Tapestry (33 page)

He said no more of this but did he know they had put themselves out to send her to secretarial school and that she was trying to pay them back and desperately needed to keep her job, that with the rationing it helped them tremendously to have her living here? He must know that
Maman
and the rest of the family, except for
Papa
, were at home in Dreux, at least eighty-five kilometres to the west of the city and that she sent money and things to them when she could but hadn’t been home since coming to Paris, not with the travel restrictions and the need for
laissez-passers
and
sauf-conduits
. The cost too.

Indicating that she should show him the flat, he told her he had best look through it but didn’t explain further. She took off her slippers, he his shoes, which he set neatly side by side, even to cleaning a bit of mud from the toe of one.

But had he really put the lock on? wondered Suzette. The Savonnerie­ carpet in the
salle de séjour
was soft and warm underfoot, the living room perfect—Louis XVI chairs and sofas she never sat in, lamps she never used, even a glazed cheval screen before a fireplace in which she had never once lighted a fire, the stove in the kitchen being hers to use. Oil paintings hung on the walls with the tapestries—landscapes, portraits, sketches—beautiful things were everywhere and worth an absolute fortune and yet … and yet it was but one of such flats the agency kept for its clients—hadn’t that been what he’d said? Flats here, flats there. ‘I … I don’t use any of the rooms except for the kitchen and my bedroom,’ she said.

Teddy was waiting. Teddy
would
look up at him. ‘It does get lonely,’ she said and stupidly had to shrug, was nervous too, nervous at the nearness of this man she had sometimes thought about when in bed with Teddy—would he have realized this? ‘Working six days a week, I … I haven’t had a chance to contact any of my friends from school here and am not from Paris anyway—
ah, mon Dieu,
how could I be?’

Which only showed how well Abélard vetted their secretaries, thought Raymond, but he wouldn’t give her one of those rare smiles she welcomed, not yet. He’d make her wait for it.

The girl followed him to the kitchen, but had she realized he’d known of the teddy bear? She
would
take that music box to have its mechanism freed, a problem for sure. An offer would have been made, but had she been stunned by the value and come away only to then realize what the contents of the flat itself must be worth?

‘Colonel Delaroche gives me vouchers,’ she said of the kitchen. ‘I use them with my ration tickets but only at certain shops. He has said my time is better spent at my desk and not in the queues, so I … I just hand the vouchers in and each shopkeeper takes what tickets are needed and I, in turn, take what I’ve been given.’

She had set the table for two and had piled books on to the chair opposite the one she would use, the day’s events at the agency to then be relayed to her little friend. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays were meatless days, and though there must be meat available, the frying pan hadn’t been taken down and set to ready on the stove. Instead, noodles were in soak. The Maréchal Pétain would have been pleased.

‘Were some of the shopkeepers I go to once men under the colonel’s command?’ she asked. ‘Most are veterans, many from Verdun. Some even wear their medals and ribbons on their smocks.’

Fear of himself, of a man and all that it must entail yet the forbidden excitement of it, too, had made her breath come quickly, but she wasn’t aware of this and certainly the little fool had been taking note of far too much. ‘Look, I must get back to the office. Please don’t worry about Hubert. Everything will be fine.’

Pressing her forehead against the door, her fingers still on the lock, Suzette didn’t hear him take the lift. He had gone down one of the staircases. A floor, two floors—on which had the trouble been and why, please, had he to check? Hadn’t Concierge Louveau told him all about it?

Teddy didn’t help. Teddy said,
Don’t you dare!

The side staircase was the closer, stocking feet the best, no sign of M. Jeannot Raymond in the corridor below, nor was he on the third floor, not that she could see, but one of the flats nearest to this staircase had been sealed with stickers, they having been placed both above and below the lock and covering the seam between the door and the jamb. Stickers whose eagle clutched a swastika.

‘ “Zutritt verboten. Défense d’entrer
,” ’ she whispered as she read the notice. ‘ “
Befehl der Kripo Pariser-Zentrum. Par ordre du Préfet et de la Police Judiciaire.” ’

Herr Kohler had signed the notice. The building was quieter than quiet but … Suzette glanced up at the ceiling—had she heard someone in that corridor?

There was no one there, and
Dieu merci
, it was the same on the fifth. The door to her flat was still tightly closed, she having silently eased it shut. Hurriedly she stepped inside, closed the door, put the lock on … warned herself to do so quietly.

