Flykiller (51 page)

‘Monsieur Olivier …' What was this he was saying? ‘I … I wouldn't know, Inspector. How could I possibly?'

It was his turn to sigh and he did so deeply and with evident regret. ‘Then why, please, has he claimed it and why have you kept it from us?'

Olivier, she said to herself. Olivier lied about it! ‘Shame … Fear. Have you never walked the streets of Paris after dark and not been able to see, Inspector? One is jostled, one constantly bumps into people and is shoved away or sworn at, handled, too, once the person realizes you're a woman, and not just by the men! My handbag, my papers, I …' Ah
Sainte Mère, Sainte Mère
!

St-Cyr must have leaned over the back of the front seat to get closer to her, for she felt a breeze as if he'd waved a hand before her eyes.

‘And once again, mademoiselle, you have a ready answer,' he said, ‘but if you know anything at all that is useful, now is long past the time to have divulged it.'

When she said nothing, he turned back. ‘Hermann, see that she leaves that valise of hers with the concierge. Then it'll be one less thing to get in the way.'

I will never leave it now, Inspector, she silently vowed. They checked their weapons, and she could hear St-Cyr flick open the cylinder of his Lebel, Kohler removing the clip from his pistol and jammed it back in with the heel of a hand to then retract and release the slide.

Both weapons would be left at half-cock.

‘Ménétrel wanted them dead, Louis. He told the boys to do it or else.'

‘Or Charles-Frédéric Hébert, but then … Ah
mais alors, alors
, Hermann, our killer or killers knew everything that would happen and were ahead of us at every step of the way. Ahead of Ménétrel, ahead of Bousquet and even Laval – they'd have had to have been,
n'est-ce pas
?'

The telex to Boemelburg, the identity card, the dress and the
billets doux
, that copy of
L'Humanité
that had been left on the stairs for Louis to find, the Resistance graffiti also.

‘Surely for all those things to have happened, every scrap of information would have had to have been funnelled into one location, collated, plotted and used,' said St-Cyr.

Herr Kohler started the car and they drove the short distance around the corner to pause outside the old PTT, to gaze at it through the frost-covered windows, to get out and stand in the cold street and to stare at its darkened silhouette.

‘The room, Hermann, and then the source, I think,' said St-Cyr.

‘I warned you, Louis. I told you, you shouldn't have let him go.'

And me? wondered Inès. Am I to be victim number five? Betrayed just as Céline was; killed just as she and Lucie and the others? Removed to silence; left secure?

*

At a glance, Kohler took in the dimly lit foyer that was such a sugar cake of dusty ornament, and had once been the watering place and campground of kings, counts and visiting courtesans. Gilded putti clamoured for seashells or shot arrows from above draperies and columns of variegated marble. Bathing sirens soared to a well-muscled Neptune who stood with trident upheld and a dolphin curled about bare toes, atop a tiered heap of drained Vicenza stone, where buxom mermaids cradled once-spouting cornucopia. The vault of the ceiling rose through several storeys of railed galleries to cavorting bathers among still more horns of plenty.

‘It is, and must once have been, stupendous, Hermann,' exclaimed St-Cyr in awe of what they found themselves in, for the wives and Madame Pétain had given no such indication. ‘Magnificent,
mon vieux.
Neo-baroque, 1870 at least, and a national treasure.'

As if that were all they had to worry about! snorted Kohler inwardly. Everywhere there were bas-reliefs of bathers, of amphorae, fruit, helmets, horns, shields, masks and lutes; everywhere the health-giving powers of taking the waters, but all gone dry. ‘Just where the hell is the
réceptionniste
, Louis? The concierge, if it's another dosshouse!'

‘Mademoiselle, wait by the desk.'

‘
Don't leave me!
' shrilled Inès.

‘Louis, stay with her. I'll find him.'

It didn't take long. ‘The
salaud
was on the telephone to Ménétrel,' shouted Kohler. ‘We've trouble, Louis, but this one has lost his tongue!'

Dragged from the switchboard's little room, thrust up against the Carrara marble desk where half-sized copies of Carrier Belleuse's
La Source
emptied
amorini
from the shoulder while supporting the rest of the structure, the concierge threw a terrified glance at each of them, then apprehensively wet his lips and let his faded grey eyes settle doubtfully on herself, Inès noted. He was hoping for sympathy no doubt.

