Mayhem (23 page)

He blew on a fist and cursed himself for not having thought to bring his gloves and hat. He'd catch a cold. To hell with colds.

Still feeling very much the coward and the cuckold, he began to walk the bike away. The sprocket made its tiny clicking noise, magnified greatly by the silence as he crossed the avenue Henri Martin and went around the corner on to the boulevard Émile Auger to number 45, the flat of Gabrielle Arcuri.

It was strange that the two most important women in his life at the moment should live within a stone's throw of each other. Fate had a way of doing things like that. Fate and the war.

Once more he stood on the walk gazing up at the darkened silhouette but now questions of a different sort started coming at him. What was the relationship between the singer and the General Hans Ackermann? Who had written the diary? Who had had the meetings with the boy and why had they been so well documented if not for reasons of blackmail?

Why and where had the boy been killed? Why hadn't he, a chief – no, an inspector – of the Sûreté – damn Pharand anyway – questioned the type of stone in that boulder? Had it been because of Marianne, a subconscious worry that something was going on behind his back? Had he known it then?

At any rate, he'd been sloppy. Never mind Hermann's desire for haste and the seemingly inconsequential nature of the murder.

Ah, it was far from inconsequential now. Berlin, no less. Von Schaumburg – the whole of the Paris Gestapo probably
and
, not the least but still not well defined, the Sonderkommando-SS, the Sicherheitsdienst over on the avenue Foch.

The General Oberg's boys, the Sturmbannführer Helmut Knochen and the Secret Service of the SS.

Oberg and Ackermann had both been involved in the Polish campaign. Strings that could be pulled, hence Ackermann's freedom to move about whenever he pleased and his knowing he could call on the powers in Berlin any time he chose.

Berlin seemed such a long way from such a small murder. One monk perhaps, one hastily grabbed boulder and one dead nuisance – a mistake of course, or had it been?

But who had taken the boy's body to Fontainebleau Woods? Who had offered the use of their motor car, if such a request had been made? The countess would seem a logical choice, but Ackermann, what was his position in this, eh? And what of Gabrielle Arcuri?

But why choose Fontainebleau Woods? Why, indeed, except that several of the meetings had been there and the purse, with its contents, had been deliberately planted.

Had that really been the case? If so, then Yvette Noel had much to answer for and her prayers would have been filled with remorse.

But why in the name of Jesus had the girl changed her clothes? She must have known who her assailant was, yet have suspected nothing.

There were so many questions, so many answers to find. Hermann would have to buy them time, that was all there was to it. Somehow von Schaumburg must be convinced of the necessity of their staying to finish the case.

And that, of course, meant putting a stop to Marianne's little love affair. Or did it?

Once a month von Schaumburg and his aide inspected the forty brothels the Germans kept busy in Paris. Some were exclusively for use of the upper ranks, others for the common soldier, the Luftwaffe, the Kreigsmarine and so forth.

Some were also reserved for the SS and it was to one of these that he invariably went first. At 8 a.m. The place was on a side street just off the Champs-Élysées.

No self-respecting whore in her right mind would be up at that hour, yet there they all were, herded in their nightdresses and pompom slippers. Coughing, swearing, taking quick drags on their fags, gesticulating rudely and cursing the German High Command.

A doctor moved among them selecting an overtired eye – or was it too deep a cough? – as a farmer would a diseased animal.

The whore was then forced to strip, to lie on the table, knees up, legs wide as the doctor probed for unwanted microbes and other things.

No one else but the madam bothered to look. The other girls simply turned away in a huff. ‘Wider … Wider, please. Yes … yes, that is better,' said the doctor. In with the swab and up. Deeply. ‘You've gonorrhoea. Those sores …'

‘I've always had them.'

‘Since birth?'

‘Of course.'

‘Then you ought to be blind!'

‘None of my girls have the clap. You're crazy!' shouted the madam.

Oh-oh, here we go, said Kohler to himself. ‘General, could I have a private word? A matter of great urgency.'

It was Kohler of the Gestapo come to sing for his breakfast. Old Shatter Hand fitted the monocle to his eye. ‘Well, what is it?'

