J. Janes - Madrigal

As the sound of high and ancient iron wheels constantly hammered at him, Jean-Louis St-Cyr tried to find a moment’s refuge to dwell on the murder investigation. But the coach’s wooden benches were bolt upright, the buttocks numb, and there was hardly room to squirm. The Germans had taken over sixty per cent of France’s rolling stock, thus pressing relics like this into service, even for the first-class carriages. And all around him, through the smoke-hazed, dim blue, fart-and-sweat-tainted air, the battered, dented steel helmets touched one another, and all around him there was the muffled sound of men not knowing what to expect.

Russia had taught these boys a lesson. The Battle for Stalingrad had been lost.

Hermann Kohler played Skat in the narrow corridor. Crowded around a Hindenburg Light, a stove that had been dredged from the trenches of that other war in 1914-18, he and two others held the cards. And the phalanx of silent men who were ranked on the nearby benches or stood or crouched, either stared at the guttering flame that brought no warmth but dreams of home, or at the cards, knowing only too well that after four hours of non-stop play, the Vorhand among them was a master.

He was not handsome, this partner of his, thought St-Cyr. He was a Fritz-haired, greying giant with a storm-trooper’s lower jaw and chin, sagging jowls, and bags under pale blue eyes that seldom revealed anything when they didn’t want to. A bullet graze, still too fresh to be forgotten, creased the heavy brow. The scar of a rawhide whip ran from below the left eye to the chin — the SS had done that to him for pointing the finger of truth. Another case.

There were shrapnel nicks from that other war and the years, particularly these past two and a half in France as partner to a Sûreté Chief Inspector, and as one of practically the only two honest cops left, had not been kind.

He was fifty-five years of age, a good three years older than himself. A Detektiv Inspektor from the Kripo, from that smallest and most insignificant branch of the Gestapo, but not like one of those, ah grâce à Dieu .

No, they fought common crime. Hermann was a citizen of the world and, yes, they had become friends. War does things like that, said St-Cyr to himself, but seeing Hermann sharing such a camaraderie made him think of that other war. Hermann had been in the artillery. Hermann had been taken prisoner in 1916 but not before the shells his battery had fired had come whistling over to bring the taste of mud, shit and rotten flesh or sour boot leather or mustard gas that would stick so fast in the gullet one could never forget it.

When a thin, cheap blue scrap of paper was passed from hand to hand, St-Cyr took it without a nod. Recognizing the PTT paper, the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone stationery, Kohler set his cards down, gave up the loot to be equally shared among the men, and got up to pick his way across the coach.

‘Well, what’s it this time, Chief?’ he asked. Hermann had deliberately let the men know he was subordinate in rank to a Frenchman. He was like that sometimes.

‘A love-note from an old friend.’

The flimsy tissue was proffered and quickly read.

Jean-Louis, though the circumstance is tragic, I welcome our working together again and recall the fisherman’s wife. Everything has therefore been left exactly as you would wish it, and I have placed men on guard to ensure that nothing will be disturbed. May the Blessed Saviour keep you safe and bring you to us.

Alain de Passe,

Commissaire de Police d’Avignon

et du Vaucluse

The Sûreté’s bushy, unclipped moustache was guiltily tidied with a pugilist’s fist. The large and dark brown ox-eyes sought him out from beneath the brim of a battered brown fedora.

‘He hates me, Hermann, so please read between the lines.’

These days everything was in code, even the day-to-day chatter between a husband and wife, or among other members of a family. No one knew who might hear and report or read and report. The SS, the Gestapo, a Pétainist, a Vichy ‘inspector’, a collaborator … it was the age of the anonymous letter or phone call, of old scores being settled, of the payoff and reward. A tragedy. It was 26 January 1943, a Tuesday.

‘The fisherman’s wife was a petite lingère ,’ confessed St-Cyr, still not taking his gaze from Hermann.

A seamstress — one who did sewing for others. ‘You sure she wasn’t someone’s petite àmxe ?’

Trust Hermann to think of it! Someone’s ‘little friend’, someone’s mistress. ‘We could prove nothing. Her husband, a simple man, loved her as much as he did his fishing.’

‘For the pleasure, eh?’

The blocky shoulders momentarily lifted. ‘ Mais certainement . It’s the only way to fish, n ’ est-ce pas? Doing it for a living would be far too hard.’

‘I meant the other,’ said Kohler.

Hermann’s French was really very good. He had made a point of learning it in that prisoner-of-war camp.

‘The other?’ said St-Cyr. ‘That, too. At forty years of age, and twenty-seven years younger than the husband, she was still possessed of a delectably eloquent figure, though when first seen on the beach at Cassis in the late summer of 1934 and then naked in the morgue, such things are always wanting. She’d been strangled and then for good measure her throat had been savagely opened with-’

‘Okay, okay, spare me the details, eh? Why remember ancient history? Why not Avignon and the present?’

Patience was always necessary with Hermann. The Bavarian temperament often lacked it. ‘Because, mon vieux , history is inevitably involved in murder, and because the Church has power. Corrupt and otherwise.’

‘The Church?’

The telegram was indicated. ‘That crap about the Blessed Saviour keeping me safe. He’s really saying, Let the warning be enough. Break glass and you will be cut. Tamper with the Host and the Blood of Christ and watch out.’

‘And the petite lingère? ’

‘Maybe he’s found another one.’

In the dim blue light of the railway station one man stood out beside the clock tower whose Roman numerals gave 11.59 p.m., all but an hour after the curfew in these parts. The doors had been locked. Most would have to spend the rest of the night in here and wouldn’t be allowed to leave until 5.00 a.m. Berlin Time, which was 4.00 a.m. the old time in winter.

His face hidden by semi-darkness and by the cowl of a coarse grey woollen cloak, the man looked not at them when confronted but away.

‘The carriage awaits,’ he grunted in langue d ’ oc , the language of Old Provence. ‘I am to take you to her.’

Merde , was he a monk? wondered Kohler. The ash-grey sackcloth was frayed at the cuffs and patched at the elbows. The bell-rope around the waist was old.

There were no sandals, only worn black leather boots, hobnailed and cleated like the thousands Louis and he had seen in use all over France.

Without another word from their guide, they passed on into a wind that took the breath away and caused the eyes to smart. The curse of Provence and the Rhône Valley, that wind of winds, the mistral, was in full force. ‘ Jésus ,’ cried Kohler. ‘Why us?’

‘Why anyone?’ lamented Louis.

The calèche was open, but unfortunately its only passenger seat faced forward into the wind. They threw up their suitcases themselves and as they and their driver mounted, his stick was used. Urging the tired old nag into the night, they left the kerbside.