Sighed when it was done, and pressed her forehead against the door again. ‘There,’ she said but couldn’t find the will to turn, couldn’t find her voice anymore, knew only that she wasn’t alone and that he was right behind her.

The cigarette box that Hermann kept digging into on the colonel’s desk was Czechoslovakian, the mid-1930s and a time when such things could still be made. It was of beautifully banded, polished malachite, whose frosted green glass lid held in relief, as if in gauze, a reclining nude, full exposure. At once it was evocative and provocative, and one had to wonder if the box had been deliberately placed there to incite further jealousy in already embittered female clients.

‘You enjoy the finer things in life, Colonel. Again I commend your taste,’ said St-Cyr. Quevillon, Garnier, Hermann and himself were sitting in front of the desk, the colonel behind it, his gestures effusive, the cigar hand slicing the air when emphasis was needed.

‘Come, come, what is this? More suspicion? You know as well as I, the market is flooded with objects of virtu. Business has been good and when I can, I pick up what fancies me.’

Hubert Quevillon couldn’t resist darting a knowing glance at his mentor, Flavien Garnier, who patently ignored his subordinate. ‘Of course, I meant nothing other than that I, too, appreciate such things, Colonel.’ If Hermann had any further thoughts of being incautious, he had, one hoped, now thought better of it. ‘Let’s get back to our discussion of the Ritz. Surely Agent Garnier must have some idea of who our Trinité victim was to have met.’

‘For sex,’ muttered Hubert Quevillon.

‘None,’ grunted Garnier, the black horn-rims lending severity to the silent warning he gave his subordinate.

‘Not a
General
, a
Generalmajor
, or even a
Major
?’ asked Hermann, the
Deutsch
deliberate.

Garnier tapped cigarette ash into a cupped palm, the dark brown eyes behind those specs not even having to glance down at it.

‘The assistant doorman who delivered the note to the Guillaumet subject’s concierge refused to tell me. His job, he said, and I must agree with him, Colonel, would not only have been jeopardized but forfeited. Decour, the head doorman of the Ritz, is an absolute bastard.’

Agent Garnier was as if of reinforced concrete, thought St-Cyr. No doubt this impersonator of himself ate his meals as though still in the trenches just as Hermann did, stolidly lump by lump while waiting for the next onslaught, but something would have to be said. ‘And how, please, did you learn of her tragic assault?’

Was it to be nothing but the most inane of questions from this Sûreté? wondered Garnier. St-Cyr must have gone through that desk of Hubert’s and his own but had been valiantly trying to hide the fact. ‘Like everyone else, we noticed it in the newspapers.’

‘She takes a good photo, doesn’t she?’ quipped Quevillon who seemed always to be driven to let his gaze flick from this Sûreté to Hermann, as if not just to gauge what the response might be, but to incite it if possible.

‘We were as distressed as yourselves,’ countered Delaroche warily.

‘But none of you had the unenviable task of having to find her, Colonel. Perhaps Agent Garnier would be so good as to tell us who else was tailing Madame Guillaumet?’

‘Yes, tell us,’ breathed Hermann, dragging out his notebook as Quevillon brushed crumbs from the creased knees of trousers that still had the turn-ups of the 1930s.

‘You see, Colonel, your assistant may well have noticed he wasn’t alone in asking questions about her,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Someone sure as hell knew what that “subject” of yours was up to,’ added Hermann.

‘Flavien, did you or Hubert … ?’ hazarded Delaroche. ‘Kohler, must you write everything down?’

There were no bite marks on the colonel’s wrists or hands either, no broken-off, closely trimmed fingernails. In short, none of these three could have assaulted the Trinité victim, nor could Delaroche have been bitten by Élène Artur. ‘Oh, sorry. Force of habit, I guess.’

‘There were two of them, Colonel,’ said Garnier levelly.

‘Two?’ asked Louis who had yet to accuse Garnier of impersonating a Sûreté.

‘
Oui
. Both of medium height, the one much bigger about the waist than the other, who was built like a wedge, and probably as strong as an ox. They must have seen that I was on to them, for puff, they vanished.’

And how very convenient, thought St-Cyr, but something had had to be given and Garnier had done so. For each advance, first the little retreat; for each lie, the slender element of truth.

Quevillon flashed a knowing grin, but had to lose it suddenly under a scowl from the colonel. ‘And when, please, was that?’ asked St-Cyr.

‘Yes, when?’ asked Hermann.