‘
Verfluchte Franzosen!
' shrieked Kohler. ‘
Ein
Gestapo Detektiv Aufsichtsbeamter,
Dummkopf Schnell! Schnell!
' Hurry! Hurry! ‘Open up that can of worms of yours and spill out everything the doctor said!'

The echoes came. The echoes rebounded. Hermann was really very good at this play-acting of his when necessary, but something would have to be said. ‘Herr Hauptmann der Geheime Stattspolizist, please go easy on him. He's too old to be shoved around like that and can't understand a word you're saying.'

‘Comfort from a Sûreté, eh? Then you shoot him and we'll claim he tried to escape and died of a heart attack!'

Herzlähmung
– would they really do so? panicked Inès. Cardiac arrest was a favourite excuse of the Gestapo of the rue des Saussaies, the SS of the avenue Foch, and the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston. ‘Monsieur, these two …' she blurted. ‘They're in a terrible hurry.'

The doctor hadn't mentioned a valise-carrying girl. ‘I'll lose my job. I'll not be able to find work, not at my age!'

‘Fuck your age!' railed Herr Kohler, jamming the muzzle of his pistol into him.

‘Ménétrel … The doctor, he has telephoned in great urgency to … Ah
sacré nom de nom
, must you force me to say what I've been forbidden? You … you had no right to arrest Dr Normand and steal his file on Madame Deschambeault. You have now initiated a national crisis that Dr Ménétrel will be forced to deal with.'

‘Angry was he?' breathed Kohler.

‘Furious.'

‘And demanding that we return the file and stop everything immediately?' he asked.

‘Most certainly.'

‘
Gut!
'

Herr Kohler snatched the key from among a scattering of others and headed for the stairs, bypassing the bronze birdcage of a dubious lift. Out of the shadows, a life-sized Cupid and Psyche adorned the first landing, a copy of the Louvre's shy and lovely
Bather
, by Falconet, the second, the figure caught gracefully looking down at the water while timidly dipping an exploratory toe.

A copy of Paju's
Psyche
decorated the third landing; a superb
Venus
stood beside a mural of voluptuous women taking the cure. One suckled a child, another raised her measured glass in salute, a third gazed raptly into a Cupid-held mirror as satyrs picked fruit and hair was combed, but all were as if removed, as if suppressed by the faded light the Occupation demanded.

‘Room 3-17 must be at the far end of the gallery, Louis.'

How haunting the sculptures were, but could she remember their locations? wondered Inès. Could she find her way in the dark if necessary?

‘Ménétrel will call out the troops, Louis. If not the Garde Mobile and Henri-Claude Ferbrave, then the local Milice!'

The formation of France's newest militia had been announced by Pétain not long ago right here in Vichy but already they were old acquaintances. ‘Stay close, mademoiselle. It seems that we've ruffled more than the feathers of a few stuffed birds.'

Caught in a large cheval mirror, the sculptress appeared pale and shaken at the sight of the room, which was, of course, nothing like the wives and Madame Pétain had indicated.

Instead of a bed that squeaked when used and stank of stale piss, one could see at a glance, St-Cyr told himself, that this canopied masterpiece was simply unmade, its sheets, blankets and spread thrown back but of excellent quality, if of that other time and a touch worn.

There was no second-hand water pitcher, but an unblemished Sevres jug; a copper bath that gleamed even in the faded electric light; a large, handsome marble sink with gilded bronze and porcelain taps, the hot and the cold; even the luxury of a bar of soap that could be left lying around; and plenty of towels, most certainly not thin, for one could hardly have worn them out.

Cold ashes lay in the grate, ample charcoal and wood indicating that a welcome fire could always be lit. The regulation notice as to safe and unsafe sex had, of course, had to be posted just inside the door, he noted, but here violets, dried long ago, had been woven round it, probably by Mademoiselle Marie-Jacqueline.

The carpet was an Aubusson. The armoires, desk and chairs were Marjorelle and nothing to be sneezed at, even if not neo-baroque but most certainly of the turn of the century.

‘Louis, I'd best check the street.'

‘You won't see anything,' yelped Inès. ‘They'll not let you.'

