by J. R. Lonie
On the drive back to his office at the Hôtel Bradford on Rue Phillipe du Roule, he had his driver stop for a little while in the Bois de Boulougne, to clear his head and lighten his sour mood.
Bauer was fifty-one, average height, with thinning grey hair and a face you could see in one of those seventeenth-century Dutch paintings of peasants at a country fair. He had big peasant’s hands with thick, clumsy-looking fingers. Too old for this war, he had served on the Eastern Front during the last. He knew what war was like. Every single day since this one erupted was another day off his own life because of his worries for his two sons on active service. He’d volunteered when the GFP was set up in 1939, not because he was sick of the Nazis intruding on even the most mundane detective work in Frankfurt, although he most decidedly was. It was because, inside the army, he could keep an eye on his kids through the army’s First World War old-boys’ network. This was how he knew his nineteen-year-old, Karl, was alive and well in a Panzer brigade outside Tobruk with the brilliant Rommel, and that the other, twenty-four-year-old Georg, an infantry lieutenant in Army Group Centre, had reached the gates of Moscow.
Though the German public knew nothing of it, he was also aware that a week or so before, the Soviets had launched a savage counterattack on the Moscow front that had taken General Guderian by surprise. Hardly a coincidence, it came at precisely the same moment as the arrival of the equally savage Russian winter, to which both sides gave the honorary rank of general. Having served on the Eastern Front himself in the last war, he understood all too well about Russia’s ‘General Winter’. At least Georg was alive and unwounded. As for himself, what could he do except make sure his wife sent the boy the warm clothes the army hadn’t provided, and extra food to both Karl and Georg, as well as the Pervitin all German soldiers were using to stay awake. Each week, he sent encouraging messages and letters, mostly about his cases or funny stories about the ways of the French. Silly old papa, they probably thought. Still, he was sure they appreciated knowing he was always thinking of them.
Lost in his reverie, Bauer was startled by the sudden bark from the car’s wireless. His office. Urgent.
ALLIER RIVER, DOWNSTREAM, BURGUNDY, GERMAN-OCCUPIED FRANCE
Around 9.30am, Wednesday, 10th December 1941
The body was discovered west of Nevers on the river’s bank, not far from its junction with the Loire. The river’s flow, before the winter rains and snows, was just a trickle.
‘Who found it?’ asked Bauer, who had left Paris not long after returning to his office from the execution. He’d grabbed this case with both hands. It got him out into the field again. There was also the advantage of access to French country food, which he would send home to his wife and to his two boys, and which was a steal at the compulsory exchange rate.
The Wehrmacht major who had collected him from Nevers indicated an elderly fisherman standing nearby who was smoking nervously. He had informed the local gendarmes but now wished he hadn’t. He’d figured it was some poor unfortunate trying to cross the demarcation line. How was he to know he’d found a Boche soldier? ‘They’re all in it,’ said the major in disgust, ‘making money helping the Jews. You can’t trust any of them.’
‘He did tell us, major,’ Bauer, whose nominal army rank was captain, reminded his superior officer. He loosened his heavy tweed coat so he could examine the body. Yet another boy. He could tell at a glance roughly how long the kid had been in the water, how long it had been since he was killed. And the most likely murder weapon.
‘The kid put up a struggle,’ he said, pointing to the bruising on the boy’s face and the cuts on his hands where he had tried to stop the knife. The boy’s tunic was still stained with blood, despite having been in the water. Bauer undid the buttons and saw three knife wounds in the chest and then, on further investigation, another in the kid’s stomach, probably the first wound, from which he’d lost a lot of blood. He checked the boy’s pockets. Money and cigarettes gone; he could see faint nicotine stains still on the fingers of the right hand. The boy’s wounds had him wondering about the murder weapon, because their size and shape – clean cut at the bottom, a tear at the top – indicated a knife of similar size and shape to a Wehrmacht combat knife. Could have been the French army’s version. They were everywhere since the French defeat. He checked the dead boy’s knife. It was still in its sheath on his belt.
