6

‘A kilo of what, Louis, in addition to the one of boart you condescended to tell me of at Chez Rudi’s?’

‘Don’t get huffy.’

They had arrived in Corbeny and had stopped near the ruins of its medieval abbey and tiny museum only because Louis, being Louis, had insisted. ‘Just tell me.’

‘Bien sûr, certainement. Virtually all of the kings of France came here the day after their consecration in Reims cathedral. Even Jeanne d’Arc on her white charger, no doubt. You see, mon vieux, the relics of Saint Marcou were here and venerated for his having had the power to cure scrofula, the “king’s evil.”’

‘And what the hell is that?’

‘Tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands. A sore neck.’

‘And I think I’ve already asked you a far more pertinent question. Ludin won’t have been happy with our having buggered off. He’ll retaliate. It’s in the Hamburg psyche. Those people are even moving back into the heart of their dead city. Never mind the stench of the countless corpses that still have to be found and removed. Never mind the smoke, the rubble, the living in some cellar, if possible, or even the signs that tell them it’s absolutely forbidden to enter that area without a special pass.’

Almost a million had been evacuated from that city, thus spreading the terror throughout the Reich, but unfortunately it was no time to broaden Hermann’s understanding of French history. ‘About a kilo of mixed stones of up to a carat or two, but often less, and all useful either in jewellery or as industrials.’

‘Borderlines are what you want to call them, mein lieber Französischer Oberdetektiv. Of equal value either as one or the other. They require sorting too.’

‘And were probably swept off that table and into their little bag even as the Blitzkrieg descended on the city.’

‘Of Amsterdam.’

‘Her father may not have been the only one in the family to have been employed by Diamant Meyerhof, Hermann.’

‘That the one who insisted on her using a passeur and paying for it?’

Merde, and still huffy. ‘Unless we meet her, we may never know.’

Fortunately Hermann was able to find a much crumpled emergency cigarette. Impatiently straightening and lighting it, he took two deep drags before handing it over.

‘An informant, Louis, a spotter plane, a control that causes far too much trouble for far too many, a Sonderkommando, a wrecked lingerie shop, two hostages taken so as to threaten the hell out of me, and now two kilos of what the Reich most desperately need. What else is Anna-Marie Vermeulen carrying?’

‘I really did try to tell you it was a minefield.’

‘And I’ve just let you know of that Kriminalrat’s psyche.’

Hermann hadn’t even noticed the emptiness of the village. Oh for sure, there were the farms and the harvest to consider, yet still there should have been someone about. ‘With a population of around 350, mon vieux, they are all, apparently, out in the fields.’

‘Having heard and seen the car, just like our Anna-Marie would have noted, they’ve buggered off to stay in the fields with the others, but have now turned their backs on us, even the kids.’

A bad sign.

‘Let’s go and say hello to a certain garde champêtre and his wife, Louis. Maybe they can shed a little light on things. Évangéline was her name.’

The tabac, the general store, PTT and café-bar were all in one room, with no one even behind the wicket of the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone.

Hitting the bell didn’t awaken anyone. Hitting it again finally brought the curves, the long and shaken-loose auburn hair, the deep-brown, made-up eyes and the slip with its plunging neckline and off-the-shoulder strap, the rabbit-fur slippers and the generous smile.

‘Messieurs,’ she asked, a hand now to her thirty-three-year-old throat, ‘qu’est-ce que vous désirez? A glass of wine, a cup of coffee or a little something else?’

The chalkboard even gave the additional business of ‘poulets, lapins, oeufs,’ but Hermann would be putty in her hands. ‘Your husband, madame. St-Cyr of the Sûreté, Kohler of the Kripo.’

So this was the one Eugène had saved on the battlefield. This was the one whose second wife, it was said, had made the grand cuckold of him, he having forgiven her. ‘Father Adrien will know where he is. Me, I think you will find that one in his church and down on his knees before God, seeing as he’s been a thief and fears that other Gestapo is going to come back for him.’

‘What other Gestapo?’ demanded Hermann.

Ah bon, that had got them interested. ‘The one who drives a car like yours but drinks from little bottles like this.’

‘Ah Christ, Louis, stomach bitters.’

Father Adrien was indeed on his knees, bare of back and applying the willow switch. Beside him were three upright bottles of the vin rouge, one of which was empty, one half-full and the other still sealed. And beside these, were two bundles of 5,000-franc notes from a hastily emptied poor box.

‘Let’s leave him, Louis. Let’s let God handle it.’

The hour of decision. The Church could be mighty. ‘Agreed.’

Again, and then again, Hermann rang the bell, Évangéline Rocheleau appearing in a sleeveless hip-clinging, made-over woollen dress of the latest Paris design, its hem at just above the knees, but obviously there hadn’t been time to sew in a zipper or the more usual buttons.

‘Me, I thought you would come back,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I wanted to go to Paris too. Maman, she owns the shop, helps with the PTT and lives with us, so there wouldn’t have been any problem, but that other one with the car, his stomach was too acid. “An important meeting,” he yelled, or something like that in his language. “A confrontation,” peut-être.’

The weather had been perfect, felt St-Cyr, the day like a pleasurable journey into the countryside until now. ‘God always has to pull out all the stops, Hermann. It’s in his nature.’

‘Finish the dress, madame. Pack a few things. This partner of mine and I will pick you up when we’ve done what we have to. Let’s give that husband of yours a nice surprise.’

The image of lost lives and causes was all too apparent in the ruins of l’Abbaye de Vauclair, and when they had reached the spring, the falling leaves were caught in the water and rushed along. Ferns threw shadows over the grey flagstone that girl had lifted, Hermann finally breaking the silence that had suddenly overwhelmed them. ‘She was on the run and terrified, Louis, would have had only one good hand yet had the sense not only to find the perfect place but to leave no trace of herself.’

‘Is remarkable. You or me?’

‘Both. Let’s leave nothing for that Kriminalrat to find.’

In unison, the slab was tilted, letting the water well up behind it and over what she had hidden, Louis sucking in a troubled breath and saying, ‘The Ashkenazim, Hermann.’

‘The generations of one family, starting way back when?’

‘Maybe in the 1700s, maybe earlier.’

‘Yet kept hidden always, even from those of their own because only then would the “life” they held be secure.’

Creased and worn, wrinkled and old yet methodically oiled over the years, the plain and simple black leather bag, not quite the size of a clenched fist, had a braided tie of the same with two worn wooden pegs at the ends.

Under it there was a small, folded white paper packet, thoroughly wet but tied round with a bit of brown wool, something hastily pulled from something else and of the moment.

‘Hochfeines Weiss,’ said Louis, having carefully cradled the bag while opening the packet.

‘A dozen beautifully cut and flawless brilliants, each of about two carats and maybe eight millimetres in diameter. Just how the hell did Josef Meyerhof, and it must have been him, keep these from the Third and Glorious Reich?’

A good question, but Hermann still needed calming. ‘Maybe she’ll tell us.’

‘Those shoes are a problem, Louis. We can’t have that bastard Ludin finding her.’

