Carousel (39 page)

‘I threw up my guts,' he said, more to himself than to Madame Van der Lynn, who, not liking the room, had crowded close and had put a hand on his shoulder for comfort. ‘I saw that young girl's throat, her eyes and then her body, and I thought of Giselle.'

‘A timid stomach in a Gestapo detective?' snorted Audit. ‘Tell me another one!'

‘Ignore him, Herr Kohler. Don't let him get to you.'

‘I'm not. He killed her, madame. That smug bastard with all his truffles and creams of the walnut, wrapped a wire around that poor kid's throat and strangled her.'

‘Slowly – was that how it was done, eh?' snorted Audit. ‘If my memory serves me correctly, monsieur, I was never in this room and there are no witnesses.'

‘You're forgetting the note he left for her,' whispered Oona.

Kohler nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I've been thinking about that.'

‘Are you still in love with Giselle?' she asked, her eyes so very blue and betraying anxiety.

He glanced apprehensively at her, seeing that she needed the truth. ‘Look, madame, we never agreed to anything permanent. I said I'd take good care of you and I will.'

‘How about a cigarette, eh?' snorted Audit. ‘What about my rights, since I've done nothing and could not possibly have killed her?'

‘Where the hell is Louis, Oona? Why hasn't he come upstairs?' asked Kohler.

‘The rue Lauriston?' she replied sadly.

Kohler cursed their luck. ‘Stay here. This one can't get away. I'll be right back.'

‘
Hermann
, no!'

But he'd left the room, had left her alone with Antoine Audit just as he'd done with that other one on the Île Saint-Louis. Would the rue Lauriston rush up the stairs? Would they drag her away and demand that she tell them everything? Would they tear her clothes from her and beat her as they had beaten Hermann's Giselle?

It was so cold in here. Freezing! She clasped her shoulders and began to rub them. There was a small mirror on the washstand and she saw the basin reflected in this, saw the open door to the room and the empty corridor – had someone passed by? Had someone looked in to see her standing here?

‘What's a good-looking woman like yourself doing with a bastard like Kohler? Hey, listen, madame, it doesn't take a jackass to see those two are has-beens. Why not save yourself and do me a little favour?'

Hermann … where was Hermann? Where was Louis? Louis would do all he could for her. Louis would …

The hotel seemed to breathe its silence. It was musty and close and yes, the smell of death still lingered in this room in spite of the carbolic that had been used and yes, the rue Lauriston would have kept this place under constant surveillance.

‘What sort of favour?' she asked, her eyes fixed on the corridor's reflection in the mirror. There
had
been someone.

‘Come closer. Come over here where we can talk.'

‘Not on your life!
Never
!' she jumped.

A handsome woman, a woman who was so afraid she could not even look across the room at him. ‘Maybe those two won't be coming back, madame. Maybe they've got it all wrong and can't deliver the goods. What then, eh? The rue Lauriston – please, I know that's what you're thinking. Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny … You don't want them to hold you down, do you, madame? Others will then have a go at you.'

‘
Bâtard
, you killed that girl!' There was no one standing in the hall. No one had been looking in at them. ‘What … what is it you want?'

That was better. ‘Do yourself a favour and call the Bureau Otto for me, madame. Ask to speak to Captain Brandl personally. Tell him Antoine Audit can deliver.'

The coins? ‘Deliver?' she asked, seeing his dark-brown eyes flick over her body as if it would soon be naked and she would be standing here like that girl must have done. A piece of jewellery, a choker of pearls, a butterfly pin, a pair of gold and emerald earrings Christabelle could not possibly have worn.

Audit tugged at the handcuff. Four good yanks and the thing might come loose. ‘Yes,
deliver
. A
deal
, madame. Brandl will understand. Do this before it is too late for you. They want the loot, the coins. If we give them the collection, they will let us go.'

Otto Brandl … the Bureau Otto … ‘Is it that you know where the coins are hidden?'

Audit smiled briefly and she knew then that he would kill her if he could.

‘Brandl's a personal friend. He
hates
the rue Lauriston, madame,
hates
Henri Lafont and Pierre Bonny because they intrude into business he considers his own. When two sides compete so fiercely, those caught in the middle must choose one or the other. He'll help us. He'll not hurt you. Not Otto.'

