Butcher and Bolt Read online

  ‘Yes,’ said Hortense, ‘it means they’re planning to send me to a far worse place. But why?’

  ‘Never mind why,’ whispered Yvette, ‘tonight is your only chance to get away.’

  ‘Get away?’ said Hortense looking up hopefully. ‘How?’

  ~ ~ ~

  From his position in a doorway, Joe looked around. There was no-one about except for an old woman walking a small terrier. The dog stopped outside the back door of the club to cock his leg on the steps, then the two moved slowly on. Once they were gone, Joe walked quickly up to the door and knocked loudly three times. After a short pause, the giant Jean-Paul opened the door and stood aside silently.

  ‘Pleased to see you too,’ muttered Joe under his breath as he passed through and walked up the stairs.

  The Corsican and l’Hydre were sitting at the desk in the office poring over a map of Paris when Joe came in with Jean-Paul padding close behind him.

  ‘Lieutenant Dean!’ cried l’Hydre, ‘my men told me you were dead, there was a big explosion I gather?’

  ‘Of course there was you slimy bastard,’ thought Joe, ‘because you ordered it.’

  ‘Bloody oath it was big,’ said Joe, ‘took out the whole quay. God only knows what set it off, but it gave me a bit of trouble at the time.’

  ‘How did you escape the blast?’ said The Corsican, ‘we assumed by the timing that you must have been right there when it happened.’

  ‘Luckily I’d started rowing away already and I was passing behind a barge moored in the channel, it absorbed most of the blast. As it was I got knocked over in the boat and copped this,’ he said, motioning at the lump on his forehead. ‘Who the hell was that attacking us at the quay?’

  ‘Just a rival gang,’ said The Corsican, ‘we dealt with them, they only came with three men the fools.’

  ‘And you are a lucky man,’ said l’Hydre, ‘and not just because you are alive. Now you are here we can honour our side of the bargain.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Joe, instantly suspicious. He was surprised that Jean-Paul hadn’t searched him, and the M1911 in his coat pocket felt as big as a howitzer.

  ‘The man Richter was in the audience last night,’ said l’Hydre, ‘your woman observed him from the secret gallery, so we sent Hortense to talk to him. Have you met Hortense, Lieutenant?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe I have,’ said Joe.

  ‘Ah, she is a friend of Bernard’s, one of his models in fact and a child ballerina, although she was never destined for success in that arena—her breasts grew too big—anyway, he brought her to us recently as she was destitute, and she has proven extremely useful. She is an exquisite piece, and under our instructions she has laid a little trap for Herr Richter. Tonight he will come as usual, and Hortense will join him at his table and ply him with champagne. Once he is well lubricated she will invite him back to her apartment. She can be quite persuasive, and I sincerely doubt any German’s ability to resist her, unless he’s a man-lover, but Alouette assures us that that Richter isn’t, and she would know apparently,’ he added with a smirk at The Corsican.

  ‘Of course, he will never reach her apartment,’ he continued, ‘because you will be driving the car they get into. You will take them to a safe place, and at dawn you can drive straight out of Paris for the coast.’

  ‘But what about the curfew tonight?’ asked Joe, ‘surely there aren’t taxis driving around after 9 o’clock?’

  ‘Oh we have an arrangement with the Germans about that,’ said l’Hydre waving a hand dismissively, ‘we keep the club open until 3am, well past the authorised hours of their staff car drivers, so as a courtesy we provide a small fleet of cars to take them back to their hotels in the early morning hours. Only four cars, but they suffice.’

  ‘You’ve certainly got a good thing going with the Germans,’ said Joe sourly.

  ‘M’sieur Dean, this arrangement dates back well before the war. We did the same with the ministers of the French government, the mayor’s office and the General Staff. Only the nationality of the passengers has changed.’

  ‘So that’s all of your plan? A straight snatch job?’ said Joe. ‘Stone the crows, it’s not much better than the last one. A kidnap from the front door and then what? How are we supposed to get to the coast through the checkpoints? Where’s the boat? Who’s the contact? I need to know all of it.’

