Carousel (25 page)

There were several rooms and, as their steps took them farther from the door, the darkness increased. ‘Tell me about the ones who came to clean this place out.'

‘Must I?' Yvode saw him nod. ‘There were ten of them, with two trucks and a white car – a huge car. Never have I seen such a beautiful thing as that car.'

The white Bentley Lafont always drove. ‘Pistols? Revolvers? The …'

‘The swastika armbands, monsieur, and the black uniforms, as I have said, of the French Gestapo. Everything … My curtains –
mine
, monsieur – even my register. Me, I have only a tired memory. The authorities, they will …'

‘Yes, yes. I'm sure you'll get it back. They'll have given you a receipt.'

‘Of what good is a piece of paper when a valued tenant returns to find his possessions gone?'

‘Perhaps he won't come back.'

‘Was he murdered too?'

‘We don't know that yet. We hope not. Now where did they take the things? It'll have been on the receipt.'

‘The rue Lauriston, as I've said.'

‘Tell me about the possessions, the things in this flat.'

‘Stuffed birds, stuffed animals – strange creatures from the jungles, monkeys, snakes, seeds, beans, plants, books, leather-work … a few photographs taken in South America, I think. He never said much about it. He has assumed I would know about such things and me, I have not thought it correct to ask.'

Yvode sucked in a breath. ‘A photograph of a carousel. He had raised his granddaughter from childhood, you understand, monsieur. The carousel was his heart and soul, his present to her but …' he gave a shrug … ‘Monsieur Charles, he had to sell it.'

‘What did he do for a living?'

‘He had a little money. He did not work any more, not that I knew of. He was past this. Some of us are.'

‘Lonely?'

Yvode was quick to catch the drift. ‘Self-contained. Absolute. Just him and the granddaughter.'

‘And the girl?'

‘She was a student, an artist and an artist's model. She posed in the nude. M Charles was very much of the old school, Inspector, but Christabelle said she had to, and that one knew he'd have to let her but he did not like it. Ah no, that was most evident. Monsieur Charles was very strict, very possessive.'

‘Unnaturally so?'

The Sûreté, always the filth! ‘They did not have much money, monsieur. She had to work so as to get enough for her share of the rent and the food. I sometimes wondered how they managed but these days we're all in the same bucket, except for those who have become friends of the Boches, eh?'

‘I'm not one of them, Monsieur Yvode. I am merely a detective who is trying against formidable odds to do his job.'

‘Did she die in agony?'

How was the body, eh? Parisian to the core, the man wanted to know the most intimate of details and he hated to rob him of these, but he gave only a curt nod. ‘She knew her killer. At least, we think she did.'

‘We?' asked Yvode, only to hear the Sûreté say he had a partner, a German, a Nazi, a Gestapo.

‘I'm forced to work under him. It will pass in time but for now I must tell you that I know the rules and that my partner has been only too forceful in telling them to me.'

Don't forget anything then. Ah
merde
, Monsieur Charles would never forgive him. ‘He had a friend, a Corsican. One of the
durs
, monsieur. I myself did not see him here, you understand. There were never any visitors. But I have a sister in Belleville, near the Parcdes Buttes-Chaumont. Quite by accident I saw them in a pavement café last summer. I –'

‘Excuse me, monsieur, the name of this café, its location? Everything … we need to know everything. It's important.'

‘The Café Noir, it is on the avenue de Laumiére, not far from the park. A little place much frequented by those I would not wish to know. I was surprised to see him in such a place and when later I have mentioned that I saw him, Monsieur Charles he has denied it most emphatically and offered instead ticket stubs to the races at Longchamp as proof. The granddaughter has held her breath, Inspector, and given the grandfather the quick and doubtful glance. Me, I think she was afraid.'

‘Did the girl and her grandfather come in together that day?'

‘Yes, as I've just said, she …'

‘Would she have met the two of them at that café?'

Yvode gave a shrug. ‘I really do not know, monsieur. She might have, but then again she might not have and he could just as easily have told her of the meeting later on when they met up some place else.'

