Red Rainbow by G Johanson (top books of all time TXT) 📗

pretended to be receptive to his attentions while trying to get rid of him. Pierre-Paul flattered him while shrugging him off, rhetorically asking why he wanted to spend time with a bore with him when there were more interesting characters vying for his attention. The answer to this was because Pierre-Paul was not interested. Because he was immune to César’s unintentional ‘charms’. Because this was a conversation that was real and a challenge. A challenge César was unable to rise to. Pierre-Paul left school and they inevitably lost touch, César unable to make a scrap of headway the odd times that he tried. Pierre-Paul and Gehring had some parallels but Gehring was a Nazi – as crazy as it sounded, that was potentially an in. Gehring had achieved officer level in the Gestapo. That showed a degree of application and effort. Was this a chink in the armour to exploit, something that meant something to him, however small? Gehring seemed to want to catch him out more than someone just going through the motions.

Gehring asked for time alone with the prisoner but still in the nice office. For now. Strohkirch played along, confident that Gehring would take his comments into account. It was okay to scare César and being alone with the unsympathetic interrogator could achieve this and yield results. Gehring was seated and smoking when César was gently led inside. He walked around the table and tried to pull the chair out. It didn’t move fully out, Gehring hooking a chair leg with his foot. The two men stared at each other, Gehring ordering him to sit, at which point he released the chair for him.

“You have different coloured eyes,” Gehring commented. The minor imperfection was no big deal in truth, but Gehring used it to suggest he was defective. He would need bigger sticks than this to beat his prisoner with to crush his ego, but it was a start.

“That’s very observant of you to notice. My own parents didn’t notice until I was toddling about.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true. I know that because I remember my mother telling me that she took me to a doctor when she first realised and that I trashed the office while he looked it up. Which proves that neither they nor the doctors realised straight away. Ten fingers, ten toes and the rest, baby and mother can leave. So you spotting is...”

“We take stock of all prisoners’ personal details, including eye colour.”

“I hoped I was just here helping you with your enquiries.”

“You haven’t been helpful. We can keep you here as long as we wish. We can send you back to Germany.” 21 days was all that César served in the POW camp, which would make more sense if there were extenuating circumstances (a required occupation, serious health conditions). That didn’t seem to be the case according to the records. Leaning forwards, he reminded him, “We can do worse than that.”

“I understand that. Those actions won’t solve the Florence situation. I can help you with that.”

“You know how we want you to help with. Roll up your sleeve.” César complied, though hesitated at the next instruction. “Hold your arm out on the table.”

César went to lay his arm down and brought it back up. “Why?”

“Hold your arm out on the table,” Gehring repeated flatly.

“I can’t stop you from torturing me if that’s what you want to do. Don’t get annoyed if I make a hell of a racket. I’m not used to suffering.”

César knew. He knew that the other officers would come running if he started screaming and shouting. This was not purely artful manipulation. This man had supernatural powers of persuasion, effective on everyone bar him it seemed. Gehring only intended to hold the cigarette above his forearm, having no intention of burning him. He abandoned this plan for now. This was a dangerous prisoner, not the harmless charmer the others thought. How was he going to deal with him without losing his job?

Physical torture usually left scars which Gehring could not afford to risk with this prisoner. Psychological torture it was to be instead. He conducted further investigation into his life and returned to interrogate him again.

“We found a full-face mask in your office. Care to comment.” Gehring had gone through César’s primary office as well as his main home with a fine toothcomb to find something amiss. This mask had been behind the drawers of his office desk.

“I could pretend I like to attend masquerades, but the mask is clearly too plain for that, and I’d sooner be straight with you. Let’s just say I like to keep things interesting.”

“No, let’s say why you have it.”

“I like to keep things interesting sexually. More? Role-play,” César said salaciously. “Do you never want to pretend to be someone else?”

“We’re talking about you, a topic that most people seem to find interesting. Let’s stick to it. Your secretary defended you when I asked her about the mask. She challenged the discovery, disputed that it was yours and claimed it was irrelevant anyway. She also asked me, in front of a junior officer, by the way, how long we would be holding you so that she knew how far she needed to reschedule your diary.” Beauty queen or not, Fernande Cartier’s spirited triple defence would see her joining the spirits if she didn’t watch her tone. Gehring couldn’t tell if she was stupid or fearless. Her boss was in the hands of the Gestapo. That should have struck fear in her heart, for him and for herself. She didn’t know those hands were velvet-gloved and stroking him to motherfucking climax after climax.

“We have a business to run,” César said by way of weak explanation. “She’s very efficient, but she will need my signature to sign some things off.”

“Your production hasn’t been impeded that badly by the war...”

“Our profits tell a different story. We wouldn’t be able to produce to match our previous demand due to lack of resources. What we