‘About the murder of that boy, General. There've been some new developments.'

‘Why aren't they in your report? Why wasn't it on my desk at 0700 hours yesterday morning as I requested?'

A raging argument was now in progress but von Schaumburg appeared stone deaf to it.

‘General, we're being pulled off this thing to hide the identity of the real murderer. It's our belief the General Hans Ackermann of the Waffen-SS was involved.'

At last, Ackermann.

‘In what way?' asked von Schaumburg cautiously.

Kohler knew it was now or never. Glotz had been specific – shut up or else – but they had no other choice. ‘It's our feeling several homosexual liaisons took place,' said Kohler blithely.

‘“Your feeling”,' said von Schaumburg quietly.

‘Boys with men, General.' The girls were beginning to take notice.

‘Ackermann?'

God help them now. ‘We need time, General, to sort out the truth. There were teeth marks on the boy's right thigh.'

‘The marks of one of these,' snorted von Schaumburg, indicating the bevy of whores most of whom had now taken a decided interest in the proceedings.

‘Or the marks of the boy's male lover, General.'

There'd been rumours out of Berlin, idle chitchat – gossip – far too great an interest in far too small a murder. Insistence from von Richthausen, the Kommandant of Barbizon, that the murder be looked into in detail. ‘Not Ackermann. No … No, this I cannot believe. Besides, it is forbidden. You ought to know this, Sergeant.'

‘Then why is Berlin trying to protect him by pulling St-Cyr and me off the case and sending us to the far ends of the earth?'

‘Silesia is not so far and neither is Kiev.'

‘General…'

‘Yes, yes, I get your meaning, Sergeant, but I cannot believe what you say. Ackermann would have been discovered long before this. He'd have been shot or asked to take his own life.'

Kohler knew he was desperate. In spite of Glotz's warning, he had to say it. ‘General, there's another thing. Your nephew, Steiner, is running around with my partner's wife. St-Cyr's in such a state he's useless as a detective – one of the best brains in the business! If you were to stop the love affair, I'm sure he'd settle down and we'd sort things out quickly.'

The whores had stopped breathing.

‘The Ackermann business,' puzzled von Schaumburg as if he'd only just heard it. No one could forget how in the winter of 1938 the Secret Service of the SS had tried to tie the label of homosexuality to the Colonel General Werner von Fritch, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, when the Führer had needed an excuse to get rid of that very able man for objecting to his ambitious plans for war. There'd been such a stink, the air had still not cleared. And now two gumshoe detectives were willing to suggest the SS had one of their own!
Gott in Himmel
, it was almost too good to be true. Himmler would have to hide his face in shame.

‘The Ackermann business,' breathed Kohler, trying to gauge the trend of the general's thoughts and ignoring the hawk-eyed gazes of the prostitutes. ‘His love affair with this boy.'

God help him if it were true and God help him if it weren't!

‘My nephew wouldn't dare to touch the wife of another man,' said von Schaumburg gruffly.

You pious old bachelor! You hypocrite! thought Kohler before giving an inward sigh at the trouble he was creating for himself. ‘He has, General. The woman and her son have moved in with him. Section Ten, the Watchers, have film of the couple engaged in sexual acts I'd rather not describe. They've threatened to show the film to my partner if I don't cough up every little detail so that they can forward it straight to Berlin before either you or the Sturmbannführer Boemelburg hear of it.'

‘
Film? Copulation?
An invasion of Wehrmacht privacy by the Gestapo?
Gott in Himmel
…'

Von Schaumburg sized him up. Either way one looked at it, Kohler was a doomed man and so was his partner. Yet was there not a hint of truth in what he'd said about Ackermann?

It would be so nice to know.

‘You have a week, Kohler. Absolute confidentiality. No written reports to anyone. Verbals only to me at 0600 hours, the Hotel Ritz, room 33. My adjutant, the Graf Waldersee, will let you in. Leave Boemelburg and Pharand out of it until we know the worst, then let me deal with it.'

‘And St-Cyr's wife and son?'

‘No child should be subjected to such a thing as parental infidelity. You leave that business to me.'