These two would never be convinced to leave well enough alone and to cooperate, felt Garnier. ‘At first I thought a competing agency must be after the same things, but then they lost interest. Colonel, how was I to have known the subject would be assaulted and robbed? How was Hubert?’

‘Raped and beaten,’ said Quevillon, darting an expectant glance at each of them. ‘But … but wasn’t there something else rammed up inside the …’

‘Hubert!’ cautioned Delaroche.

‘The truncheon of a
gendarme de contrôle, peut-être
?’

A traffic cop. The press hadn’t known of it, thought Kohler, not even that young doctor at the
Hôtel-Dieu
had been specific, but Louis wasn’t going to let on and didn’t pause while repacking that pipe of his and making sure his pouch was again filled to overflowing. ‘And with Madame Barrault and Gaston Morel?’ he asked.

St-Cyr had not only stolen more pipe tobacco, he was like a termite with this little interview of theirs, snorted Garnier to himself. Sometimes one couldn’t hear the termites in the night, sometimes they would set up such a racket, sleep was impossible but as with all such insects, it was often best to give them something to gnaw on while one got the paraffin and the match or the solution of arsenic and sugar. ‘They were enjoying each other’s company in secret, or so they thought.’

Hastily Hubert Quevillon pushed that hank of hair back off his brow. ‘But I was able to gain access to that little nest of theirs in the Hôtel Grand and to watch the circus through a crack in the bedroom door.’

‘Hubert …’ tried Delaroche.

‘
Toute nue
, the legs spread and down on her knees with Morel’s
bitte
in her hands and …’

‘HUBERT! that is enough,’ snapped Garnier, impatiently flicking cigarette ash into that palm of his. ‘The inspectors
asked
if you had noticed anyone else tailing the Barrault subject.’

‘Yes, did you notice others were “investigating” the woman’s private life?’ said Hermann.

‘Isn’t that what an
agent privé
does?’ countered Quevillon. ‘Ville­neuve, the manager of the Cinéma Impérial, did tell me that others had been making enquiries. With women like that it’s understandable, is it not? The Barrault subject needed the part-time work and he gave her just enough of it to have the use of her and often.’

Oh and did he? asked Kohler silently. Quevillon avoided glancing at the colonel and for a moment no one could find a thing to say but was this twit of an
agent privé
confident they couldn’t be touched? Delaroche, having tired of his cigar, had quickly stubbed it out, then polished off the last of the Romanée-Conti, one of the finest of Burgundies, if not the finest and once given to Louis XIV spoonful by patient spoonful, the Sun King’s doctors thinking it might cure the great one’s painful fistula, an outright case of gastric ulcers, no doubt.

Quevillon lit another cigarette, his fifth, or was it the sixth? ‘I have the proof,’ he said, tasting it too. ‘Sworn statements from the cinema’s staff as well as from its manager.’

‘But … but, monsieur, these others who were tailing her?’ asked Louis, gesturing companionably with that pipe hand of his. ‘Could we not have …’

‘Those others, Inspectors, also didn’t maintain their surveillance,’ said Garnier flatly.

‘But were they the same two as with the Guillaumet investigation?’ insisted Louis as if he believed every word of what had been said.

‘That’s correct but we didn’t see them,’ said Garnier. ‘It was only after having been given a description of them, that Villeneuve of the Impérial became certain they were the same. We didn’t expect anyone else to have been tailing the subject, Colonel. Ah! perhaps a slip-up on my part, the need always to be in more than two places at once. One of the usherettes must have let them know we’d been in and asking questions.’

‘Okay, okay,’ breathed Hermann, apparently jotting it all down. ‘Louis and me, we’ll have to check it out. Now give us what you can on …’

Deliberately he thumbed through his notebook, going well back into other investigations before thumbing forward just to let them know the partnership didn’t fool around. ‘Give us what you can on a Father Marescot.’

Had the bell of that church just sounded? wondered St-Cyr, for each of them had glanced at the others.

‘The priest of the Église de Notre-Dame de Lorette, Colonel,’ offered Garnier, having somehow silenced his subordinate. ‘The good father couldn’t tell me what the Barrault subject had revealed in the confessional she repeatedly subjects herself to out of guilt, but he did go so far as to say she had damned herself before God, as had all of the others who attend those special Masses of his and that … yes, yes, he had personally written to the Scapini Commission some time ago demanding that they inform the husband.’