Matching the register with Madame Minou's would be an almost impossible task, given that Lafont had taken this one. ‘Tell me what Monsieur Charles looked like.'

‘A swarthy man of some muscular strength. A man of medium height like yourself but strong, you understand, like the Greek peasant I once had as a lodger in the old house. A labourer. The black beret, the thick grey-white hair over the tops of the ears, the narrow eyebrows, not bushy, the sad grey-blue eyes deep in thought, the pipe – a long, black-stemmed thing, something from the old days, I think. A favourite in any case.'

‘Yes, yes, I know the feeling well. The face, monsieur? Please, it is very important. We have photographs of him when he was much younger.'

‘Then that one will have changed a great deal. There are crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes and these have made their criss-crossing inroads well on to the grizzled cheeks. Always a morning's shave followed by two or three days of respite. A creature of long habit, perhaps, but myself, I think he didn't care much for barbers. Perhaps he was just saving money, perhaps he wanted the stubble to shade him from the sun but now, of course, there is so little of that, it would not matter.'

‘A man of sixty-seven?'

‘A grey man, monsieur, so sad at times he didn't realize others might notice. But sometimes a twinkle of laughter. A man who understood a great deal about life and accepted the sins and desires of others with a certain resignation and … yes, yes, compassion. His face not round but a little longer, the chin fleshy, with creases curving up on either side from the round line of his jaw. A nose that was wide and flared, with large nostrils from which unclipped hairs would sprout until his granddaughter got at them with the clippers.'

The concierge was a treasure. The darkness had worked its miracle, the absence of light negating distraction and offering its own sharp illumination to memory. ‘Anything else?' asked St-Cyr pleasantly.

‘A red polka-dot kerchief knotted at the throat, an open corduroy jacket of a deep plush black, much worn, much loved for its comfort. The blue denim shirt, faded like most. Corduroy trousers and the shoes …? Sometimes the leather sandals, sometimes the tennis shoes. Monsieur Charles always maintained that canvas breathed and was good for the feet. Sometimes the leather shoes but these he tended to save and me, I think he had grown accustomed to the others.'

Again St-Cyr asked if there was anything else.

‘A flowered carpet-bag, dark wine-purple and very shabby. Monsieur Charles often used it when going to and from the shops – a bottle of wine, a stick of bread, though now there is so little. He … he has taken this bag with him when he went to see his brother on Tuesday.'

‘And the other one, the man he met, the Corsican?'

‘One of the
durs
, as I have said. It's not too hard to tell with those, is it? Younger by a few years, swarthy too, and very tough. Me, I don't remember anything else about him, monsieur.'

A killer then. ‘One last question, Monsieur Yvode. Did Charles Audit frequent the house next door?'

Ah
merde
, could there be no secrets from this one? ‘Yes. Yes, sometimes he went there. He used to laugh about it. He used to say it's always wisest for a man to live next to a bordello, then he can see when the doctor comes to screen the girls and will have the first crack at the cleanest. His granddaughter would only smile sweetly at this, monsieur, a puzzle in one so pure.'

They went down to the entrance. The rue Bènard was pitch-dark. The bicycle, though badly damaged and unridable, had been stolen. So much for the curfew, for the lateness of the hour. Paris had become a city of the hidden.

There were no air raids, no sirens. From the roof of the house overlooking the quai Jemmapes, the city lay in darkness. Unearthly because there were so few sounds, and yet the depth of its silence could be broken at any moment by the tramp of hobnailed boots, the screech of brakes or scream of burning rubber.

Kohler chanced a cigarette. He'd fallen asleep. Lafont and Bonny could think what they liked.

When Madame Van der Lynn came up to him in her nightgown, he saw her clutch her shoulders for warmth. ‘What's the matter?' she asked.

He drew on the cigarette then passed it to her. ‘Nothing. I just couldn't sleep any more.'

‘You were worried about your partner. You cried out “Louis, don't!” Is he out there some place?' She indicated the darkness of the city.

‘In my dream Louis was being followed. He hasn't got his gun, madame. I've got it in the car, under the front seat.'