‘It's what I'll hear that counts.'

Herr Kohler left them, left the door wide open. Again Inès took in the bed, again she told herself Céline couldn't have had time to make it, for that had been the rule. After each visit, each of them had tidied up.

Tuesday … last Tuesday afternoon, she said, 2 February, lying naked there in the arms of Honoré de Fleury. Céline whose laughter had been so gentle and yet full of warmth and excitement. Céline whose smile had always been so encompassing.

‘There's … there's a ballet shoe under that chair, Inspector,' she heard herself saying. ‘A practice slipper.'

And we are alone at last, mademoiselle, but you haven't yet decided if you should tell me all you know. ‘It's the other shoe that puzzles me,' said St-Cyr. ‘Don't ballet teachers who have to rush off early in the morning throw their things into a bag of some sort? Her handbag hasn't turned up, yet her ID has.'

‘The bag, it … it was of a soft brown suede, a rucksack I bought her before the Defeat.'

‘Before the death of her husband?'

And attempted suicide? ‘Yes. Well before that. She was so happy, so full of life. Annette had just been born. On my way to see them at the Hôpital Cochin, I came across it in the window of a second-hand shop on the rue Mouffetard and knew she'd have the baby to carry and everything else, so would need something easy to handle.'

‘You were still living at the home of your aunt and uncle then?'

‘They … they had passed away. I …'

‘Had you the studio then, the job at the Musée Grévin?'

‘Yes! The … the student who had owned the rucksack had been on holiday in Switzerland but had run out of money. Please … please don't look at me like that in the mirror, Inspector. I … I
can't
tell you. I mustn't!'

Sconces on either side of the mirror held candles whose soft light would have bathed Céline's reflection …

The Chief Inspector went straight to the chair and bent to pick up the shoe. He would come to her now, this Sûreté, and would place it in her hand – she knew this, knew, too, that the tears couldn't be stopped.

‘I loved her as one does a sister. I had no one else. No one, damn you!'

‘On arrival here in Vichy, mademoiselle, you met with Auguste-Alphonse Olivier. You'd been couriering messages for him in Paris. Perhaps he'd a snapshot of you that Mademoiselle Dupuis had given him, but she felt the perfume necessary as well – a little password,
n'est-ce pas
, and had asked you to wear it.'

Her head was bowed; the faded pink satin slipper, with its tightly wound ties, was in both hands; the finely curving lashes were wet.

‘He discovered you couldn't see when going from a lighted room into darkness. He warned you not to tell us of your night blindness so that he could use it. You were to watch what you said to us and what you did, but you began to look for things yourself. ‘Why was this, please?'

The Inspector was still looking at her reflection in the mirror, a glass in front of which Céline would have stood to be admired, made love to, fucked! ‘He … he was upset with me for not having told him of my night blindness. When … when I asked where Céline was, for she, not him, was to have met me at the train, he … he said he didn't know.'

Yet he must have. ‘You then found out and threw up before seeing her for yourself.'

Ever so slightly she nodded.

‘He didn't want you coming to this hotel, did he?'

‘It … it was not even mentioned.'

The delicately boned chin and lower jaw were still determined. The sea-green eyes avoided him. ‘Then can you think why Monsieur Olivier would have warned me to stay away from it and threatened me if I didn't?'

‘Monsieur Laval's clairvoyant … You asked him about her?'

‘I did.'

‘Then perhaps it is that you should ask her yourself, Inspector?'

‘Shall I leave you here, then, while I do?' he said angrily.

‘Céline was silenced; Lucie also, Inspector.'

‘And the others?'

‘Most probably.'

‘But she tried to protect him? She tried to hide the earrings?'

Was it that this Sûreté did not want to believe the truth? ‘Monsieur Olivier took her from the Hôtel du Parc and she went willingly with him, Inspector. She tried to remove and hide the earrings both to protect Blanche and Paul – she must have known they'd taken them – and to let you and Herr Kohler know who had betrayed her.'

‘He'd have taken them, then, would he?'

‘Yes. Yes, I tell myself that must have been so.'

‘But he didn't, mademoiselle. Had Monsieur Olivier seen even one of his wife's earrings, he'd have removed it and left us to find the other, or come back himself to search it out.'