Clandestine by J. Robert Janes Read Free Book Online Page A

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.’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜That we won’t know for a while, but why the attempt to destroy it and the pocket contents of the others?’
    â€˜Evidence someone didn’t want hanging around, not after the killings.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜But was she originally in the truck hitching a ride and then in the van?’
    Merde , must Louis look beyond everything? ‘If so, that gazogène could never have kept up with it.’
    â€˜ Ah bon, précisément , 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.
    â€˜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 Sûreté 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.’
    â€˜Hermann, please , these are difficult times. Garde champêtre Rocheleau, like far too many others, had his wages frozen in the autumn of 1940. The wife, Eugène?’
    Was further humiliation now to be demanded? ‘My Évangéline 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 maréchal has banned.’
    â€˜ Ah oui, oui, mais …’
    â€˜But dances are held each week near Corbeny, are they, in someone’s barn or forest clearing?’
    â€˜Hermann …’
    â€˜Louis, I can’t believe it. A thief, and now a rural cop who allows dancing. Gestapo Boemelburg will be demanding the maximum.’
    â€˜Hermann, surely you know, as I do, that were garde champêtre 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. Eugène, 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