Sandman (43 page)

There was no room for him in the bed – there hadn't been when he had arrived home. Ah! the three of them didn't share the same bed. Those two would never have put up with anything like that! not even in this weather …

Oona's bed was freezing and when he had settled back into it, he knew Giselle would accuse him of favouritism and that she wouldn't listen to his protests even though her bed had been fully occupied.

He was just drifting off to the tolling of the Bibliothèque Nationale's five o'clock bell some, distance across the river, when Oona slid in beside him to fan the flames of jealousy into a little fire of their own.

‘Kiss me,' she said. ‘Hold me. I'm worried.'

‘Can't it wait?'

‘Another seven and a half months? Perhaps. It all depends on Giselle, doesn't it?'

‘
What do you mean by that
?'

‘Only that she's the one who's expecting, not me. You were thoughtless, Hermann. You got carried away and did not take precautions.'

‘It's the war. It's those lousy
capotes anglaises
they hand out. Someone's been sabotaging them.'

The condoms. Long ago in Paris the Englishmen had worn rubber coats with hoods, and the French had given the name to that most necessary of garments.

‘Perhaps you are right,' she murmured, snuggling closely for comfort, ‘but, then, perhaps not.'

When she awakened, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in his greatcoat, gloves and fedora, smoking a cigarette, and she knew he'd been like that ever since. Unfortunately he had had to be told things and, yes, unfortunately she had had to be the one to have to tell him. ‘A woman notices such things, Hermann. I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be. Hey, you were right to tell me. Giselle wouldn't have.'

11 rue des Saussaies was bleak at any hour but especially so in winter as the sun struggled to rise. Its grey stone walls and iron grilles were webbed with frost. The courtyard's snow had been packed hard by the traffic of the previous night.

Gestapo plain clothes came and went in a hurry always. A
panier à salade
languished, the salad shaker,
*
having emptied its guts at 3 or 4 a.m. A wireless tracking van drew in to report after a hard night's trying to get a fix on a clandestine transceiver. Had they zeroed in on someone? wondered Kohler. Those boys didn't work out of here, so their presence had to mean something was up.

Black Citroëns were in a row with black Renaults, Fords and Peugeots, black everything and hated, too, because like the trench coats and the briefcases of the plain clothes, they were a symbol of what this place had become.

Once the Headquarters of the Sûreté Nationale, it was now that of the Gestapo in France yet had retained all of the attributes and successes of the former, particularly a records section which was second to none, even to that of the Sicherheitsdienst in Berlin.

Kohler coughed. Louis hunched his shoulders and pulled up his overcoat collar before saying, ‘To business then, and stop worrying, eh? Everyone knows that without sufficient food, the female body loses its ability to menstruate. Treat Giselle to some good black-market meals. Include Oona. Stop being so pious. See if it doesn't help. Load the larder. Use your privileges and your head, and suit-up
before
you have another go at either of them!'

Father Time and no patience, no sympathy at all! Louis had always gone on about Giselle's returning to her former profession, to the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton, which was just around the corner from the flat and a constant reminder. ‘Oona's positive.'

Ah,
pour I ‘amour de Dieul
what was one to do? Drag along this worried papa-to-be who was old enough to have been the girl's grandfather? ‘I
can't
have you distracted, Hermann. Not with the Gypsy. Besides, Pharand wants to see me. He's insisting.'

‘Then quit fussing. Hey, I'll take care of that little
Croix de feu
for you. Just watch my dust!'

The
Croix de feu
were one of the notorious right-wing, fascist groups from the thirties. Kohler went in first, Louis followed, but when they reached the Major's office, the Bavarian left his partner out of sight in the corridor and shot in to ask, ‘Have you seen St-Cyr?'

The secretary spilled her boss's coffee. A Chinese porcelain vase went over – a priceless thing – and she cried out in dismay even as he righted it only to hear Pharand hiss from his inner sanctum, ‘Not in, eh? and at 0900 hours! It's
les hirondelles
for him.'

The swallows … the bicycle patrols in their capes and
képis
. ‘Why not the pussy patrol?' sang out Kohler.

Louis's boss came to stand in the doorway. ‘Enough of your shit, Hauptsturmführer. Where is he?'