To open the bag, they would have to move away to a spot among the rocks uphill a little where Louis first spread a handkerchief. Suddenly, sunlight was trapped, caught, reflected back and forth until finally releasing itself in flashes of fire. ‘Six for a necklace that needed eight, mon vieux.’

And nothing but big trouble, felt Kohler. ‘Meyerhof’s great-great-grandfather beginning the search, the next keeping clarity, colour and size fully in mind while viewing thousands of others.’

‘And so on up the ancestral line to the present, Meyerhof having carried on that search even with the Great War raging elsewhere and after it, the Great Depression.’

‘When things were so tough, De Beers and the central selling organization in London found they had to buy up the overhang.’

The old diamonds that had flooded onto the market, forcing prices down, but Hermann had been right to be concerned. A rainbow of colours was before them, a sky-blue like no other, a canary-yellow, too, but clearer than clear, others of the softest, most memorable rose or deepest emerald green, others still, of a cocoa-brown. Some had been cut and polished, but were without their mountings, others still in the rough.

‘And those are but the “fancies,” the rarest of all,’ said St-Cyr. ‘The rest are exceptional whites of five, ten, even fifteen or twenty carats, lesser sizes too.’

A spread of maybe sixty to forty percent whites to fancies, but it would have to be said, and Louis had known it too. ‘The “sight” of “sights,” and not at all usual for the “life” diamonds most would have squirreled away to tide the family over the hardest of times. These are more than enough to have not only reminded their inheritor of the family but to have started up the business again and elsewhere.’

Good for Hermann. ‘An absolute fortune on the marché noir. No wonder she felt she had to hide them.’

‘And be very quiet about them, Louis, since greed can be everything to far too many. That bag would have been flattened and bound tightly against her middle, probably with a band of linen.’

‘She’d have made sure there wasn’t any unevenness in her clothing.’

‘And will have hidden the linen elsewhere. Under a root, or maybe in a knothole.’

‘A half-and-half.’

‘A submarine.’

‘A pair of shoes.’

‘And a hell of a lot of trouble not just for ourselves, but for her, too, Louis. Her.’

It was Étienne who had cornered her, Étienne whose forehead and pointed chin emphasized the piercing intensity of his gaze. He had come up to this room she had been given in this house he seldom used, a room Frans Oenen had told her to stay in or else. Softly closing the door, he listened to the house while noting everything he could about her, the way she stood to one side of this window so as not to be seen by anyone chancing to arrive or pass by, the clogs she now had to wear, the leather belt and Norwegian trousers in whose right pocket was that coin. Or was he simply noting the frayed left cuff of her sweater from which she had managed to tear a desperately needed bit of thread with her teeth?

Grabbing a chair, he pointed to it and found one for himself, their knees all but touching. ‘Whether you like it or not, you’re far too noticeable. Blue eyes, blonde hair, and a complexion so perfect even with the lack of food and milk and all the rest, Martine still can’t stop going on about it, yet you bring out the desperate in all of us. Myself, because you’ll not have been forgotten with that hand, and I must choose a safe way into Paris. Arie, because, though I’ve yet to tell him, he knows you’ll be the last we deliver. Thanks to you, it has simply become far too risky—insanely so, if you ask me—and we’ve done what we had to anyway.’

‘Make a fortune?’

‘Please don’t be disappointing. We’ve put our lives on the line for far more important packages than yourself, and many of those have been from the Reich and all of them hunted.’

‘And Frans, what does he say about it?’

‘That you doubt his loyalty and will do some dumb thing that’ll get us all arrested. So now you’ll tell me why Josef Meyerhof would have given me these to get you out of the clutches of the Boche?’

It was a belt of louis d’or, something a businessman who travelled a lot would wear under his clothing. ‘I can’t for a moment imagine how he could possibly have given you anything like that, seeing as he must be under constant surveillance if still in Amsterdam and in the Jewish district behind that horrible fence with all its forbidden-to-enter signs and its barbed wire.’

Perhaps she didn’t know. ‘He was among the last of them and is probably gone by now.’*

‘To Vught or Westerbork and on,’ she said. ‘Mijnheer Meyerhof was my father’s employer.’

‘Your own as well?’

She would shake her head because he couldn’t possibly know the truth. Mijnheer Meyerhof wouldn’t have let him know, nor would the contact he had used, and that left only Frans who wouldn’t have either even if the Boche had told him. Besides, very few women were involved in that business and far fewer girls. ‘I met Mijnheer Meyerhof once when I was five and my father took me to his place of work. He wouldn’t even know what I look like now, and I could never have gone up to that wire to speak to him in any case. Indeed, why would I, seeing as I am what I am?’

And fierce about it. ‘Yet he pays me the whole of my fee up front?’

In May of 1940, those louis d’or would each have been worth about 1,000 francs but now a good 10,000, and there were at least twenty of them. ‘He can’t have kept those hidden in that ghetto. Someone must have given them to whomever handed them to you. Have you thought of that?’

‘He’d have bought his way out and not yours, would he? Instead, early last year he sends his son and that one’s wife and their four children to France and tells them to head for the zone libre.’

Into which the Germans moved on 11 November 1942 in response to the Allied landings in North Africa, the Italians immediately extending their occupied zone west and all but to the Rhône, making the city of Nice a much preferred refuge.

‘Arie and I took them in two trips.’

‘With Frans?’

There it was again, that distrust. ‘He didn’t join us until February of this year.’

‘The tenth, was it? Wasn’t that the first time he saved yours and Arie’s lives by running into that café to shout out a warning that company was on its way?’

The Boche—the Moffen to the Dutch—but she hadn’t hesitated­. ‘Frans should never have told you that.’

‘Nor should you have told me of those louis d’or.’

Why was she after Frans so hard? ‘He was on the run and had been hit in the arm.’

‘The perfect submarine, a résistant, eh, a bullet graze that missed the heart?’

‘You don’t like him, do you?’

The urge to show him the rijksdaaler and to tell him where she had found it was almost more than she could bear, but if she did, Frans would be forced to defend himself and use that gun. ‘He’s too flippant. He presumes far too much. His toasting the killing of those two men was not just upsetting. It was sickening even though I certainly knew what they had intended. And as for any kind of relationship, I haven’t the least interest in taking up with anyone, let alone a person like him, and it’s equally sickening of him to have suggested it.’

‘I’ll speak to him. Arie and I are both sorry your fiancé was killed. We do know that he was found hiding in the red-light district on 20 July and that he deliberately ran from the Boche knowing, probably, that if he didn’t, he might have given away the alias you’ve been using in Paris.’

‘Josef wouldn’t have told you that.’

Not Mijnheer Meyerhof. ‘Or that Henk Vandenberg’s body lay in the Oudezijds Achterburgwal for the rest of that day and night until two of the Grüne Politei threw him into the canal?’

The ‘green police’ due to the grey-green colour of their uniforms, the Feldgendarme, the military police. ‘Who told you all of this? Frans? And if so, how, please, did he find out?’

Again the urge to show him the coin was there but if she did, he would then find out what Mijnheer Meyerhof had asked her to do.