‘You have the dog squad in action?’ he asked. The answer was affirmative. Not ten minutes later, the major was radioed that the second body had been found and a possible crime site.
‘Good old dogs,’ said Bauer with genuine affection. ‘Ours or the froggies’?’ he asked.
‘Ours, of course,’ the major replied, as if this had to be obvious. ‘Wait for any help from them, we’ll be here until kingdom come.’ The army was furious, the local commander in particular. He was threatening to have one hostage shot each day unless the killers were turned in, starting with the foreign Jews.
‘You can shoot all the hostages you want, major,’ said Bauer, ‘but until proven otherwise’ – which was his modus operandi – ‘whoever did this is well over the line and headed for Spain without a backward glance.’
‘We have to discourage this sort of thing,’ the major replied.
True enough, Bauer thought, but shooting hostages would only poke a stick into a hornet’s nest; and as a Catholic, even a bad one, he didn’t like punishing the innocent. Even in wartime.
The second body had been found upstream a few kilometres, caught on the bottom of the river, the boy’s booted foot wedged between rocks. When Bauer arrived, it had been brought to shore. ‘Another kid,’ he muttered to himself. Stabbed in the back. He didn’t like that at all. A coward’s strike. He looked at the wound. Same knife as the other. Coward the killer might be, but he knew where and how to stick in a knife.
He checked the boy’s pockets. Money and cigarettes gone. His combat knife was also gone. Why would you risk being found with one? Or was that now two?
A call came from the boat searching the river. A carbine had been found. Moments later, the other carbine. No helmets. They could be floating downstream anywhere between here and the Bay of Biscay.
‘This boy’s knife’s missing,’ he called out to the searchers. He doubted they’d find it but had to make sure.
Bauer went over to a stone fence that ended at the riverbank, where the dogs had tracked the last movements of the two soldiers. Their lumbering handlers had tramped around the spot and the dogs had not been able to find any other scent trails. The rain during the night had not helped. By the water’s edge was a small branch recently broken off. This, he figured, the killer or killers used to cover up any tracks. You could see the marks across the muddy soil. He easily found the tree where the branch had come from, right by the stone fence.
He didn’t need the dogs to tell him this was where the murders had happened – for murders they were – and that whoever committed them was no fool. Then he saw, at the bottom of the fence, a fresh chip in the sandstone where something, the sole of a boot most probably, had hit against it, evidence of the fight. It was a German boot most likely, from the hobnail on the sole. Whoever did it had crossed the river here on foot; it was shallow enough. On the other side was freedom. It would be an illusory freedom if he had anything to do with it.
These two soldiers could have been his own two boys. Putting the killers before a firing squad, no matter how young they might be, would not only be his duty but a grim pleasure.
He saw a soggy cigarette on the ground. He looked closely. Unlit. He took out his magnifying glass.
‘Chesterfield,’ he said. ‘American.’ Does that muddy the waters? he wondered. Black marketeers still got hold of American cigarettes. Would a black marketeer try to light a cigarette when he was trying not to be seen by us? Bauer would think on this.
He removed a cellophane packet from his deep pockets and tweezered the prize in, handing it for safekeeping to his young one-armed assistant.
> Originally from the Berlin police, Gunther Kopitcke had lost his left arm in a training accident in the army. Now a sergeant in the army’s field police, he was as close as he would get to any action, much to his regret. To compensate, he behaved as if he were on the front line, always ready with a ‘Jawohl, Herr Kommissar’ and a heel-clicking salute.
‘No need for all that,’ Bauer would say. Kopitcke felt he had to look like he was doing his bit as well as doing it. Which is why he chose to wear the Wehrmacht uniform, optional in the field police. Experience had taught Bauer that a uniform was a barrier in his line of work. It put people on edge. Mind you, these days, the Gestapo was turning that argument on its head, what with their big fedoras and heavy leather coats. He thought they looked ridiculous, like extras on a film set.
‘I’m going across,’ he declared to the major. ‘Call the boat in. Come along, Kopitcke.’
