Clandestine (39 page)

There being no way to avoid it, thought Anna-Marie, she would simply have to ask. ‘Do the Germans and their friends know who your daughter's real father is?'

How stark of her. ‘They may or may not. Though I was single when I had her, and the name of the birth certificate was Vilmorin, as was mine, Léon, on Josef's advice, took care of it in 1935. A lost certificate, a new one, new papers, too, and money on the side. The Church records as well, although that was by far the most difficult.'

But would it take the
Moffen
and the Paris police long to discover the truth? ‘She must really miss being here with you. I know I would.'

‘As she was life to Josef and to myself and my husband, so were we to her. Even on that last, brief visit, he somehow found a way to bring her a little gift to tell her that everything would soon be all right, and she had no need to worry.'

‘And that, what was it?'

‘An aquarium with tropical fish.'

And brought through all that chaos. ‘Might I see it?'

‘Of course, but why?'

‘I'm simply trying to trace the route he may have taken.'

The room overlooked the rue Victor Noir, and on a table in front of the windows was everything that would be needed, all left in readiness for when the Occupation would end. ‘There's no sand.'

‘Michèle knew the fish wouldn't survive without her. After Claudette—Madame Besnard—had dealt with them, my daughter buried them in the cemetery, and when she came back, said that was what Josef would have expected her to do.'

‘And the sand, did she bury that too?'

‘Some of it is in the cellar. Before she left us to stay with Laurence, she made us promise never to throw any of it out.'

‘Sand is sand,' impatiently said Madame Besnard, having brought two twenty-kilo cotton bags up to the kitchen.

‘But it isn't,' said Anna-Marie, digging a hand down to the bottom of one to feel about, since diamonds were heavy, and with all that vibration on the train, would have settled, and Josef would have known that too, had he not put them there first, but there were none and that could, or could not mean Michèle had taken them with her. ‘This is perfectly clean. It's the extra Mijnheer Meyerhof must have brought. It's from Zandvoort, a resort town on the Noord Zee. The beaches are fabulous and behind them, ranked one on another, are superbly sculpted dunes of this pure white sand. My Henki …'

‘Henki?' asked Claudette.

‘My fiancé, but … but he was then shot by the
Moffen
. A
résistant
.'

Out on the rue Victor Noir, and still with the diamonds, there was, felt Anna-Marie, now no longer any choice. She would have to meet with that Sûreté who, having found what she had hidden, had understood there had to have been a reason and had left them for her, the shoes as well.

Wide open, the gates to the driveway of Gestapo Boemelburg's Neuilly villa awaited, and as he drew the car in, Kohler swallowed tightly, for two small suitcases sat in readiness. Boemelburg had flatly refused to intervene because of Kaltenbrunner.

‘Oona, Louis. Giselle …'

Drancy first, then Dachau, Mauthausen, Auschwitz or any other of the
Konzentrationslager
—they both knew absolutely what all of those would be like, having experienced Natzweiller-Struthof in Alsace last February.

Shattered, Hermann still couldn't seem to move. Reaching over to switch off the ignition, St-Cyr said, ‘Easy,
mon vieux
. Easy, eh? Together we'll sort this out.'

‘How? That
verdammt eingefleischter
Nazi with the peptic ulcer's in there waiting for us to see the smile on his face.'

Sharing a cigarette might have helped. ‘Stay here. Let me find out what's happened, and please don't take any more of those damned pills. Even Messerschmitt night fighters get shot down.'

‘He's onto us. He's found out that we must have known where Anna-Marie was living and the name she'd been using, and now knows you must have been in that room of hers and up on that roof, too, to have a look.'

‘But perhaps not where she might quite possibly be meeting me.'

‘We
can't
let him send Oona to a KZ, Louis. Giselle will go out of her mind and Oona
won't
be able to hold her together.'

Two women, two loves, and when Hermann glanced into the rearview, he said, ‘That black Citroën of his is now behind us. Here, take this stupid letter from Kaltenbrunner and keep it for us. Otherwise he'll be after me for thinking I could use it again to see them and will be demanding it back.'

