Dollmaker (23 page)

‘
I can't. I mustn't! She killed him and she'll kill me too if you're not careful!
'

He could not leave it. He got up again from his chair and, seizing the scissors, threatened to strip all the dolls if necessary to examine the marks of their makers.

In tears, the girl blurted, ‘It was a K and R, so there. Kämmer and Reinhardt, does that make you feel better? A dark green velvet gown with a
décolletage
and appliqués of frilly white lace at its cuffs and down its front and real jade buttons. They were really real.'

‘K and R …?'

The letters meant nothing to the Chief Inspector, and when she saw this, Angélique wiped her tears away and shuddered involuntarily. Paulette would know all about it. Paulette would tell him.

*

Kohler listened intently as Préfet Kerjean told him of his search for the pianist, and only occasionally did he catch a glimpse of the shopkeeper's daughter. The girl was dancing with one of the junior officers from Kernével. She was having the time of her life and getting lots of hungry looks from the boys.

‘That girl should know better,' grumbled Kerjean testily. ‘No respect for the dead. None either for convention and morality.'

The stump of a grimy forefinger stabbed at the map he had spread between them on the zinc. ‘I went first to the alignments nearest Yvon's house but without success. As I expanded the search towards Plouharnel, I began to see more and more that Yvon must go to one of his special places. Locations where I had often found him in the past.'

The girl's tight black leather skirt was far too short. Her legs … silk stockings … there was only one way she could have got them, thought Kerjean. ‘He had hurt your friend quite badly. Indeed, he might well believe he had killed him.'

‘What was in the briefcase?'

‘That I do not know. Papers of agreement for the Captain to sign, perhaps a portion of the missing money – a show of good faith.'

‘But le Trocquer definitely went to the clay pits to see the Captain?'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. Why do you ask? Is there something I have missed?'

‘No. No, I just wondered.
Verdammt
, I wish Louis was here. No partner and I need to talk.' And you're still sweating, said Kohler to himself. ‘Another
fine à l'eau
?' he asked, indicating the empty glass. Another house brandy with water.

‘One for the road and then I must go. Yvon … Yvon Charbonneau is a very difficult man to fathom, Inspector. Please appreciate that he is not in his right mind. He is also a demon on that bicycle of his. Eighty, ninety kilometres. Nothing stops him, especially not the weather.'

‘Get to the point, Préfet. You're making it sound like you're building yourself an alibi.'

Kohler was of the Gestapo and whether he was one of their ‘best' or ‘worst' members would not matter. ‘I did not kill le Trocquer, Inspector. I had no reason to. I am a police officer.'

‘Since when did belonging to the law stop anyone?'

Nom du ciel
, must he be so difficult? ‘As I was just saying, increasingly I came to believe – and still do – that Yvon, in fear and great anxiety, would retreat to one of his very special places. Of those nearest Carnac, the tumulus of Saint-Michel, which is on the north-eastern edge of the town, seemed the most promising. Yvon could have hitched a ride part way in a lorry – there were plenty of them heading here, isn't that so?'

‘And?'

‘It is a place in which I have found him many times. There are two entrances and he has ways of getting in there no one else knows. A hill some twelve metres high and one hundred and twenty long beneath which there are the passages which are lined with large upright stones and massive cap rocks, and the graves, of course, the firepits. The entrances to the tumulus are at the base of the hill. Long passages go to the right and left. There are rooms and other, lesser passages – turnings. One has to have a light – ah, it is so dark in there. One also has to duck the head and crouch or crawl. It is not easy particularly if you are dealing with someone who is deranged.'

‘But he wasn't there?'

It would be best to shrug. ‘What can I say? I was only one man looking for another. He has no fear of such places. Indeed, he is so steeped in them, he is of them and knows them far better than anyone else. My trousers, the palms of my hands – you can see for yourself the state I am in. Soaked to the skin from the clay pits, worn to a frazzle.'

‘And you're certain he tried to kill Louis?'

‘No, I did not say that. I said he might well
think
he had. This might …'

‘Might make him do something foolish?'

‘Yes.'

‘Such as?'

