Dollmaker (32 page)

‘What if I did?'

Kohler brought the lorry to another halt. ‘It makes you an accessory to murder but I happen to think you were there to stop that shopkeeper from ever meeting up with the Captain. I'm right, aren't I?'

The engine idled – it was a bit rough. Ah damn … Schultz had raised the pistol and taken aim at the Gestapo's forehead.

‘One neat little hole and no more problems,' he said. ‘Your dossier and that of your Frog friend tell me few will regret your passing.'

Kohler wet his throat. ‘Look, I … I was only casting about for answers. Doenitz wants this thing solved. Mueller in Berlin is on the line to my chief in Paris all the time. He and Boemelburg are old friends.'

Several seconds passed. The cook was going to kill him.
Ach Du lieber Gott
, had it come to this?

‘Paulette was a tease, a virgin. She kept it locked up like the Bank of France. Her old man always figured she was up to mischief, but the truth is, Herr Kohler, she was as pure as the new-fallen snow.'

‘She wanted out into the big world. You offered a chance but she wouldn't go all the way with you.'

‘She wanted an officer. She was “worth it”, she said. She wasn't going to give it to just anyone.'

‘Even though you'd brought her all sorts of little treasures? Silk stockings, perfume, underwear and …'

‘Condoms,' grinned the cook.' A nice big box of them.'

It was coming now. Kohler tried to prepare himself for the bullet. Louis, he said to himself, Louis, where the hell are you?

But Louis wasn't with him, and Schultz was right. No one at the rue des Saussaies in Paris, the former HQ of the Sûreté Natiohale and now that of the Gestapo in France, would shed a single tear. Least of all Boemelburg who would only say, I told you so. Someday it was bound to happen.

Giselle would cry and would go into mourning for about a week. Oona would shed blue-eyed tears and try to comfort the girl. One blonde, the other black-haired. Day and night. Half Greek, half Midi French and twenty-two, Giselle was the sweetest, most gorgeous thing in Paris, but Oona, who was forty and lovely too, wouldn't be able to stop her from going around the corner to console herself at Madame Chabot's with the other girls. Whores all of them. Real patriots too. The rue Danton and a house for Frenchmen only, even though the money was not very good and he'd won his way into their hearts in spite of being one of ‘the others', one of
les autres
.

Kohler let go of the steering wheel and switched off the ignition. Gingerly he raised his hands. ‘Why make it messy for yourself? I'll get out. I won't argue.'

Schultz shook his head. ‘You forget the Préfet. You forget your side window. Someone had to break it. Not me. I'm just here to protect Vati.'

‘The others will tell Louis I was with you.'

‘They won't say a thing. Vati won't let them. Vati must know all about the doll by now, but I'm loyal to him, Herr Kohler. He's our Dollmaker. He's the only one who can bring us home.'

In single file, and tightly grouped, the four of them made their way through the fog. St-Cyr brought up the rear. The Préfet's gun was in his hand. Would they ever reach the car? Would one of them not try to bolt and run or take the revolver from him?

Kerjean was immediately in front, then the woman. The pianist, who knew the bog best, was in the lead but would he take them on a wide detour so as to stall for time, would he lose them and slip away?

He had set the spear point carefully on a hummock and had gingerly raised his hands in surrender. As he had got up, the Préfet had said, ‘Why didn't you do as I asked?'

Charbonneau had replied, ‘Don't ask when you already know the answer.'

No one had spoken since then. Exhausted, afraid, each had kept their thoughts but which was the killer of le Trocquer, or was that person still absent?

There were so many questions and all of them raised others. Worst of all perhaps was his not being able either to sit down quietly to think things through, or to meet with Hermann to bounce things off him and get his feedback. They worked as a team yet were forced by circumstance and this blasted terrain, this … this pagan landscape, to work largely alone. Each half of the partnership would know things the other half did not.

The last time they had been together, a little more than twenty-four hours ago, they had helped with the bomb damage in Lorient and he had told Hermann of his two sons and had used their deaths to make him see things from Kerjean's point of view which had not been fair. Ah no, most certainly, but war makes even the best of friends from opposite sides think first of their own kind, stupid though that is and always has been.