  ‘All in good time m’sieur Dean,’ said l’Hydre, ‘the show doesn’t start until 10pm. I suggest you have something to eat and get some sleep. You have a long few days ahead of you.’

  Joe realised abruptly how exhausted he was.

  ‘I believe someone is waiting for you in Room Three,’ said l’Hydre, ‘now leave us, we have much to plan if this is all to work.’

  Joe stood up, and so missed the look l’Hydre threw at the Corsican. He walked to the room at the end of the dingy corridor and knocked. Yvette opened the door a crack, and pulled him into the room.

  ‘Oh Joe, I thought you were dead,’ she said, holding him close and kissing him.

  ‘So did I,’ said Joe, clutching her fiercely to him.

  And in Room Three, they finally made love.

  Chapter Thirty

  The man who called himself l’Hydre lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. Beyond the restaurant window behind him, Parisians went about their business in what appeared to be a normal fashion. Only the occasional German uniform betrayed the fact that this was a conquered city in an occupied country. That, and the man sitting opposite him.

  ‘So,’ said the man in the black uniform, ‘this man Dean who has approached you is, you say, a British soldier? And the woman with him is with the resistance? And they have asked you to help them kidnap Hauptsturmfuhrer Richter?’

  ‘Oui,’ said l’Hydre, blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the air.

  The man sipped his coffee and looked at him quizzically. ‘An incredible story. It sounds, unlikely, to say the least. How did they get here? How can they hope to escape France with a kidnapped German officer?’

  ‘That I do not know yet,’ replied l’Hydre, checking the nails of his left hand, ‘I agree it is an insane scheme. I will have the details of their escape plan soon, but events have been moving rather quickly. I thought the soldier might be of some use to me in a small matter I had to clear up, yet a simple scheme to have him quietly eliminated failed last night, and he has returned to my club as if nothing happened. He is either stupid, cunning or absurdly brave, they all amount to the same thing in the end anyway. Of course I do not believe for a moment that he does not suspect that we tried to kill him. He is a dangerous individual, full of pride, as is the girl. So, having failed once to get rid of him, I thought to present them both to you as a gift to help secure our future co-operation in the administration of this great city.’

  A fleck of ash from the cigarette drifted across a beam of sunlight and alighted on the German officer’s shoulder. He glanced down momentarily and brushed it away, then picked up his coffee cup and sipped at it. After a prolonged silence he gestured to the waiter and ordered another coffee for himself.

  ‘It is a gift I am willing to accept,’ said the officer, ‘but I want them both alive and unharmed, is that clear?’

  ‘Completely clear,’ said l’Hydre, steepling his fingers.

  ‘Both. Alive and unharmed,’ repeated the German, ‘do not bring me corpses, they are no use to me. At best these two are minnows. All I could likely get from the girl will be the names of a few low-level contacts, these people are civilians, amateurs. As for the Britisher, he may have something interesting to say, but no doubt his stiff upper lip will oblige him to die before he reveals anything.’

  ‘He is an Australian I believe,’ said l’Hydre.

  ‘Really?’ replied the officer, ‘well that will be a first for us, but not the last I expect. And what do you hope to receive in return?’

  ‘Your goodwill and protection, Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer,
nothing more,’ said l’Hydre.

  ‘Well, as long as you keep up your deliveries you can be assured of that, whether or not you deliver me spies, but you have made the right decision. Anyway,’ he added, looking at his watch, ‘neither of these two is of particular interest to me, so I am handing this matter to the man responsible for counter-espionage in Paris. Ah, here he is now.’

  The officer in the black uniform stood and held out a hand to a man entering the restaurant. He was not a tall man, not thin, not fat, dressed in a charcoal suit with fair hair combed to one side. You would never have looked twice at him, had it not been for the slight limp and the misshapen forehead.