Audit dug into a pocket and held out a small notebook. ‘The number's under the B,' he said, urging her to take that thing from him. His hands were strong. There was dirt under the cracked nails. He'd grab her. He'd pull her to him. He'd force her to help him or hold her hostage.

Why hadn't Hermann come back? Where was St-Cyr? Where was Madame Minou?

‘There is a telephone in the café and
bal musette
on the corner, madame. Here …' Audit half stood up to drag a small change purse from a trouser pocket. ‘Go … go while there is still time. I'll tell them you've gone to the toilet. Use the tradesmen's exit. It's better. Keep to the wall and then make your way carefully to the courtyard door and out on to the street.'

She had lost everything, the children, her husband, even the job as concierge at the house on the quai Jemmapes, her clothes, her papers – everything.

‘I didn't kill her, madame. I, who should have known better, loved her deeply.'

It was a gamble, this last little confession, and when she timidly turned away from the mirror, Audit pushed the notebook out across the bed and then withdrew until he was standing. ‘No attempts to grab you, madame. I swear it.'

She snatched up the notebook and the purse and stood there quivering.

‘Go,' he said. ‘Go now. Everything will be all right if you do exactly as I've said.'

The cellars beneath the hotel were damp and full of rubbish. Two strands of questionable electrical wire ran down into the darkness to wrap themselves about a broken insulator before taking off into the ink. The only lightbulb that Kohler could see had been recently smashed, a bad sign.

He nudged the door open more fully. One of the concierge's felt slippers had become hooked on a nail. Oh-oh.

The rubbish was that of a pack-rat. Broken chairs, broken crockery, tables without one or even two legs. Peeling veneer, cracked chamber-pots and dried-up cans of paint.

It was quite a place, but he'd left Oona upstairs with Antoine Audit and he'd best go back for her. She'd be nervous, she'd be remembering the Île Saint-Louis. She'd be thinking of how Christabelle Audit had died.

Water covered the floor. He could hear his shoes sucking at it with each lousy step. There'd been no sign of Lafont and Bonny, but one could never tell. Louis must be in a jam.

By feeling his way forward, Kohler followed the narrow channel that had been left in the refuse. There were stacks of damp newspapers, each with a brick or piece of iron to hold it down. It wasn't fair of him to have left Oona alone with Audit. Louis would understand the need to go back.

Can't see a thing, he said to himself. Drawing his gun, he found a match and struck it under a thumbnail. At once the cellars opened up with flickering shadows high on the orange-red brickwork of an arched roof above him. He had to stand in awe of it, had to breathe, ‘Jesus, a catacomb?'

Madame Minou's other slipper drifted by, the felt strung with slime and hair.

Wine had once been stored here. The cobwebbed racks were piled against the walls. Empty bottles held the mould of age.

Kohler blew out the match and listened. Muttering ‘Louis?' he suddenly had the feeling the place was very unhealthy.

A series of tunnels branched to the left and right and continued straight ahead. ‘Louis?' he hazarded. ‘
Louis … Louis … Louis?
' came the echoes.

‘Son of a bitch, don't do this to me! We've got the killer upstairs in that room with Oona, idiot! I know it's him.'

‘Him … Him … Him …'

She'd be terrified.

In time he came to another place where wine had once been stored, perhaps in Roman times. It was just beyond a turning and long before the match burned down he heard the muffled curse Louis gave from somewhere in the surrounding darkness.

‘
Put that thing out and shut up, Hermann! Don't be an idiot yourself! Ah
, Mon Dieu …'

The sound of the shot boomed and rolled back and forth. Kohler cringed and tried to get out of its way. The slug pinged off the walls, smacked into an empty steel drum and then shattered several forgotten panes of glass.

Madame Minou sucked in a breath. A shrill voice leapt out of the darkness. ‘I DID NOT KILL HER, MESSIEURS!'

Louis' urgent entreaty came from somewhere over to the right. ‘
Imbecile, I know you didn't! Come out of there at once. Give yourself up.
'

‘NO!' A volley of shots ruptured the darkness. The blubbering concierge pleaded with God for salvation.