This package of theirs was tough, felt Labrie, but maybe a little softening up would help. ‘Meyerhof’s son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren were among those arrested and deported on 11 September. The reason we know is because, during his subsequent interrogation, the son was so badly beaten, he didn’t survive, but of course they couldn’t resist showing the father a photo of him, for “identification purposes.”’

And that must be why Mijnheer Meyerhof, on seeing her unexpectedly turn up to walk by the ghetto, had called out to her and then had asked what he had, but that dear man hadn’t said a word of this. It had been a terrible round-up in Nice, far worse even than that of the grande rafle in Paris on July 16 and 17 of last year. In Nice and elsewhere in that Italian zone, more than 30,000 had been very quickly arrested and deported.

‘Now I’ll ask you once more, Anna-Marie, because I really do need to know exactly why the Boche are after you so hard.’

She couldn’t tell him about the diamonds she had been carrying, but something would have to be yielded. ‘Josef Meyerhof was the director of the Amsterdam protection committee that policed the trade and had drawn up a blacklist of all those dealers who were selling to the Reich. For years London has been the trading and distribution centre for rough stones, especially those for jewellery, which were then sent across the Channel to the cutting works in Amsterdam and Antwerp, where we also did the industrials for them and others. In turn, we then sent finished stones back, but never once did the British think to establish their own works since that would have meant bringing in the skilled Jewish workmen we had. Finally the cutting tables and other equipment were got ready for shipment and sent to Rotterdam but at the last moment, during the Blitzkrieg, the city was hit and they were never sent. Mijnheer Meyerhof will have that list.’

‘But did he give it to you?’

Though a lie, her nod would be brief, her right hand firmly extended, that fist still clenched with its coin. ‘I don’t trust Frans Oenen. I can’t. You see, I think I’ve seen him before.’

‘Where?’

‘The Hollandsche Schouwburg.’

‘He escaped from there and we know that.’

‘When?’

And still suspicious. ‘When the Boche renamed it in October 1941, they weren’t too careful at first and left its stage doors and fire escape unguarded. Several escaped and were soon rounded up or shot, but Paul Klemper has been on the run ever since and we were able to verify this. He’s good at it, Anna-Marie. He has had to be and has helped us several times because he can act the part of anyone he wants and is an absolute natural.’

Withdrawing her fist, she would shove that coin back into her trouser pocket and tell him only, ‘I’m sorry I mistrusted him. It’s been hard living like this, and I’m still trying to get over finding out that my Henki was betrayed. He was goodness itself and I loved him dearly. Those shoes I left in that van were to have been worn at our wedding, brief as that would have been.’

‘Those shoes really are a problem, Louis.’

‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

No one had bothered them at l’Abbaye de Vauclair, felt Kohler. They’d had the place entirely to themselves and still did. Having found a suitable spot among the ruins, Louis had arranged, on a low and remnant wall, the bits and pieces of this investigation so that they could have a look at everything. Side by side were the shoes. Next came that single blonde hair tucked safely into one of them, then the champagne cork from that snapped-off bottle in the van, it being a clear reminder of the one he had found on her bedside table.

The white paper packet with its woollen thread followed, and then that little black leather bag, and only after those, the cartridge casings, slugs, poultice, mégot tin, coins, charred bits of identity papers and finally the Opinel that had been found near the first victim, the one she had hit with a rock. And if that didn’t say something about her, what did?

Adding a scattering of small banknotes to represent what had been stolen from the van, Kohler laid out the white linen waistband he had found secreted in a knothole not far from the spring. Refilling their glasses, he said, ‘Salut, mon vieux. She’s really something, isn’t she?’

The wine was magnificent. ‘A treasure in itself, Hermann, and not unlike what must have been in the half of the Château Latour she shared with Armand Figeard, her concierge after her first trip “home.” Delicate yet full-bodied, elegant yet of great finesse and always delightfully giving those lingering touches of mystery. The Kommandant von Gross-Paris has done us proud. The vineyard this came from was first laid out in the reign of Louis XV.’

There were two bottles of the Château Margaux premier grand cru, the 1913. ‘If I didn’t know better, Louis, I’d say Boineburg-Lengsfeld knew of Hector Bolduc’s penchant for buying land in the Haut-Médoc, Côte d’Argent and Côte Sud des Landes.’

‘Since the Kommandant von Gross-Paris must know of the Banque Nationale de Crédit et Commercial and its president, he might at that, but me I’m inclined to think he simply wanted to remind us of the Abwehr’s past and to encourage us to work together in defiance of Kaltenbrunner and the SD.’

They’d eat in a few moments, felt Kohler: a pâté en croute to be followed by the soupe de Puy, a purée of green lentils, with potatoes, leeks, carrots, cabbage, and afterward, a casserole of haricot beans with thinly sliced, tightly rolled pork that, with the baguettes, would, in itself, be magnificent. A salade lyonnaise, tarte aux prunes, Calvados and real coffee were to finish things off, but sadly no extra tobacco, only two cigars. ‘Maybe he really is on our side, but we’d better not presume too much.’

Wise words. ‘But is it that Kaltenbrunner’s Sonderkommando knew of the life diamonds, Hermann? Is it that they allowed her to take them?’

‘Hence the worried stomach, the bitters and a no-name boss, but a rather dangerous thing to have done if the outcome isn’t successful. That Spitzel of theirs must have been told to let her run and lead them to something far, far bigger.’

‘The so-called “black” diamonds, are those what this is all about?’

The rumors, the whispers, the voracious claims had all been written off as utter nonsense by most. That the Dutch and Belgian dealers could have hidden huge stashes of diamonds seemed impossible, given that virtually all, if not all of them and their families had been arrested, interrogated and then deported, they and their suitcases and homes and factories having been thoroughly searched, even to ripping up the floors and going through the clothing they had worn.

‘Geheime Reichssache, Louis.’

‘And three rijksdaaler.’

‘One with a note probably telling them, “I think she’s onto me.”’

‘But is it that they still don’t know the alias she’s using? Is it that her use of the name Annette-Mélanie Veroche is still secure?’

‘Who really knows, not even herself probably, though she’ll be thinking those shoes could well give her away.’

‘Those diamonds and the boart that she had already hidden should also be included in what is now before us.’

‘But do they know of those as well? Did they beat that out of Meyerhof—and beat him they will have, and she’ll have figured that out too.’

Frans had trapped her, felt Anna-Marie: Frans had known that after Étienne’s little visit she would wait and then try to quietly leave the house to speak to Arie who would be in the barn with the truck.

‘There are coins and then there are coins,’ he said. ‘Is that what you told our passeur? Gold louis, eh, or was it of others that are so heavy they refuse to ring when flipped in the air or tossed onto the table in payment for a night of whatever it is you have to offer?’

‘How dare you?’

Instantly, she tried to get away, but he would grab that bandaged hand and hold it tightly.

Wincing, she defiantly waited, steadfastness and loyalty even to a dead lover still registering, but he’d simply say, ‘I don’t dare. I merely ask.’

‘Then let go of me.’