The cloud of cigarette smoke, shabby grey fedora and overcoat were the same, the expression that of Frankfurt's having received a round-the-clock flattening yesterday.

‘Well, Kohler, you and that
Französischer Schweinebulle
have been lying to me. I've just been to see a concierge who was pistol-whipped and guess what he had to tell me after a little persuasion.'

‘He was a veteran of the Great War,' said Louis.

‘
Verdammter Franzose
, when I want anything from you, I'll ask. It's this
verfluchte
Kripo who is to answer. You have a choice, Kohler. Either you will be shot or you'll do your duty to the Führer
und Vaterland
.'

‘Let me take the suitcases.'

‘And your two women?'

The son of a bitch. ‘Louis, put the bags in the car and go and get Oona and Giselle.'

‘So that I won't be able to hear what you say, Hermann?'

‘All right, I'll ask him first if he's spoken to Hector Bolduc's former mistress and then to Bolduc himself and those two overseers of that bank of his. After all, Kriminalrat, this is still a murder investigation and that girl was a witness or as close to it as we can get so far.'

A gut-wrenching spasm caused a desperate gasp and cry, the cigarette falling to the pavement. Another was fiercely lit, the latest bottle found empty and flung aside.

‘Since you're not listening, Kohler, perhaps it is that you should come with me. That girl was seen and stopped outside the Santé late last night, armed, too, and with, I believe, the very pistol our Frans Oenen had been allowed. So if it is a murder investigation you're wanting, then his will suffice. Standartenführer Kleiber is presently commanding a rigorous house-to-house and there is every indication he will find and arrest her.
Banditen
, Kohler.
Banditen!
Even the Kommandant von Gross-Paris can't argue with that.'

‘Louis … Louis, do the best you can.'

Built in 1938, the Jardin d'Hiver was beside two much older greenhouses from which the plants and trees had been moved here to make way for others. Cup-of-flame, passion flower, trailing orchids and the hanging flowers of the pitcher-plant were so close, St-Cyr felt he could touch them from where he was sitting. Lianas climbed to reach the sunlight. Coconut palms spread their fronds. Papayas, grapefruit trees, silk ferns and tree ferns seemed everywhere, and the irony of it was, that like the artist Henri Rousseau, who had visited greenhouse after greenhouse, the Jardin d'Hiver had become his very own jungle. Whereas Rousseau, in
The Dream
, could place a beautiful and very naked young woman lounging naively oblivious to all threats among jungle plants, so, too, was he naively waiting. Self-taught, having never left Paris, Rousseau had been a customs clerk whose paintings had been dismissed as ‘nonsense,' but he had painted what he had
wanted
others to see and feel. The strange and varied leaves, the bright and often wildly coloured flowers made larger and bolder by himself and all but lost in his jungle, more apelike than human, a recorder-playing savage who, one supposed, was trying to entice that maiden to himself.

Until he and Anna-Marie met—if indeed they ever did now that photos of her were out there and everyone who could was looking for her—he wouldn't know how to proceed, for what really, had he and Hermann to offer, especially with Giselle and Oona so threatened?

Alone beneath a jacaranda whose fernlike leaves threw shadows, the fragrant soft-purple flowers drew his undivided attention. Lots of the
Moffen
were about, the sounds of their voices, and their French companions and others, periodically clashing with the warmth, the humidity, the closeness and the faint but gentle murmur of trickling water.

Two of the remaining buttons on his open topcoat hung by threads and when he took it off because it was so warm, he was careful not to lose them.

A scorched hole, right through where the zipper ended on that brown suede pipe pouch was evidence enough. Fingering it as though longing for its daily ration of tobacco, he made sure the letters
AMPHORA
could be seen. A Sûreté chief inspector. Divorced once—wife Agnès—widowed next from wife Marianne, and their four-year-old son, Philippe, due to a Résistance mistake the Watchers of the Paris Gestapo had deliberately left in place.

Aram had been thorough.

‘He has chosen one of the most secluded of places,' confided Emmi, ‘but one from which it will be impossible for me to get you out of there if I have to.'

