Mayhem

Mayhem

A
MysteriousPress.com

Open Road Integrated Media ebook

Author's Note

Mayhem
is a work of fiction. Though I have used actual places and times, I have treated these as I saw fit, changing some as appropriate. Occasionally the name of a real person is also used for historical authenticity, but all are deceased and I have made of them what the story demands. I do not condone what happened during these times. Indeed, I abhor it. But during the Occupation of France the everyday crimes of murder and arson continued to be committed, and I merely ask, By whom and how were they solved?

Nothing is right, but that it seems right
.

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To Ed Hill for all his kindness and constant encouragement

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At a place where the road pitched down through the gorges, the land sloped steadily upwards to the barren branches of the trees.

The fog was everywhere, hugging the road, putting frost on the tall, sear grasses, riming the stones and the spokes of the bicycle. Drenching the body.

Jean-Louis St-Cyr slid his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and waited. At dawn, Fontainebleau Forest gave itself entirely over to the birds, those that had not had the great good fortune to have migrated.

It was eerie and it was silent. It was cold, damp and a lot of other things. Kohler's breath steamed impatiently and once in each breath, the Bavarian's nasal passages would pinch and whistle with barely controlled fury.

A giant of a man with the heart and mind of a small-time hustler, the Gestapo agent stood knee-deep in bracken, looking down at the body. Was he thinking of the Russian Front, of his sons, of death, or merely of his shoes that might, quite possibly, be leaking? Sometimes one never really knew with Hermann – oh for sure, one could guess, but Hermann … He'd been a Munich detective before his transfer to Berlin, before his ascendancy to Paris. A good one too. Probably.

The Bavarian nudged the corpse with the toe of his right shoe but didn't look up. ‘So, what about it, Louis?'

The accent was harsh, guttural, the French quite passable because Hermann, being Hermann and stubborn, had seen to it that he spoke the language. One found out so much more that way. It facilitated things – all things. Gestapo things. Especially girls.

St-Cyr chose not to answer immediately. A last leaf fell through the hush to crash into some boulders with its load of frost and scrape its way to patient rest.

Hermann took no interest in the leaf, in the beauty of its death, the curled edges, the ring of encrusting frost, not even the fact that the leaf was from a plane tree and that such trees were a rarity in this part of the Fontainebleau Forest.

Always it was blitzkrieg, blitzkrieg. December 1942, the Occupation. Now the whole of France, as of last month.

‘We shall have to see, won't we?' he said at last.

Accustomed to such delays, the Bavarian sucked on a tooth and snorted, ‘It's one less Frenchman for us to worry about.'

Must he be so blatant? ‘We've no evidence he was involved with the Resistance, Inspector. Perhaps …'

‘Perhaps
what
?
Mein Gott
, you French. A lonely road like this, death in the small hours? Pedalling like hell to avoid the patrols? He hit a patch of ice and went off the road.' Kohler smashed a meaty fist into a palm. ‘That boulder settled him, Louis. That one. That one right there!' He pointed fiercely.

Blood was frozen to the rock that had killed the boy. Blood and dark brown hairs. ‘I admit that it appears as you've suggested, Inspector, but the bicycle, my friend, it's undamaged.'

So it was. Irritably Kohler dragged out a cigarette and began thumbing a lighter that just wouldn't co-operate. ‘Please, allow me, Hermann.'

‘
Ja, ja
, of course. That lousy bed last night, I didn't sleep a wink. So, what do you really make of it?'

St-Cyr found his pipe and began the ritual of packing it. Inwardly Kohler threw up his hands in despair. Sometimes Louis took for ever! As at meals, especially lunch. Two hours if he could get them. Two!

Not a shred of tobacco was lost. Hard up on the rations again. So, that made them equal.

Tobacco was the great leveller these days. It brought out the worst in people, bought friends, information, pretty girls.

Several minutes passed in which neither of them moved from where they'd been standing. Hermann was the taller – bigger in every way. At fifty-five years of age he understood only too well the vagaries of life. He'd cock an eye at something new but beyond that, no surprise, only a stolid acceptance of human frailties. He frowned at his superiors, remaining remote from them. The bulldog jowls, sad, puffy eyelids that bagged and drooped to well-rasped cheeks and shrapnel scars, served only to emphasize the hidden thoughts behind the faded blue and often expressionless eyes. The nose was pugnacious, the lower jaw that of a storm-trooper. Hermann had come up through the ranks, but then, so had he. They were like two streams flowing around their little island of the war to commingle and proceed as one because they had to. That was the way of things these days. One couldn't choose. The Occupation saw to that.

‘It's my birthday,' managed St-Cyr, sucking on the fire. ‘At seventeen minutes past the hour of 3 a.m. on 3rd December 1890,' he waved the pipe, ‘my mother had me in the back of a carriage on the boulevard St Michel. No doubt in exactly the same place my father first had her. They were heading for the Hospital du Val Grâce and he ran over a cat. Naturally, he stopped to see if the creature could be saved, but then …'

He gave the Frenchman's fluting look and gestured to the heavens before cramming the pipe-stem back between his teeth.

Mais alors
…
alors
… always it was, but then … then, as if some hidden whim of the Almighty had chosen to break the clouds with a fart! ‘I thought all your women had their brats at home?'

‘As now,' went on St-Cyr, agreeably ignoring the racial slur. ‘But father … You had to know him to understand, Inspector. A lover of nature.' He indicated the forest and then the fields that lay below them in the distance, but neglected to elaborate on the fact that the time of birth and that of the death could almost have been the same.

The furnace was going well. At fifty-two years of age, Louis was inclined to be plump, to let the dust settle on things, but to be very careful when blowing it off.

