Kaleidoscope (12 page)

There were two of the same masks chained to Anne-Marie's right wrist by four twisted ropes of gold, the bracelet heavy and obviously a gift from the girl. A lover's present. Yet who had taken the photograph?

From the balcony he saw the target, off to the far left next to the wall, and knew that someone had been recently practising their archery.

Pocketing the photograph, St-Cyr hurried downstairs and when he approached the target, he saw that whoever had fired the crossbow, had known exactly how to do so.

There were at least seventeen bolt holes in the centre, a pattern spread of not more than fifteen centimetres at the most.

Pacing off the metres, he repeatedly found the imprints of a woman's low-heeled shoes, and at sixty metres and behind them, those of a heavy-set man. Had the man come upon her in the garden; had she then shown him what she could really do? Was it all too obvious? he wondered. Had the weaver led him to everything only to set him up for something else?

She was standing before the fireplace in the grand salon and right away she showed him where the crossbow had been.

‘It was gone,' she said, still looking at the place beside the fire-irons. ‘On Wednesday I searched everywhere for it. I knew – don't you see, Inspector, I knew what had happened. I felt it in my heart. A knife – like a knife. I was right here when she fell. I heard my name as she cried it out to me.'

Unwittingly Viviane Darnot gave the image of herself repeated several times again in gold and glass, richly defined in splendour. Superbly gilded Louis XVI armchairs were all about her. A Tilliard screen was just to her left. An exquisite Louis Philippe-style piano and golden harp. A magnificent secretaire. A tapestry, an allegory of Rome, portrayed the trial of a young woman who stood among grim-faced senators who would judge and condemn, while behind her, the Colosseum was thronged with upraised lances.

‘Carlo killed her,' she said, quite simply. ‘He was the one to benefit the most. All this,' she said, gesturing dismissively. ‘He wanted so much to sell it but needed Anne-Marie's permission. He had a buyer all lined up, Inspector. Himmler's buyer.'

‘But Angélique Girard pulled the trigger, is that it?' he asked and heard her whisper, ‘Yes.'

‘And Himmler's buyer?' he asked.

Her sarcasm was all too clear. ‘That one's Jewish and knows the Riviera well, Inspector, since he used to deal in fine paintings and other works of art. He's going to be made an Honorary German and so must work all the harder to ensure that Herr Himmler obtains nothing but the best.'

Ah, Nom de Jésus-Christ
, more trouble! Hermann … where the hell was Hermann?

Her little smile was brief. ‘Carlo had agreed to sell the villa, Inspector, but Anne-Marie had refused absolutely. As a result, Herr Himmler's buyer was furious.'

St-Cyr longed for his pipe and a good supply of tobacco. He longed for Hermann and a chance to talk things over in quiet. ‘This “buyer” mademoiselle, his name and where might he be found?'

Now there was defiance, the weaver proud. ‘Heimholtz Kleitsmann; alias Heinz Kleist, the Hotel Albion. He has a suite of rooms but seldom stays long in one place. He's far too busy.'

‘French?'

‘Of course. Why not a little real estate, Inspector? You French are into everything else, isn't that so? Robbery, arson, murder …'

‘Yes, yes, even detective work. These times, they are not good for us, mademoiselle, but soon they will pass. Of this, I am certain.'

‘And your partner?' she asked. ‘This Gestapo detective?'

The shrug was that of a man upon whom God had willed a certain fate. ‘Hermann? Hermann is something special, Mademoiselle Viviane. A damned good detective at a time when the world seems to want anything but one.'

Kohler darted into a block of flats and paused to catch a breath. The boys in blue were out in force. The ones in black were with them and so were those in the field grey-green of the Wehrmacht. It was only a matter of time until Munk and Delphane caught up with them.

Verdammt
! What was he to do? Call the villa and warn Louis? Go to ground and hope they didn't pick the Frog up and hold him for ransom? Or walk out there now and let the bastards have the dossiers and the little notebook? The photograph of Josette-Louise Buemondi in Paris?

Jesus! Four black cars shot down the rue du Canada and he heard the screech of their brakes and knew he was for it.

Then heard the hungry throb of their engines as they pelted along the Croisette to jump on someone else.