A homosexual SS war hero, a holder of the Iron Cross First-Class with Oak Leaves? Himmler would be in a panic, the Führer in an absolute state of collapse! The Gestapo and the SS would be out of France on the next train and the Army firmly back in the saddle!

Steiner … young Erich up to no good and disgracing his family, eh? Well, he'd soon see about that!

The schmuck who controlled the pink entry tickets at Paris Central Morgue was an ox-headed French son-of-a-bitch with a fluting voice, bad teeth and breath that would kill a snake at a hundred metres.

‘Talbotte, the Préfet of Paris himself, has forbidden that you or St-Cyr be allowed to examine the post-mortems.'

‘Post-mortems?' snorted Kohler, still standing before the bastard's desk. ‘One died of a boulder between the eyes, and the other of a gunshot wound in the back of the head!'

‘Ah! So you are the expert, eh? Well, my friend, there's nothing for you here and you cannot bribe me.'

‘Thanks!' snorted Kohler, dragging out a roll of bills that would have choked a horse.

He peeled off 5000 francs. The schmuck's eyes flicked to the open door of the office. ‘Another five but not a word, eh?'

‘My lips are sealed,' swore Kohler.

‘Good! And another five for the boys, eh? It's hard work pulling stiffs for you guys to run your eyes over. The men will only bitch to the wrong people.'

In the name of Jesus, the economy of Paris was going to hell! ‘You bastards are learning,' grumbled the Bavarian.

The man grinned. ‘We've good teachers, my friend.' He lifted his fat ass from behind the desk and waddled out into the corridor to seize the first man in white who came by and whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

One 500-franc note changed hands and then, ‘Not a word, Arnold, if you value your job.'

Arnold took Kohler to get the corpses. Both the boy and his sister were wrapped in canvas and submerged in chipped ice.

They'd both been eviscerated and the incisions only crudely sewn. Pity the poor grieving family … Once murdered, one lost all privacy and became the property of the state until such time as the remains could be released.

Yvette Noel was on her back and bluer than her brother. Rigor made her breasts firm, the nipples stiff. She'd once had a reasonable figure – quite petite, Louis had said. But the gash up her abdomen simply turned one off.

‘You want the reports?' grunted Arnold. Shrouds of ice fog hung about.

‘Yeah, I want the reports and a bit of peace, eh? Go and get them but don't be too long.'

The man snickered. ‘Enjoy yourself, Inspector. Don't ride the girl in my absence. That's naughty.'

Kohler flung a chunk of ice at him. He wished that Louis was here. Louis was better at this. He had the eye for detail and the ability to turn his stomach off.

They had a day perhaps to come up with something really good. Boemelburg wasn't going to like it when he heard about the meeting with von Schaumburg.

In desperation Kohler moved between the corpses. The girl's eyes were brown and staring straight up into the feeble light; the boy's were closed but yes, now that he forced himself to look closely at the two of them, though there were facial similarities, there were marked differences. A coarseness in the girl's bone structure – petite, yes, but of peasant stock. One hundred per cent, whereas the boy, Jérome, had the mark of the French aristocracy about him.

Then it was true. Jérome had been fathered by the countess's husband.

Kohler found the teeth marks and, once again, he had to admit they were those of a lover's nip.

So, too, the tiny nick under the right nipple, though that could have been caused by a fingernail. The pair of them must have been really going at it.

But had Ackermann been the man on his knees?
Gott in Himmel
, what a fool he'd been to suggest such a thing! His name would be mud around Gestapo HQ. He'd never live the betrayal down. Berlin would ship him off to Kiev and Louis would hit the salt mines no matter what happened. Or there'd be worse for both of them. Yeah, worse.

The girl had a scratch about six centimetres long on her left leg, just above the knee – those briars, that torn stocking? he wondered, remembering the roadside with surprising clarity for a person who'd not yet had his breakfast.

Kohler bent closer. The scratch was thin and flecked with dried blood to which clung tiny threads of silk. So, okay, the girl had climbed the hill up into the forest after finding the body of her brother. She'd torn her stockings on the briars but had she left the purse up there or had she gone to hunt for it?

The right knee was bruised, but that could have happened when she'd been murdered.