Flykiller (39 page)

‘And Ferbrave, monsieur?' she seethed. ‘Did he do the job, eh? That one has got too big for his boots, Inspector. Why not take a look in the “warehouse” this one sent his psychotic nephew to? Ask, then, how big Henri-Claude has become?'

Psychotic …? Did she feel she had to drive the nail in? wondered St-Cyr.

‘All she wants is to protect her family's fortune, Inspector. Hers and that of her husband. Grasping … always grasping, eh, madame? Well, grasp this then. Albert saw you talking privately to Henri-Claude last Friday at noon. “Huddled,” he said, and …'

Hébert ran a thumbnail through the paper seals of the tin of Wills cigarettes and, opening it, shook them out sufficiently for one to be easily removed.

‘Huddled, Inspector, and money handed over. A “bundle”, Albert said.'

‘I …' Ah
sacré
! ‘All right, I paid Henri-Claude twenty thousand.'

‘Francs or Reichskassenscheine?' shot Hébert, his cigarette still unlit.

Flustered, she stubbed hers out. ‘The Occupation marks. He … he wouldn't take francs. He said that … that in Paris some of the shopkeepers were afraid they'd soon be discontinued.'

‘Four hundred thousand francs, madame?' hazarded the Chief Inspector, giving their value.

‘I
didn't
pay to have him kill them! I … I paid for lingerie and perfume, a special order, and … and for a small collection of objects of virtu in tortoiseshell. A cigar case for the pocket, a cigarette case, comb-and-brush set and box for the cufflinks … Alain Andre has always been fascinated by the fact that, after heating and pressing, the shells of certain types of sea-turtle can be used for such things. He loves the look and feel of them. A gift, that's all it was. A set Henri-Claude had seen in an antique shop and on the rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. I paid in advance and for that purpose and no other.'

‘Other than to convince her husband to return to the nest, Inspector, since the one he'd been so deliciously roosting on had become ice-cold!'

‘
Bâtard
, why are you trying to pin her killing on me?'

‘Yes, why are you?' asked St-Cyr.

‘One only tries to help,' said Hébert.

A lighter was found, the cigarette lit, the custodian taking up the butcher's knife to start in on preparing more feed for his birds. Everything was finely and swiftly chopped, as he had done thousands of times before.

‘Each of those girls massaged the neck of a collabo, Inspector,' he said gruffly, not looking up from the butcher's block. ‘Find the leader of the FTPs and you have your man. Setting an example has always been foremost in the minds of the communists.'

‘
À chacun son
Boche?' snorted Sandrine. To each his German, the communists were rumoured to urge one another. ‘
À chacun sa putain
, eh? Why not tell him whom you have steadfastly blamed and hated for your losing this chateau? Our resident recluse whose housekeeper's brothers are railway workers, Inspector. Auguste-Alphonse Olivier, the father who disinherited Blanche and Paul Varollier and sent them away at the age of twelve when this one, having caused the suicide of their mother, forced Olivier to resign in shame and leave his bank so that others could take over. Others led by no other than Charles-Frédéric Hébert, who was the first and most vocal of those to call his former friend and business partner a cuckold!'

The slut, but how good of her to have inadvertently responded as wished when pricked! snorted Hébert inwardly. ‘Alain André enjoyed Marie-Jacqueline, madame. He often said that fucking her just once made up for all the years of boredom. Now, please, Inspector, my birds. They get nervous if not fed on time.'

Through the iron-grilled stained-glass windows of the little chapel where Albert slept when at the chateau, light filtered, causing slashes of ruby red, emerald green, dark blue and amber to be cast upon the floor. The crucifix, to one side behind the stone slab of the altar with its antependium of gold brocade on white, was nailed to the wall with spikes as thick as her thumbs, thought Inès uncomfortably.

Black
torchères
with beeswax candles flanked the arched sanctuary. A banner hung above, and to her left. The lectern, to that side of the altar, though all but hidden in shadow, still held what must be its original vellum-bound, illuminated book of prayers for every Mass of the year.

The water in the stone font was frozen solid; the worn black prie-dieux exuded centuries of piety. These simple wooden stands had plain, forward-pointing boxes for the knees and three thin stilts that rose straight up to the briefest of forearm rests and,
Ave Maria grátia plena: Dóminus tecum. Benedicta tu in muliéribus: et benedictus fructus ventris tui …

Without even thinking, she crossed herself and genuflected as she ducked her head and touched her brow and lips.

‘Albert's not here,' said Blanche, a breath escaping softly.

The chapel would have held forty, if crowded, thought Kohler. Two iron rings and an inscription marked a tomb in the floor of the sanctuary. ‘
Honoré Hébert
', he read aloud. ‘
From 1480 to 1527
,
Chevalier de Charmeil et de Vichy, Compagnon d'Armes des Ducs de Bourbon. Sans peur et sans reproche
.' Without fear and without reproach.

‘It's one of the coolest places in summer,' said Blanche, who had nervously stayed just inside the entrance.

Dear God, where was Albert? wondered Inès. She had the feeling that coming here wouldn't be good for her, that it was the beginning of the end.

‘Did couples use this for their lovemaking?' she asked. Wrong of them if true, of course, but then so little was right about this place Céline had found herself in.

