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Shouting erupted. Offenheimer flew into another rage. His chair fell over. The cards were scattered. Tears rushed down the little boy's cheeks. The old girls were all aflutter now but had stepped back as the captain seized the statue with both hands, only to withdraw from it at once.

He grabbed a hammer! Giving a cry of anguish, the bastard smashed the porcelain to smithereens. Not one blow but several. A real tantrum in which, at the last, his glasses were knocked askew.

Then the aunts and the other one fell on him in a rush of kisses and commiserations and he had it with the grandmother on the sofa in an orgy of lust and ripped chiffon that should have given her a heart attack!

‘Jesus, if I hadn't seen it, I'd never have believed it. What'd he do? Kill his older sister or something?'

‘It is harmless, is it not, monsieur? Twice each week, always the same thing. First the coffee and the cakes, the tête-à-tête and the exchange of gifts, then the game of cards that is always interrupted by the statue.'

‘Never the real thing?' he asked, a yelp.

‘Only once. We first tried it with a young girl I had hired especially for the task, but he became …'

‘So violent you had to restrain him?'

‘Yes. Insanely jealous, but with the statue it is much better. When clothed, the thing took too long, for he had to get up the courage to undress it. Naked it is very fast, is it not? He smashes her. The rage is spent and the session exquisite in its completion.'

A grandmother fixation. Offenheimer's face was still buried in her bosom. The aunts had retired from the room. ‘Those statues must cost him a lot.'

‘Five thousand francs each. Me, I … I have arranged their purchase for him.'

‘And the house fee?' Oona was trembling.

‘Another two thousand since he requires the same three of our ladies – never any of the others, monsieur. He has chosen them himself.'

From the line-up. ‘And if I were to put this one in there with him, naked?' he asked.

‘I … would not wish to do such a thing, monsieur. Who knows what he might do.'

‘Strangle her, eh?'

‘Yes … yes, he might do that.'

‘Violate her?'

‘Yes, yes, he might do that also, but'… may God forgive her … ‘only after he had slain her.'

‘How many others have watched him at it?'

When there was no answer forthcoming, Kohler leaned against her.

‘Two men, monsieur. One French, the other from the SS.'

The rue Lauriston and the avenue Foch.

‘The French one brought the SS, and like yourself, there was a young woman with them.'

Nicole de Rainvelle. ‘Okay, I've seen enough. When will he leave?'

‘In another twenty minutes, after … after first trying to have it again with his …'

‘His grandmother.'

She'd try for sympathy. It would be expected of her but useless, of course. ‘Some men require the attentions of older ladies, monsieur. It is entirely a matter of taste.'

‘Did Baudelaire really come here?'

The woman sucked in a breath. ‘Baudelaire …? Ah no, monsieur. That plaque belongs to the hotel next door as … as does this building we are in.'

The fog was thick and they were both freezing. Oona clamped her knees together. She'd known it would end this way for her, that ever since they'd met Kapitän Offenheimer at the warehouse this morning Herr Kohler would use her as bait. It was nothing personal. It was simply necessity.

The Seine lapped against the quay, sucking at the stones as each small wave withdrew. The city was so quiet.

A car door slammed! Herr Kohler stiffened. ‘Just stand beside the light, madame. Let the bastard see you. Tell him you've lost your way.'

‘And if he won't stop?' she asked, bursting into tears.

‘Step in front of the car and make him. Look, I've
got
to know. Thirty hostages are at stake, yourself as well, damn it! Oona, it's the only way. I'm sorry.' He gave her a shove and she knew again that Martin was dead and never coming back, that their children had died and that she was now completely on her own. And she wondered, What if Offenheimer tells me to get into the car?

Herr Kohler had parked the Citroën up a side-street. He'd never reach it in time to follow them. God … oh God but it was cold.

She pulled her collar close and, slipping her hands back into the pockets of her coat, began to walk away from him, only to turn to search the darkness and say his name at last. ‘Hermann, must I?'

He gave no answer. He was already lost to her. Droplets of mizzle kept striking her face, each one bursting as it hit her skin.