‘You’ll have to inform the French first,’ said the major with distaste. Bauer said he’d do just that and not to worry about the protocols, they didn’t have any time to waste. His French, courtesy of his maternal grandparents and mother, who were Alsatian, was fluent, the reason he’d been sent to Paris.
The boat arrived.
‘What have we got so far?’ he asked as they were rowed across the river. Kopitcke knew not to answer. ‘We have the locals who know the lie of the land,’ Bauer began his surmising, ‘who probably know how and when our patrols operate.’
He saw this bothered Kopitcke, who would demand the spies be caught and shot. Bauer told him to calm down; this was France, after all, not Germany. They were the occupiers, the fish swimming in a French sea. It was impossible to operate in any significant way without being watched all the time.
‘Where was I?’ he continued. ‘Yes, that’s right, the French who are running these escape lines. They’re mostly doing it for the money but also to get up our noses for defeating them. Half the escapees are Jews who are a soft touch. But they’re careful, Kopitcke, they’re not going to run into one of our patrols if they can help it. They see any of our boys, what are they going to do? They’re going to lie low. What’s the point of being banged up by us or worse for the sake of a few francs and a few Jews? And if on the rare occasion they do run into a patrol, they’ll cut and run, leaving the yids and whoever else to their fate. Makes me think it wasn’t one of them smoking that American cigarette.’
‘You’re saying, Herr Kommissar, it’s not the passeurs themselves who killed our soldiers, but escapees?’ Kopitcke said, feeling he was now allowed to say something, as long as it was the right something and said as a question.
‘Precisely.’
‘Herr Kommissar,’ Kopitcke returned as politely as he was able, ‘surely Jews could not have killed our men?’
‘If they’re Jews. Why not?’ Bauer said.
‘Our men are well-trained soldiers,’ Kopitcke said. ‘Jews don’t have it in them to fight. They try to destroy us by insidious infiltration, pretending to be like us, and that’s how they take us over, not by confronting us physically. They don’t have the physical strength or the physical will.’
Bauer sighed. ‘If you’re French and you’re crossing back and forth, smuggling or just visiting a girl, you don’t go out of your way to kill a couple of German soldiers unless you’re a red or you’ve been ambushed. They know the Wehrmacht will take French hostages, they’re not stupid. One of our boys was stabbed in the back. You do that because you have to. Say you’ve been captured by one of our boys. What’s the only quick and effective way to get yourself out of that hole?’ Bauer made a sudden stabbing motion. ‘Escapees are our suspects, until proven otherwise – a minimum of two.’
Kopitcke nodded and said, ‘Yes, Herr Kommissar,’ because when the Herr Kommissar outlined it like this, well, it was so obvious.
‘Don’t think all yids are soft-skinned patsies,’ said Bauer. ‘I’ve met some tough yids in my time, don’t you worry, especially the red variety. We’ve made a hell of a lot of enemies, don’t forget.’ He might have added ‘unnecessarily’ but Kopitcke already doubted his ideological credentials.
‘The cigarette, Herr Kommissar?’ Kopitcke asked. That had slipped Bauer’s mind. Nothing slipped Kopitcke’s mind, which was why Bauer kept him close.
‘Until otherwise proven,’ said Bauer, ‘stolen.’
UNOCCUPIED SIDE OF THE RIVER ALLIER, LOIRE, VICHY FRANCE
A little later, morning, Wednesday, 10th December 1941
The boat approached the shore. Bauer was the first out and gave a hand to Kopitcke, whose lack of an arm affected his balance.
‘Wait here for us,’ he ordered the rower, who was French.
The sun was up but distant and cold through the thin layer of clouds that hung low over the land. Above the riverbank, a chateau sat atop a hill, laid bare by the winter trees that in summer would keep it secluded. Bauer’s eyes were for evidence, not beauty. The chateaux of the Loire and the rivers and the landscape were lost on him. Besides, the Rhine and the Main had castles aplenty if you liked that sort of thing.