That's what I'm asking.'

The carefully trimmed black pencil of the Major's moustache twitched. The rounded cheeks were sallow and unhealthy in winter, though they'd always been like that. The short black hair of this little fascist was glued in place with scented pomade and splashes of
joli Soir
, the dark brown eyes were alive with barely controlled fury.

‘He was to see me first. A report is forthcoming. Orders are orders, is that not right, Hauptsturmführer? The Ritz, then Cartier's and now … why now … Ah! you did not know of it, did you?'

The bastard …

The pudgy hands came together as if squeezing the joy out of his little triumph. At fifty-eight years of age, Osias Pharand still had his friends in the upper echelons and hadn't wasted them. Readily he had moved out of his plush office – had given it up to Gestapo Boemelburg and had willingly shifted his ass down the hall. Taken his lumps because he had known the French would run things anyway, and had cluttered the den with the trivia of his years in Indochina and other places.

A stint as director of the Sûreté's
Deuxième bureau des nomades
had been a big step to the top – you'd think he'd have come to appreciate the gypsies for having provided so many rungs in the ladder but no, he hated them as much as he hated the Jews. But for the Resistance, for the so-called ‘terrorists', he reserved an unequalled passion.

‘Bring St-Cyr in here now,' he said.

The air was full of trouble but Kohler couldn't resist taunting him. ‘He's probably with Boemelburg already. The IKPK, eh? Hey, the two of them worked together before the war. They're old friends, or had you forgotten?'

‘
Never
! Not for a moment. It's the only thing that saves him but with this …' Pharand toyed with the fish. ‘With this, I do not think even that will be enough. The matter demands special treatment –
Sonderbehandlung
, or had you forgotten?'

‘Maître Pharand …'

‘Ah! I've got your attention at last. Another robbery. A big one, eh? Now piss off. Go on. Get out. Leave this sort of work to those best suited for it. Let me live with my secrets until they become your partner's demise. Perhaps then he will understand that it is to me that he owes his loyalty and his job. I could have helped you both.'

Boemelburg was not happy. ‘The Gare Saint-Lazare. The ticket-agent's office. That idiot of an agent-directeur didn't bother to deposit last week's receipts or those of the week before. Apparently he does it only once a month.'

‘But … but there are always those on duty, Walter? A station so huge … Traffic never stops …' insisted St-Cyr.

A stumpy forefinger was raised. ‘Passenger traffic does stop, as you well know. Those arriving must wait until the curfew is over; those departing must purchase their tickets before it begins. The wickets are then closed, the receipts tallied and put away in the safe, and the office locked.'

‘How much did he get?' asked Kohler, dismayed by the speed with which the Gypsy was working.

The rheum-filled Nordic eyes seemed saddened, as if in assessing them, Boemelburg was cognizant of certain truths. A flagrant patriotism in St-Cyr, questionable friends, a rebellious nature in Kohler, among other things. ‘682,000 francs in 100 and 500 franc notes. He left the rest.'

It had to be asked. ‘What else, Walter? I've seen it before,' said St-Cyr. ‘You always drop your eyes when you want to tell us something but are uncertain of how to put it.'

A big man, with the blunt head and all-but-shaven, bristly iron grey hair of a
Polizeikommissar
of long experience, Boemelburg had seen nearly everything the criminal milieu could offer but he was also Head of SIPO-Section IV, the Gestapo in France.

‘Three Lebels, the 1873
Modéle d'ordonnance
, and one hundred and twenty rounds, the black-powder cartridges. Forgotten during the Defeat and subsequent ordinance to turn in all firearms. Overlooked in the hunt for delinquent guns. Left in their boxes and brand-new, Louis. Good
Gott im Himmel
, the imbeciles!'

‘From 1873?' managed the Sûreté. ‘But that is …'

‘Yes, yes, only two years after the Franco-Prussian War. Look, I don't know how long they were in that safe. No one does. Each agent-directeur simply thought it best to leave those damned boxes alone.'

‘It's serious,' said Kohler lamely.

‘Are the Resistance involved in this matter?' shouted the Chief.

