Stonekiller by J. Robert Janes Page B

home?’
    Must Louis remind him? ‘After Holland, I think, and before Paris.’
    The summer of 1940! August perhaps. Had Hermann really been in Holland? He had never said so before. ‘Admit it, you’re on holiday.’
    â€˜ Ja, ja , some holiday. She’ll just have to understand there’s a war on.’
    â€˜And a pretty little whore in your bed.’
    â€˜Quit having a guilt complex over your own wife. Stop playing God.’
    â€˜It’s God I’m worried about because He’s frowning at us again. Did Madame Jouvet and that mother of hers cook up a little plan to poison that husband of hers, or did our victim plan it all by herself?’
    Louis was really serious. They had stopped in the middle of the street just before the gate.
    â€˜Did Madame Jouvet let slip their intentions, Hermann? During a beating perhaps? If so, our veteran would have killed his mother-in-law with relish.’
    â€˜And with a stone chopper. He told me he could shave the female partisans with flint. The water must have been ice.’
    Trees crowded the base of the ramparts. A bastide , a fortified town which dated from 1283, Domme had three gates. This one was the most easterly and it was from here that the road Madame Jouvet had ridden her bicycle down took a tight S-bend before continuing eastward along the heights just outside and below the walls.
    There were walnut trees to the left and below the promenade des Remparts, holm oak, chestnut, lime and mulberry. It was lovely in the shade and one had to think how nice it would be to live in a little place like this. Yet could one ever do so after Paris? asked St-Cyr of himself, heaving that sigh not just of a man whose holidays were long overdue — five years at least — but one who recognized his soul belonged to the countryside, his heart to the city.
    The pungent scent of walnut leaves came instantly as he broke a leaf and brought it to a nostril. ‘So, bon ,’ he said, dropping the leaf before moving into deeper shade. ‘Let’s have a look at her rucksack.’
    Kohler undid the straps and dumped everything on the ground. ‘A towel, no soap, trousers, a work shirt … gloves … a short-handled pick, chisel and hammer, a knife. Eight small lumps of black stone and one flat rock. Pale yellow, Chief. Limestone, I think. The local stuff.’
    â€˜A mortar stone, Hermann. No thicker than a normal lauze and a little longer than my hand. Its edges have been worked but not perhaps in twenty thousand years.’
    â€˜There’s that sooty black stuff again.’
    â€˜Yes, yes. The mortar was used to grind the pyrolusite. Our teacher has been collecting lumps of a mineral her ancient forebears used to paint the walls of their caves.’
    Kohler took up the mortar and ran a thumb over it. The stuff was not slippery like graphite or shiny. ‘So, what’s she been up to? Painting that cave?’
    â€˜Hiding something from us. She mentioned the mushrooms but only in memories too dear to lose. The mother always brought them. Always one of the local chefs would be required to cook some under her directions but Madame Fillioux also cooked them herself at the house of the daughter. The husband, along with the rest of the family, ate them.’
    â€˜A half of the omelette, eh? and an end to the bastard.’
    â€˜Madame Jouvet made no mention of the champagne, Hermann. Surely if it was a part of the ritual, she would have included it.’
    The sound of a well-tuned engine came to them. Cars were so few these days , one had to be curious. Even here in the zone libre , gasoline was all but impossible to obtain.
    The car took the grade easily. Its engine hummed then throbbed as it sped uphill. An open touring car. Grey. A Mercedes-Benz.
    â€˜Four men and one woman, Louis. No uniforms.’
    â€˜The sous-préfet of the Périgord Noir.’
    â€˜Is the woman his mistress?’
    â€˜Idiot,