  ‘Mr Schmidt,’ said the Obersturmbannfuhrer, drawing out a chair, ‘meet the self-titled l’Hydre of Paris. I‘ll leave you two gentlemen to become better acquainted. Adieu m’sieur.’

  The man sat down, leant forward and spoke in a gravelly voice, devoid of warmth.

  ‘So then Frenchman, what have you got for me?’

  ~ ~ ~

  Joe lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. His shoulder and hip still ached, but they were manageable. What wasn’t manageable was this plan of l’Hydre’s. Even assuming they nabbed Richter on the street, they’d have to keep him out of sight until dawn, then get him out of Paris. After that it was relatively simple: drive west and south for le Havre.

  l’Hydre’s contact there would take them at night in a fast boat to where the British motor gun boats patrolled the Channel. They were in regular contact with them according to Claude and ‘There would be no difficulty.’

  “No difficulty”, thought Joe grimly. It all sounded far too easy. He hated being in a position where he had to trust these people. There was a knock on the door and Yvette came in. She closed it and sat on the bed beside him.

  ‘So it is to be tonight,’ she said, stroking his hair.

  ‘Are you ready?’ asked Joe.

  ‘Oui, but Joe, we must take Hortense with us.’

  ‘What?’ asked Joe, ‘why for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Because if she stays here she will be killed, or worse,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see that once she does this she will be a marked woman? The Germans will know she was the last person to see Richter, they will shoot her just on suspicion, or send her to a camp, and besides, I know l’Hydre is planning to send her to Marseilles, to a place worse than this.’

  ‘But how can we take her with us?’ said Joe.

  ‘We’ve discussed it,’ she said, ‘we will exchange places.’

  ‘And then what?’ said Joe sarcastically, ‘you start working here as a whore?’

  She slapped him viciously in the face and he flinched from the blow. She leant in and spoke in a harsh whisper.

  ‘I have thought about this, and I have decided to stay in France. I cannot fight the Germans from England, I am no use over there. I will stay here and kill Germans.’

  ‘But you can’t trust these people!’ exclaimed Joe, rising from the bed, ‘they’ll have you doped up and screwing Germans before the week’s out. Have you looked in a mirror lately? A girl like you is worth a fortune to them. Do you really believe they’ll let you be a resistance fighter? Why would they risk you being killed or captured when they can keep you here completely dependent on them?’

  Yvette said nothing, just rose abruptly and left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The room was more of a closet, a low-ceilinged space with just enough space for a chair, but a person sitting there had a grandstand view of the club below.

  The air was stifling, the heat from a hundred cigarettes, candles and people, rising from the room. Yvette sat in her underwear, the sweat streaming off her, pouring herself glasses of water every few minutes from a jug. In her lap lay a pad on which she was sketching fast impressions of the faces of the German officers below, with their rank insignia.

  Below her and to her right was the stage, where the second act of the night, a perverse comedic act featuring two girls, wearing nothing but corsets and boxing gloves, was in full swing and drawing guffaws and lewd suggestions from a crowd now warmed-up with champagne and cognac. A balconied section ran around the two sides of the room, while the main area, filled with tables and chairs, was set below it. To her left, the front door opened onto a narrow corridor and a cloakroom. She could see Jean-Paul looming in an alcove to the left of the entranceway, from where he could survey the door, the room and anyone coming in or out.

  When Claude had handed her the sketchpad and charcoal she’d asked why they didn’t just take photos. He had shrugged and said “The light is not strong enough. Do what you can, you appear to have a talent for it.”

  She did have a talent for it, a talent honed over several years sketching the items she had dug out of the Roman ruins around Roubaix. In two hours she’d sketched the faces and ranks of six senior German officers. Her hand was cramped and filthy with charcoal, and the sweat was mixing with it now to leave black smears on the paper. She was about to crawl back out and go to the toilet when she saw him and the skin of her faced drained to the colour of the pad in her hand.

  Richter had been there for an hour, and she’d sketched his face without difficulty already, but the hated face of the man who was handing over his coat in the entranceway was all too familiar. She could have sketched it effortlessly from memory.