He had told Hermann of the telescope and the Préfet's son. He had asked him to say nothing of it. ‘Victor's a good man,' he had said. ‘Don't blame him for wanting to get the boy out of France.'

Hermann had wanted to know if the shopkeeper had been aware of the escape. He had said he wanted to look at the Dollmaker's report on the state of the crew.

Had he found a report on the Captain? Had the Dollmaker been in Paris for some kind of medical assessment – was that why Kaestner had gone straight to the clay pits with such an urgency it defied rational comprehension? Surely the day after New Year's would have sufficed? U-297 wasn't putting to sea immediately on his return. Yet he had sent messages on ahead to tell others where he would be on a day when the pits would be closed and only the watchman would be present.

Baumann had taken the message to the Charbonneaus. Both had known of its contents as had the child.

Angélique, wanting to put a stop to the love affair, had got her father to take her to Quiberon the day before the murder to buy some candlesticks from the man who would then take the doll she had left in the shop and go out to confront the Captain with it. The child had known of the shopkeeper and had seen so clearly what he would do. The man had delivered messages to their house.

‘Kämmer and Reinhardt …' he muttered, his voice well muffled by the fog. Hélène Charbonneau had caught up with that shopkeeper who had then thrust the doll into her hands. She had backed away in terror until out of sight and had stood and dropped the doll at the sound of … of another voice, yes, yes, a sharp accusation of its own, then a skull's crushing, perhaps a gasp, perhaps only the sound of the switch-bar as it had hit the rails on being cast aside.

But had she told the complete truth? Was she still trying to protect the husband, just as he had been trying to shield the daughter by hiding the briefcase and the doll?

She had had ample reason to kill le Trocquer, so, too, had the husband, and if she had lied before, could she not still be lying?

Quickly he ran through the sequence of events: the confrontation, the receiving of the doll, the backing away, the challenge to le Trocquer from behind, then the killing, the dropping of the doll and, a few minutes later, the hesitant viewing of the body and escape, after which the husband recovers the doll and the Captain then finds the bisque.

But had it been like that? Were there not other pieces to fit into the thing? The Préfet for one?

The line had come to a stop. The Renault appeared out of the fog, sitting just as they had left it, at the side of the road.

‘Jean-Louis …'

‘Victor, I am asking you to trust me, even as I am now asking you, madame, and you, monsieur. Either one of you killed le Trocquer or none of you. We will return to the house but I must ask that you give me your word not to try anything.'

‘What good is the word of a killer?' asked Kerjean bitterly.

‘You will sit in the back, Victor. Madame, get in the front passenger's seat. Monsieur, please drive carefully. This gun will be on the three of you and I will not hesitate.'

‘Then Victor will only try to get you to kill him,' said the woman sadly.

‘And that is why, madame, I must put these bracelets on him. Préfet, I am sorry for the humiliation and the apprehension they will cause, but I cannot have you dead before giving the guillotine its final answer.'

‘You're a fool! You always were a stuffed shirt! Answering the guillotine? Pah! Then ask yourself about the Dollmaker. Ask what he would do?'

The handcuffs were secure. ‘I already have and I know exactly where he is.'

‘And Angélique?' asked the woman. ‘Where is she? Please, you must tell me. I'll never forgive myself if anything has happened to her.'

‘At home among her dolls on the
chaise-longue
where you were to have poisoned yourself.'

The sound of the car was lost in the fog but then it came to them again and Schultz heaved a grateful sigh. ‘The Captain,' he said. ‘We'll let him decide what to do with you.'

The cook rolled down his side window. The sound of the car grew at a bend. It was negotiating the first of the alignments. Almost imperceptibly Kohler began to lower his hands towards the steering wheel. Anything was worth a try. There was a Beretta strapped to his left calf and just itching to be fired. ‘Look, why not get out, eh? He'll squeeze right past us. He'll only think you boys were too pissed to continue and decided to sleep it off.'

Schultz hesitated. He couldn't seem to make up his mind, but at last he said, ‘Don't try anything. You first. I'll follow. Take it slowly.'

