‘We’d only choke, but it does tell us our firebox operator’s been around. There are also Lucky Strikes and Camels from downed American aircrew, and Woodbines and Wills Goldflake from RAF aircrew. Dropped, probably, by Wehrmacht and picked up in bars frequented by those same boys.’
‘We’ll have to ask him.’
‘If we ever find him, and we had better. Rocheleau’s a problem, Louis. When a coroner even hints at something, we’d better listen.’
‘He’ll still have to pay the penalty, Hermann. We can’t have him stealing evidence that is badly needed.’
‘Maybe a warning. At least let’s listen to him when he comes back.’
‘Rocheleau will only lie and accuse us of having stolen things if confronted by that Kriminalrat colleague of yours from Hamburg.’
‘Back off! His silence, even for a few days, might just give us the time we need. The bigger the issue, the lesser the other.’
It was an old argument, but perhaps the importance of something else should be emphasized. ‘Although from 1910, your megot shy; tin is almost as if brand-new.’
‘Bought from among the fleas of Saint-Ouen?’
‘Hopefully it will lead us to the seller who can then lead us to the buyer.’
‘There were also the keys to the van, and these.’
Coins and the charred corners of ID photos.
‘And this.’
Singed at its edges, scorched on the underside, the poultice held a sachet between the two layers of cloth. ‘Laid against a ragged tear in the skin, Hermann. Cloves, thyme too, and lavender, camomile as well probably. A temporary attempt until medical assistance, since a good deal of pus was leaking and the wound must have been badly inflamed. The cloves would have been for the pain, the thyme for its antibacterial, the camomile to readily soothe the inflamation and the lavender to offer both its stimulation and calming due to such a pleasant aroma.’
‘You should have been a herbalist monk.’
Since they were in a place where there would have been successions of them. ‘The sachet is first plunged into boiling water and then applied as hot as can be withstood.’
‘But not made up here, Louis. It couldn’t have been, not when in such a hurry, but did they bring her back to that truck and take her with them?’
‘That we won’t know for a while, but why the attempt to destroy it and the pocket contents of the others?’
‘Evidence someone didn’t want hanging around, not after the killings.’
‘And who was that someone, Hermann, since those items must have been seized and flung into the firebox?’
Trust Louis to always look beyond the obvious. ‘A boss who wasn’t happy and in one hell of a hurry, hence a forgetful firebox handler, but a killer who should never have taken what he did.’
‘But was she originally in the truck hitching a ride and then in the van?’
Merde, must Louis look beyond everything? ‘If so, that gazogene could never have kept up with it.’
‘Ah bon, precisement, since it had a gasoline-driven engine which would have put them at least an hour or more ahead of that truck.’
Scheisse! ‘Which was heavily loaded, and since they damn well couldn’t have known where that van would be taking her, did they happen to see it from the road to Laon, eh, since we went through a woods to get here?’
Apparently the small things did matter. ‘But why is she so important Berlin are interested, Hermann, or is she the reason at all?’
Some questions simply didn’t have ready answers.
‘Ah, Rocheleau, these shoes,’ said Louis. ‘Come up, squeeze in and point out exactly where and how you found them. They may be important.’
This Surete was going to have him dismissed, thought Rocheleau. Lackey to his Gestapo partner, he had even spread the rest of the satchel’s contents at that one’s feet. ‘The wife,’ he heard himself blurt. ‘Inspectors, you must …’
Already there were tears behind those Bakelite windows, thought Kohler, but the salaud would only blame Louis unless his partner took charge. ‘Might I remind you that it’s Chief Inspector St-Cyr and Herr Detektivinspektor Kohler of the Kriminalpolizei i.e., the Geheime Staatspolizei.’
‘Hermann, please, these are difficult times. Garde champetre Rocheleau, like far too many others, had his wages frozen in the autumn of 1940. The wife, Eugene?’
Was further humiliation now to be demanded? ‘My Evangeline loves to dance and those, they are of her size or almost.’
Kohler couldn’t resist. ‘Isn’t dancing considered an affront to those million-and-a-half of your boys in our prisoner-of-war camps and the others that have been buried? Dancing is in the Third Reich, as is kissing in public, and exactly the same as your marechal has banned.’
‘Ah oui, oui, mais …’
‘But dances are held each week near Corbeny, are they, in someone’s barn or forest clearing?’
‘Hermann …’
‘Louis, I can’t believe it. A thief, and now a rural cop who allows dancing. Gestapo Boemelburg will be demanding the maximum.’
‘Hermann, surely you know, as I do, that were garde champetre Rocheleau to have arrested those involved, he would not only have been hated by everyone in his district, those who had information would be reticent to impart it. Eugene, please point out for us exactly where and how these shoes were found.’
Ten or even twenty years of hard labour, wondered Rocheleau. Is that what this Gestapo would demand? Squeezing past the boxes, the litter and all the rest, he laid the shoes on the rubber mat that was also under Herr Kohler’s. ‘She must have been sitting in this chair and quickly pried them off when the van came to a stop and she realized what those two were going to do. She then leaped between them when the door was unlocked and opened.’
‘Liebe Zeit, Louis, we’ve got ourselves a detective.’
‘Hermann, we could perhaps be missing something. Let’s make allowances and overlook the indiscretions, but was there anything else, Eugene? A suitcase perhaps?’
‘A handkerchief. This one. She tried to hide it under the mat. Me, I noticed a corner.’
Smudged, trod on yet bone dry, it had obviously been given up regrettably, and when smoothed out, revealed an embroidery of tulips, daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths. ‘Perfect, Hermann. Done at the age of ten. Silk thread from the colonies. Java perhaps, but prior to this war since it’s now under the Japanese.’
There was also a name, an Anna-Marie Vermeulen, but he wouldn’t remind Rocheleau of it, felt St-Cyr.
‘And yet he would have kept that knowledge from us to satisfy the urges of his wife, Louis?’
‘Hermann, again I must insist these times, they are …’
‘Not the best, eh? Then maybe I should ask him why he attempted to steal not just one of those bundles of one hundred of the 5,000-franc notes, but five of them for a total of 2.5 million? Obviously he’s got someone he wants to impress but had better be careful when spending it, or was he going to stuff them all into a glass jar like most of your peasants? A man with a 2.5 million-franc jar, eh, and not just a 200-franc one or even a 1,000? Ten tins of sardines as well, two coils of smoked sausage, six half-kilos of the coffee that Evangeline of his must have a longing for like the rest of us. Two handfuls of the truffles for the omelettes those eggs would have made had he taken any. Not one but two rounds of the Brie de Meaux. Eight weeks in the curing, isn’t that right, my fine one? Me, I did sample it but only to be certain it wasn’t fake like so many that are flogged on the marche noir you French insist on having even though it’s illegal. Detectives have to do things like that and you’d better not forget it.’
Such a storm probably wouldn’t help but it had been good of Hermann not to mention the missing bottles of wine. ‘Eugene, please return to your fire. Brew up some more of the tea. Coroner Joliot and the men who are with him will welcome it, as will we.’