Free Carnival by J. Robert Janes

portrait photos of former occupants in Wehrmacht uniforms, were bouquets of red, artificial chrysanthemums just as in Paris’s Père Lachaise. Elsewhere, wreaths of vine trimmings were with baby booties, on only one a freshly folded swastika.
    Immediately to the left, and just inside the door, was the secretarial pool. Three were in the uniforms of the Blitzmädschen , the Bund Deutscher Mädel or BDMs, girls from home doing their duty. Two others weren’t in uniform and had obviously been with the firm for years, whereas the oldest of the BDMs was now the supervisor and kept a stern eye on the younger two who, among other duties, were the Postzensuren who read the POW’s mail, blacked it out and sorted through the Personal­karten , adding notes when needed. Every POW would have one of those damned cards on file. A head-and-shoulders photo, prints of both forefingers, assorted personal data and work history­, punishment too, the Straf .
    One of the Postzensuren was in her late teens, the other perhaps twenty, and like all others here, they would have used that toilet and must have crossed paths every day with Eugène Thomas, but neither would meet his gaze, both just kept on working as if petrified of him.
    â€˜Herr Kohler, please . The laboratory is this way,’ said Dorsche. ‘The Oberstleutnant Rudel has said that I was to take you there, not bring you here.’
    â€˜Then I’d best pay my respects, hadn’t I?’
    The door to Rudel’s office was just beyond the secretarial pool and tightly closed, its frosted glass bearing the name and rank in black Gothic scrip outlined with gilding.
    Dorsche heaved a grateful sigh. ‘He’s busy.’
    â€˜He should be.’
    Herr Kohler’s knock should have broken the glass, but he didn’t wait for an answer, simply barged in, sang out a good afternoon and then, ‘Kohler, Kripo Paris-Central, Herr Oberstleutnant. I thought I’d best drop by to let you know my partner and I have arrived and are already hard at work. Fräulein … ?’
    Dorsche buggered off and left the door open, but there was a woman in the office. Rudel, though, didn’t move or appear startled in any way. Instead, he took his time to assess this visiting Detektiv. Cigarette poised in the right hand, he let its smoke curl lazily upward. A designated area, was that it?
    So this was Kohler, thought Rudel. A very ordinary, not-so-ordinary man. Paris had had a lot to say about him and that ‘partner’ of his.
    As if already bored with the interview, Rudel inhaled deeply, then let the smoke seep slowly from his nostrils. He wasn’t SS, thank God, but among the awards on that neatly pressed field-grey jacket were a Spanienkreuz, the Spanish Cross, then the ribbon of the Medaille zur Erinnerung—the Commemorative­ for Spanish Volunteers—and a wound badge too, all from 1937 and the Revolution in Spain. Then the black wound badge of the Polish Campaign in ’39, for one or two wounds; an Iron Cross First-Class too, and the ribbon of the Winterschlacht im Osten , the 1941–42 campaign in Russia and what was called the Frozen Meat Medal. Had he lost toes, a foot or leg? Not the ears anyway, nor the hands or any of the fingers. There was a Knight’s Cross too, and Nazi Party badge, ah, yes.
    â€˜It wasn’t murder, Kohler. It was suicide.’
    â€˜Karl, you know that can’t be true!’ shrilled the woman. ‘Two suicides in less than a week? Eugène wouldn’t have—’
    â€˜Sophie, Sophie … Ach , for once will you listen to me? I know you don’t want to believe it possible, but he did take his own life.’
    â€˜Your name, Fräulein?’ asked Kohler.
    So many things were in the look she gave. Still badly shaken by the deaths, but perhaps also not liking the thought of two experienced detectives from Paris being brought in, she stood over by the windows, was