Flykiller

J. Robert Janes Flykiller

1

Ruefully the line, which stretched alongside the waiting train, advanced one footstep: bundled-up, grey travellers in all but complete darkness, colds, coughs – sneezes – and, under a dim blue wash of light, two railed walkways below a distant signboard that read in heavy black letters on white: HALT! DEMARKATIONS-LINIE, and in very polite but much smaller French, Etes-vous en regie? Are your papers in order?

Hermann, as usual, thought it a great joke. His partner would be scrutinized, accosted, searched, perhaps even roughed up, simply because he was French and the boys on duty hated Schweinebullen more than anything else but dared not touch their own cops!

‘Relax. It’ll go easy this time. I can tell,’ confided Kohler. ‘Just act normal and don’t get hot under the collar.’

‘It’s too cold for that. It’s snowing heavily, or hadn’t you noticed?’

Emptied out of the train from Paris, Louis wasn’t happy. It was Thursday, 4 February 1943 – 2.47 a.m. Berlin Time, 1.47 the old time. Ever since 11 November last, when the Wehrmacht had moved into the South in response to massive Allied landings in North Africa, the whole of France had been occupied, yet still there was this wait, this frontier between what had since June 1940 been the zone occupee and the zone libre. Here, too, at Moulins, some fifty-five kilometres by road to the north of Vichy, the international spa that had become the capital.

‘Did you bring your vaccination certificates?’

‘And my Great War military demobilization, my ration card and tickets, residence card, carte d’identite, Surete ID, the letter from Gestapo Boemelburg – from your chief, not mine – authorizing the visit. My Ausweis – my laissez-passer – my last tax declaration, and yes a thousand times, my letter exempting me from three years of forced labour in your glorious Third Reich because I work in a reserved job and am considered necessary, though I cannot for the life of me understand this since no one among the higher-ups cares a fig about common crime or that hardened criminals freely walk the streets because the SS and Gestapo employ them and have given them guns!’

‘Gut. I’m glad you’ve finally got that off your chest. Now be quiet. Leave it all to me. This one won’t understand a word of French, so don’t even try it.’

‘Name?’ demanded the portly Feldwebel, a grey blob with sickly blue-washed bristles under a pulled-down cap, the greatcoat collar up and a scarf knotted tightly around the throat. Leather gloves – real leather! – thumbed the crushed fistful of carefully cared-for papers.

‘St-Cyr. Surete.’

‘Mein Herr, that is not complete,’ grunted the staff sergeant, his eyes straying from the torchlit identity card.

Nom de Jesus-Christ, must God prolong the torture? ‘Jean-Louis St-Cyr, Oberdetektiv der Surete Nationale.’

‘Age?’

‘We’ve a murder investigation in Vichy. It’s urgent we get there.’

‘It can wait.’

‘Murder never does!’

‘Easy, Louis. Just go easy.’

‘Hermann, the humiliation I am suffering after two and a half years of this sort of thing has at last frayed my nerves!’

‘Dummkopf, just give him your age.’

‘Fifty-two.’

‘Hair?’ asked the Feldwebel, still studying the card.

‘Brown.’

‘Eyes?’

‘Brown. Nose normal. Look, mein lieber General, would I attempt to legally cross the Demarcation Line between two now fully occupied zones if my nose were that of a communist, a Gypsy, a resistant – a terrorist – or even some other Rassenverfolgte, some racially undesirable person, and I knew exactly what would happen to me if caught?’

‘Nose?’

‘Normal, but broken twice – no, three times, though years ago.’

‘He was a boxer at the police academy.’

‘Hermann, who the hell asked you to interfere?’

‘Bitte, Herr Oberdetektiv St-Cyr. Diese Papiere sind nicht gultig.’

Not good … ‘Ach! was sagen sie?’ What are you saying? ‘They’re perfectly in order,’ shrilled St-Cyr.

‘Argue if you wish.’

Two corporals with unslung Schmeissers leaped to assist.

‘Hermann …’

Kohler was let through with a crash of heels, a curt salute and a, ‘Pass, Herr Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter. This one must, unfortunately, be detained.’

‘Louis, I’ll wait in the barracks.’

‘You do that. Enjoy the stove, the coffee and outlawed croissants but ask for real jam not that crap we French have had to become accustomed to!’

Oh-oh. ‘Louis, I’ll go with you. I think that’s what he wants.’

‘Gut! Mein Partner finally realizes what is required of him!’

‘I knew it all the time.’

‘You didn’t. You were simply enjoying my predicament!’

‘Then you tell me who those three are who’ve been waiting all this time for a quiet word?’