The gravel path that led to that bench found it in the tightest of cul-de-sacs where leaves of every shape and shade of green sought the myriad panes of glass. ‘Then I'll do it now since Aram has given me no other choice.'

‘Just don't force me to have to shoot our way out of here.'

Emmi hadn't wanted to come; Aram had insisted, yet now that she was alone with the chief inspector, he still hadn't realized who it was and had definitely been expecting someone else.

En français
, she said, ‘Monsieur, may I sit beside you for a few moments? These shoes of mine, they don't quite fit, and my friend has tired me out.'

Caught off guard and momentarily perturbed, the deep brown eyes under those bushiest of brows instantly became curious only to soften. ‘
Ach
, of course, Fräulein.' And moving the shabby coat onto his lap, went on to say, ‘This is lovely, isn't it? One yearns for peace and harmony.'

Had he still not realized? ‘It reminds me of the paintings of Henri Rousseau.'

At first he didn't know what to say, so struck was he by her comment, but then, gesturing with the hand that held the pouch, he said, ‘And the irony of that is, Mademoiselle Vermeullen, that I, too, had been thinking the very same thing. The
Blitzmädel
uniform, side cap and black-and-silver
Blitz
brooch of a signals operator are perfect, the black leather shoes as well, but please don't ever be caught in that uniform. The
Moffen
, the Boche, the Occupier, the green beans, SD, SS, Gestapo or whatever would not be appreciative. Even knowing you from so many photos, I didn't think it could be yourself.'

‘So many photos?'

Her expression was one of utter dismay. ‘Please don't worry unduly. My partner and I believe they now have only the two that were sent from Hague Central and date back to the general strike. Hermann and I made others destroy all copies of what they'd had taken.'

‘Others?'

Merde
, were they to delve deeper and deeper into this when time was so short? ‘You hitched a ride last December in a bank van and then recently.'

‘And Monsieur Hector Bolduc had someone secretly taking photos of me in Paris, did he? I thought so on three occasions—I felt it, you understand—but could never prove it. Always whoever it was would vanish. All I did come to know was that Monsieur Bolduc must have been talking about me to his overseers and that mistress of his, and to those two with the van, for when they unlocked and opened that back door at l'Abbaye de Vauclair, the younger one grinned and said horribly, “Now you're going to get what our chairman has repeatedly said you damned well need!”'

But would Bolduc ever be held responsible? ‘And in
place
de l'Opéra last night?'

‘I did what I had to and yes, I tucked that stick of Nobel 808 inside Frans Oenen's shirt front because if I hadn't, those who have helped me so much would have turned their backs on me. I would
never
have killed him if left alone. I'd have tried to buy him off with what Mijnheer Meyerhof had given me for myself. Those twelve
Hochfeines Weiss
you also found at that spring, in their paper.'

She must have decided to be absolutely straight with him, but … ‘You didn't give Oenen the grenade?'

‘That was Emmi, the one I'm with, and to make certain of the other which had a time pencil.'

FTP backup leaving nothing to chance, but she'd have to be warned. ‘You were stopped late last night outside the Santé.'

‘Fortunately I was able to tell one of the others that the place we used was no longer safe. At least, I hope what I said to him reached all of them, the boss especially.'

‘You've a pistol in that handbag?'

‘Frans's gun. A Browning FN Hi-Power, the Pistool M25, No. 2. There are eleven rounds of the nine-millimetre Parabellum left and if I have to, I'll shoot myself.'

She had meant it too. ‘I'm not a threat and neither is my partner. We're on your side.'

How dangerous of him to have said it, for if captured and tortured she could well cry it out. ‘I've brought you something and am now going to open that handbag. It's also from Belgium, but Arie Beekhuis, the driver of that truck, felt we'd better not give you the tin, only its contents, so I've wrapped it in a kerchief of mine.'

A fortune. ‘Old Belt Virginia, but with added touches of an Oriental and a little Perique and Latakia. It's superb and I am totally in your debt.
Merci bien
.'

Already he was packing that pipe of his. ‘Having found the life diamonds and the others that I hid at that spring, Chief Inspector, why did you then leave them for me with all my little scraps from home and that kilo of boart and the one of borderlines?'