He led Kopitcke along the river’s edge, hoping the rain during the night might have spared possible tracks. Kopitcke found them first. ‘Herr Kommissar, Herr Kommissar,’ he called excitedly. And there they were; they might have been blurred by the rain on the muddy ground, but these were footprints. They’d crossed barefoot and here they’d put their shoes back on.
‘Hah,’ Bauer said, pointing to the ochre smears on the grass and mud. ‘Clay from the other side. How many, do you think?’
‘At least two, Herr Kommissar. We should get the dogs over,’ said Kopitcke with relish. ‘We’ll have them quick smart.’
Bauer said they didn’t need the dogs; there wasn’t time and it would create complications with the French. He and Kopitcke would do just as well on their own, but they mustn’t waste a moment. The tracks from the river’s edge across the grass with their tell-tale smears of clay gave out. It didn’t take a genius to see where they’d headed. The roadway was marked by a stone wall and lines of bare trees either side. The question was, which direction? Again, genius was hardly needed. They could see the village on the rise ahead, about a kilometre and a half away.
‘Keep your eyes on the ground in front of you, Kopitcke, not on the village,’ Bauer said when he saw his assistant hellbent on getting to the village before the murderers got away. ‘They’ll be gone by now.’
‘See there,’ he said not a hundred metres along. He pointed to the top of the stone fence, where three flagstones had been removed in the last few days. The newly exposed stones below showed no weathering at all. ‘What’s that all about?’ he asked. It didn’t take him long to find the helmets, because further rain during the night had exposed one of the stones used to cover them. They dug them up quickly. Bauer made Kopitcke hold the helmets and stay behind while he went into the village. His uniform would not help.
‘They see you in that, son, they clam up. You go back to the river and wait for me by the boat.’
Bauer knocked on the door of the first house and introduced himself to the middle-aged woman who answered. To counter her fear when she learnt he was not only a cop but a Boche cop, he used his fluent French and a charm that seemed naïve; he had refined it to an art like an accomplished actor. No, she’d heard or seen nothing, naturally. Then, on his further enquiry, she knew all these Jews were flooding through, not that she herself had seen any – but, and she lowered her voice, ‘You should ask across the street.’ Ah, Bauer thought and smiled, if only people knew what their neighbours really thought about them. It was the same in Germany, even before the Nazis.
Bauer went to the house opposite and knocked. The young woman he found a little too cool and calm. She too had neither seen nor heard anything. He asked if he might have a glass of water, he was parched. There was a chance she might let him inside, and it worked. She drew him water from a faucet in the kitchen. On the floor was a small china bowl with milk in it, as placed out for a ca
t. What struck him about this bowl was that it was from a set he could see in the dresser. This family cat drank from the family crockery.
‘Ah, you have a cat,’ he said as a genuine cat-lover. He’d always had a cat, he said as he looked around for it.
‘She’s out,’ said the woman crisply, which was an altogether odd thing to say.
‘Oh? At the market? Visiting friends?’ Bauer quipped, and eureka, the look she gave him, something wasn’t right here. He had hit a nerve. She most probably was part of one of these illegal crossing businesses. Back on the other side of the river, where German Occupation rules applied, he’d have taken her in. On this side, he was supposed to work though the French police, but what did the rules say when there weren’t any French police to work through? He had his pistol. ‘Hands up’ is all it would take to have her on the other side in half an hour.
‘What colour’s yours?’ he asked.
‘Black,’ she replied immediately, ‘with a white tip on its tail.’
‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘Mine’s black too. No white tip.’
He drank his water. She watched. He smiled.
‘What’s its name?’ he asked, surprising her with his suddenness, as he had intended. She faltered before landing on ‘Felix’.
As one would, Bauer said to himself, gave her another smile, thanked her for the water and left.
He supposed if he’d been a Nazi, he would have taken her in and dismissed any consequences with the French. Instead, he would play by the rules and have the French police investigate her.
He returned to Kopitcke waiting by the river’s edge.
‘Where’s the boat?’ he complained.
Kopitcke protested that he had recalled it, and pointed to the middle of the river, where the boat was heading their way, if slowly. ‘The French,’ Kopitcke muttered as explanation.