Flykiller (50 page)

Continues to view the
hydrothérapie sauvage froid
as a punishment for her failure as a wife. While under this treatment, often tears the sheath from herself and begs the attendant to use more force. The breasts, the mons and buttocks, she defiantly standing to face the hose until driven to cower, shivering, in a corner on her hands and knees.

Is, frankly, a very sexually repressed and mentally disturbed woman. A danger to herself let alone Mlle Trudel, the husband's mistress and personal shorthand typist.

There was more, lots more … Pages of it.

10 November 1942: Has confided that Mme Richard will definitely ‘take care' of Mlle Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux; that ‘someone' will do the same with Camille Lefébvre on payment of a large sum by Mme Richard, but that Mlles Trudel and Dupuis will be taken care of by Sandrine Richard and herself, Élisabeth de Fleury knowing of it and having agreed, but lacking the courage to ‘participate'.

The woman had, apparently, been absent from the clinic on Thursday, 28 January, and hadn't returned until 3 February, the day after the most recent murder.

She'd also been absent at the times of the first two killings but was it all hogwash? Had Ménétrel told the doctor what to write?

The paper was crisp, the penmanship precise but there were no faded places over the almost two years the bugger had been treating Julienne Deschambeault.

Fountain pens always run dry and have to be refilled or dipped, and each time that happens, the likelihood of leaving a blot or at least a misplaced period spells it out.

Other files, chosen at random, verified that Normand had. written the file at a sitting and not on different dates as it implied.

In the corner next to the wall mirror, and buried under clutter, there was a small, turn-of-the-century cast-iron safe. Frantically Kohler searched the desk but Normand wasn't the type to have written the combination down on the back of the wife's photo or tucked beneath a corner of the blotter. He'd have kept it safely in his waistcoat pocket or wallet, though if either were misplaced …? An overworked, understaffed practitioner of
la médecine thermale
with added sidelines in forgery and herbalism?

Jars and jars of rose petals, spruce needles, juniper berries, et cetera, were ranked on the shelves above, their Gothic-script labels bordered by gold leaf and each of them bearing the Latin name …
Vitex agnus-castus L. Verbenaceae
… Monk's pepper.
Zanthoxylum americanum Mill. Rutaceae …
Toothache Tree.
Mein Gott
, the bark had been used by the Red Indians of the Americas!

Turning the jar, lifting the lid to first tentatively smell the contents and then shake out a little on to a sheet of paper for the sculptress, he saw the combination written in time-faded ink on the underside of the label.

2-27 left, 1-4 right, 17 left, 9 right, 3 left.

Julienne Deschambeault's file was there at the top of the heap. Like doctors the world over, Normand had thought it best to keep a little insurance.

*

Stark in a white-collared, beige house dress with crocheted shawl tight about thin shoulders, Julienne Deschambeault stood as if trapped before drawn blackout curtain's, her expression that of a woman of fifty-five who was haunted by guilt and fear.

Clearly distraught, she'd been pacing endlessly back and forth in her room. The Thonet chaise longue and matching wicker armchair had been shoved aside. On the small, round wicker table with its lace cloth, the glass beside the measured bottle of the Chomel had fallen over to roll about as the table had been hurriedly lifted aside.

‘
Eugénie, why have I been locked into my room
?
Why am I not allowed to leave if I so choose
?' she shrilled.

‘It's for your own good,' said Dr Normand ingratiatingly. ‘The Chief Inspector merely wishes …'

‘A Sûreté?' she yelped, the ribbed and knitted gloves rolled down below the wrists, the hands clasped tightly and pressed hard against the bony chest and just beneath the angular chin.

‘The negatives,' said St-Cyr.

Her hazel eyes were quick to register suspicion.

‘
You can't have them. I haven't got them!
'

The shoulder-length, auburn hair was awry and framed the haggard countenance of one whose crisis was definitely of the nerves and whose lips were parted in despair.

‘My dear,' interceded Madame Pétain, ‘we have had to agree to turn them over.'

‘
Gaëtan has forbidden me to do so!
'

‘Gaëtan …?' blurted Madame la Maréchale, throwing Sandrine Richard a glance of alarm.

‘Madame, was he here?' demanded St-Cyr.

‘Here?' the woman asked, tossing back her hair. ‘He never comes here. He telephoned.'