‘Won't someone steal it?'

‘They'd better not. Neither of us have had the time even to think. I forgot about the shooters. I'm the one who's supposed to keep track of them. He's French and not to be trusted. It's an order from above.'

‘We could go down to the car. You could take me to the Vél d'Hiv. We could get it over with, protect the guns and seé what's happened to your friend.'

‘I want to think for a moment. Put something warm on. It's too cold for you up here.'

He felt her uncertain fingers touch his cheek. He heard her saying, ‘They will ask if we had sex. I will try to lie but must confess I don't think they will let me.'

‘Look, your husband will be okay. They'll not have killed him.'

She wished he hadn't said it! ‘You could have made love to me. I needed to forget. I'm so afraid of what we'll find.'

Kohler took the cigarette from her fingers. ‘Okay, get dressed and I'll take you to him.' Louis … where the hell was Louis?

The rue Bènard was not so wide that one could not worry about the doorways. The thin blue lamps on the corner of the rue des Plantes had been conveniently extinguished. Not two minutes ago St-Cyr had heard the breaking of their glass.

So, my friends, what's it to be, eh? A death on cobblestones still slicked with the afternoon's rain? One to come from behind; the other from the front? They'd probably been holed up in the house next door. That racket with the concierge would have wakened the dead, but these two would have been light sleepers in any case, and only one of them would have been asleep.

What had Hermann and he got themselves into?

Straining, he listened to the street, smelling the dankness of Paris in winter, the Occupation. He'd no knife, no pistol, only his precious bracelets. Would one of them remember these, would that one be out for vengeance, or would both of them?

A warning. A fake gold coin, dipped in a murdered girl's blood.

He owed it to her to find her killer or killers. These two? he asked, stepping quickly to the left to feel for and duck into the doorway of a shop, café or house. It was so dark.

No steps came on. If he could get to the rue des Plantes, he could go up it to the avenue du Maine. He could lose himself among the tombstones of Montparnasse. He could go to ground there.

Not with these two. They were out to kill him. He could only wonder what he'd done in the past, could only think, Why is it that they do not want Hermann and me to learn anything more about this case?

As carefully as he could, St-Cyr opened the box of matches in his pocket and, feeling for their heads, arranged the ten or so that were left into a small bundle.

The stones were wet. The heads would only smear with the dampness.

He'd have to take that chance. Something … he needed something they wouldn't be expecting.

These two will be expecting everything, he said. Was it Charles Audit and his Corsican friend? Devil's Island would have taught Audit many useful things.

They'd have no fear of the Germans.

The Carbone gang? he asked, stepping quickly back on to the narrow pavement and then on to the street as if off the edge of the moon.

He floated down on to the cobblestones and went quickly up the street at a run, only to stop suddenly. Ah Mon Dieu, they were so good.

When the knife flashed, the matches tumbled from his fingers. He gave an instinctive cry that echoed up and down the street. ‘
Jesus … Jesus … In the Name of Jesus, why are you after me, you bastards? I can help you.
'

It wouldn't have worked. He clutched his bleeding left hand. They waited. They watched. They circled him. ‘
Who are you?
' he cried out again in anger now, in fear, in so many things, the wounded stag baited by the hounds of the night.

Two men, two dark silhouettes, a slotted glimpse of the sky beyond the edges of the roofs.

The sound of a single car now, the screeching of its brakes, the leaping throttle of its engine. He tried to hold his hand up. One of them was behind him again, the other in front. Both would have knives, but which would rush him first?

The one behind him leapt! The knife … St-Cyr turned, pivoted again, ducked again, twisted aside. The knife flashed and flashed, tearing his coat.

He threw his back against a wall, licked the sweat of fear from his lips. ‘All right, my fines, all right, eh? Come at me as men. My revolver is out!'

They melted away and they left him there with water in his shoes, ah damn! Two wise men who were not afraid, who would have known he could not have hit either of them in the dark. But they had no need to gamble. There'd be another time and they'd left him with that thought, as with the smile of cruelty.