Carnival (14 page)

‘A moment, then,' she managed.

He was now watching her go up the stairs. He had known Otto must have lied to her when she was nineteen and so very much in love with him—Herr Kohler would have told his partner of it. Geneviève had some of her looks at that age but was tall like Otto. ‘Tall girls always have a hard time of it,
Mutti
,' the child had wept not once but often until she had realized that God must have wanted her to be the way she was. ‘It is because of this that I must study,' she had concluded, as if consigning herself to scientific cloisters.

Otto had, however, taught Geneviève to love the outdoors, especially on those occasions when he had taken the child away for a day or a weekend's fishing. She had then spoken of it for months and had longed to be with him just like her mother.

When she came downstairs, the Chief Inspector was sitting at the kitchen table. To not offer coffee and butter biscuits would be impolite and might help to distract him.

‘
Merci
, madame,' he said, and went on with lacing up his shoes, did not say, as Otto had warned. ‘A few small questions. Nothing difficult.'

Instead, moving his coffee cup to one side, he took out a man's gold pocket watch and, opening it, placed the watch before him. ‘Roman numerals and a sweep second hand,' he said, ‘but it's a puzzle. Perhaps you can help.'

He had emptied Renée's pockets and her rucksack, had taken the lid off that ‘coffin' Otto had had made, and had examined the girl's body.

‘Renée's was in for repairs,' she heard herself saying. ‘Maurice … Herr Springer has been fixing watches for years. Since well before I was a little girl.'

He asked the address and she told him, could not have avoided answering. ‘Three the Schongstrasse. You can't miss it, though his sign was put away in 1940.'

‘That's near the
Polizeikommandantur
, isn't it?' he said and saw her nod, then asked, ‘The problem?' having again dropped into French, but had that been deliberate of him?

‘The stopwatch. Renée has—had—a fabulous wristwatch she found in Paris, in a shop on the
place
Vendôme.'

‘Bréquet's?' he asked, surprised.

‘
Oui, c'est très cher, mais
…'
Ah,
non
, she
had
spoken French like she and Geneviève had often done when Werner wasn't home, a household of two languages as most still were in secret, the French being that of her own mother. ‘Renée … Renée had always wanted such a watch to time her downhill runs, her laps in the pool, and the archery, the speed and accuracy of the arrows.'

‘Contests?' he asked, as if bemused, and now packing that pipe of his, having yet to eat a thing.

‘Victoria Bödicker, the Fräulein Schrijen and Renée loved to compete with one another, for fun of course.'

Ham, bread, cheese and butter were found, and she made him a sandwich to have along with his coffee and
Bredele
, the star, round, half-moon and heart shapes of shortbread. Some of these last were flavoured with anise, and he'd known this and had not been able to resist glancing appreciatively at them.

Another sandwich was made for him to take along, and was wrapped in newspaper, prompting him to ask, ‘Who picked that girl up here on Saturday, madame?
Bien sûr
, she could have …'

‘Was she murdered, Inspector?'

‘Tell me what you think.'

‘How could I possibly know? I never go out to that place.'

‘Never? Come, come, the girl must have spoken of it often. Weren't you curious?'

‘All right, we did go there once. My husband wanted to see it. A ruin, I'm afraid. Personally I thought the whole idea crazy. To repair any of those booths would take much time and cost far too much.'

It was her turn to wait, his to decide. ‘This is good,' he said of the sandwich and she knew then that he'd be thinking of the lunch Renée had taken, but he said nothing of it, nor did he push the matter of who had come to the house to give that girl a lift. He ate in silence, allowing lots of time for her to recall the
Karneval
.

‘
Le Tonneau de l'amour
,' she said at last, the Barrel of Love. ‘Werner …
mon mari
, insisted we go inside that thing. A tunnel, he called it because of its length, each half of which would once have turned in the opposite direction to the other, the girl entering from one end, the boy from the other, both walking toward each other and tumbling as if drunk.'