There was much sadness in Kerjean's dark blue eyes and for a moment the Préfet found he could say nothing. ‘He might kill himself, Inspector. Hélène … Madame Charbonneau would never forgive me, so you see, I must find him not just so that we can settle this matter but that another tragedy will not happen.'

Kohler reached over the zinc to find the brandy bottle. Refilling the Préfet's glass, he nodded curtly at it and waited while it was downed. ‘Now another and that's an order. You've done what you can for tonight. Go home, get some sleep. We'll pick up the pieces tomorrow.'

Did he really believe such a delay was possible? ‘Then do us all a favour and watch that girl. Paulette may well be enjoying herself but freedom always has its price. I am certain she either knows where the money is or who stole it. They,' he indicated the men and particularly the table where Kaestner sat with Baumann and the others, ‘may not be so patient with her as we would wish.'

As Kerjean reached for his cap and gloves, Kohler asked if he had seen the autopsy report on the shopkeeper and saw him shake his head. ‘My assistant will have done so. I am sorry, but I had no time.'

‘Didn't Louis say anything about it?'

There was that shrug. ‘He was freezing, wet to the skin and had received several terrible blows to the back of the head. He was dazed and in a great deal of pain. We must get him to a doctor. Another of the pieces we must pick up, Inspector. Stubborn like our peasants and refusing absolutely to let me take him straight to the hospital here, but the concussion all the same, I think.'

Kohler watched him leave then looked the place over. There was now no sign of the Captain or of Baumann and the boy or the Second Engineer. They had somehow left the party unnoticed and quickly. Even Death's-head Schultz had vacated the table and others now crowded round it.

When Paulette le Trocquer, breathless and radiant, came towards him, he had to grin and take her by the hand. Someone called Kay Kyser was singing something called ‘Playmates'. Then there was ‘Marie' and then there was ‘I'm Getting Sentimental Over You'.

But still there was no further sign of the Dollmaker and the others. None at all.

It was now nearly 1 a.m. Berlin Time, Tuesday the 5th of January and some fifty-two hours since they had arrived in the area to begin the investigation. Parting the heavy green brocade drapes in Yvon Charbonneau's study, St-Cyr looked out into darkness and rain. The clay pits would be awash. Another hour and where would he have been? Drowned by swallowing that thick, creamy milk of clay? Buried in it perhaps for ever. Yet it was not easy to be released from one trouble only to fall into another.

‘K and R,' he muttered grimly. ‘Kämmer and Reinhardt.'

He turned away but stood looking across the cluttered refuse, the hints at former lives so distant from his own. ‘The bits and pieces of lost millennia,' he murmured, ‘and those of a doll.'

In need of tobacco, he found a tin Charbonneau had used as a makeshift ashtray, and dumping it out, toasted the remaining contents of the Obersteuermann Baumann's tobacco pouch over the fire. That everything should boil down to a doll was frightening. Emotionally exhausted by her fear that he would discover what she had done, the child had dropped off to sleep. The
chaise-longue
with its black lace and cream silk had become her bier. The finely chiselled face, with its large eyes closed, had become the face of innocence, but behind that innocence lay a hardness that deeply troubled.

He stood a moment more trying to fathom exactly what she had done. The dolls up there in the attic had waited too, with breath seemingly held. All of them had watched her from the mirrors. Image after image had been repeated. Some had even overlapped themselves.

They had watched him too, so much so that for a moment there he had been afraid to move for fear of frightening them. They were so lifelike.

The Dollmaker, who could identify each maker's bisque with his eyes closed, must have been all too aware that the fragments were not from a Jumeau, a Steiner or a Bru. He had given up the pieces readily enough during the interrogation which could only mean he had been satisfied they no longer posed a threat.

‘Then he must have known the doll would not be discovered.'

In turn, this could only mean he had known Yvon Charbonneau had buried the briefcase and the pianist would make damned certain the doll was never found.

‘And Kerjean knows it too,' he said, a whispered sigh. ‘He was so anxious to go after the pianist tonight. The doll is the key to everything. Its absence is crucial to the Captain but does Kerjean want it found so as to prove Herr Kaestner killed the shopkeeper, or does Victor want to be absolutely certain it is never seen again?