Somewhat shabby, somewhat diffident, he had the broad, bland brow, the brown ox-eyes of the French, a moustache that was thicker and wider than the Führer's and grown long before the war and thus left in defiance of it. The distant air of a muse, the heart of a poet and the hands of a … what? stormed Kohler. A fisherman, a gardener, a reader of books in winter. A chief inspector of the Sûreté Nationale, the Criminal Investigation Branch at number 11 rue de Saussaies.

St-Cyr had been all but alone in the building the day the Wehrmacht had marched into Paris and the Gestapo, the SD and the Abwehr into the Sûreté. Kohler knew Louis had been caught in the act of destroying several confidential files.

The dark brown hair was thick and brushed to the right with a careless, indifferent hand. The bushy eyebrows arched. Both men returned their gaze to the victim who lay on his stomach in the grass, arms at his sides, the hands turned outwards as a ballet dancer might if stung by a bee.

‘I'll admit he could have been struck on the forehead,' grumbled Kohler dispassionately.

‘Then positioned so as to make it look like an accident – although the murderer should not have placed the arms and hands like that,' said St-Cyr, mainly giving back what they both thought.

‘Or turned the head so that it rested on a cushion of leaves.'

‘A woman?' asked St-Cyr, tossing the question out at random.

‘Another of your “crimes of passion”, Inspector?' snorted Kohler. The French … They'd kill each other over the silliest things. ‘Looks about twenty or so. An escaper?' he asked.

St-Cyr shrugged. ‘If so, then why kill him?'

‘Why not?' demanded the Bavarian with a snort. ‘He'd only have been someone's trouble.'

‘Ah yes, of course,' replied St-Cyr acidly. ‘The decree of this past July regarding acts of sabotage including the aiding of escaped prisoners of war, downed British or American airmen and those running from the labour gangs. Yes, it could well be because of someone's trouble but then, why here, why a meeting in the dead of night – why the cry from the darkness, the beam of a torch perhaps, Hermann? No, my friend, this one wasn't an escaper.' St-Cyr crouched but still didn't touch the body. ‘The clothing's too good.'

Kohler acknowledged that it was: grey flannel trousers, a newish brown leather, three-quarter length coat, black beret, grey scarf and black gloves. ‘He's not from one of your seminaries, is he?' The youth of France had taken to the priesthood in droves rather than be called up. Cowards, the French. Cowards!

‘That is something we must check. There are several possibilities in the area. Anything else, Inspector?'

Damn him! St-Cyr could use the title ‘Inspector' like a knife! ‘Was he a collaborator or involved in the black market, Louis?'

‘Or had he jilted his lover?'

‘A nobody then,' muttered Kohler. ‘I'm going for a crap in the woods. I'll take a look around up there.'

‘Good thinking, Hermann. The grass, eh? It's been beaten down.'

One footprint appeared up on the crest of the slope, next to the edge of the forest. ‘I knew you'd notice that,' replied Kohler lamely.

‘There's a footprint in the mud on that bank. See what you make of it.'

A small sacrifice to Germanic thoroughness. Unleashed – baited properly – Hermann would now begin to work. St-Cyr ran his eyes over the victim. Height, 155 centimetres; weight, 68 kilos; hair, dark brown; eyes, dark brown.

The boy had walked right into it. He hadn't suspected a thing. But had he known the murderer? He'd have come over the crest of the hill on his bicycle and would have started down. Then for some reason he had stopped, walked into the grass and had set the bicycle down before taking those last few steps.

The pockets were empty – not a shred of ID. St-Cyr let out a curse. Tracing people was always trouble. These days identity cards and ration cards were in such demand.

‘We're going to have to have a photographer,' he called out to the forest above.

‘I could have told you so,' came the reply, dark in the woods beyond the top of the slope.

Squatting probably. ‘There's one in Barbizon just along from the Kommandantur. Does weddings and picnics.'

‘I'll go in a minute. She dropped her purse.'

The bushy eyebrows lifted questioningly. The victim came into view again. ‘Her name?' sang out St-Cyr.

‘None whatsoever, my friend. Just the empty purse.'

Had it been left deliberately?

St-Cyr turned the body over. Apart from the mess of the forehead, the wide-open eyes and the clothing, the boy looked at peace and hid his identity well. No rings, no sacred medallions or cross on its chain – not even a fountain pen. Just nothing.

Kohler came back and handed him the purse. ‘Beaded silk – something a woman would take to a dinner party.'

The Frenchman used the forefinger and thumb of his right hand to hold the purse gingerly. He examined it with the eye of a born connoisseur before bringing it up to his nose for a whiff of the forgotten perfume all such purses were bound to contain.

‘Is he Jewish?' asked Kohler, hitting all the possibilities and taking back the purse.

‘Want me to have a look?' taunted St-Cyr, ‘or can we leave it until he's on ice?'

‘Who says we're carting him off to Paris?'

The purse, Inspector. You're forgetting the purse. That's not something from around here.'

‘Perhaps he stole it?'

‘Perhaps, but if so, why was it emptied and left for us to find?' This would often happen in the case of a robbery, of course, but …

The Bavarian hunched his shoulders. ‘I'll go and get the photographer.'

‘Better ring the boys in blue while you're there. Paris, Hermann. Take my advice. This one wants to go to the morgue.'

Kohler nodded grimly. St-Cyr watched as the Bavarian drove off in what had once been his car, that great big beautiful black Citroën.

Then he went back to work. The purse could, of course, not have been empty at all but merely dropped in haste.

Hermann always kept a few things to himself.

The woman – for it was the print of a woman's low-heeled shoe – must have been fairly young and agile. After the killing, she had climbed a nearly vertical bank of some three metres by grasping branches and the stems of young trees. At one place, she'd pulled out a birch sapling.