Had the Inspector seen it yet? she wondered. He gave no hint, causing her to continue. ‘
Docteur
Bonnet's Travelling Museum of Anatomy. It's at the very back and right against the woods.' Still there was no comment, but now he was enjoying his little meal as a Frenchman would.

‘Werner insisted on forcing the entrance. It had been jammed from behind with debris. Broken glass and shattered jars … Formalin was all I could think of as I turned away and did not go further. Geneviève, my … our daughter, began preserving specimens at the age of ten, Inspector. Dead things that she would find and then dissect. Frogs, toads, minnows, mice and birds—there's an armoire in her room that is still full of such. Jars and jars I …'

He waited, this Sûreté, a half-eaten sandwich in hand.

‘Things I still can't bring myself to move into storage.'

‘You must miss her terribly.'

‘Is that not a mother's duty?'

Instead of answering, he repeated the question she had earlier asked and he had deliberately left. ‘Was the colonel's secretary murdered?' he said and shrugged. ‘It's too early to say, but I'm almost certain someone must have picked her up here on that Saturday. You see, she would have had to change into her ski clothes, collect her skis and the lunch she had prepared ahead of time.'

No accusation of her having known of this lunch came, though she waited for it and he knew she did, and yes, Werner­ would have to cover for her until she was able to tell him what had been said. ‘Perhaps someone did come by, Inspector, but you see I wasn't here. Saturday mornings I help my husband. Werner's very capable and has always done the marketing. At noon we stop in at the
Winstub
of a friend. Some soup, a little bread and a glass of wine, though things are always in such short supply now and the ration tickets necessary. Usually we get back here at about 3.00 in the afternoon so neither of us would have even known if she had gone anywhere, since she would have worked until 6.00 with the colonel.'

‘
Ah,
bon
,' he said, picking at last crumbs until she was driven to say, ‘Perhaps a van came by. Herr Schrijen often sends wine from his vineyards to Karlsruhe as a gift to Herr Wagner. The Schlossberg, the Riesling …
Ach
, I'm sorry. I should have offered you some.'

‘Wagner,' he muttered. ‘He's the Gauleiter, isn't he?'

And the most feared of men—this was in the look the Chief Inspector gave, but he said no more of it, again forcing her to continue. ‘Perhaps Renée did hitch a ride. Victoria … the Fräulein Bödicker might know.'

‘Yet you didn't ask her when you went to the shop to inquire after the girl?'

On that same Saturday afternoon. ‘I assumed she could not possibly have known. I … I could have been mistaken.'

This he did not challenge though he most certainly could have. Instead he asked for a little more coffee and decided that, after all, he would add milk to it.

‘Victoria Bödicker and Renée Ekkehard, madame. They were good friends, I gather, but when did they first meet, who introduced them? All such things would be of help, even if they might seem insignificant.'

He would remember everything. He had that look about him and did not need to write a thing down. ‘The ski slopes in that first winter of 1940–41. Victoria had just returned from Munich. She hadn't been allowed to continue teaching. There had been a problem with her mother's having been held in the internment camp which was at Besançon then, and after that terrible winter, was moved to Vittel and a little closer.'

The mother having kept her English passport and thus having been rounded up along with all such others. ‘She visits Vittel, does she, the Fräulein Bödicker?'

And not the mademoiselle, but it would have to be said. ‘Once a month, on the last Friday, Victoria leaves well before dawn and returns late the same day. Otto … Colonel Rasche issues her the necessary
laissez-passer
and
sauf-conduit
. Renée used to bring them home here and then either take them to the bookshop for Victoria or the girl would stop by. That way …'
Ah,
merde
, had this been what the Chief Inspector had been after? ‘That way Victoria wasn't seen at the
Polizeikommandantur
too often, a … a precaution Otto felt best. Renée … Renée went with her to Vittel last September. Perhaps he felt the girl needed a change, a little trip, or maybe it was he simply wanted to hear what she had to say about that camp. It's full of British and American women who were caught up in things.'