‘And what of Paulette?' he asked. ‘Paulette either saw her father pick up the doll Angélique left in that shop or she brought it to his attention.

‘The Captain was to return from Paris on the following day. He would go straight to the clay pits. What better place to confront him, especially as he would then pay the house by the sea a visit?'

Kaestner had waited a full twelve hours before reporting the murder, a long enough delay to clearly indicate he was protecting someone.

Madame Charbonneau had been there at the time of the murder, as had her husband.

When Hélène Charbonneau found him, the Chief Inspector was lost in thought and tobacco smoke, poring over the pages of her husband's scrapbooks. There were news photographs of Adèle and herself with Yvon, and others of just the two of them sightseeing, shopping, buying dolls. She had not been able to destroy the clippings. Angélique had needed all the records of her mother and father she could accumulate. And myself? she asked. I could not bring myself to burn them even though Yvon wanted me to, but left the task to me as a reminder.

‘Vienna in the autumn of 1938,' said the detective. ‘I wonder what it must be like there now. It was the city that, next to Paris, I loved and admired the most.'

She waited, not knowing what to do or say. The long dark hair fell loosely over the shoulders of the heavy white flannel nightgown. The lovely hazel eyes were full of despair.

‘Salzburg,' he went on, ‘the 24th and 28th of October. Then Munich on the 30th, Kâln on the 3rd November and Berlin, ah Berlin, on the 9th.'

She clutched the throat of her nightgown and held it close. She must say something to him. She could not go down in defeat so easily. ‘Yvon would not travel without us. Like many artistic people, he was often insecure. He always needed the reassurance only the two of us could bring.'

Several pages were turned. ‘Yet he went back to the Reich the following spring but only with Adèle, madame? Three concerts. One at the Opera House in Köln, another in Berlin and then Frankfurt.'

‘Things were very tense. Visas were so hard to get. I was ill. I had my shop to look after. I had to earn a living and make my own way in life. I could not go with them. If you will read the reviews, you will note that they were less than favourable. Yvon needed me as much as he needed Adèle.'

‘But you were never sexually intimate with him.'

The crooked smile was brief, embarrassed and sad – ah, so many things.

‘I'm not denying he tried, nor am I denying I didn't want it to happen. But Adèle – you had to have known her, Inspector. She and I were the dearest of friends. Inseparable, yes? Ah
mon Dieu
, men are such imbeciles sometimes. We had shared everything for so long, had been schoolgirls together. She was like a sister to me, the sister I had lost so tragically I can still remember how it was the day she drowned. Yvette … her name was Yvette and she was only ten years old at the time. Ten, the same age as Angélique.'

Hélène Charbonneau tossed her head to indicate the attic roost. ‘I had my troubles, Inspector – a failed marriage, the shop that was always facing such terrible competition and needing something always. Fabric design is very demanding. Clients seem always to be needing reassurance and new and exciting things – at least they used to when I had the shop, but I left all that in Paris of course. We shared so much. I could go to her at any time with my troubles and she to me. I always put her between Yvon and myself and that is all there was to it.'

‘Until the blitzkrieg.'

‘Yes. Yvon fell completely to pieces. Somehow – God only knows how I managed it – I got the three of us here but he had sunk into such a deep depression. Ah, you've no idea what it was like. He would not touch the piano but spoke increasingly of a symphony only he could hear among the standing stones and tumuli. My God how I hate those things. They've got to me too.'

‘You were married.'

‘Yes, in the fall of 1940. Yvon wanted it that way. I was quite willing to simply look after him and Angélique for the … the Duration of this lousy war the Nazis have thrust upon us. He wouldn't go back to Paris. He blamed himself for having panicked like everyone else. He blamed himself for having taken the road and caused her death.'

The reviewers had been unkind. A last concert had not gone well.

St-Cyr closed the scrapbook and ran smoothing hands over its cover. She asked how his head was and offered two aspirins from her emergency supplies. ‘They are impossible to get now but …'