He had about an hour, maybe less. One by one, the pedestrians began to move. A
vélo-taxi
started up as he stepped out on to the street; another jangled its bell and he waited until it had passed before threading his way across to the other side. Everyone was looking at him now, only to duck their eyes away when he met them. A good head and shoulders taller than most, he'd never be able to hide in a crowd down here.

The shop was gushy, the small ante-room holding an antique desk, a woven basket of cut flowers, vases of the same, three ornate chairs, handfuls of celebrity photographs on the walls and a coffee-table with the latest fashion magazines and a copy of
Der Stuermer
that was six weeks old.

‘Kohler, from Madame Buemondi, to see the boss,' he said to the doubting dumpling who fussed with worried locks as she attempted to get up and found her girdle too tight. ‘Just tell the boss it's private, eh? A little matter about the face creams and the hormonal jellies. Too much acid in that last batch.'

Dumpling tugged at her suit jacket and nodded doubtfully. ‘Madame, she is in the back, but is very busy, monsieur. There is the ball at the Majestic tonight. You should have come this morning. You should have telephoned first.'

‘I couldn't. Something came up. Just say there's trouble and we'd better talk.'

The
coiffeuse
had her hands full, and that was for sure. Among the dozen or so Louis XV chairs with their pink coverlets under soft yellow lights and before a battery of mirrors and dressing-tables, were the bored, the pampered and the haughty mondaines of Cannes, the wives of black marketeers, bankers and industrialists, the socialites and high-class whores who lived on the wealth of others and had up to now been comfortably sitting out the war.

A poodle piddled and Madame Ernestine Rogette hardly paused in the rinse job she was performing, the woman simply flicking a towel at the floor and putting a foot on it.

There were creams on half the faces, black hair, blue hair, blonde hair being teased by hot irons or combed and clipped, dyed and sprinkled with some sort of ersatz silvery powder. Ground aluminium probably.

The place smelled like a brothel after a bath or a raid. The talk, which had been a sharp crossfire of insidiously cruel gossip from chair to chair, had ceased entirely.

Now there were only the sounds of increasingly hesitant scissors and the tap that was still running.

Kohler picked up a bottle of scented lotion then put it back. The dog began to sniff nervously at his heels and then to do its other business on the floor.

Madame tossed a no-nonsense nod at the nearest assistant. Still nothing was said. The assistant exposed nice knees as she crouched, giving him a good view up her stockinged legs. Silk, no less! Demurely she picked up the hard little turds and primly left.

They heard the front door open and then close.

‘Madame …' he began.

‘Monsieur?' she asked.

At first Kohler thought the red hair and sea-green eyes a coincidence but when the assistant returned, Madame Rogette could not stop herself from asking if there'd been any sign of her daughter. ‘I sent that girl on an errand first thing this morning and she's not back yet,' she confided to the rinse job and all others.

The assistant thought to help. ‘It's not the first time, madame. Suzanne will be all right. It's only that old …'

‘These days …' began Madame, thinking to ease the tension. ‘Ah, what can one do with the young,
mesdames et mesdemoiselles
? That girl, she is seeing someone. Me, I have had my suspicions for some time but a mother, pah! One cannot interfere too much or else they vanish.'

Into the cellars of the Gestapo. Kohler knew it had to be the kid Munk and Delphane had worked over. ‘Madame …' he tried again.

‘Has anything happened to my daughter, monsieur?'

He met the look in her eyes. Without being told, she'd known right away he was a cop. ‘No. No, not that I'm aware of,' he said. ‘I'm from Paris Central.'

Still no one moved. Even the scissors had stopped. ‘A case of missing persons. Madame Anne-Marie Buemondi has asked us to find her daughter, Josette-Louise. The girl's in Paris.'

‘Then I ask again, monsieur, why are you here?'

‘Madame Buemondi thought you might have a suggestion or two – nothing specific, you understand. Just an idea perhaps.'

It was meant to let her off the hook in front of the customers and it would have to do. ‘Babette, please attend to Madame the Countess. Madame, excuse me for a moment, please. I will not be long. We've finished with this, Babette. Now please, the combing out and then the electricity of the drier but lightly, yes? Very lightly.'

