She was dressed, as Claude had said, in the stark black uniform jacket and skirt of a Gestapo officer, complete with a swastika armband, leather belt, shirt and tie. The collars of the jacket bore a twin lightning-bolt insignia and three pips, and the black forage cap lying by the woman’s side was decorated with white piping.

‘You found it like this when you came in?’ Rocco asked Cooke.

‘Yes. I had to call in at Peronne first thing this morning; I only got here twenty minutes ago.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’

Cooke lifted an eyebrow. ‘What – you think I might have left her here? Bit obvious, isn’t it?’ When Rocco said nothing, he added dispiritedly, ‘No, I didn’t see anyone to speak to.’

‘And there was no one here when you arrived?’

‘No. The place is hardly Piccadilly Circus.’ He paused, apologetic. ‘That’s in London.’

‘I know where it is.’

‘Right. Of course. If we get any visitors, it’s usually not until after midday. Otherwise it’s just me and the chaps.’

‘Chaps?’

Cooke gestured vaguely towards the lines of white stones. ‘Them. Trouble is, they don’t talk much.’ He gave a thin smile.

English humour, thought Rocco.

‘When were you here last?’

Cooke thought about it. ‘Three days ago. I have to cover several other cemeteries; this one is the easiest to maintain, so I don’t come every day.’

Rocco bent to peer more closely at the woman’s face. No significant marks, although it was hard to tell with the lumpy state of the skin. But he noted what might have been a small bruise on the side of the woman’s neck. She wore a single silver-and-enamel earring in the shape of a yellow-and-white flower – it looked like a marguerite – in her left ear, but nothing in the right. The yellow centre showed sharp and bright in contrast to the body and the dark clothing.

He ran his fingertips across the skirt and jacket. The material was heavily creased and the fabric damp – in fact, worse, it was soaked through. Several white marks showed on the fabric and were repeated around the welts of the shoes, and tendrils of weed were dotted here and there on the clothing and wrapped around her legs like dark-green centipedes. Her black stockings were ripped and laddered, exposing the flesh underneath which bulged through the mesh like uncooked pork.

‘Did it rain here last night?’ he asked.

‘No. Hasn’t for days.’

‘What did you do after you found the body?’

‘I didn’t touch anything, if that’s what you mean. It was obvious she was dead, so I drove to the station and got Monsieur Paulais to call Claude. I think he also called the police in Amiens.’

Great, thought Rocco. It won’t be long before the circus gets here. He’d have liked more time to study the scene in peace, but that was no longer in his hands. He turned to Claude. ‘How long before they arrive?’

‘About an hour … thirty minutes if they’ve got nothing else on. Depends whether Monsieur Cooke mentioned the uniform.’

‘I told them.’ Cooke took up the conversation in French, his accent evident but not bad. ‘It seemed pretty important … I thought it might galvanise them into action a bit sooner.’

It would do that all right, thought Rocco. Finding a corpse dressed like Himmler’s sister is not the kind of thing you ignore, not in France. He lifted the forage hat, which was dry to the touch, and opened it. There was no name tag.

Claude looked glum. ‘If Paulais called the police, he’ll have called the press, too.’ He rubbed his thumb and fingers together. ‘Money. In these parts, this will be a big story.’

‘You think we get bodies in Gestapo uniform turning up every day in Paris?’ Rocco shook his head. ‘Where’s the closest stretch of water?’

‘To here?’ Claude jutted his chin back towards the village. ‘The canal, just the other side of the railway. After that, the lakes and the marais. Why?’

‘The clothing’s wet through. She was in water until very recently.’ He touched the skin of the dead woman’s leg. It was covered in a slimy film.

He turned his thoughts to what would be needed here, if it wasn’t already on the way. The full works, undoubtedly – forensics, scene of crime, mortuary service … and Lord knows who else would want to get in on this act, with that uniform. Poissons-les-Marais wouldn’t know what had hit it.

Claude read his mind. ‘This is going to get messy, isn’t it?’

‘Very. I hope you had a good night’s sleep, because this could be a long stretch of duty. You ready for it?’

‘Me?’ Claude looked surprised. ‘I’m a lowly garde champêtre – the regular cops won’t want me around.’

‘It won’t be up to them, though, will it?’

‘Really? What do – Ah.’ The light dawned. ‘Of course – this is your patch now.’

‘Too right. They sent me down here; I might as well do my job. So stick around.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rocco? Big and scary. A bit nuts. Women seem to like him, though, lucky bastard.

Capt. Michel Santer – Clichy-Nanterre district

‘Monsieur Paulais says we can use the station waiting room if we need to.’

Claude had driven off earlier in Rocco’s car to speak to the stationmaster. He had returned immediately with the news. ‘As I thought: he called the papers as well as the regional radio news channels. He’s already dressed in his best uniform, hoping to get interviewed.’

‘He’s welcome to it,’ said Rocco. ‘Can you put up a barrier across the lane? The last thing we need is the press trampling all over the scene.’

‘We could leave your car parked sideways across. They’d have to drive onto the fields to get past.’

‘That won’t stop them, will it?’

‘Not until Duchamel, the farmer who owns these fields, sees them flattening his crops; then he’ll come and shoot their tyres out. Anything for a bit of sport. I can arrange it, if you like.’ He looked positively eager at the idea.

‘Stop it. You’ll be selling tickets next.’

‘Hey, not a bad thought. By the way, you should get yourself something more practical than the Traction. Nice car, but not good for driving over these tracks. Too low for one thing: you’ll wreck the suspension within a week.’

Rocco hadn’t thought much about the kind of terrain he’d be covering until he arrived. City streets were either good or bad, and you took them at your own risk. But at least you went with the knowledge that they were usually passable. As he’d already seen here, anything less than a metalled road was little better than a cart track.

‘What do you drive?’ He hadn’t seen a car at Claude’s house, although there had been a building big enough to house one.

‘2CV Fourgonnette. Amazing vehicle.’ Claude looked enthusiastic. ‘I once saw a farmer overturn one in a field. Then he and his son flipped it back over and away he went.’ He dropped his lower lip. ‘A bit rippled here and there, I grant you, but as good as new.’

‘Thanks. I’ll keep this for now.’

‘Your funeral.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Rocco looked up towards the wood behind the cemetery. ‘Where does the track lead?’

‘Nowhere much. Only the farmers go up there, to their fields.’

‘And the wood? Or is it just a wood?’

‘Christ, no. You don’t want to go in there. It’s an old ammo dump, full of shells, bombs and grenades. You step on the wrong thing and baff! – you lose a leg. Or worse.’ He gestured towards his groin with a grim chopping motion.

‘Wasn’t it cleared?’

‘No. The commune kept asking, but there was never the money or the men – the experts. One suggestion was to lob in a couple of mortar shells and stand well back.’ He grinned. ‘That would have been worth seeing.’

‘It didn’t fly?’

‘No. It was vetoed on grounds of insanity. And despoiling the countryside.’ He spat on the ground. ‘Like they worry about that kind of thing.’