Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'This whole area is full of caves and grottoes,' he said and pointed at an outcrop of rock that hung above our heads like a thick grey cloud.

We caught a glimpse of Frau Kemmerich disappearing into the rock. After a minute or two Bomelburg said, 'Perhaps you would be good enough to go and inform Frau Bernadette that we shall be leaving in five minutes.'

Instinctively I glanced at my watch. 'Yes, Herr Major.'

I walked up the slope to fetch her, calling her name out loud in case she was answering a call of nature.

'Yes?'

I found her sitting on a rock in a leaf-lined grotto, smoking a cigarette.

'Isn't it lovely here?' she said, pointing over my head.

I turned to admire the view of the Pyrenees that she was enjoying.

'Yes it is.'

'Sorry if I was a bitch back there,' she said. 'You've no idea how bad the last nine months have been. My husband and I were in Dijon when war was declared. He's a wine merchant. They arrested us almost immediately.'

'Forget it,' I said. 'What happened back there. You were justifiably upset. And the camp did look bloody awful.' I nodded down the slope. 'Come on, we'd better go back. There's still a long way to go before we get to Toulouse.'

She stood up. 'How long will it take to get there?'

I was about to answer her when I heard two or three loud bursts of machine-gun fire, none of them longer than a couple of seconds; but then it takes only five seconds to empty an MP40's thirty-two-round magazine. The sound and smell of it were still hanging in the air by the time I had sprinted down the slope into the clearing. Two storm troopers were standing a couple of metres apart, their jackboots surrounded with spent ammunition that looked like so many coins tossed to a couple of buskers. As well-trained soldiers they were already changing the toy-like magazines on their machine pistols and looking just a little surprised at their murderous efficiency. That's the thing about a gun: it always looks like a toy until it starts killing people.

A little further away lay the bodies of the eight prisoners we had brought from Gurs.

'What the Hell happened here?' I shouted, but I knew the answer already.

'They tried to make a run for it,' said Bomelburg.

I went forward to inspect the bodies.

'All of them?' I said. 'In a straight line?'

One of the shot men groaned. He lay on the forest floor, his knees collapsed under him, his torso lying back on his feet in an almost impossible position like some old Indian fakir. But there was nothing to be done for him. His head and chest were covered in blood.

Angrily I walked towards Bomelburg. 'They would have run away in several directions,' I said. 'Not all of them down the same slope.'

A pistol shot bored another hole through the still air of the forest and the groaning man's head. I turned on my boot heel to see Kestner holstering his Walther P38. Seeing my expression Kestner shrugged and said:

'Best to finish him, I think.'

'Back at the Alex, we'd have called that murder,' I said.

'Well, we're not back at the Alex, are we, Captain?' said Bomelburg. 'Look here, Gunther, are you calling me a liar? Those men were shot while trying to escape, do you hear?'

There was a lot I could have said, but the only thing that was true was the fact that I had no business being there. It wasn't just the bodies of fallen heroes that the Valkyries carried up to Valhalla, but also those of Berlin chief inspectors who criticised their senior officers in remote French forests. After I remembered that, there seemed little point in saying anything; but there was still plenty I could do.

For his face and my neck I even offered an apology to Bomelburg when the toe of my boot would have seemed more appropriate. In my own defence I should also add that the two MP40 machine pistols were now reloaded and ready for lethal business.

We left the bodies where they lay and took our places in the buckets, only this time it was Kestner and not Oltramare who sat with me and Frau Kemmerich. Kestner could see I was upset about what had happened, and after my earlier remarks about his membership of the KPD he was in the mood to press home what he now perceived to be some kind of advantage over me.

'What's the matter? Can't bear the sight of blood? And I thought you were a tough guy, Gunther.'

'Let me tell you something, Paul. Although it's none of your business. I've killed people before. In the war. After that I thought the whole world had learned a lesson, but it hasn't. If I have to kill someone again I'm going to make sure I make a good start by killing someone I want to kill. Someone who needs killing. So keep chirruping in my ear and see what happens, comrade. You're not the only man in this bucket who can put a bullet in the back of another man's head.'

He was quiet after that.

The evening turned to dusk. I kept my eyes on the trees above the road, and if I stayed silent it was because the noise inside my head was indescribable. I suppose it was the echo of those machine pistols. I would hardly have been surprised to find the ghosts of the men we had slain sitting in the buckets beside us. Silent and motionless, withdrawn into my own ego, I waited for the nightmare that was our journey to end.

Toulouse was called the rose city. Almost all the buildings in the centre of town, including our hotel, Le Grand Balcon, were pink, as if we had been looking through the chief inspector's rose-coloured spectacles. I decided to adopt this as a persona to help me achieve what I now needed to achieve. And my breathing was easier now, which also helped. So the following morning at breakfast, I greeted Major Bomelburg and the two French policemen warmly. I was even courteous to Paul Kestner.

'My apologies for yesterday,' I said generally. 'But before I left Paris the doctor at the hospital gave me something to help me carry out my duties. And he warned me that after it wore off I might behave in a peculiar way. Perhaps I shouldn't have come at all, but as you can probably imagine I was rather anxious to carry out the mission given to me by General Heydrich, at almost any cost to myself.'

Bomelburg was looking rather more thin and grey than the day before. Kestner might have spent the whole night polishing his bald head, so shiny did it seem. Oltramare said something in French to the commissioner, who put on his pince-nez and regarded me with indifference before nodding his apparent approval.

'The commissioner says you look much better,' said Oltramare. 'And I must say, I agree.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Bomelburg. 'Much better. Yesterday can't have been easy for you, Gunther. All that travelling when you were clearly not yourself. It's commendable that you wanted to come at all, under the circumstances. I shall certainly say so to Colonel Knochen when I make my report in Paris. What with the good news I just had from Commissioner Matignon, this is turning out to be a very good day. Don't you agree, Kestner?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What good news is that?' I asked, smiling with Toulousecoloured optimism.

'Why, that we've got the Jew who assassinated vom Rath,' said Bomelburg. 'Grynszpan.' He chuckled. 'Apparently he knocked on the door of the prison here in Toulouse and asked to be let in.'

Oltramare was laughing, too. He said, 'Apparently he speaks very little French, had no money and thought that we might be able to protect him against you fellows.'

'The stupid Kike,' muttered Kestner. 'I'm on my way to the prison now. With the commissioner and Monsieur Savigny. To organise Grynszpan's extradition back to Paris and then Berlin.'

'The Fuhrer wants a trial, apparently,' said Bomelburg. 'At all costs there must be a trial.'

'In Berlin?' I tried not to sound surprised.

'Why not in Berlin?' said Bomelburg.

'It's just that the murder took place in Paris,' I said. 'And it was my understanding that Grynszpan's not even a German citizen. He's a Pole, isn't he?' I smiled. 'I'm sorry, sir, but sometimes it's hard for me to stop being a cop and thinking about little things like jurisdiction.'