The smell of the river was rank. The pot-light hissed, and when she reached it, the car came slowly along the quay towards her. Late … it was so late. She threw a terrified glance upriver. There were a few small blue lights, well spread out and far too distant to matter. From the other side came the tramp of hobnailed boots.

Offenheimer had not yet turned on the headlamps. He was afraid someone might see him leaving the House of the Silver-Haired. Kohler held his breath. Suddenly the headlamps were switched on. Oona threw up an arm to shield her eyes, a blonde-haired young woman obviously in distress.

The Mercedes crawled to a stop. The window was rolled down.

‘Your name?' asked Offenheimer. He'd not yet recognized her but his voice … it was like something out of nowhere. Mist continued to fall through the beam of the lights. Oona forced herself to step closer to the car.

‘Please, I … I have lost my way in the fog, monsieur. I know I should not be out after curfew but my aunt, she is very sick, and I had to sit with her until … until it was too late. Now I must get home. My husband … my children …'

Offenheimer switched off the headlamps but said nothing. The seconds ticked away and she knew he was struggling with himself, that something dark and evil must have happened in his distant past.

‘Where do you live?' he asked at last. Had he really argued with that conscience of his or with the regulations? Had he recognized her?

‘In Auteuil, on the boulevard de Beauséjour. My husband, he will be so worried, monsieur. I …'

‘You should not be out after curfew. It is against the regulations and punishable by a sentence of no less than three months if … if all other questions are resolved.'

She was lying and he knew it.

‘Please, I will find my own way, monsieur. Forgive me for having stopped you.'

Afraid … she was so afraid of him. ‘Let us walk for a little. Then I will take you home, Hilda.'

Hilda
! Jesus Christ! The car door opened and was shut. The fog soon closed about them. Their steps came and went as the Seine sucked at the stones and gave back the laughter of a river that had seen it all.

Kohler tried not to listen to the river, tried not to think of what he'd done to that poor woman. Where … where the hell had they gone? ‘OONA!' he called out in desperation. ‘O … O … N … A!'

Their steps came again and he heard them faintly, just a whisper, just a throb.

Then the music came to him from across the river and the tramp of hobnailed boots returned.

The dream was very real, the dream was most intense but the perfume of Revenge kept intruding into that of the Mirage. St-Cyr saw the carousel in midnight blue as if the lights had all been dimmed and the animals, favouring this blue, charged wildly through the night losing all but a little of their own colours. Now the elephant with its trunk high, now the zebra, the camel and a stallion or two. Now a bird in a gilded cage, a rain of female clothing that turned into one of gold coins in sprays of blood … blood … the stallions all snorting wildly at the sight of her naked body as they raced away, the monkey chattering excitedly. Monkey … monkey, blood and gold and wild-eyed creatures crying, ‘Hurry … You must hurry.'

Revenge! A woman … the scream of a motor car out of control … an accident? A mirage? Faster … faster! A young girl's eyes, her naked breasts sagging as she stared blankly up at him, her lips moving … moving …' Revenge … Revenge … Mirage … Mirage, monsieur.' The carousel flying round and round, the light changing to a rainbow of colours under court jester's eyes that flashed in the mirrors over a naked, strangled, violated girl. ‘Gabrielle! Gabrielle!' he cried out in despair and sat up suddenly. The face of Marianne St-Jacques dissolving into that of Gabrielle Arcuri. Ah Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu! The scent of Revenge so strong in his nostrils, the intrusion of Mirage was fretful.

Christiane, leave the hotel immediately. Don't go up to the room.
Why had Antoine Audit not tried to warn the girl better than that?

The Resistance had been after the industrialist. The Resistance … the Café Noir.

One of the mannequins, a brown-haired girl with nothing on but flimsy, coffee-coloured undergarments, was standing just inside the door looking very worried.

‘What time is it?' he asked.

‘Just after curfew.'

‘Good. I'm going to have to do something about these nightmares. I am distressed to have frightened you.'

‘Chantal says she is very pretty, this Mademoiselle Arcuri, and very close to your heart, but', the girl gave a shrug, ‘she is untouchable at the moment.'

‘I did not say she had the curse, did I?' he asked anxiously of the dream.