  Hagan Schmidt.

  But it was impossible. He was dead. She had killed him herself, smashed his head to a pulp with an iron skillet back in Roubaix only six months earlier. He had kept her handcuffed to a radiator for a week, and on the fifth day, when she was close to losing her mind from thirst and the agony in every muscle and joint, he’d undone the cuffs and she’d seized her chance. She’d left him on the kitchen floor, his head a bloody mess, and now she thought back to that moment, one she’d done her best to blot out. She realised that she hadn’t stopped to make sure he was dead, she’d been so desperate to escape she hadn’t checked. That had been a mistake, a bad one, and she cursed her own stupidity.

  Schmidt was clearly the worse for wear. He was wearing a perfectly-cut grey suit but every step betrayed a limp. She grimaced with satisfaction. At least she’d done the bastard some damage. She wished she’d had the presence of mind to castrate him and leave him to bleed to death.

  Putting that thought to one side she picked up the sketch pad. A plan had sprung into her mind fully-formed.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Yvette glanced up and down the narrow corridor, opened the door and closed it quickly behind her. Hortense looked up from the dressing-table mirror with an enquiring expression, then stood up.

  ‘How do I look?’ she asked, doing a quick pirouette that made her skirts rise, revealing lace stockings and a glimpse of smooth pale thigh.

  Standing with her back to the door, Yvette took in the woman. She looked magnificent. Risque definitely, but not slutty. She looked like a young, sophisticated and beautiful Parisian woman who had the money and style to dress well and knew exactly how to show herself off to best advantage. Her white silk blouse was open just enough to give a glimpse of the curve of her breasts. Nestled between them, a blood-red ruby on a gold chain glinted darkly. Yvette knew enough about men to know just how tantalising that combination was. A deep red skirt covered the girl’s long legs to the knee, and her hair was swept-up and pinned above her head, leaving two curls cascading down either side to frame her face. Mascara and eyeliner had been expertly applied by a practised hand, and the luscious red of her lipstick focussed your attention on her slightly open mouth. The effect was electric.

  ‘Ce magnifique!’ said Yvette, thinking to herself that she would never look this beautiful, then dismissing the idea as the futile jealousy of a schoolgirl. She was plotting murder, surely she was beyond such petty emotions now?

  ‘Now we must put your charms to work,’ she added matter-of-factly, sitting down on the bed and laying out the charcoal drawing.

  ‘What’s th
is?’ asked Hortense, sitting beside her.

  ‘This is the man you have to seduce,’ she said, ‘he’s downstairs right now. An hour from now you will invite him to your apartment. We will have a taxi waiting outside. Joe will be the driver and I will join you. We will put a gun to his head and tie him up. Once the curfew lifts we will all get out of here and head for the coast. Now, let me tell you a few things about him.’

  ~ ~ ~

  Out in the street, Joe sat at the wheel of the taxi cab smoking a cigarette and looking at his watch every twenty seconds. The minute hand seemed to be stuck and he had shaken the watch numerous times. He’d parked here at 9pm and it was now 9.35, so the watch was working, but time seemed to be refusing to pass.

  Two cars behind him in the taxi queue, The Corsican struck a match and lit his tenth cigarette of the night. God he was bored. To think he could have been screwing one of the club’s dancers, or using the knife on the negro in the cell. Even sitting at the bar drinking brandy would have been an improvement on sitting here watching this idiot. The Ossie was clearly nervous. He kept opening his door and stubbing out cigarette butts. As far as The Corsican could tell he was nearly through the packet.

  Joe was worried. Twice now German officers had come out of the club and taken the cabs in front of Joe. Now he was at the front of the queue. If the girl didn’t get Richter out of there soon some other Nazi bastard would come out and expect to be driven somewhere. As he had only the vaguest notion of Paris geography, this would be a problem. He kept his cap down low and faced away from the door, but every time it opened and the light shone out on the cab, he held his breath. Come on Yvette, he cursed, what the hell are you doing?