And then tearfully, ‘Messieurs … Messieurs … In the Name of Jesus, I'm but a poor woman who is now soaked to the skin! The sewers, messieurs. They have flooded the cellars.'

Ignoring the whimpering, the assailant shouted antagonistically. ‘
That one upstairs knew Roland, Inspector. Me, I saw them talking. Roland killed her. I swear he did!
'

Kohler began to crawl forward through the flotsam. There was still no light. Louis … where was Louis?

Again the shrill voice came.
‘You attack a veteran, a man who faced death for his country, eh? A captain, my friends. Captains do exist! It's that shit Corbet, that Major next to her who's been talking, eh? Well, my fines, take this and this!
'

The shots cannonaded through the caverns and the tunnels, echoing as he shouted, ‘ME, I CAN SHOOT BETTER THAN HIM!'

It had to be the Captain Dupuis of the one leg. Again Louis made an attempt. ‘Monsieur,
please!
I merely want to talk to you.'

‘Questions, eh? More questions. Then
talk
, you parasite! Suck at the blood of an innocent man. Give out a few more of your lousy sous, you cheapskate.'

‘Francs … I gave you one hundred francs.'

‘PISS OFF!' Three shots came rapidly. ‘DON'T COUNT, MY FINE. I'VE TWO GUNS, OR HADN'T YOU NOTICED? I always have them. That saved my ass at Verdun and I've kept by the rule ever since. One for rats like you and the other one inside the tunic, eh, just in case you stir and need a little more!'

The tunnels must be endless. The water was cold and still ankle-deep. Had he missed a turning?

Kohler doubled back. The stench was pitiful.
Gott im Himmel
, was it safe to strike a match?

‘When … when did you last see Roland Minou talking to the one upstairs, that girl's lover?' hazarded Louis.

‘
Lover?
' came the shrill accusation, but from where? That bastard? It's men like him who take advantage of sweet young girls like that. I'll show him. I'll put one of these up against that forehead of his. He can laugh all he wants, my fines, but it'll be the last laugh he gives!'

St-Cyr tried to ease his cramped legs. Madame Minou gave a yelp, then a pitiful entreaty. ‘
Captain
, you must stop the shooting! Roland did not kill her.'

‘You lying old sow. I've seen the way you leered at that little pigeon. A virgin for your son, eh? Well listen good, madame. That bastard son of yours has been in and out of this shit box of a hotel more times than you can count! He met that rapist of young girls in the Bistro Caban. That little shit of a hood told the industrialist exactly where things were at.'

‘What things … what things?' Hermann … where was Hermann?

‘THE GIRL!' shouted Dupuis, reloading the revolver. ‘The
virgin
, you bloodsuckers. Roland wanted her cherry, so he put the squeeze on the rapist!'

Four more shots were fired with uncanny ability. ‘He'd been following her for months, eh? He knew where she went and what she was up to. One night he even followed her into the villa at Number twenty-three and stole a few things for himself. Now
leave
me alone.
Alone
, I say, or I'll do something crazy. CRAZY! A virgin … she was a virgin, you idiots!'

The bastard was completely mad. ‘Louis … Louis, where the hell are you?'

‘Nowhere,' came a timid voice, quite near now. ‘He's got two guns, Hermann. Remember?'

‘In the Name of Jesus, messieurs, your company is a great trouble to me!'

‘Be quiet, madame. Don't interfere with police officers engaged in their duties. Keep your head down and your heart beating.'

Five minutes passed and then another five, but by then Kohler had finally found them.

‘He … he has gone out by the other way, messieurs. Through the tunnels. He will not come back, not that one.'

‘Where … where do the tunnels end?' asked Kohler.

The woman gasped as she struggled to sit up. ‘Beneath the church. That one will go there, to Father Eugène. He will seek sanctuary.'

‘With two guns and on crutches?' scoffed Kohler, finding his matches at last.

‘Yes … yes. With two revolvers or pistols. I … I never can remember which are which.'

But she'd known he'd had them in his room!

Kohler struck a match. ‘One has a cylinder like that, madame, the other hasn't.'

She licked her lips in doubt. ‘Then he has one of each, monsieur. The pistol
and
the revolver.'

‘A nine-millimetre, Louis?'