J. Janes - Clandestine

‘Eighteen-thirty it is, Standartenfuhrer. Meine Lieben , until later. Chez Kornilov, I think, and the champagne first, then that partner of mine can get to sample the trout with the walnut sauce that he ordered last night but had to miss and has been complaining about ever since.’

Now here, now there, occasional mushroom seekers scavenged this part of the Bois de Vincennes, hoping to find what the weekend’s traffic might have missed and what the last few days and nights of new growth would have produced. Sticks were immediately snapped into small pieces so as to be hidden in rucksacks, acorns quickly pocketed since it was illegal to gather anything save those feelings of being outdoors and the Bois was exceedingly popular, especially on weekends.

Two bicycles, not where they should have been, were locked, the chain linking them having been wrapped around a tree trunk and given a further padlock, bicycle theft being a major concern these days.

Ludin had unfortunately found the needed: a somewhat out-of-the-way dead end leading to one of the Bois’s inevitable road closures that favoured wilderness walking. Leaves were settling on the windshield, and for once the sun was being cooperative, and were it not for the present circumstance, an afternoon in the forest would have been a delight, but there had been absolutely no opportunity of breaking free. The wrists were not just linked by Surete bracelets; those of the Gestapo had been used to tie the first to the grip-bar that had been installed above this seat in the autumn of 1940 for use in high-speed chases. A more awkward and increasingly uncomfortable position could not have been found.

Hermann would have said, Rocheleau should see you now, but Hermann would have other things on his mind and had probably downed still more of those damned pills

Side windows open, the Kriminalrat was giving the ‘Toasted’ Lucky Strikes a brief rest and the present circumstance considerable thought.

St-Cyr would have to be persuaded to tell him everything, but how? wondered Ludin. ‘A kilo of boart for what?’

‘Forty-five thousand fivers.’

Himmler would have had to agree. ‘And then?’

‘Is that why the jerry cans of gasoline? Are you on the run, eh?’

‘Don’t taunt. Just tell me.’

The Walther P38 was again in hand, but while a delay might mean a few more hours of life and perhaps a chance to deal with him, to answer correctly would be to put at risk all that Anna-Marie had sought. ‘If I knew, I would tell you, Kriminalrat, but since she didn’t show up at that Lokal , I haven’t a clue.’

‘Would Kohler have met with her?’

‘Since she had never seen him?’

‘Just answer.’

‘Then that is rather doubtful, especially as Hermann had things to do and tends always not to hang around once he’s dropped me off someplace.’

‘Meyerhof did move diamonds for others. Thousands and thousands of carats. Those two from Berlin were certain.’

‘And since they kept whispering such a fiction to others, especially to Kaltenbrunner, a Sonderkommando was needed, otherwise, that one would have had to answer to none other than Heinrich Himmler. Come, come, Kriminalrat, surely the Sicherheitsdienst can do better? A girl shows up quite by chance in Amsterdam, not once, but on a second visit and Josef Meyerhof who is constantly being watched and behind ghetto wire just happens to see her and make contact and entrust her not only with the family’s life diamonds but the route to whoever knows where all those so-called “black” diamonds are hidden? Why not the son, please?’

‘Meyerhof knew it was chancy enough trying to get the boy and his family through France. Once they were safely in Nice and the Italian zone, things could change.’

‘But then that zone was no longer safe and the son and family arrested.’

‘So Meyerhof had to find another way of hiding what he valued most, and with all the other diamonds he had already hidden not just for himself, but for others. By the way, I gather you and Kohler got that girl to free those two I had consigned to the KZ at Mauthausen, not the one at Stutthof.’

Grace a Dieu! ‘I hadn’t known.’

‘And now you do, so you will tell me where that girl will have to run to once that supposed sale has been concluded?’

If it ever would be. ‘Shoot if you like, but give me a moment since I must argue with my conscience and everything depends on Hermann.’

Somewhat empty, the courtyard off the rue Volney and right behind the bank should have been warning enough, felt Kohler. Having parked the Citroen, he finally realized what he’d forgotten in the rush. It being a Wednesday afternoon, the verdammt bank would be closed and locked up tighter than the Sante. Merde , now what was he to do, let the whole thing collapse, and with Louis out there somewhere as a prisoner ?

Pounding on the door did no good, hammering at it with the butt of his Walther P38 little more, but at last a shout was heard, and then, ‘ Espece de salaud , if you and those other couillons think to continue to torment me, you had better think again. Me, I am about to teach you a lesson you will never forget!’

Flung open, forced to face down the twin barrels of another upland, one had to shout, ‘It’s me, Kohler!’

The rolled-up shirt sleeves, muscular biceps, loosened tie, open collar and absent jacket were those of the desperate.

‘I thought it was those parasites again. Where’s St-Cyr?’

‘Busy.’

‘ Sacre nom de nom , must you two smash everything? My bank? All that I have worked for? Major clients threatening to pull their accounts unless I give them the advantage of my being under duress? Those curs of the petite bourgeoisie demanding their paltry savings? The press, they are like leeches, I tell you. Never happy, always clinging. Did you and St-Cyr not realize what you had unleashed when you sicked them onto me? Those things I did were as nothing these days. Nothing , I tell you. If that Annette-Melanie Veroche, or whatever it is she’s now calling herself, had gone along with Deniard and Paquette and offered up her little capital, there would have been no murders, no half-baked attempt to clean out that van-yes, yes, that’s the very one that has just turned in. The little chatte would have been back in Paris, Kohler, safe and sound, I tell you, and enjoying life to its fullest, not hiding diamonds for others and knowing things she may or may not!’

‘And you wouldn’t have been able to collect the insurance.’

‘We can’t. They’re claiming it’s a criminal matter and now, thanks to you and St-Cyr, I’m to be hauled up before Hercule the Smasher. Hercule whom I had counted among my closest associates and most loyal of friends. Bottle after bottle of the Vieille Reserve; cork after cork of nothing but the finest from the Haut-Medoc and Medoc, the hams, the truffles …’

President du Tribunal Special du departement de la Seine, Vichy’s top judge and hatchet man in Paris, and an old acquaintance from last February. Louis should have heard him.

‘Hercule presides over the black-market violators, Kohler.’

‘And the night-action courts.’

Those where resistants and other troublemakers were tried and sentenced, Hercule loving nothing better than to condemn them. ‘Photos, Kohler, and not just of myself, my garage, the tenements I own and my vans and bank, but of the wife, too, with the threatened divorce, and my little Didi and Yvonne. Both of the girls are constantly in tears.’

His daughters, the one named after his secretary and primary line of defence but obviously no longer present, since the wife was her sister.