Denise advise? Denise, without whom life would have no meaning.

Germaine got out of the car and let the rain hit her. Quickly she crossed over and took the rue de l’Exposition, would go down it until she reached the rue de Grenelle, which would lead her out to the boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg and the esplanade des Invalides. Herr Kohler would never find her if he chose to drive round and round searching for her. She wouldn’t be followed by anyone, not at this time of night.