So close was he still, the thyme, used dry tea leaves, carrot tops and whatever else he’d been smoking with tobacco, were on each breath, and when he smiled, she could see the way his features changed as if he knew exactly the expression he wanted and had absolute control over himself.

Blue-eyed, fair of skin and hair, the cut that of the military for he would have needed it that way, he was not overly handsome but now knew beyond doubt that she was afraid of him. ‘I don’t know to what you’re referring unless it is that there are two louis d’or. The first dates from 1640 and was minted during the reign of Louis XIII. The second, which superseded it in 1795, is clearly marked twenty francs.’

‘And the gold napoléons?’ he asked without that smile, but as if curious, as if he would gladly enter into a discussion about them.

‘1857 followed by a second dated 1869, both denoting a twenty-­franc piece.’

‘And worth a lot more now, I guess, but it sounds as if you’ve been tracking the marché noir for the Banditen. Have you?’

Ah merde, had he known that too, or merely guessed? ‘Coins are a curiosity, that’s all.’

‘Then you’ll know all about the one I mentioned.’

‘Since most are made of zinc these days, would it really matter?’

Having forced her up against the corridor wall outside her room, he made as if to turn away, only to turn back suddenly to touch her left cheek with the backs of three fingers. Pressing his middle against hers, finding an earlobe, too, he fingered it tenderly as a lover might and said at last, ‘You like the Moët et Chandon, but are you easier after a glass or two?’

Everything told her to say nothing, but the temptation was too great. ‘Was that why you chose it over the others when you climbed into the back of that van to toast your having killed those two?’

The smile he would give, decided Oenen, would be of the little boy who had just got the better of an older sister he rather hated when necessary, which was most times. ‘Ah bon, mademoiselle, I think we understand each other perfectly.’

Had he been taken through the house at home? Had the Moffen brought him there to better familiarize himself with her? Had he or they found another snapshot of Henki and herself at Zandvoort, like the one she had then brought to Paris last December, the one with that bottle behind them in the sand, Henki having opened it to toast their engagement? Or had he been shown the snapshot Henki would have carried not in his wallet, but hidden? ‘Again, I must tell you I simply don’t know what you mean. I’ve told Étienne nothing he didn’t already know. I’ve even apologized for doubting you.’

And given without a quaver, felt Oenen, so he would angrily stiffen and tell her how it was, ‘Eine Mischlinge, eh? Eine Halbjüdin, ja, Fräulein Anna-Marie Vermeulen?’

The transformation to an SS officer had been instant.

Releasing her, turning brutally away to go down the stairs, he said as if throwing it over a shoulder to gestapistes français, ‘Employez la baignoire avec la glace, mes amis. Maybe the chill will loosen her tongue, but be sure not to drown her.’

Shade filled the rue Daru as dusk approached. Up from the Seine came the first touches of the evening’s fog, but he wouldn’t go along the street just yet, felt St-Cyr. He would continue along the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, would keep mingling with others on foot and never look back. He had to be absolutely certain of not being followed, and that, of course, was only the start of it, for he had then to somehow leave convincing evidence for Anna-Marie Vermeulen so that she would agree to meet and not vanish if she did manage to get into Paris.

The Salle Pleyel had two secondary entrances on the rue Daru. The first, and nearest to him as he crossed that street, was just around its corner with the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. A courtyard entrance­ allowed­ those in private cars and taxis to be dropped off. The second­, and more plebeian was, he knew, well along the street and all but next to the Cathédrale Alexandre Nevesky. Artistes­—musicians­, even Cortot perhaps—would enter there, dancers too, and those who worked in the studios. And across from that, of course, was Chez Kornilov, but was it not favoured also by those who ran Reichsmarschall Göring’s biggest purchasing agency, the Bureau Munimin-Pimetex? It was, and yes, unfortunately Sergei Lebeznikov­, alias Serge de Lenz of Rudy de Mérode’s gang, would be all too familiar­ with it and with them, especially as Göring had astutely ordered that his purchasing agency be run only by Frenchmen­.

‘Since those will know where things are and have all the necessary connections,’ he said as if to her. ‘Merde, mademoiselle, but you do have the linkages, and not just to Hector Bolduc via that mistress of his, or to Madame Nicole Bordeaux and the cream of Parisian society.’

Munimin-Pimetex was attached to Göring’s Ministry of Armaments and Munitions, and bought hugely and constantly and still did, for the Reich desperately needed evermore quantities of everything. ‘Including diamonds,’ he softly said.

Hermann and Évangéline Rocheleau had let him off at the Quai de Valmy. Right away, though, those who would try to follow had been far more careful than last time. Taking the métro, crowded as it always was especially on a Sunday, had helped, changing trains as well, but could one ever be certain?

Coming to place des Ternes, he stood as if waiting for someone beside one of Guimard’s marvellous art nouveau entrances. Évangéline Rocheleau had had a life history that had overflowed yet Hermann, being Hermann, had listened attentively and had made no attempt to stop the torrent. Indeed, he had encouraged it and hadn’t even silenced her incessant questioning of their past and present lives and investigations. Instead, he had plucked bits of truth to commingle with the elaborate fiction he had concocted­, this partner of his having to listen to it all while crammed into the backseat of his own car next to that woman’s three suitcases.

Hermann was to show her a little of the city while there was still some light, and to find her an hotel where she could freshen up. Later they would meet in the foyer of the Hôtel George V and go into the Boeuf sur la Toit together to encounter the husband and Herr Ludin.

Quickly crossing himself at the thought, and the traffic circle to its island, he walked beneath the lindens searching for a café that would give him a view of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Every week, though not on Sundays, there was a flower market here, but now not even that and far too few pedestrians.

Bicycles and vélo-taxis did go round and round the circle. Wehr­macht­­ trucks and staff cars would speed ahead of the gazos but with everything else, did give some semblance of cover. Tattered­ and faded, last year’s poster still proclaimed the Salle Wagram’s International Exposition, LE BOLSHEVISME CONTRE L’EUROPE. Lots had attended, but now the war in Russia had progressed to such a point, using that threat would avail the Occupier little.

Satisfied, he retraced his steps but would first head for Chez Kor­nilov where a vélo-taxi and a Mercedes were dropping off a few early diners, the women beautifully made-up and clothed in nothing but the latest the marché noir had to offer, the men perfectly dressed in suits, ties and polished leather shoes, their fedoras freshly blocked.

Anna-Marie Vermeulen had lived right across the street, a girl with a kilo of boart and another of borderlines, something those at Munimin-Pimetex would be more than anxious to obtain before any other purchasing agency did; the same, too, of course, for Lebeznikov and Rudy de Mérode and all the more reason to somehow convince her to meet with him.

Very quickly he would have to cross the street and duck into that artists’ entrance, all the while wishing that Hermann was watching his back.