‘Inspector …' began Normand.

The room was rebounding with their voices. ‘A moment, Doctor. Madame, when, exactly, did your husband call you?'

Had the Inspector discovered the truth?
Had he
? wondered Julienne. ‘Late this afternoon. He said that if I would agree not to give up the negatives but to turn them over to him, he would see that I received the very best of legal defences and would want for nothing.'

Ah
merde alors
…

‘He accused you of killing Lucie Trudel, didn't he?' asked Élisabeth de Fleury, aghast at the implications of what must have happened. ‘He told you in complete detail how it was done.'

‘
I wanted her dead! I wanted her smothered!
'

‘But you didn't do it, did you?' implored Madame Pétain.

Swiftly the woman looked to Sandrine Richard. ‘The negatives, Julienne,' said that one firmly. ‘Don't say anything. Just give them up.'

Beseechingly the gloved hands went out to her. ‘She lost the child, Sandrine. She spilled her baby into the armoire.'

‘
Please, it's best you do exactly as I've said!
' implored Sandrine.

‘My dear …' attempted Madame Pétain.

The woman tore her hair. ‘
It would have been a son, Eugenie! An heir. I couldn't have that happen, could I? She had to be stopped!
'

‘Inspector, this isn't right,' seethed Madame Pétain. ‘You can see the state she's in. That … that husband of hers
would
call to accuse her!'

Élisabeth de Fleury had stepped from the group to comfort Madame Deschambeault, and hold the woman in a tight embrace.

‘The courts will be lenient,' offered Raoul Normand blandly. ‘The judges are always very understanding in such cases.'

Madame Pétain and Sandrine Richard exchanged glances of alarm.

‘Madame Deschambeault,' said St-Cyr, ‘who told your husband that you would have the negatives?'

Again glances were exchanged. Madame de Fleury released Madame Deschambeault who, looking to Madame Richard, said, ‘Sandrine, forgive me, but he said that it was Alain André who had told him. They met and they talked. An urgent conference. Honoré was with them, Élisabeth, and … and Secrétaire Général Bousquet.'

The four of them. ‘Then tell us, please,' sighed St-Cyr, ‘what was on Lucie Trudel's night-table?'

Once more the woman looked to Sandrine Richard for advice, then flicked an apologetic glance at Élisabeth de Fleury. ‘The Chomel, as I have it here on my own table.'

‘And the rats?' he asked.

‘Rats?' she bleated, throwing questioning looks at each of the other three. ‘What rats?'

Something would have to be said, thought Eugénie Pétain. ‘Inspector, Julienne
did
want to smother Lucie Trudel. Sandrine
was
determined to drown Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux and to pay Henri-Claude Ferbrave to garrotte Camille Lefèbvre, since Monsieur Bousquet's wife was not among us.'

‘And God forgive me,' said Elisabeth de Fleury, ‘I wanted desperately to stab Céline Dupuis in the heart.'

‘We spoke of it often, Inspector,' confessed Madame Pétain, ‘both here when visiting Julienne, and at our committee meetings in my flat, when Julienne was free to join us and when she has not, but I swear to you none of these ladies would have done as they'd said. It was all talk, but didn't it help them to cope with what was happening to them? Didn ‘t I know exactly how each of them felt? How hurt and utterly betrayed, how insanely jealous, how totally exposed to the ridicule of others and to financial ruin?'

‘We also talked on the telephone when in need,' said Elisabeth de Fleury. ‘No matter what hour of night or day, Madame la Maréchale was always there to patiently listen and stand by each of us, but as to our carrying out such threats … Would that we had had the courage.'

‘Inspector, let the courts decide,' advised Dr Normand. ‘Your task is simply to take down their
procès-verbaux
and then to leave it all up to the examining magistrate.'

‘It's good of you to remind me, Doctor, but …'

‘Good
Gott im Himmel
, Louis, haven't I told you time and again it's the paperwork that counts?' stormed Kohler as he barged into the room, a file folder in each hand. ‘Papers … papers, Chief. Always get the record down straight, even if you have to write it out twice, eh, Doc, and even if at one of those times it is dictated to you by another doctor?'

‘My safe … You …' blurted Normand.