Ah no … thought St-Cyr, dismayed at the sudden turn. Counter-terrorism, subversion, tracking down Jews, gypsies and all others of the Reich's so-called undesirables were Walter's responsibility, not just combating common crime. But then, too, in one of those paradoxes of the war, he ran gangs of known criminals who did the Gestapo's bidding when they, themselves, wanted to remain at arm's length.

A cop, and now a thug too, he unfortunately knew the city well, having worked here in his youth as a heating and ventilating engineer. He spoke French as good as any Parisian, even to the
argot
of Montmartre.

That grim, grey look passed over them. ‘I'm warning you. I want no trouble with this. Berlin are adamant. The Gypsy is to be apprehended at all costs. Taken alive if possible – there are things we need to know from him – but dead will do. That's what they want and I must insist on it.'

‘And Herr Engelmann … why is he here?' asked Kohler.

‘Why not? The IKPK have card indexes on all such people.'

‘Then it didn't stop functioning at the onslaught of hostilities. Heydrich kept it going?' asked Louis.

‘As the Gruppenführer knew he should have. Herr Engelmann is not just with their robberies division. He holds a cross-appointment with the Berlin Kripo. In the course of his duties in ‘38, and then in ‘40 and ‘41, he went to Oslo several times to interview our friend, and has come to know him intimately, if anyone can ever do so.'

‘Then why is he being so difficult? Why doesn't he take us fully into his confidence?' asked Kohler.

Security allowed only so much to be said. ‘That is precisely what I have asked him to do. Full co-operation. A concerted effort to bring this safe-cracker in and quickly before he does us all an injury from which we cannot recover.'

Boemelburg was clearly worried. Leaning forward, he hurriedly shoved things out of the way, and lowered his voice. ‘Whose agenda is he following? What are his next targets? Where will he hole up and exactly who is helping him?'

Nana Thélème or someone else?

The set of fingerprints was very clear, the head-and-shoulders photographs sharp, but to St-Cyr the file card – the top in a bundle of perhaps thirty – was like one of those from the past. It evoked memories of Vienna and the IKPK and worries about the distinct possibility of another high-level assassination, the then impending visit of King George VI to France in July of 1938. Boemelburg and he had worked together on it, a last occasion before the war.

The IKPK had sent such cards to all its member countries, requesting whatever they had on a certain criminal or type of crime. These cards were then stored in rotatable drum-cabinets and a detective such as Boemelburg or himself, or Engelmann, could in a few moments collate data from cities in France with that from Britain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Italy, Greece and, at last count in 1938, some twenty-eight other countries around the world.

Lists of stolen property were painstakingly spelled out where possible. Missing persons, unidentified cadavers, murder, arson, counterfeiting, fraud, drug trafficking and prostitution – all were there at the turn of the drum and yes, very early on, even in 1932 and ‘33, there had been concerns about a Nazi takeover, yet the service had offered immense possibilities. A radio network in 1935 linked many of the major cities, allowing policemen to talk directly and informally to colleagues in other countries, very quickly forming professional liaisons that were of benefit to all.

Special cards were tinted to denote
les Bohémiens
, though keeping track of their wanderings often proved exceedingly difficult. But in any case, the Gypsy was not one of the Rom, so his cards were like all others, if more numerous than most.

‘Janwillem De Vries,' grumbled a disgruntled Herr Max who didn't like being told to co-operate with the present company. ‘Father, Hendrick, no known criminal activities but a socialist do-gooder when not pouring out historical pap to stuff the teat of it into the eager mouths of bored Dutch
Hausfrauen
. Mother, Marina, no suggestions of anything there either. Vivacious, quick-minded, deft with the brush but impulsive and given to wandering off for days on her bicycle, or to working in her studio night after night. A flirt –
mein Gott
, there is ample evidence of it, given that she often posed in the nude as a statue for her photographer friends. Orpheus and her lute, but that one was a boy, wasn't he? Died, unhappily, 18 June 1929 of a drowning accident on the Linge near Geldermalsen while trying to reach some lilies she wanted to paint, though to see her sketches is to see nothing but the confused and flighty mind of the avant-garde who should have been trussed up with her apron strings and taught a few lessons!'