Lighting yet another cigarette for Herr Kohler, Évangéline knew her lipstick would again touch those lips and perhaps he would think of her in that way. Attentive, considerate, an excellent listener and always conscious of her presence, he had quickly shown her as much of the city as possible. Pausing on the place de la Concorde, he had let her see the obelisk with its strange and wondrous writing from the temple at Luxor in Egypt. ‘More than 3,000 years old,’ he had said. ‘Imagine having to write like that. Slaves, concubines, pyramids, pharaohs and Cleopatra who came lots later but killed herself with an asp because she wasn’t able to seduce Octavian who became emperor anyway. Look right down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, Évangéline. My partner tells me this is by far the finest view and that it was a Frenchman, Jean-François Champollion, who, having dedicated himself to it at age sixteen, finally figured out how to read those and lots of other hieroglyphs on 14 September 1822.’

She had asked of an asp, and he had enthusiastically told her it was either one or the other of the Egyptian cobra or the horned viper. ‘Instant, but painful,’ he had said. ‘I don’t suppose anyone even held her hand.’

Outside the cafés and bistros, the waiters were now stacking the tables and chairs or stringing chains to be locked among those as darkness came on. Lots of pedestrians and cyclists were still about, a few German cars and trucks, two old wagons, one being pulled by an elderly couple, the other by a mare that desperately needed feed and water, and then a hansom being used instead of a bicycle taxi, and with two German officers sitting in the back, talking and smoking cigars and taking in the scenery as if it was the most usual of things.

Magazines, newspapers, posters and films, Paris seemed to have everything. On the Île de la Cité, they had both stood side by side gazing up to where the rose window of the Notre Dame had once been, that ‘eye’ as he had said, ‘having been carefully packed away in case of a bombing raid.’ Lots of the ‘green beans’ and the ‘grey mice’ had been around. ‘Tourists,’ he had said of the secretaries, typists and such from the Reich who had been very spiffy in their neat grey uniforms, their caps perched at absolutely the same angle, the hair never once touching the shoulders, but pinned up, tied up or simply cut short. ‘And otherwise forbidden,’ he had said. ‘Love affairs, too, but girls will be girls, and everyone knows love never pays any attention, does it?’

Merde, did he know what she herself was thinking, but … but was he also asking?

Turning onto the rue de la Boétie revealed, through the growing darkness, she felt, the family mansions and former maisons de maître of the wealthy, many of these now offering a choice of hotel. But which would he choose for Eugène and herself, and would he take her up to the room to tip the porter and close the door behind himself? Would they face each other at last and in private? Eugène, he had never taken the time with her like Herr Kohler must with his two women, one at a time, of course. Always with Eugène it was in and out, on and off, his jumping from the train at the last moment to shoot the stork in flight, Maman always listening from the next room to hear her daughter’s desperate sighs of unfulfilled longing.

‘The Wildenstein Gallery is in that hotel at number fifty-seven,’ said Herr Kohler, glancing again into the rearview mirror. ‘It’s being run by a very trusted employee, Roger Dequoy, who sells scads of fabulous paintings and drawings for Wildenstein to scads of buyers from the Reich and Switzerland, among others like Spain, Portugal and Argentina—you name it and they come, even with the war and especially because of it and the bargains. But at number twenty-one, the former Rosenberg Gallery is now the Institute for Study of Jewish Questions. Rosenberg was the agent for Picasso, Braque, Matisse and others.

‘Ach, there’s the Hôtel Excelsior,’ he said, glancing again into the rearview, ‘but there are also the Hôtels Rochester, Angleterre and d’Artois, and lots of choice.’

He had slowed the car beside a fabulous house with white pillars yet had said nothing of it, simply glanced again at it and then into that rearview, and when she started to turn to have a look behind, said so very gently, ‘Just be the sensible woman you are, Évangéline, and leave this to me.’

He’d drive right up the street and turn around and come back at them, thought Kohler. Nicole Bordeaux lived in nothing but a perfect mansion, defying change, the Occupation, the charges of collabo and everything else. Unfortunately those two cars that had picked them up at the Pantin entrance had stuck to him like glue, and the worst of it was that the moment he parked Madame Rocheleau in one of these hotels, they’d pounce to find out who the hell she was and what he was up to. Having failed to remain silent, that husband of hers had told her all about those shoes and that bit of embroidery Louis was carting around.

There was only one thing to do. Park her where they couldn’t get at her without a hell of a lot of trouble.

‘Now don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I know just the place. It’s not far and you’ll be right in the centre of things so that when the shops open tomorrow, you and the garde champêtre can have a field day. Breakfast first, though, overlooking the central courtyard and its garden. They’ve a fabulous restaurant.’

Strung with gold, there was a glass roof over the entrance whose brass doors shone, and a doorman in uniform with white gloves, all of which said that it must cost a fortune. ‘Me, I … I couldn’t stay in a place like that, Herr Kohler. I’ve not the clothes, nor the way of speaking like the people in there. Everyone would stare at me.’

A realist. ‘Royalty, that’s what you are,’ he said, having laid a reassuring hand on hers, the car at idle, the doorman glaring at them. ‘It’s all in the mind, n’est-ce pas? Believe me, you have something many of those who are staying in there don’t and want very much, so always keep that in mind. You’re what you are, a woman of mystery.’

Ah mon Dieu, was it really happening? Bien sûr, the Hôtel Bristol, at 112 rue de Faubourg Saint-Honoré, was five-star and the room and the bed would be perfect, but … ‘Won’t I have to leave my papers at the front desk?’

‘Not on your life.’ The Bonzen und Oberbonzen from the Reich would think her perfect; so, too, the generals and other higher-ups. ‘The American multimillionairess, Mrs. Florence Gould, lives here more or less permanently since her apartment on the boulevard Suchet, along with the Palais Rose that the Gould money built on the avenue Foch, was requisitioned by the military governor back in June 1940.* She’s famous for her Thursday lunch gatherings where she brings together both sides of this Occupation to introduce those from the Reich to Paris society and has the finest of tables. Oysters, caviar, truffles and pâté for starters, then the soup, the duck à l’orange and all the rest. She’s still married, but her husband decided back in July 1940 that he’d stay on the Riviera where it was warmer. Florence knows everyone: Marie-Louise Bousquet, editor of France’s Harper’s Bazaar, Suzanne Abetz, wife of the German ambassador, also Marie-Blanche de Polignac and Marie-Laure de Nouilles, the marquise. Those are names to keep in mind since they’re all very fashion-conscious and intimately know each of the great dress designers and will be a huge help in getting you the very best of positions as a seamstress and designer. I’ll have a word. Don’t worry.’

Since all of them, felt Kohler, would know Nicole Bordeaux and could well have encountered Anna-Marie at one of that consumptive’s Sunday ‘cultural’ gatherings.

Still worried, Évangéline watched as the doorman was forced to summon the head porter to take her suitcases and then to lead them across a magnificent foyer to the desk where Herr Kohler simply leaned over it to buttonhole a rather stern looking, much older maître d’.

‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, with one of Boemelburg’s “specials,” so don’t get huffy. The suite with the best view, since I know he keeps two of them free at all times, even if he has others staying with you, then a word in private with Madame Gould.’

