J. Janes - Gypsy

The rope was coarse, the trailing diklo crimson. The benches were ancient, grey and heavy – carved and covered with dust and rubble. A handprint was here, a gap was there. Some of the chairs had had to be moved.

Tshaya stirred but slightly in the softly eddying wind which carried the granules of snow down from the belfry above to pass them over her body. Her hair was long and braided and blue-black but not glossy in this light. Her face was slightly puffed, the expression placid, the brow wide and strong, the jet black eyebrows fierce perhaps but not now, the eyes dark and wide and bulging only slightly, the lips a dark blue. Frozen … the corpse was frozen.

The rope had been thrown up and over a sturdy yet worm-eaten timber. It had been knotted about her throat, the knot placed on the right side so that the head was crooked to the left and the diklo trailed that way and would have caught the saliva as it drained from her mouth.

Thursday … had it been done then? he asked himself.

Her bare feet were together. The ankles had not been tied. Though her wrists had been secured behind her back, it seemed she had put up little if any struggle. Had there been three or more of them and she with no chance of doing so, or had she simply defied them to the last?

There were bloodspots, the petechiae that were caused by ruptured blood vessels immediately below the skin. He looked for mucus which should have issued from her nose, for signs of saliva draining from her mouth – for urine and faeces. Had they all been washed away?

Rigor had set in. Two days at least, he thought. The dark brown skin of her back and buttocks, and of her bare arms and shoulders was blotched and covered with a mass of glistening scars.

‘Help me,’ he said. ‘We must cut her down.’

‘Louis, don’t! Leave her for the Chief. It can’t matter now.’

St-Cyr reached out to him. ‘ Merde , I thought you had gone from me. She had had the flu, Hermann. She had not been able to go with Gabrielle and De Vries to the quarry.’

Turning, he said swiftly to Nana, ‘What did you do with the flypapers you bought in Tours? Damn it, you tell me!’

She threw Gabrielle a desperate look. ‘They … they were for the school of dance,’ she tried. ‘Mother … mother wanted them. We can’t get them in Paris any more. I … I bought all I could, thinking I could sell what we didn’t need.’

‘Oh yes, oh yes.’

‘De Vries, Louis. The belfry. We’d better find him and quickly.’

But was the Gypsy still playing with them? wondered St-Cyr sadly. And why had he tried to make it look as if he had hanged Tshaya if not to hide her having first been poisoned, and to indicate she had been punished for betraying her family and himself?

From the belfry there was a clear view of the surrounding countryside. Down from the forest, up from the willows, the men advanced. There was no way of stopping them. If De Vries and the others had rigged the place, several were bound to be killed.

‘ Killed , do you understand?’ swore St-Cyr, still demanding answers.

Gabrielle shouted, ‘ Don’t you dare talk to me like that !’ Suzanne-Ceclia said, ‘Look.’

‘Look where ?’ swore Kohler.

‘The inner courtyard. Under the arcade at the far corner.’

Ah nom de Dieu .

Hermann used the telescopic sight. Thinking he was about to shoot at them, the men threw themselves to the ground. Schmeissers opened up. Bullets struck the stone tower. They ducked. They cringed. One of the women shrieked, ‘I’ve been hit!’

Fresh blood spattered the timbered floor next to her. ‘ Ah Christ, cut it out !’ cried Kohler, waving the white flag desperately. ‘ It’s wired! Stay back !’

Sniper fire singled him out. He ducked. Stone splinters flew. Hesitantly Louis raised the white flag above the lip of the ruined wall. There were gaps through which they could be easily hit.

‘Hermann … Hermann, I think there is a lull.’

Hermann was staring down through the hole in the floor at the corpse. Louis shook him. ‘Here, give me the rifle,’ he said.

‘No. No, I’m better at it than you, eh? Hey, I’ve already had to use it.’

Cautiously he got to his feet, was soon too exposed. At least three of them would have him in their sights. The lieutenant … Herr Max … the SS-Untersturmfuhrer Schacht. Ah bastards … bastards …

Putting the rifle to his shoulder, wrapping the sling around his left arm, he sighted down into the courtyard. Slowly he moved the sight along inside the south arcade until he came to Gabrielle’s car. It was parked in a far corner, tucked beyond brush and tree limbs, and he could just make out De Vries sitting behind the wheel.

‘Kill him,’ swore Louis. ‘You’re going to have to.’

‘There’s a flask of nitro hanging from a cord about his neck. The … the rest of it’s in his lap and on the seat beside him.’

‘Are there others with him?’

‘None that I can see.’

‘Is he going to drive the car along the arcade and into the wall?’

Kohler thumbed the rear lens to clear it of the fog the closeness to his eye had caused. ‘He’s not moving, Louis. Maybe the battery’s dead.’

‘Maybe he’s dead – is this what you’re really saying? Maybe there was no second trip to the quarry. Maybe there were no other “terrorists” to apprehend the car and hitch a ride back to Paris but merely a trip to here … to here , Hermann.’

‘Hang on. Get down.’

There was a blinding flash, a rush of air. Stones, timbers and earth flew up and outwards. The dust was thick. A timber fell, another and another. Someone screamed as she dropped through the floor, someone else cried out, ‘ Don’t try to move! I’ve got you !’

It was Gabrielle and she dangled by her coat and scarf and was hanging on to the rope beside Tshaya.

Louis scrambled over to the gap in the floor. Leaning down, flattening himself next to Suzanne-Cecilia, he gasped, ‘Grab me by the ankles. Hermann, help !’

Slowly, gradually Gabrielle was pulled from the corpse and when they had her safely on the floor, he held her tightly and rocked her gently back and forth, saying, ‘Forgive me. Murder is only murder when one is not at war. You had no other choice but to kill or be killed.’

Tears streamed from her. ‘I didn’t want to pierce his eyes, Jean-Louis. I will hate myself for the rest of my days but we had to make it look as though Tshaya had done it. We had to make it look as if Janwillem had tried and convicted her for what she had done.’

Startled, Kohler looked from one to the other of them and then to Suzanne-Cecilia and finally to Nana.

‘My arm,’ she said. ‘It’s shattered. I can’t feel any pain but am so cold.’

For a moment her eyes were clear. ‘The cellars,’ she said and softly smiled at them. ‘The cellars.’

‘Ah merde , Louis, she’s gone.’

There was blood on the snow where Nana lay, and all around her soldiers came and went without regard for her body. They were hurrying to recover the loot from the cellars. Flames towered beyond them. The abbey’s roof and floors threw pillars of smoke and glowing ash high into the winter’s sky.

Kohler put an arm about Suzanne-Cecilia’s and Gabrielle’s shoulders and pulled them close. ‘Hey, hang on, eh? We’re not done yet.’

Tallying the loot, Herr Max had to crouch to thumb through the bundles of banknotes and the jewellery or examine the leather bags and small cardboard boxes in which Wehrle had kept the diamonds. Nearby, the Untersturmfuhrer Schacht stood at the ready with pencil and paper. Both of them were only too anxious to save their own lives.