The Berlin Traitor, page 15
The Seine lapped at its concrete banks. A lone barge moved slowly past, caught out late, risking a voyage on inky blackness.
‘Except that he wasn’t a traitor.’
Bloyer stopped and leant on the iron railing dividing the pavement from the lower boulevard that ran along the river’s edge. His broad shoulders were relaxed, his arms spread just far enough to support him. He had the confidence of someone who knew their place in the city, and that place was nowhere near the bottom.
‘I always knew there was a risk that you would discover the truth,’ Bloyer said.
Duchene kept his eyes on the other man’s hands.
‘Sabine knows I’m meeting you. If anything –’
‘Oh please, don’t be so dramatic.’ Bloyer was smiling as he turned his back to the river and took out a hip flask and a packet of Gauloises.
Duchene paused at the offer of a cigarette.
‘Take one. It’s polite. You’re here to have a conversation, so let’s have a proper one.’
Duchene lit his cigarette while Bloyer took a sip from the hip flask, before offering it to Duchene. ‘Brandy?’
The hit of alcohol rushed through Duchene, sharpened his mind.
‘So what have you discovered?’ asked Bloyer.
‘You made it appear that Vincent was a Trotskyist.’
‘You’ve already alluded to that. What else?’
‘You took the money and hid it in Meunier’s room to make it appear that Vincent had stolen it and was giving it to the Trotskyists.’
‘How do you imagine I did that? It was in a safe and I didn’t have the key until after it went missing.’
‘Because it was never actually in the safe. Sabine said you and some of the steelworkers had escorted her through the city to make sure she wasn’t robbed. She said that you carried the money for her. I’m guessing that’s when you swapped it. If I were to go back to her, and ask her to recall the events exactly, she would tell me you gave Vincent the money. I’m sure there was something clever with envelopes, something to disguise the fake money as something that Vincent might have legitimately placed in the safe. A fake bank cheque perhaps, something he wouldn’t think to differentiate, something Langlois wouldn’t look for when searching for the cash.’
Bloyer took another swig of brandy. ‘That’s very close. Well done.’
For some reason Bloyer was taking satisfaction in the revelations. There was delight in his eyes and he smiled at each new connection Duchene was able to demonstrate. And then it struck him.
‘You approached Sabine to ask me to investigate. You needed someone to follow the breadcrumbs you’d left so that they pointed to Vincent, present the evidence that connected him to a dead Trotskyist. You even stage-managed the room in the boarding house. It never made sense that the killer would enter and exit through the window but leave the door open. That open window was all theatre, to support the story of a Moscow assassin. You left the door unlocked so we could easily discover the body. What I don’t understand was why you wished to make it appear that Vincent was going to betray the party.’
‘I would have thought that much was obvious. To discredit him, to implicate his murder in Trotskyism, to keep the party from looking too closely for fear of upsetting Moscow. By drawing attention to Stalin’s leadership purges, those foundations on which Russian communism is built, the Central Committee would quickly look away. It was ugly, but it was necessary.’
‘It was opportunism,’ said Duchene. ‘You killed Vincent to take his position, unelected, by using your influence with the committee.’
Bloyer shrugged. ‘He lacked the sophistication to guide the party in the right direction. He would have had the unions blocking production in the factories, shutting down the Métro, because he didn’t agree with our joining the Popular Front and our work with the socialists. He didn’t appreciate that we needed to bring over the socialists, and bring all of France into a Soviet republic. He couldn’t see the big picture and how to realise the goals of the Third International.’
‘You speak the rhetoric well, but you’re not a believer. You’re just a murderer willing to do anything to put himself in power.’
‘Believe what you will.’
Below them, vagrants in tattered clothes were gathering under a bridge. Clustered in a rough circle, they were sharing a bottle of wine, cigarette butts and a baguette.
‘So why kill Meunier? Was that as a favour to Moscow?’
‘An exchange. They would support my goals if I supported theirs. Meunier did have a letter from Trotsky. The Paris Trotskyists were going to publish it and it would have received international attention. Which would contradict Stalin and everything the Soviet Central Committee has been saying about the trials and the Trotskyist threat to communism. Everything you pieced together from the boarding house, the passport, where he had been and why he was here, it was all true.’
‘What happened to the letter?’
‘It’s on its way to Moscow. If Trotsky tries again to communicate with the world, Moscow will want to know what he’s trying to say.’
‘So Moscow requested you to kill Meunier?’
‘They did. I knew the city, how to make sure the police wouldn’t look too hard at his death, even how it could act as a reminder to the Central Committee itself – that a global revolution may require bloodshed but it’s the boss who decides whose blood gets shed…’
‘You did the same with Vincent, made sure the police would put the case aside quickly. You gave them the letters.’
‘…and fed them the line that the murder might have been politically motivated.’
‘It was. But by communists, not by fascists.’
Bloyer took another drag on his cigarette and smiled. There was a self-satisfaction about him, rugged up warmly with liquor in his coat pocket, ready for a long talk, happy to indulge Duchene’s conclusions. He had come prepared and now Duchene understood.
