Tapestry Read Free Page A

an all but drained bottle of the Romanée-Conti, the 1934 and a superb year, to impassively gaze at Louis first and then at this Kripo.
    Grizzled cheeks wore the eight days of customary growth that hid the pockmarks of childhood but served also to make him look like a slum landlord after arrears. The starched shirt collar was no longer tight, the black bow tie having been yanked off in disgust.
    ‘ Ah, bon , you’ve at last condescended to show up,’ he grunted. ‘Considering that the assault occurred at eleven fifty-two p.m. yesterday, and that it is now two thirty-five a.m., we should think ourselves lucky, but please don’t bother to claim you were delayed or that the dispatcher fucked up and sent you to the wrong address.’
    Compressed, the thin lips were grimly turned down beneath a nose and heavy black eyebrows that, with the stubble, were fierce. Had he been a union buster in the thirties? wondered St-Cyr. ‘Monsieur, mesdames, a few small questions. Nothing difficult, I assure you.’
    ‘Don’t be an imbécile , Inspector. My wife’s stepsister was very nearly murdered.’
    ‘And the others?’ asked Louis, indicating the wife who sat next to a female friend who was younger than her by a good fifteen years. A former debutante, a tall, auburn-haired, permed and very carefully made-up, sharp-featured socialite who’d be taut when pressed.
    ‘They stayed at our table while I accompanied Madame Barrault to my car,’ said Morel.
    ‘You’ve an Ausweis ?’ asked Louis with evident interest.
    ‘And an SP sticker,’ came the dead flat answer.
    The Service-Public sticker that had to be signed and stamped not only by the Kommandant von Gross-Paris but also by the préfet , and wouldn’t you know it, this one was a friend of both!
    Before the Defeat there’d been 350,000 private autos in Paris and unbelievable traffic jams and smog. Now there were no more than 4,500 and here was one of their owners.
    It wasn’t difficult to see what was running through detective minds, felt Gaston Morel, but he’d have to ignore it. ‘The rear tyres had been punctured but due to the rain, we didn’t see this at first. When we did, I sent my driver to telephone for replacements and that is when this bastard struck. First myself, as I was helping Marie-Léon from the car, and then herself to be thrown up against the wall, the overcoat ripped open, the dress down.’
    Isolated from the others, Madame Barrault sat in one of the armchairs at the far end of the table. Huddled in a thin overcoat and cradling a bandaged left forearm and hand, she couldn’t bring herself to look at anyone, felt Kohler, was badly shaken, but terrified of something else as well.
    ‘See to her, Hermann. I’ll deal with the others.’
    ‘Leave her,’ grunted Morel. ‘She’s in no state to answer anything. He used a cutthroat to free her handbag and when she refused to give up her wedding ring, slashed her arm and the back of her hand before ripping the ring off and then grabbing her by the crotch for a good feel.’
    ‘ Putain. … That is what he has called me,’ blurted the woman.
    Madame Morel, the arch of a well-plucked, heavily shadowed dark black eyebrow sharply cocked, hung on every word as did her companion.
    ‘Madame Barrault’s husband is a guest of our friends—a prisoner of war,’ offered Morel as a gesture of cooperation. ‘Marie-Léon, I’ll see that your papers are replaced. Please don’t worry. The ration cards and tickets also.’
    Had the wife sucked in the breath of ‘I told you so’? wondered Kohler. Certainly the companion knew what it was all about, for instinctively she had laid a comforting hand on Madame Morel’s.
    Louis had seen it too, but wasn’t about to let on. ‘Can you give us any kind of a description, monsieur?’ he asked.
    ‘If I could, I’d find and kill him myself.’
    Coffee and cognac arrived—real coffee and real alcohol, a Bisquit Napoléon, the 1903, along with a plate of petits fours,