‘Had no right?' shot Kohler, towering over him. ‘A member of the Geheime Stattspolizei,
mein lieber Doktor
? You're the one who has no rights.'

Kripo bracelets came out to be clapped round Normand's wrists, the doctor slumping into the wicker chair.

‘A glass of the Chomel for this one, ladies, and then the
hydrothérapie sauvage
and a few shots of the é
lectrothérapie.
Book him, Louis. Complicity to murder, and forgery. This son of a bitch must have known those girls were to be killed. He tried to lay the blame on these ladies.'

‘For Ménétrel?'

‘And the husbands, this one's in particular!'

Gaëtan-Baptiste Deschambeault. ‘Perhaps, Hermann, or Charles-Frédéric Hébert, but …'

‘No buts, Louis.'

‘The Hôtel Ruhl, Inspectors. Room 3-17,' said Inès faintly from the doorway, sickened by the prospect of what was to come. ‘Then you will have seen everything, I think.'

They sat a moment in the car, these two detectives, outside the Hôtel Ruhl. The boulevard de l'Hôtel de Ville, the town, the river and the hills would be in darkness, Inès knew, though she couldn't see a thing. St-Cyr had withdrawn into his thoughts, Kohler too. Both knew that word would get out of what had happened at the clinic. Ménétrel would be bound to hear of it and soon, too soon. Ménétrel.

St-Cyr had taken the negatives that Madame Deschambeault and the others had hidden in one of the tubular posts of her bed. Kohler had entrusted Dr Normand to Madame Pétain and had given her the key to his handcuffs. And Blanche? Inès asked herself. Blanche had been so distressed at not being allowed to accompany them that tears had wet her pale cheeks. ‘Paul couldn't have taken that knife from Mother's room,' she had sworn. ‘He'd not have done something like that without telling me!'

‘Not even to buy his freedom from the STO?' St-Cyr had demanded, not sparing her.

‘Edith,' she had blurted. ‘Edith did it. She despises the Maréchal and blames him for everything. She hates women who betray their soldier husbands and their country, as Camille did, those who get pregnant like Lucie did, and Mother, too. Céline … Céline played the cabaret, Mother also. Albert … Albert can and does do anything Edith wants.'

‘Such as trying to kill this one?' Herr Kohler had asked, indicating Inès.

‘Such as putting things in Céline's room for you to find. Things only Edith could have given him.'

‘And the attempt on Mademoiselle Charpentier?' he had asked.

Blanche had hesitated. ‘Yes, but … but Albert is also impulsive and often can't see the consequences of what he does.'

‘Like walking Céline to the Hall des Sources and then holding its doors shut on her?' Herr Kohler had said.

‘A game,' Blanche had wept. ‘Albert would have thought it a game!'

They had demanded to know how Mademoiselle Pascal could possibly have known Céline was to have gone to Pétain's room and at what time, but Blanche had had no answer for this. ‘Her brother took the knife, Hermann,' St Cyr had flatly said, ‘but what I want to know are her thoughts on Charles-Frédéric Hébert. Isn't he the one you're really so afraid of, Mademoiselle Blanche?'

‘Yes. Yes, he is.'

‘St-Cyr's a patriot,' Monsieur Olivier had confided when he'd met her at that café near the railway station, Inès told herself. ‘Kohler's a conscientious doubter of Nazi invincibility, but you must never forget that he's one of them, one of
les autres.
' The others.

Sickened by what she knew of the rats that had been left in Lucie's bed, Inès asked herself again if she should tell St-Cyr and Kohler of it. Could she break the vow she'd made to herself?

A match was struck, she taking in a sharp breath as the flame burst before her, causing her to blink hard in panic only to realize the two detectives were sharing a cigarette.

‘Hermann, Mademoiselle Charpentier had best be left with the concierge.'

The words were out before she could stop herself. ‘Please don't! Please take me up to that room. My eyes will be fine if there are lights on in there.'

‘Your eyes … What is this, please?' asked St-Cyr. Had he turned to look at her?

‘Night blindness,' she confessed.

They didn't say a thing. The cigarette was passed over, looks exchanged most probably, but still she couldn't see them and they must now know of this.

‘Louis, leave her with me, then,' sighed Kohler.

‘And Monsieur Olivier, mademoiselle?' asked St-Cyr. ‘Does he, too, suffer from this little affliction of yours?'