‘The curse? Ah no, Monsieur the Chief Inspector. Chantal has said it is because of the rue Lauriston that you have come here. The French Gestapo! But that you
must
go to Mademoiselle Arcuri, since she is the Mirage of your dreams.'

‘And the Revenge?' he asked. ‘What does Chantal say of this?'

‘That you will find the answer, Monsieur Jean-Louis, because you are her knight in shining armour, but that if there should be any leftover silk you will know where to leave it.'

Kohler breathed in carefully. The fog was thick, the night like ink, the quai d'Anjou and the House of the Silver-Haired now behind him. Once across the boulevard Henri-IV there was a small park, the square Barye, chestnut trees, lindens and a few shrubs.

A single pot-light on the pont de Sully appeared frosted through the mist, its light suffused too quickly. They'd not have crossed that bridge. He knew it, knew Offenheimer was forcing him to follow them into the park.

Oona Van der Lynn hadn't cried out in a long, long while, which could only mean the Captain had a knife or pistol. Regulation issue, nine millimetre. A Luger, Mauser or Walther P-38.

Schraum had been killed with one of those. The poor woman would be naked now, lying on the wet grass, her clothes everywhere. Son of a bitch, why had he thought to use her as bait? Had he no feelings, no humanity? Had he sunk into the slime of this merry-go-round?

It took him back to Munich, to the banks of the Isar; Berlin, too, and the Spree, and not all of the victims had been women and young girls, ah no. Lovers lost were target enough; lovers taken quickly in the heat of the moment were often best dispensed with.

Not so tidily either, especially when it came to young boys. The penis and testicles of one had turned up later in a box.

He stepped into the tiny park, could hear the lapping of the Seine from both sides and from straight ahead, for the park occupied the upriver point of land.

Droplets fell from the branches, mist broke against his face and he was cold. He knew he mustn't think of Oona Van der Lynn any more, that she was just another woman in trouble. That Offenheimer would kill him and then kill the woman if he hadn't already done so.

Where … where were they?

The grass underfoot changed to gravel and he cursed himself, for the sound of the stones rumbled like thunder against the patient dripping and the fetid lapping of the swollen river.

The Van der Lynn woman had been wearing a trenchcoat with a belt. There'd been a scarf – the one to tie the hands and ankles, the other to gag the mouth. Then the clothes cut off by the knife and the breasts fondled as they became wetter and wetter, the blood mingling with the water from the branches and the slowly failing mizzle.

Would he shove the knife up inside her as some had done? Would he cut out her eyes or drive the thing up her seat as others had done after first having slashed the buttocks in a rage?

When you hate, you hate with a vengeance and God alone probably knew what had really set the bastard off in the first place. An older sister who'd found him playing with that limp thing between his legs and had never let him forget it, eh? A sister who had tied him up and taken down his pants to find out more about the male anatomy.

Where … where the hell were they? A bench, right out on the very point? Offenheimer behind her, the Van der Lynn woman on the grass in front of it?

So many ways, so many combinations. One shot. One dead Gestapo detective that was not wanted any more by his superiors. A naked ‘prostitute' violated, ravaged – who'd care a damn if there was evidence so long as he himself was found with her, having ‘shot' himself.

The bench was empty! Wet under the hand. The laughing of the water as it sucked at the quays was all around him.

Calm … he had to keep calm. Offenheimer, in spite of his having called the woman ‘Hilda', had realized this and had used her for bait of his own. He must have killed the Audit girl. He must have raped her afterwards because a guy like this wouldn't have had the guts to have done it while she breathed.

When his hand closed about her underwear, Kohler knew her clothes were scattered. He found a stocking, a garter belt … drew his pistol only to remind himself that if he killed Offenheimer he was as good as dead himself. Even von Schaumburg, much as he wanted to stop corruption in the ranks, wouldn't come to the rescue.

Her ankles were tied. He touched a bare foot and felt the woman stiffen. Damn! She pulled away, struggled!

The bastard was sitting with his back to a tree and the woman firmly between his legs. Offenheimer would have a hand in her hair, the gun to her head, or the knife at her throat.