‘You want an audience for your grand plan, someone to see the full picture and acknowledge your genius.’
‘If you must give the compliment, then I will accept it.’
‘You’re very confident for someone who’s admitted to murdering two men.’
‘And you will do what with this information? Take it to the police, embarrass them by contradicting their finding? And your evidence is, what? The word of a waiter in a restaurant that hosts political agitators and revolutionaries? He’s hardly a trustworthy witness. Perhaps you’ll send them to talk to Montfort who, as we already know, is deeply suspicious. I’m confident because I know I can get away with it.’
‘I’ll tell the party.’
‘And have them remove me? At the cost of exposing Stalin? I think not. It will be regrettable, and I’ll lose some trust with them, but I can recover. They are, after all, just the Central Committee, and it’s the party members who ultimately vote to install their leadership. No, you can try that, but it will only set me back a little.’
‘I’ll tell Sabine.’
The smile disappeared from Bloyer’s face. He stubbed his cigarette out on the railing.
‘That would be a shame. I like your wife. I consider her a friend. I wouldn’t like her disappointment. But even that I’d survive. She’ll be away in Spain. I’ll be here in Paris. Our lives will move on and I’ll learn to live with the loss.’ He flicked the butt into the Seine. ‘So yes, Monsieur Duchene, you have found a way to hurt me. Congratulations. But I’d ask you this: If you were to tell her, all of this, how it’s actually connected, the Stalinist-sponsored assassination, the way in which I arranged my election, how the PCF would be trapped even if they knew what really happened… If you were to tell her all of this…truth…what would she think of you then?’
TWENTY-ONE
Duchene couldn’t go home. He couldn’t. He needed to think, to plan. Anger kept swelling up within him, swamping his logic, dragging down his clear thinking. He wanted to wipe that lizard smile from Bloyer’s face. Have him dragged before the workers he claimed to represent and revealed as a murderer, a manipulator and a fraud. Put an end to his political aspirations, hold him to account for his actions.
Perhaps Sabine could communicate it to the General Confederation of Labour, who could share it with other union leaders? There was a way to bring this to light, if not via the PCF leadership, then through the collectives that made up its membership. She needed to understand that the party she was part of, that was sending men and women off to fight and die, was itself an instrument of murder and deception. Where it was too easy to push this aside when it came to Stalin and Russia, it would be hard for her to ignore her own party’s culpability.
This could be the thing, the perfect thing, that would stop her from going to Spain. It had nothing to do with him, or Marienne, or his desire that she stay safe in Paris. These were events beyond his control and they were the truth. Even better, she had come to him and asked him to find out who had killed Vincent. He had discovered the truth and she couldn’t be angry with him for revealing it to her.
But as he stormed past the dual towers and carved façade of L’Eglise Saint-Ambroise, he remembered their bringing Marienne here to play when she had just started walking. Under the rose window, tottering on unstable feet, she had tried to snatch daisies from the church lawns. With the endearing awkwardness of a small child, she couldn’t break the stems and had pulled up a handful of petals, which he helped her to throw into the wind. He felt his confidence waver.
The truth would hurt Sabine. It would change so much of her world. And yet, surely that was the point? She would be insulted if he kept it from her. She would feel patronised.
He shouted into the air.
And walked home.
***
Sabine was on the couch with Marienne curled up against her. They were listening to an amateur singing competition on the radio. An announcer was explaining that performers who failed to satisfy the judges would be pulled from the stage with a hook. The current singer was also playing the accordion badly, and mother and daughter laughed when the announcer described the hook nearing him. Marienne placed her hands over her face as the studio audience cheered when the man was removed.
Sabine smiled up at Duchene. ‘Did you do what you needed to?’
‘Just one last thought. Just one last thing.’
‘And?’
‘Can we talk?’
Sabine nodded and took her coat from its hook as Marienne repositioned herself, still transfixed by the radio.
‘Back soon,’ he told her.
He and Sabine stepped outside onto the fire escape, climbing through a window that Duchene chocked open with a small block of wood he kept on the sill. Sabine’s movements were smooth and assured as she climbed ahead of him up the metal stairs to the building’s roof.
From here they could see the rooftops of the city, sharp angles of zinc and stone peppered with stout chimney pots. Below these the lights from apartments glowed. A light wind had parted the clouds to reveal glimpses of the stars.
‘It’s a beautiful night,’ he said.
‘It is,’ she replied, ‘but we’ve seen better views from up here. It is Paris after all.’
‘Vincent’s obituary said he moved from the country to Paris. Like you.’
‘It’s a common story. Why are we here?’ she asked, pulling up a crate.
‘Would you want to know everything, if I learnt more about Vincent’s death?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if it meant we keep going, even though the PCF have concluded the investigation?’
‘Absolutely. I want to know the truth. Is this hypothetical or have you actually uncovered something?’
He pulled up a crate beside her and placed his hands around hers. Sabine’s cheeks and the tip of her nose were turning pink in the cold night air. Her blue eyes gazed at him steadily. He wanted to stay here, looking into them, to hold her warmth, to hold this moment. Perhaps that’s all it was, selfishness. To say any more about Bloyer and the murder would take this version of her away from him.