Ah merde, Madame Gould must have said the wrong thing to the wrong person, the gossip gathering to bring on the deluge, felt Émile-Henri Dumais. No more of the special lunches and the ‘At Home’s’ for those who liked to drop in ‘unexpectedly’ to stay the night. The young officers, and the not-so-young.

‘Madame Gould will have been attending an auction and showing of paintings at the Jeu de Paume with the Oberleutnant Bremer and others, and is to dine at Prunier.’

Just to the west of the place Vendôme, at 9 rue Duphot, and the number one place for lobster, fish and oysters. ‘Then for now, her secretary will do.’

It had really happened. It must have, felt Dumais. ‘Madame Volnée visits with her mother on Sundays, returning to us at ten o’clock always.’

Louis would have said God had sent this one. ‘Then I’ll have a little chat with one of Madame Gould’s maids. There are three of them, but only two share that chambre de bonne and the winter’s cold up there in the attic, thanks to yourself, no doubt.’

But did this one also know what could well go on in that room if a little adventure was needed by one or two of Madame Gould’s ‘unexpected’ guests and herself, or that those ‘maids’ could then come downstairs if desired? ‘Mademoiselle Beauchamp will be in Madame Gould’s residence.’

‘Good. Stay here. Just give me the key to Boemelburg’s guest suite and have those bags sent up.’

Louis, though he hadn’t said anything of what he was going to do in that room at the Salle Pleyel, would absolutely have to be helped. No question.

Grâce à Dieu, felt St-Cyr, darkness now all but hid the rue Daru. One by one, the little blue lights above the Salle Pleyel’s other entrances came on, and then that for Chez Kornilov. Pausing still, he would wait to make absolutely sure the coast was clear.

Ducking into the artists’ entrance, he again would wait. Merde, had he heard someone?

More audible now, the steps came on. Sacré nom de nom, had he been so foolish as to have led those salauds to her very doorstep? Bien sûr, they had been good, but …

Holding a breath, he waited. Trying to silently unbutton his coat to get at the Lebel in his left jacket pocket, a button flew off. Irretrievable, of course. Irreplaceable, too.

Muted, the evening’s traffic filtered in, the smell, too, of the one who stood out there facing him and not of tobacco, not really. Of herbs, rosemary in particular.

He’d use the Lebel as a club and would shoot only if necessary, but the steps started up again. Following, they led him to the Cathédrale Alexandre Nevesky. Vespers would be held on Sunday after sundown, the beginning of the Orthodox day. Incense is what he had smelled. Incense. Others would be arriving, the Occupation having filled the churches of every denomination.

Returning to the Salle Pleyel, he found Concierge Figeard at his evening meal, sitting in his loge at the head of a table on which were two place settings. Candles made of stubs were ready to light, wineglasses awaiting water from a small, stoneware pitcher. A plate of radishes, perfectly cut into fans, accompanied lettuce leaves and sprinklings of chives from the roof garden, the aroma now fully of rabbit stew with carrots, onions, the white of a leek, garlic, thyme, all from the roof garden, and rosemary too. A small dish of chopped parsley was at the ready, but no guest had arrived. Sadly, Figeard was fingering that empty bottle of Château Latour, the half of which had generously been shared last December on just such a return from visiting an ill mother in Rethel.

‘Inspector … ?’

Touching the lips would urge caution. ‘Please, a moment. I may have been followed.’

‘It was only that boy from the cathedral. More candle stubs and questions of where Annette-Mélanie is and why she hasn’t returned to bring him more of that rosemary. I’ve sent him away twice and have told him funerals take time, and that the house, it would have had to be closed up and left for her mother’s attorney to sell, but he pays no attention. Instead, he tells me subdeacons, which is what he is, must decide whether to marry or not before being made deacons, and that afterward it is forbidden, but he hardly knows her. Annette-Mélanie has never spoken to me of him in that way and would have. Me, I would have seen it in her eyes and smile. Bien sûr, he has taken her to dinner at Chez Kornilov with his father early last February and then again more recently, but for him to be asking her to marry and she to be agreeing, it’s just not possible.’

‘The boy who prepares the incense?’

‘Oui. The one who then feeds the censers and lights their little charcoal fires. Annette-Mélanie and myself do manage to grow some on the roof, but rosemary, it likes the heat and dryness. Even under the bell jars we have had but a modest success.’

‘His name, just for the record.’

‘Pierre-Alexandre Lebeznikov. I have it here. I made him write it down so that I could inform her of it correctly.’

The son of Serge de Lenz and not one but two meals across the road!

‘Chief Inspector, what has she done? Come, come, you return at this hour and suggest you may have been followed? You still have that in hand, or had you forgotten?’

Tucking the Lebel away, there was, he knew, only one thing he could do despite the risk. ‘Since I must take you into my confidence, I must ask that you tell no one of my visit.’

Or visits. ‘Since she has been like a daughter to me, how could I not agree? Now, please, what on earth has she done to cause such as yourself to take interest in her: obtained rosemary for religious purposes from one of the gardeners at the Jardin des Plantes?’

The things one learned. ‘Accidentally witnessed the murder of two bank employees and the partial robbery of their van.’

Yet there had been no news of such in any of the papers. ‘Partial? Me, I will go upstairs with you since it is her room you wish to search, is it?’

Having missed a little something on the last visit—was this what Figeard was now thinking? ‘Just stay where you are and stop any who might attempt to follow.’

‘Unless there’s a concert, I lock that side door at dusk and am just a little late this evening.’

The artists then having to ring for him. ‘Then lock it and leave me to do what I have to, but tell me this: You mentioned part-time positions as an usherette here and as a salesperson at the German bookstore. Did Mademoiselle Jacqueline Lemaire happen to have anything to do with getting her those jobs?’

Since a beautiful dress, shoes and expensive underthings had been delivered to that address last year on 14 August by a shoe salesman. ‘And the job every other Sunday afternoon at Madame Bordeaux’s residence on the rue de la Boétie?’

And circles within circles. ‘Yes, that one too.’

‘Those shoes, though brand new and very expensive, didn’t quite fit as they should have.’

‘So you suggested she stuff some newspaper into the toes that fortunately weren’t of the open style?’

There was no need to give the chief inspector the name of the paper or its date. ‘Annette-Mélanie had never had anything so good as that dress, those shoes and the pearls.’

‘What pearls?’

And sudden interest. ‘The necklace she’d been given on loan.’

‘By whom?’

And yet more interest. ‘Mademoiselle Lemaire. There was also a bracelet of diamonds from Cartier. Of course Annette-Mélanie­ could not possibly accept such a loan. She said she would be terrified of losing them. Madame Bordeaux offered to keep them for her so that they could then be worn only at the Sunday gatherings.’

Diamonds and pearls, and with Jacqueline Lemaire and Hector Bolduc present. Hermann wouldn’t hesitate. He would simply say, If you hadn’t been so preoccupied using the cameras of the mind on your first visit, you’d have thought to ask Figeard about those jobs and all the rest.

