Carnival by J. Robert Janes

lowest spots.
    â€˜You know the colonel wants this done quietly,’ he said to the corpse, ‘so where, please, is it best we begin? I’m alone. I’ve told the guard who conducted me to this place that he was to close the doors behind me and return to his post on the gate. Where could I run to, eh, if run I wanted?’
    The hands were tightly clenched, the thumbnails that dark, midnight blue all the others would show.
    â€˜You were married,’ said St-Cyr, leaning well in over the victim, ‘but your wedding ring isn’t of gold or silver. It’s been fashioned out of piece of tin and beautifully riveted. Even the edges have been curled inward so that you wouldn’t cut yourself. There’s an engraving—not hearts and letters but something else, something very fine. Had he Gallic and Celtic ancestors, this tinsmith-cum-jeweller? Ah, sacré , my light!’
    Shaking the torch, he accidentally banged his head on the rack above, cursed Gestapo stores and the Occupation, said calmly now, yes, calmly, ‘ Excusez-moi , monsieur. It’s the times, n’est-ce pas ? Spare batteries are seldom available. For each new one back home, two old ones must be turned in. Certainly when in Paris, my partner is adept at substituting ours for those of other gestapistes , but we haven’t spent much time there of late.’
    Lighting a candle, taken from his pocket, St-Cyr fixed it to one of the wooden uprights. Looking down at the victim, bathed as that one was in this gentlest of lights, he said, ‘May the grace of God be with you, mon fils . Though I am no priest, I doubt that one will ever see you.
    â€˜My partner couldn’t have joined me,’ he added quickly. ‘Always now I feel I have to explain. You see, he can’t stomach the sight of death anymore. It happens even to the best of us and he’s one of them. I also don’t want him heaving up that magnificent lunch. But why, please, did the colonel provide it and why was that housekeeper of his edgy, his former sergeant-major silent?’
    A hanging. An ‘apparent’ suicide when virtually everything seen so far indicated that was exactly what had happened.
    The toilet was spotless, Kohler noted, the room no more than a small closet, the porcelain throne massive, for they had sure as hell built them to last in the 1890s when the office and the original mill had begun. The dark walnut seat, lid and brass fittings were as solid as the Rock of Bloody Ages, but Gott sei Dank , the cistern hadn’t pulled away to crush the victim.
    Standing in the doorway, he let his gaze sift slowly over everything. It had been good of Louis not to have asked him to help with the corpse, good of him to have tried to keep his partner busy and away from thinking about the wire, but neither of them had realized the size of the Textilfabrikschrijen , the Schrijen Works. It had been almost a two-kilometre forced march just to get to this end of the administrative building. Lagerfeldwebel Jakob Dorsche was now behind him, as were the two the sergeant had delegated to escort this detective. Uneasy—all three of them were that, the guards terrified Dorsche would tear a stripe off them for some minor infraction. After all, it was his job to keep order in the camp and Dorsche should damned well have known something like this ‘suicide’ might happen and would definitely be held responsible no matter what.
    Given the size of the factory, and at least three to four hundred POWs, Louis and he would not get anywhere without his help. Dorsche knew it too. Watchful blue eyes behind wire-rimmed specs missed little. The ruddy Burgermeister cheeks were round, the forehead a hard rampart of bone that had rammed many, the nose flat, wide and broken several times, the ears small and tight against the short-cropped, greying bristles under that cap, the fists hammers.
    A barrel of a man in jackboots that gleamed, Dorsche took the