J. Janes - Clandestine

Disregarding the summons, sheltering the 10x lens the years had given him, he scanned the two casings side by side. ‘ Ah bon , there’s little doubt. Similar scratches imply that it was the same gun, the killings done by a decisive individual who, for some reason, didn’t hesitate to silence both of you.’

The pungent aromas of juniper and rosemary were here, the taste of those and of sage, thyme and oregano in scatterings, and had the day been different, he would have spent happy hours harvesting. ‘There’s even a stonemason’s mark,’ he said, tracing it out on a large rectangular block. Though several hundred years old, it was still as fresh as the day it had been cut. ‘A circle with inwardly shy; pointing arrowheads on the single horizontal line that cuts it exactly shy; in half and is parallel to the bedding planes of the limestone. As to its meaning, mon ami , it’s somewhat like a murder investigation. One should consider that the job must be compassed round and studied carefully from every angle. This one was a master builder. No names are ever in any of the history books, hardly a mention even, and yet … and yet they have left us so much.’

Hermann was now madly waving both arms, only to finally point toward the muddy lane they had taken to get the Citroen in as far as possible.

Top down, for the rain must have miraculously stopped, a Wehrmacht-camouflaged tourer flew drenched swastika penants. The one at the wheel had stood up to better see them and signal that they both should come near. No need, then, for anyone else to muddy their boots or shoes.

‘ Merde , visitors no one wants, and with no time for us to first talk things over.’

Apart from the silver skull and crossbones on the cap, and the braiding, the one in the back with the open topcoat looked like Rommel in the desert war that had finally been lost on 12 May of this year after so many successes, while the one in the dark-grey fedora with down-pulled brim and topcoat collar up who was sucking on a cigarette in the front seat beside the driver and polishing his steel-framed specs, looked the epitome of an aging Gestapo gumshoe.

‘God always smiles when least expected, Hermann.’

‘Why a Standartenfuhrer, Louis?’

That, too, was a very good question: a colonel in the SD, the Sicherheitsdienst, the Secret Service of the SS and Nazi Party. ‘Ours is but to ask, but let’s keep things to ourselves. You to do the talking, me to play the conquered subordinate with Gestapo detective overseer.’

‘Don’t rub it in. Let me just tell you that things are definitely not right with what’s happened here and that bastard under the grey sombrero who’s still sucking on his breakfast teeth is someone we simply don’t want meddling in our business.’

‘ Ah mon Dieu, mon vieux , it gets deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?’

‘You really do want the last word so I’ll let you have it while that garde champetre of yours cooks his own little goose and fails to show himself at such a time.’

Orders were orders. Taking up his position, Rocheleau stood guard with bayoneted rifle behind the van. If the rain didn’t return, he would be all right, but these old boots … The wife would insist that he wear them to remind that salaud St-Cyr of the battle, but of course a person like that would make no mention of his having been saved by anyone, let alone a corporal he had apprehended. Indeed, getting a medic to attend to him had not been easy, nor without extreme danger. ‘He would have died had I not done what I did, yet still he fails to thank me. Well we shall see, won’t we, Monsieur l’Inspecteur principal de la Surete Nationale ? When the end is near and all you collabos get what’s coming to you in the purge, me I will rejoice! The blindfold, eh? The priest perhaps, but I don’t think the Resistance in Reims or Laon or even in a little place like Corbeny will ever allow one. Rather it will be that the soul, it goes straight to hell.’

St-Cyr and that Gestapo partner of his were now standing in the mud beside the car that had arrived, but … Ah merde , Herr Kohler hadn’t returned the Heil Hitler salute that the one in the back with the officer’s cap had given.

There were no medals on the colonel. There didn’t need to be, felt Kohler, for this one was a behind the scenes man, a non-entity, a shadow unless he, or his superior officers in Berlin, wanted it otherwise.

He was also, of course, one of Heinrich Himmler’s ‘Teutonic Knights.’ And as for the ruffled dumpling in the nondescript fedora and years-old grey topcoat who was now sucking on a fresh fag, that one had the look of Hamburg and the age and experience of a pending retirement that simply wasn’t going to happen, not with the war in rapid retreat.

The adjutant, knowing his place, sat down behind the wheel and said nothing, neither did the Gestapo. Mud had, however, splashed the right sleeve of the colonel’s coat. Livid, that one’s gaze leapt.

‘Kohler, who did this, where are they, and why have you not apprehended them?’

Louis would be taking in everything while smiling at his partner’s discomfort, but Berlin couldn’t possibly have any interest in what had happened here. ‘ Ach , Colonel, those are excellent questions, but might we have your name and those of the others, just for the record? And while you’re at it, could you tell us who found the bodies and when? We’ll assume they then reported the crime.’

‘ Lieber Christus im Himmel, verdammter Schweinebulle , are you to remain defiant of authority even when I am in charge?’

Pig-fuzz, was it?

‘You fail to return my salute, Kohler? You give me no answers? Living with a Dutch widow whose husband was a Jew? Living also with a French whore who is young enough to have been your daughter? Well, we shall see. Now answer me, damn you.’

Louis would have urged caution, but an answer had been demanded. ‘Definitely, Colonel, but let me clear the air. The widow lost her two children during the Blitzkrieg’s exodus and still hasn’t found them, and the husband was later rounded up and killed, she then needing help. The “whore,” as you’re calling her, is now lead model at a very fashionable shop on the place Vendome-it’s right near the Ritz and sells female undergarments, perfume, soap and other rare and very expensive unmentionables to generals and visiting dignitaries from the Reich. As to your questions, when my partner and I have the answers, we will be only too prepared to give them to you after first checking everything out with Gestapo Boemelburg, my superior, and Major Osias Pharand, my partner’s. Now liebe Zeit , back off and tell us who found the bodies and when, and while you’re at it, if you know something we should, then spit it out.’

This Scheisskerl wasn’t going to like the answer to that simplest of his questions. ‘Untersturmfuhrer Ludwig Mohnke and Oberfuhrer Wolfgang Thomsen, his senior officer. Brigadier Thomsen wanted to show the young man the Drachenhohle, to go over tactics he had used here during the Great War.’

La Caverne du Dragon had been a quarry on the other side of the Chemin des Dames. Enlarged into a bunker, the Wehrmacht had then made rooms and rooms for the boys to sleep, relax and take their meals in until the French had finally mined their own way in and the two sides had bricked off each other while still shooting. It wasn’t any more than a kilometre or two to the south of the ruins, but that second lieutenant was related to the SS Major shy; General Wilhelm Mohnke, the commander of Heinrich Himmler’s bodyguard.

‘They came on here yesterday afternoon, Kohler, and found the van and the bodies at between 1430 and 1530 hours, reporting it to the General Hans von Boineburg-Lengsfeld directly on their return to Paris, since the van’s head office is located in his city.’