The suite was magnificent, felt Évangéline. Never had she seen anything like it, and turning to Herr Kohler as he tipped the porter, thought to throw her arms about him but already he was indicating what he had arranged. Beyond the entrance room with its mirror, vase of flowers, stand for coats and place for walking sticks and umbrellas, there was the salle de séjour with a carpet so thick one wanted only to walk barefoot. Sofas, settees and armchairs seemed at every turn, a desk, too, with writing things. A liquor cabinet on little wheels had such a selection, the glasses for every sort of drink and all of crystal. There was a cocktail shaker and an ice bucket with tongs.

Attentive, Herr Kohler’s generous smile said that he was delighted by her every reaction. In the bedroom, there was a mirrored armoire that would tell no lies and another facing the bed that would tell none of its own, either.

‘There’s also an en suite,’ he said.

Bath, lavabo and bidet had their own room in white tiles and with towels, the bidet something she had seen only in torn catalogue pages used for somewhat the same but outdoors, of course. ‘It even has hot water,’ she heard herself saying.

‘Real soap, too,’ he said, letting her catch the scent. ‘Soap like it used to be. Perfumes too. Samples. Lanvin’s Mon Péché.’

He had chosen My Sin.

‘The parfumeurs are still very much in business,’ he said. ‘Coco Chanel’s shop still sells Chanel No. 5 and all the other things her firm makes, but she’s decided to retreat a little and has holed up in the Hôtel Ritz with her German lover. Remember to try them all and when your visit’s over, tuck a few into your purse. Guests always do. It’s expected. The toilet paper, too, and the soap.’

There was no question Herr Kohler was used to such places and would know exactly what to do with a girl like herself, but first she would have to ‘freshen up.’

‘Check out the rest of the suite,’ he said. ‘Pack away your things. Just give me a few minutes to settle something, then we’ll go down for a drink in the Bristol’s lounge, or have one here.’

Évangéline would keep for the moment. Louis was going to need all the help he could get, himself as well, and there was only one place and way to get it: give Mrs Florence Gould exactly what every arch-socialite desired the most. Gossip none of the others had, something new to talk about, but for later.

Diminutive, with soft brown eyes and long lashes, her uniform grey-blue and complete with white lace-trimmed cap and apron, Mademoiselle Beauchamp was not quite seventeen but probably thirty in experience. ‘Is this the residence of Mrs. Florence Gould, the American who constantly avoids arrest and being interned in the camp for foreign nationals at Vittel’s Parc Thermal?’ he asked. ‘The one who pays her way out of it but should be with every other American woman and girl over eighteen and locked up as in the autumn of 1942 along with all the British females, too, those who hadn’t escaped when the Occupation first started in June 1940 and were summarily arrested then?’

Ah mon Dieu, mon Dieu, they had arrested Madame, felt Yvette, and would now arrest herself and the others, Madame Volnée as well.

‘Hey, go easy, eh? Easy. I only need her help with the murder investigation my partner and I are working on.’

‘A murder? In this hotel?’

‘Not here, elsewhere, but perhaps if I were to come in, I could explain things in confidence.’

He had even looked both ways along the corridor to see if anyone else was listening. Like so many of les Allemands, he was big and tall but also wore the slash of the fencing sword from the left eye to chin. Formidable, Madame would have said of him. Monté comme un étalon aussi. ‘Your name, please? Madame, she will insist.’

‘Oh, sorry. Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. A detective inspector.’

And a womanizer but also one of Gestapo Boemelburg’s men, that one having been to several of Madame’s Thursday lunches, his people constantly listening in to madame’s telephone calls. Those of others, too, both staff and guests.

‘Mademoiselle Beauchamp, let me have your first name. It’ll be easier.’

This ‘Kripo’ had closed the door behind himself and had even put the lock on. Well, one of them. ‘Yvette.’

‘Good. That’s a lovely name and one I won’t forget. Yvette, we’re after the killer of two bank employees. Apparently he had his mistress with him, for she left her shoes behind in the bank van he then robbed with the others of his gang. All the press need is a photo of something like those shoes, and me, I thought Madame Gould might have a pair and be only too willing to oblige.’

A gang, a killer and a mistress, a moll, une nana de gangster. ‘Is it that you are hoping someone will come forward who saw something?’

Maybe she wasn’t as ‘old’ as he’d thought. ‘Detectives have to try everything.’

Yet he didn’t have the shoes, only the memory of them. ‘And the reward, Monsieur l’Inspecteur, does it include a little something for such assistance?’

Lieber Gott, had the Occupation corrupted her too? ‘Five thousand for the loan of the shoes, ten if I don’t manage to get them back to you.’

He had a thick wad of those notes. ‘Back to my mistress, wasn’t it?’

Louis should have heard her. ‘Fifteen, then.’

Three big ones and she would stuff them down her front since that was what he would be expecting. ‘The shoes, they are this way, Inspector.’

In a suite of rooms upon rooms with floor-to-ceiling damask curtains and paintings, sketches and pieces of sculpture, knickknacks too, Florence Gould had one reserved for the clothes she wore, and in it, a wall of shoes and a pair probably for every day of the year.

‘Perhaps if you were to tell me what was needed, Inspector, I could find them, since one of my jobs is to look after these and I might, I confess, have misplaced a pair under her bed or behind a settee or armoire, she having kicked them off in a hurry with one of her lovers.’

And a treasure. The shoes were perfect. Neither too big, nor too small, equally expensive and of but a slightly lighter shade of blue.

‘Will Madame really have her name splashed in the papers?’

‘Certainly. Invaluable assistance like this is always acknowledged. That encourages others to come forward.’

‘Then if the shoes, they are not returned, madame she will remain pleased and grateful.’

A further 5,000–franc note was found. ‘Just don’t tell her until after the news breaks that we’ve finally apprehended the killer.’

‘And the others also, n’est-ce pas, especially the mistress?’

Jésus merde alors was another 5,000-franc note being demanded­? ‘Them, too, but what’s that scent you’re wearing?’

That such a one should ask such a thing could only mean a tenderness hidden. ‘Guerlain’s Coque d’Or. Madame, she will wear no other. It’s her signature and therefore that of myself and all the others, even Madame Volnée, so as to avoid any conflict.’

And the phial shaped like two truncated eggs standing side by side in gold with black covers and the central stopper in gold and bearing the name at the bottom, the design by Baccarat probably in the late 1930s.

Herr Kohler even held the phial as if what it contained was definitely appreciated.

‘That partner of mine, Yvette, thinks he’s an expert. Take any perfume and all he needs is a whiff to pin it down. Rose absolute, jasmine, clary sage and you name it. Splash a little on a white handkerchief, preferably one with a bit of embroidery. Tulips and daffodils, that sort of thing, and let me see if he’s right.’

She would press the flat of her hand against the left side of his chest and would look up into those faded, lying blue eyes of his. ‘Then that must, I’m afraid, be entirely one of my own.’

And yet another 5,000-franc note.

‘Are those the shoes Eugène found in that bank van?’ asked Évangéline.

‘They are, but I thought you had better have a good look at them just to be sure. Try them on. Maybe they really do fit.’