All of whom were trapped and left behind just like the carnival—was this what the Inspector was now thinking, since Otto had agreed to the repair of those booths and by then on that last Friday of September, the work had already begun.

Taking a few of the
Bredele
, silently asking her permission, he stuffed them into a jacket pocket, gathered his pipe and tobacco pouch and the watch he had left out all this time, and getting up from the table, sadly shook his head and said, ‘It gets deeper and deeper, doesn't it, this hole the colonel has dug for himself? He agrees to find help for that committee of the Fräulein Schrijen's, since his secretary is a member of it, but avoids sending the necessary paperwork to the
Konzentrationslager
, issues passes to the bookseller, another member of that same committee who repeatedly is then allowed to cross the frontier into France, even sends his secretary along, and then lets her hitch a ride out to the
Karneval
but denies knowing anything of it at first, only to then leave her absence for several days. It's a puzzle, isn't it? A soldier through and through, yet a softness one finds difficult to understand, given the risks and the times.'

‘Your colonel, Kohler,' mused Schrijen, wagging that left forefinger of his. ‘Just how long does he intend to keep the body of my son's fiancée?'

And never mind that of the second victim. Left alone in the office, the secretary having closed the door and promised to hold all calls, a small cigar had been offered and accepted, coffee too, and slices of the
Kugelhupf
, both of which were fantastic and brought brief memories of that other war, of clean sheets and a pharmacist's daughter. ‘My partner has only had a preliminary look at her, Generaldirektor. Louis is a stickler for detail. Patience … I have to constantly remind myself to have it. The French …'

The fists were doubled, the forearms swiftly placed flat on the desk, the look far from pleasant. ‘Cut the
Quatsch, mein Lieber
. Men like myself haven't time to waste.'

‘We'll need at least two days, maybe a little more.'

The eyebrows arched at such confidence, the head cocked to the right, the fleshy nose finally pinched in thought, that same forefinger lifted. ‘An autopsy, is this what that partner of yours is demanding?'

God help him if it was. ‘Does that worry you?'

‘
Ach
, not in the slightest, though it's curious, is it not, that Colonel Rasche would prefer such a thing not to happen?'

It had to be said. ‘You're well informed.'

‘I have to be. Now, please, if we can't find a way through this, who can? The parents have been begging my son and me to intercede and bring their daughter home. A small funeral is requested. Understandably we see it as more, though of course they would prefer the less said the better. She was an only child. It's difficult enough.'

‘And if it was murder?'

Did Kohler still need his ass kicked? ‘It wasn't. You can't have read the report the
Polizeikommandantur
's own detectives filed. My son's choice of a wife was not as I would have advised. Things troubled her greatly. Loneliness was too often preferred. Repeated visits to a place like that
Karneval
? A young and beautiful girl wanders about among ruined sideshows on her own, picking at the rubbish of those freaks? She spends hours in the adjacent Kastenwald, speaks of ravens, has thoughts of a Gallic goddess of the Underworld who watches her constantly and waits only to torment her? Is out all night skiing—why, please, I have to wonder? A virgin? Children were what she needed and the more the better.'

Louis should have heard him. ‘Generaldirektor, I understand from the Oberstleutnant Rudel that she …'

‘Yes, yes, that she had seen something at the quarry camp. We don't ask, and my son doesn't tell us, but obviously whatever it was, in her confused state of mind it left a lasting impression. Before she killed herself, the girl wrote,
“I can't go on. Please forgive me.”
'

‘There wasn't a note, was there?'

Dummkopf
, your ass has just been kicked. ‘One of those detectives your colonel ignores found it tucked into the frame of the broken mirror nearest to her.'

‘Written in lipstick or in pencil?'

‘Lipstick.'

‘Didn't that suggest it could well have been written by someone else?'

‘A woman—is this what you're saying? The Fräulein Bödicker perhaps?
Ach
, ask her, don't ask me. Ask the colonel's detectives.'

‘Fingerprints—were any taken?'