The dark eyes of the countess flashed the fire of curiosity. ‘Have you done anything?' she asked, detaining Madame by gripping a wrist.

‘No. No, of course not,' said Green-Eyes. ‘Monsieur and I will simply be a moment.'

They didn't go into the front office but passed behind a curtained doorway into a narrow corridor whose flanking shelves were crammed to the ceiling with bottles and tins of soap and powder, et cetera, et cetera.

From there, they entered a small but comfortable sitting-room. She closed the door and leaned her back against it.

‘Madame Buemondi is dead, Inspector. Me, I suppose you are aware of this only too well, as are all those in my shop. But Suzanne, she knows nothing, you understand? A few errands, a little of the herbal shampoo for the countess from time to time; a bar of the lavender soap for that one's husband or Monsieur Jacques, the head croupier over at the Palm. Nothing. The child knows nothing.'

Kohler wished she'd sit down. Crucified on that door of hers, she looked like Christ in her agony of doubt.

‘Did Ludo Borel supply the soaps and other things?' he asked.

The shrug was genuine. ‘A man from the hills, that is all I know. Monsieur, Madame Buemondi would
not
have given that one's name to anyone, not these days when soap is impossible to acquire without … without the proper connections.'

‘What did you give her in return?'

‘What do you think, eh? Is it so hard to see?'

‘I just want to hear it from yourself.'

‘The manicures, the coiffures – the hair stylings, yes? For herself and her friend.'

‘Which friend?'

‘Her companion. Her favourite. Her little protégée. Mademoiselle Angélique Girard.'

‘Not the weaver?'

‘No … No, not the weaver. Others, too, in … in exchange for the things Madame Buemondi had to dispose of.'

‘Anything else?'

‘The hot mud treatments, but those are done over at the other place, on the rue Buttura. Chez Paulette, the House of the Eternal Life.'

‘Sulphurous mud?' he asked.

‘Yes. But of course. Modelled after the hot waters and mud baths in the grottos of Vesuvius. My elder daughter is in charge. My husband, he … he has died in the last war, monsieur. At Verdun. Now, please, you will tell me what has happened to Suzanne. When one is accustomed to reading the truth in the eyes, monsieur, it is very hard for others to conceal it from me.'

Kohler touched her arm as he was leaving but could not find the courage to face her any longer. Out on the street, he drew in several deep breaths and swore he'd kill Munk and Delphane.

When he found a telephone to ring the villa and warn Louis, he knew Gestapo Cannes would be listening in for just such a thing, and gave it up.

Louis would just have to look after himself.

They came in two cars and they arrived very fast. One moment they were at the front gates of the villa; the next, the weaver was saying, ‘For the love of Christ, don't let them find me here! There's a door at the far end of the garden. I'll go out that way.'

‘What about the bicycles?' shot St-Cyr.

‘
Ah merde
!' She bit her lower lip. ‘Look, could you handle the two of them?
Please
, Inspector. I beg it of you. Carlo mustn't find me here and neither must Jean-Paul Delphane.'

In mirror after mirror he saw the look of tragedy in her eyes and was transported right back in time to Chamonix and that other villa. An entrance room of some sort. Yes, yes … she looking up at him from a chair – what had there been in her eyes besides that look of anguish? A quivering uncertainty? The dare of one who has gambled hard and is uncertain if she will be found out?

An entrance room? he asked, puzzled. White … the walls, the ceiling, an inner door opening. Shoes … a pair of shoes … a nurse in a light blue uniform with a white apron. Yes, yes, he urged himself. Think, St-Cyr. Think!

Remember. ‘Jean-Paul, it's been a long time,' he said, still feeling Chamonix intensely, still smelling the fear – everywhere the fear.

‘Fuck off. You, you and you,' said Delphane. ‘Search the house and grounds.'

‘Please do,' enthused the Sûreté. ‘I came alone and entered using this.' He held up the key. The three Gestapo hesitated and when their leader came in with someone else, they decided not to take orders from the Deuxième Bureau but to await further instruction.

The key, of course, was to the weaver's house, but they could not have known this.

He pocketed it and took out his pipe, only to remember the lack of tobacco.

‘Jean-Louis St-Cyr?'