Clandestine by J. Robert Janes

which they were now entering, had its all-but enclosing forest: oaks, beech and hornbeam but still, even seventy-five kilometres or so from Paris, there was virtually no sign of the Occupier, just an emptiness that made one feel as if the end of the Occupation had finally come. Bien sûr , there would then be a bloodbath as during the Revolution, old scores being brutally settled, neighbour against neighbour, brother against brother, former corporals against former sergeants who were not even of their own unit and had just come upon them abandoning their weapons. God having a bit of fun.
    That bank had failed entirely to recover its van. Hours it had taken hunting for that girl, Hermann insisting that they keep on trying until Joliot had finally said, ‘Enough. That’s it, mes amis ,’ and he and the two with him had returned to Laon with the victims who would eventually be sent on to Paris.
    Rocheleau had not been dismissed, but given a warning. He was not to discuss what had happened with anyone, wife or not. Father Adrien the same.
    And Anna-Marie Vermeulen? ‘Paris, 20 August of last year and a pair of shoes,’ he said as if she was with him. ‘Perhaps it is that you did have some prior knowledge of l’Abbaye de Vauclair, but why a handkerchief that would positively identify you if arrested, since that must have been why you tried to hide it?’
    The lower slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the forest, path, ferns and spring all came to mind, the smell of the wet, autumn leaves, that of the water too, even its taste, and the sight of that broken fern and those trampled saplings.
    â€˜You must have willingly gone back to that truck. The poultice, having come loose and fallen, either earlier or later, was put into the firebox and then later, when that was cleared in a hurry, removed from the ashes and dropped behind that wall. But to live as a diver in Paris couldn’t have been easy. Always there are snap controls. Even walking in the Jardin du Luxemburg or sitting with a “coffee” outside a café can lead to the same. The date on that newspaper gives us only a lesser limit to the length of your stay. Weeks, even months, could have been spent in Paris before you ever acquired those shoes. And you wouldn’t have bought them on the marché noir , since the price alone would have drawn attention to you. Instead, you either found them, which seems unlikely­, or were given them, and if so, by whom? A wealthy woman?
    â€˜And since you had managed to remain free for such a time, why did you then suddenly decide to leave, only to return, and where, of course, did you actually go? Back to the Netherlands, as suggested by that handkerchief? There has to have been a very pressing reason.’
    Anise might help, since the pipe or even cigarettes were simply unavailable, that need so great, it had simply refused to go away.
    â€˜ Anise de l’Abbaye de Flavigny, mademoiselle. Bonbons à la menthe­ . Me, I will also chew a couple for yourself, though I’m not sure at all that you would have used tobacco since women don’t have the ration cards for it, and smoking does draw attention, especially since some men resent a woman’s having cigarettes they themselves haven’t. But, please, was the one who threw the contents of those pockets into the truck’s firebox a passeur ? I ask because there are such, though also a fee: 10,000 in the autumn of 1940, now 100,000 or even 200,000, the half down, the other half when safely delivered, and if so, are those three—that passeur , his firebox feeder and the killer—now continuing to take you on to Paris so as to get paid the other half, since that passeur’s reputation would be at stake if he didn’t?’
    Is there such a law? she seemed to ask.
    â€˜Though many can, unfortunately, do otherwise and even turn you in for a much higher reward, this one wouldn’t because he definitely