J. Janes: Mayhem

A few reports of course, but no big deal. Control, control, that’s what Louis needed.

‘Bury the bastard and let’s get home!’ he roared, leaning on the horn as he passed a sleepy farmhouse, not realizing its inhabitants were already in the fields.

Barbizon swung into view. One dead-dog street of shops, restaurants and hotels, wires strung across the place, a church, the Lady of Whatever, down at the end and few people about.

As he shot past the Prefecture a flic came out to get on his bicycle. Kohler stomped on the brakes. People ran or froze, depending on their natures. ‘The photographer,’ he bellowed. ‘ Vite! Vite ! Hurry up!’

The blue cap fell on the stones. ‘There … monsieur.’

‘Where, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Three doors past the Kommandantur.’

‘ Merci .’ Again the accelerator, but briefly. Then the brakes.

His fist opened the door. The shop sign flew off to skid across the floor as the photographer remained etched in celluloid, pinned there struggling into his shop coat. All bones and shoes and glasses, a narrow face, about forty-five years old, a mop of dark brown hair over the brow. ‘Get your camera and come with me,’ shouted Kohler.

‘Herme, do as he says,’ shrilled the wife, running into the shop with a breast bare and the child still suckling.

At once the place was in an uproar. ‘I haven’t done anything!’ cried the photographer. ‘I’ve got a christening at nine!’

‘Gestapo!’ shouted Kohler, flashing his badge. ‘You can piss on the brat’s head at nine thirty.’

The photographer threw a terrified glance at his wife. Hard-eyed, brown-haired, about thirty-five years old and not quite over the hill. ‘Do as he says, Herme. Don’t be a fool.’

The man bolted. Kohler gave the place the once-over before letting his eyes settle on the woman.

‘Will you pay?’ she asked defiantly.

‘Of course,’ he breathed. ‘We wouldn’t think otherwise.’ He began to look about the shop more closely. Against one wall there were several painted backdrops, thousand-year-old scenes in front of which newly married couples could stand or puke: a rose arbour, a lake with mountains in the distance and a cream-coloured sun, a cottage that needed a new foundation … ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘Very nice.’

The woman burped the child but didn’t cover the breast. ‘What’s the painting of the Eiffel Tower for?’ he asked.

She was too watchful.

‘German soldiers on leave. They like to have their pictures taken in front of it so that they can say they’ve been to Paris.’

Kohler cocked an eye, then used a stumpy forefinger to pull the lower lid down so as to emphasize the fact. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘So what’s taking the husband so long?’

‘He has to cut the film. It’s in such short supply …’

Kohler nodded and went right past her. He flung the curtain aside, strode down the mangy corridor to the red light, but stopped at bursting in.

‘You’ve got enough film,’ he said.

The light went out. The door opened. ‘Now let’s have a look, my friend,’ he said, pushing past the photographer who closed the door and switched on the light.

My God, it was dull in here. How could a guy work in a place like this? Ribbons of newly developed negatives hung above the sink. Kohler thumbed a couple. The woman had a passable figure. Was that lust in her eyes? Did she really enjoy being photographed like that? The Eiffel Tower seemed a little out of place.

‘So, okay, my friend, I’ll ask you only once. From whom do you get your film?’ The canisters were big enough to have belonged to Goebbels himself.

Merde ! The Gestapo! They were all the same. ‘I buy it on the black market.’

‘Like hell you do. Paris is too far. You’d need an ausweis – a goddamned laisser-passer – six times a week.’

‘One of the soldiers gets it for me.’ That was closer to the truth. ‘He takes things into the city and he brings things back.’ That was better. ‘The Feldwebel takes a cut.’ The Staff Sergeant … Better still. ‘As does the Lieutenant but you mustn’t …’

Again he exhaled. ‘I won’t. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it in the bank. Now come on. We’ve a different kind of body for you to work with.’

The frost had all but gone from the rims of the bicycle but still clung to the spokes. The blood on the stone had absorbed the sun’s earliest rays but had failed to run. A curious thing.

St-Cyr stood over the corpse, talking to it as was his custom when in private. He no longer asked the routine stuff – Who are you? Where were you heading? Why did she kill you? – he’d been through all that.

Instead, he asked, Why me? Why here? Why now?

There was something, call it what you will, but the corpse of this boy made him feel uneasy.

No matter how hard he tried, this feeling wouldn’t leave him. He had the frightened photographer take shots from several angles, including two of the place where the purse had been found and one of Kohler’s spoor, just for the record.

When the Bavarian insisted that the two of them be captured on film, he knew he couldn’t object. Chummy photographs with the Gestapo were too dangerous, but a sort of counter-blackmail-insurance for that shot of the spoor with its handkerchief.

Damning evidence he’d rather not have around. ‘It’s bad enough having to work with them, eh?’ he said to the photographer. ‘You send me the negatives and I’ll see that you get paid. No extra prints, you understand?’

The Gestapo pouch at the Kommandantur would be used.

‘He won’t say anything, will he?’ asked Herme Thibault.

St-Cyr was solicitous. ‘Him? Not a whisper. Hey, it’s simple with them, my friend. You give them what they want and they go to sleep.’

Like dragons in their dens.

The boys in blue came with their black gasogene van and the corpse was wrapped up. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ asked Kohler as they started off to overtake the van. ‘Laying that stiff on ice in Paris makes more of him than he deserves.’

St-Cyr stared out the window. They’d begin to accelerate about now. Yes … yes, here it comes … ‘Why won’t you let me see the contents of that purse, Hermann?’

The Bavarian rapped the horn and pushed the accelerator to the floor. Gravel beat the fenders. ‘Because I can’t, my friend. Look, I’m sorry, eh? It’s just the way things are. Let’s put him in a pauper’s grave and forget it.’

‘An accident?’

‘Yes, an accident.’

‘But it’s gone a little too far for that, hasn’t it? From Kommandant to Kommandant, I think. Questions, Hermann. Answers will be needed. Von Schaumburg’s no fool.’

‘Von Schaumburg’s an ass! The purse has nothing to do with him.’

‘Then with whom does it have an association?’

Kohler lifted a tired hand to signal thanks to the boys in blue as the car shot down the road. ‘I’m not sure, Louis. I want a little time to think it over. For now, the matter’s private.’

‘So, I’ll catch a bit of sleep then, if you don’t mind, Inspector.’

‘Don’t get in a huff. You know there are things I can’t tell you.’

St-Cyr pulled the fedora down over his eyes but couldn’t resist a sigh and then, ‘Just don’t expect me not to find out.’

Photographs with the Gestapo, silk purses and bodies on ice, where would it all end?

‘I don’t like it, Hermann. No, me, I can honestly say I don’t.’

‘Then that makes two of us.’

Idly St-Cyr wondered what racket the photographer had been involved in. ‘Dirty pictures of his wife,’ snorted Kohler. ‘Now catch a few winks while you can.’