‘Just let me tie my shoelace.'

The cold muzzle of the pistol was pressed hard against the back of Kohler's neck. Some glass fell from the side window and they both heard it hit the running board as the door opened.

Once on the road, Death's-head made him raise his arms. ‘Now we wait and you can count the seconds.'

The car came on but the sound of it seemed to come from all directions until, suddenly, there it was out of the fog with its headlamps staring at them and its engine still ticking over.

‘Hey, I've seen that car before,' quipped Kohler gratefully. ‘It's Préfet Kerjean but he's not at the wheel.'

Schultz didn't like it. ‘Get back in the lorry! Don't fuck about.' He grabbed an ear but it refused to budge.

‘The woman's with her husband. My partner's getting out. If you shoot me now, my friend, he'll nail you right between the eyes. Fog or no fog, that one can hit a flea on a whore's ass at twenty paces and not even touch the skin.'

‘All right, we'll see what they have to say.'

‘Then let me tie my shoelace. I wouldn't want to trip and have you hot shots start firing.'

‘Hermann, is that you?' came the call of a blind man who could see well enough.

‘Yeah, it's me. That shoelace is busted again. Ah
Gott im Himmel
, Louis, the lousy bastards who make them should be shot.'

Schultz felt the Beretta jammed under his chin. ‘
Don't
,' breathed Kohler. ‘We wouldn't want to spoil our dinner, especially not when we've got the cook with us.'

The chicken soup was good, the tinned ham from Alsace superb when fried with chopped, boiled potatoes, green onions, tomatoes and a sprinkling of basil. Not turbot or sole or oysters, ah no, of course not, thought St-Cyr, but beggars could not quibble. Schultz had had the ham and the dried soup mix, both staples of U-boat fare, in a box under the seat of the lorry. There was real coffee too, not the meagre three beans of authenticity Vichy doled out on top of every bag of the ersatz stuff that, even though it was so lousy, was still labelled ‘coffee' and still rationed to half a kilogram per month per family.

Everyone had partaken of the meal, some not tasting it at all but eating it as people did these days, never knowing if it would be their last or someone would steal it hot off the plate.

They had cleaned themselves up and wore dry clothes that had been parcelled out by the pianist. Now the lines above the kitchen stove were once more heavily draped, and his shoes dripped the last of their run-off on to the hot iron.

Hélène Charbonneau's hands had been attended to. The child sat between her and the husband. Schultz was beside Hermann who would translate when necessary. The Préfet was at the other end of the table from the Sûreté. Out of deference, the bracelets had been removed.

Now all were waiting for the Sûreté to begin. He would light his pipe and take the time to contemplate each of them with one notable absence, that of the Captain.

The woman met his gaze steadily and did not flinch, so much so, that he could but find admiration for her and wanted to say, Be at peace. My partner and I will help you all we can.

But, of course, he could not do so. There were now two further murders to consider.

Unable yet to view the bodies of these latest victims, he could only trust to Hermann's incomplete remembrances of them.

Contrary to what both he and Hermann had come to believe, when faced with the gravity of the situation, Yvon Charbonneau had revealed an acceptance of reality that was sobering and far from the symphony he heard and the megaliths he searched.

Kerjean did not turn away from meeting his gaze either. They were three very formidable adversaries.

Death's-head Schultz was the fourth. Only Angélique bowed her head and moved her lips silently in a prayer for absolution.

‘Good. Now let us begin,' he said, removing his pipe just long enough to motion at them with it. ‘The key to this whole business is that one must think as the Dollmaker did. One must have the Allied freighter or troopship right beneath the intersection of the cross hairs.'

Kerjean asked for a cigarette. Charbonneau lit it for him. Schultz, if ever such a man could do so, remained impassive.

‘Herr Kaestner,' said Louis, ‘could not allow the crew who held him in such high regard, to find out that he had been having a love affair – excuse me, please, madame, for calling it that – with a Jewess, no matter how intelligent, kind or beautiful she was.'

‘Death's-head couldn't have them finding it out either,' snorted Kohler, watching them all closely.