And so he chose not to.
‘I went to the Seine. To Pont Royal and Pont du Carrousel.’
‘Why?’
‘Vagrants sleep under the bridges. I asked them if they had seen who’d put Vincent’s body in the river. I didn’t find anything. It was a bit of a gamble. It would take nights to interview them all, and more cigarettes than I could afford to pay them for their time.’
Sabine pulled her hands out of his. ‘That’s it? I thought you were going to tell me something, I don’t know, earth shattering.’
‘No.’
‘Then why are we up here?’
‘I want to talk to you about Spain. Properly.’
‘I’m going. We’ve already discussed it.’
He felt the anger swelling up again, but took a deep breath and managed to push it back down.
‘I know. I wanted to tell you I understand why you want to go, why you need to go.’
‘You do?’
‘I do.’
Sabine spoke in a low voice. ‘I’ve seen photos of dead children, placed in rows to show the aftermath of a fascist air raid. You would think they were sleeping, if it wasn’t for the blood smeared across them. They did this to make people understand the tragedy. Can you imagine holding the corpse of your own child, what that would be like?’
She still held his gaze. There were tears in her eyes. He dabbed at them with the corner of his sleeve.
‘I cannot. I hope I never will.’
‘That’s why I’m doing this. For us. For Marienne. I want her to see that these people and their ideas need to be fought against. That we can’t stand by and let them burn the world down around us.’
She looked up at Duchene.
‘I don’t want to leave her. I wish I could take you both with me. Or that there was some other way to fight the way the world is changing, without having to leave Paris. I know you’ve told me to stay, and part of me feels that I should, as a mother, but I worry about what I will become if I don’t do this. The questions I will ask myself, the anger and disgust I’ll feel. What kind of mother would I be then?’
Duchene put an arm around her shoulder. She pressed into him and sighed.
‘We will need to explain it to her,’ he said. ‘Need to tell her about the war, the fascists, why you’re going to fight. She’s growing up fast, she understands much more than I did when I was her age.’
‘But not tonight.’
‘No. Not tonight. But soon.’
‘I leave in two weeks.’
‘Then let us find a way to make them two weeks to cherish.’
BERLIN
Saturday, 4 August 1945
TWENTY-TWO
A gramophone was playing mid-tempo jazz. Something to keep the conversation lively and flowing, but not so frantic as to draw attention away from the celebrations and meetings taking place in the hotel bar. Raye was staring into his bourbon.
‘Why do you do it?’ Duchene asked. ‘The card reading?’
‘What’s that?’ Raye stirred and looked over at Duchene from his quilted armchair.
‘You read the cards for soldiers. Why?’
‘Helps with morale.’
‘Because you only give them good news?’
‘I give them realistic news, just enough hope to make their time here seem worth it. I started it when we were in the Ardennes. They…I…needed the distraction. When we weren’t on the front line, when we were able to get some rest, there’d be a queue.’
‘If it’s only ever good news, you’re not actually reading the cards.’
Raye returned his gaze to the bourbon. Duchene was drinking the same, in solidarity. Normally he found the liquor too sweet, but now that he was three measures in, it was growing on him.
‘It’s about interpretation, so who’s to say if I’m doing it wrong.’
‘Do you believe it?’
‘I learnt it from my grandmother. And she believed. For some people it’s truth. Who am I to say it isn’t? Don’t want to get a gris-gris on me – a curse.’
Raye was maudlin and this line of conversation wasn’t going to pull him out of that. He realised this himself.
‘They’re gonna get it out of Allmann,’ Raye said. ‘Wring out everything that he knows, right down to the name of his hamster when he was a kid.’
‘That’s assuming he knows something useful.’
‘Like you said, Sprenger called him a traitor for a reason. It might have been helpful to understand why.’
Raye finished his drink. ‘Alright, I’m off to bed. In the morning, after breakfast, we’ll head back to Andrews Barracks. Pack your bag and bring the tortoise. You’ll be heading back to Paris on the next flight out of Tempelhof.’
Raye stood slowly and used the back of the chair to steady himself as he took a reading on which direction to walk in.
‘Bonne nuit.’ Raye tipped a finger to his forehead before swaying through the crowd and into the elevator.
Duchene picked up his glass from the walnut table and took a last sip. There was more bourbon, mostly in the bottle, but some splashes had made it to the polished surface. When they’d started drinking, surrounded by men in dress uniforms and women in silk and satin, Duchene had been uncomfortable with the opulence, after everything he’d seen out there in Berlin. The differences, he thought, in the way occupiers and the occupied lived. He’d seen it in Paris with the Germans; here it was reversed, the French, the British and the Americans. Why was he excluding the Soviets? Perhaps he assumed that their dour officers wouldn’t be afforded such luxury and excess. As he’d drunk more, though, he’d found himself less concerned by matters of politics and excess and started to enjoy the evening for what it was, a rare moment to celebrate that he was alive, that he had somehow survived his second war.
