Mayhem Read Online Free Page A

difference?
    Heading back through to the kitchen, he collected the briefcase on the way and took from it the three, fist-sized lumps of coal he’d managed to pick up from a railway siding near Lyon. The loaf of bread Kohler had squeezed out of a baker in Beaune had got a little stale and dirty, but the round of cheese the Bavarian had stolen was just as good as ever.
    Looking at the cheese, St-Cyr nodded sadly and said to the walls as if to a priest, ‘Someone’s loss is my gain.’
    There was virtually no milk in Paris. The boy had had to have his calcium. Kohler had insisted.
    Spread on the table were St-Cyr’s bread coupons and the green tickets for the week’s ration of meat, wine and potatoes et cetera, should he be able to purchase such things.
    As he put through the call, he experienced again the humiliation and sadness the defeat of France had brought. ‘Hermann, it’s me. My wife’s gone.’
    As expected, Kohler gave him the name of a whore on the rue Mouffetard but said he’d see what he could do. ‘Want me to tell them to bring her back?’
    â€˜No. No, just ask them to let her know I was worried.’
    The call done, he climbed wearily to the bedrooms. A fallen négligé brought back its memories, a pair of briefs reminded him that older men and younger women don’t always mix.
    Philippe had taken his favourite toy, a water pistol that had been made in Hamburg before the war. The gift of a German soldier in the street, or so his wife had said.
    A German soldier.
    *
    â€˜Steiner, the Hauptmann Erich, age thirty-two, attached to the Ministry of Supply. Wife: Hilda, age twenty-eight; children: Johann, age four, Stephanie, age three, Hans, age two, and young Erich, age one month, two days. The wife and kids are at home in Regensburg.’
    â€˜Anything else?’ demanded Kohler, pinching the last possible smoke from the butt before carefully grinding it out in the ashtray and saving the remaining tobacco.
    â€˜Good-looking. A real ladies’ man. Been here since last August, arrived in all that heat – that’s when he first met her out walking in the Bois de Boulogne. She had the kid with her. Steiner used the boy as an intro – My son, your son, Frau …? Pictures from home and all that shit. She didn’t fall for it, not at first, not that one. It took him a month’s hard labour.’
    â€˜Why wasn’t I notified?’ grumbled Kohler, more offended by the omission than by the infidelity of his partner’s wife. These days no one really knew everything the others knew, not even about oneself.
    â€˜You didn’t ask,’ commented Glotz, of Countersubversion Special Unit X, the Watchers in charge of keeping tabs on the Sûreté Murder Squad, among other things.
    â€˜So, okay. What’s the address?’ asked Kohler, feigning apology and a tiredness that was genuine. Crises, there were always crises these days.
    Glotz reached for his coffee. ‘Hermann, I’d leave it for now, if I were you.’ Overweight and overstuffed, he blew on the mug before taking a sip.
    Kohler spread his meaty hands on the counter. He hated shits like Glotz but acknowledged they were necessary. ‘My partner needs his wife. If he doesn’t get laid it puts him off his feed. Besides, my friend, I think the poor bugger really loves her. The Frogs …’ He sadly shook his head. ‘Come on, be a buddy. Don’t be so tight about it.’
    â€˜You planning to kick down the door?’
    â€˜Perhaps.’
    The grin was wolfish. Glotz enoyed baiting Kohler. ‘A flat in one of those modern apartment buildings over by the Bois de Boulogne.’
    The fashionable West End. ‘The address,’ breathed Kohler. It was nearly 3 a.m.
    Glotz didn’t like the look. ‘Number 33, avenue Henri-Martin.’
    Double the address number of St-Cyr’s house and double that of the clock!
    The date