The room in the Salle Pleyel building was as before, felt St-Cyr, its austerity all the more evident since the risk of doing anything was far too great. By simply taking Concierge Figeard into his confidence, he had already placed not only Giselle and Oona at far greater risk, but Gabrielle too, and all who were close to them, Hermann as well, and Chantal and Muriel. Every linkage Annette-Mélanie Veroche had forged said emphatically that she had to have been, and still was, no doubt, affiliated with an FTP équipe or some other such Résistance group. Help given on first arrival in Paris, false papers and all the rest, in exchange for help demanded. Watch, listen and report all you hear and see, and go back time and again. Ingratiate yourself and find out all you can.

And yet no one in that équipe could really know her true self nor what she had hidden. He would have to say it softly, as if she was with him. ‘Kriminalrat Ludin is under huge pressure, mademoiselle, and will have no other choice than to call in reinforcements. Hermann and myself have no intention of telling him anything, but it’s only a matter of time until Sergei Lebeznikov, on seeing one of those twenty-by-twenty photos of you from the Hague, tumbles to who he and his son have been taking to dinner. You will, unfortunately, have made a laughingstock of him, something both he and Rudy de Mérode will definitely not appreciate.’

If left on the bed in full view, the shoes would immediately cause her to grab that cardboard suitcase and head for the roof, pausing only to recover the nougat tin.

If left in the armoire with the dress, the same. Indeed, no matter what he did here, she would still head for that tin since Concierge Figeard, though trying hard not to indicate such, would inadvertently, through gesture or word, let her know there had been a visitor. But perhaps it was that she would never be allowed to return here even if that passeur did manage to get her into Paris, since that Dutch mouchard would stay far too close to her and would have to.

Frans hadn’t backed off, felt Anna-Marie. As soon as she had come downstairs to supper in the kitchen, he had been waiting for her, surrounded by its everyday warmth and welcoming aromas. Sensing discord, Madame de Belleveau had insisted that Frans was to sit next to herself at the far end of the table to give as much distance as possible, but Frans was far too quick and took Étienne’s place. Not even asking, he uncorked le rouge and filled her glass. ‘Salut!’ he said. No grin, no smile, just: Say anything and see what happens.

The potage parisien, that standby of every French household, whether on the farm or not, reminded her of home so much, she felt like bursting into tears. She couldn’t let Frans betray them but he was watching her far too closely. Was it fear that what was troubling him, though he had the only gun, or was it that he simply saw her as someone in the theatre with whom to compete? Oh for sure, to succeed as he had, talent had been needed, but that alone would not have been enough. The ability to lie convincingly would have been necessary, the twisting of things said or done, the denigrating of others whenever possible. ‘He’s good, that boy,’ Papa had said of him, ‘but I pity the women he encounters.’

Salome, Herod’s daughter, and Herodias, that one’s wife.

When Arie arrived, he set her walking shoes on the floor beside her and with but the flash of an engagingly mischievous grin, said, ‘They might hold up, but you never can tell with shoes. One lace will break when you’ve already tied two knots. Then the other one goes, or a seam will split, or a heel come off just when you’re racing to catch a bus or get to a film.’

He had even polished them and had made replacement laces out of leather thongs he’d worked on to get them to match the rest and not look too out of place even though lots in Paris were having to wear far worse.

‘No more Klompen, eh?’ quipped Frans.

‘Arie, merci bien. They’re perfect.’ He had even cut insoles out of felt. Always he was doing something useful, had sawn and split lots of stove wood for Madame and would probably like nothing better than to work the land she must have leased to another who hadn’t needed the barns and farmyard that were well behind the potager.

They would eat and when it came on, listen to the nine o’clock news from the BBC in London, the wireless secreted in a cupboard behind things, the aerial strung only for those times. The penalty, prison of course, or death.

The soup was perfect. ‘Some chopped chives, perhaps,’ her father would have said. ‘A little of the goudse boerenkaas. Just a slice or two to nibble on and stop us from slurping too much.’ The farmers’ gouda, the edammer kaas as well.

She couldn’t let it happen. She mustn’t.

The chicken was superb, the sautéed potatoes Arie’s favourite as they would have been her father’s. He even cleaned the frying pan with a bit of bread, she herself having failed entirely to have touched her wine. ‘You sure are worrying,’ he said. ‘It’s completely­ understandable, but we will get you into Paris and I’ll see that one of the bikes in the back has a Paris licence.’

And no tag stating that it, and the others, had been requisitioned by the Occupier in Liege, and then stolen from them. There were a dozen, but also ten-kilo bags of roasted, ground Belgian chicory root for coffee substitute, Ardennes hams, chocolates, pipe and cigarette tobacco, Trappist beer from Chimay, too, and the flat, round cheeses of those monks, eggs in water glass as well and lots of other things. ‘Arie …’

‘Let me have a look at that hand.’

He even ran a forefinger gently over the stitches.

‘Maybe another day, maybe two, but when they’re ready, I’ll gladly tease them out and you won’t feel a thing.’

It was Frans who said, ‘That was touching but maybe he wants a little more.’

‘Leave it,’ said Étienne. ‘It’s almost time for the news.’

There was static, the Boche always trying to block reception, but Arie managed to tune things in and at once, having never heard it before in France, that call-sign of ‘Ici Londres,’ filled her with hope. But in the Aegean, the Germans had taken the island of Kos, the only Allied airbase in that area. In Russia, the Soviet advance had been stalled along what had to be the longest of fronts. And in Italy, while the British had taken Naples and their commandos had landed at Termoli and would soon link up with their Eighth Army, the American Fifth had reached the southern bank of the Volturno River fifteen miles to the north where a major battle was shaping up along what the Germans called their Gustav Line. The Sixteenth Panzer Division had been moved into position.

In the Battle for the Atlantic, after a respite due to losses, the U-boats were again attacking the convoys from America and Canada­. In September alone, twenty-nine merchant ships and escort­ vessels had been sunk with a loss of 156,400 tonnes of badly­ needed supplies and far too many lives. Worse still, the U-boats­ were now concentrating on the escort vessels first, but nine of those submarines had been sent to the bottom, ‘And with good riddance,’ Mr. Churchill said. ‘Desperately needed air bases in the Azores will now be available, the Portugese having finally agreed to this.’

In the Far East, the Japanese had established a broad offensive in China, but on Kolombangara, in the Solomon Islands, American forces had found they had fled. Four airfields had been taken. Bougainville, the largest of those islands and last major Japanese stronghold there would now be next and difficult.

But in Corsica, after an armed civilian uprising on 8 September, French partisans, Morrocan Goumiers and American OSS agents had finally driven the Germans out.

‘Spring will come,’ said Arie as he switched off the set. ‘It’s just taking its time.’

Unfortunately the invasion of Europe would be far too late for them unless Frans could be stopped. ‘Bonne nuit,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow will come soon enough.’

‘Then don’t hurry it,’ he quipped, flicking cigarette ash her way. ‘Sleep tight. Don’t let the bugs bite.’

There was no hope. There could be no hope.

^* On 29 September 1943, all but about 50 of the remaining 2,000 were taken.

^* In April 1942, she rented a large apartment at 129 avenue Malakoff.