It was Blanche who said, ‘Is that what she confided in those letters of hers?'

‘We … we didn't discuss things like that.'

‘Ménétrel … did she mention him?' demanded Blanche.

Inès told herself not to answer. Blanche would get angrier then – that had been anxiety in her voice, hadn't it?

‘Céline told you Ménétrel would let her go home to Paris but only if she first went to Pétain. Ménétrel controls everything. Whether we like it or not, we're all in thrall to the doctor. Surely she confided that?'

‘Did you take care of her for him? Did he order you to kill her?' asked Inès fiercely from behind the altar. ‘She'd been an informant. She'd given away state secrets she'd overheard.'

‘I … I did no such thing,' retorted Blanche, flustered.

These two, thought Kohler. Had Céline told the one about the other?

‘You bought a Choix Supreme the afternoon of Lucie's murder,' he interjected.

‘For Nathalie Bénoist, one of the cabaret dancers!'

‘But she prefers the El Rey del Mundo Demi-Tasse.'

‘I … I made a mistake, that's all.'

‘A five-hundred-franc one?' he taunted.

‘Not when Nathalie provided the cash.'

‘A woman with two little boys she boards at a nearby farm?'

‘She pays the price, but gets it back later.'

‘In here?' asked Herr Kohler, still baiting her.

‘Sometimes. In summer, of course.'

‘
Nackttänze auch
?'

Nude dancing also. ‘Sometimes,' countered Blanche hotly.

‘And Albert?' asked Inès. ‘Did he watch from … from in there?' She indicated the sacristy whose stained-glass window let in a little light. One had to duck one's head to enter. ‘There's a smell,' she said.

‘Rancid oil,' said Herr Kohler, brushing past her to stand, stooped, in the enclosure, for people hadn't been nearly so tall when this place had been built.

Blanche did not enter.

A large, coloured poster of the Maréchal in uniform stared at them, the seven stars on his sleeve, with the phrase
Je fais à la France le don de ma personne pour atténuer son malheur
, under it. I make to France the gifts of my person to lessen her misfortune.

Upturned snail shells were on the table, the altar Albert had built. There was still oil in some of them, their wicks blackened, the shells placed in rows that pointed to the poster. Cigar bands had been pressed flat and these lay alongside the little lamps. There was a plaster bust of Pétain – one of the thousands and thousands that were still sold in shops or found in family shrines all over France. A mug bore his benevolent countenance; flags and coins, the image of the
Francisque.
A medallion of him hung on a tricolour ribbon. Printed cards gave quotes, pamphlets bits of his speeches. The Lord's Prayer had even been rewritten under Ménétrel's guidance, with Pétain as God on earth.

A wire – a length of the thin and flexible wire Albert used for his snares – was there as if in dedication.

A knife – a Laguiole, open so that its blade and softly curving haft lay between the rows of snail shells and cigar bands – was also there. ‘But … but it has a corkscrew,' Inès heard herself saying, aghast at what they'd found and at what Albert had done. ‘He's kept Noëlle Olivier's knife and has left another.'

And now you're gut-sick, thought Kohler. ‘It's a man's, and nothing fancy. The usual for the Auvergnat shepherd or peasant. This one's seen a good fifty years of use but is still razor sharp.'

‘But why did he leave it?' she bleated. Would Albert cut her throat? Would he knife her in the chest?

‘Probably he thought you wouldn't even notice the substitution, Inspector,' snorted Blanche on joining them, her voice grating. ‘Albert's often like that. If he can fool you, he will, but sometimes he doesn't quite think it through.'

Beneath the knife there was a card on which the motto of Les Jeunes de France had been printed:
Toujours Prêts.
Always Ready. Beneath that, and folded tightly, was the letter the Ministry of Education had sent Albert's parents, telling them the boy was unfit for the Chantiers de Jeunesse, the young men, the over-twenties of France, who had each to do their national service of five months of physical training, community service and rural tasks, in lieu of service in the Army which, of course, now no longer existed, even as the much-shrunken Army of the Armistice.

‘Albert couldn't have read it, Inspector, and probably believes he really is one of les Jeunes,' said Blanche.

The date was 13 March 1941.

He'd been twenty-one then, thought Inès, was now nearly twenty-three. Turning swiftly aside, she threw up the grey National she had had with weak ersatz coffee at 5 a.m., and the nuts and dried fruit she'd palmed in the kitchen.

Just emptied herself, poor kid, thought Kohler. Couldn't have stopped, but sympathy ought not to be allowed to intrude.

‘Come on. He must have gone into the cellars.'

Guinea fowl made their racket, quail too, and ducks. A peacock shrieked.

‘Inspector,' spat Hébert, turning swiftly to block the way, the wind tugging at the blue smock, the open black cable-knit cardigan and black felt fedora. A large bowl of feed was in the crook of each arm, the cages just beyond him. ‘That Richard woman and those other bitches have it in for me. Always gossiping, always the little tête-à-têtes with Madame la Maréchale at their “committee meetings”. Committee of what, I ask? Of dried-up housewives who are terrified of losing their meal tickets!'

Ring-necked pheasants croaked and beat their wings, a bantam rooster cocked its head. ‘Monsieur …' began St-Cyr, only to hear Hébert retort as if stung, ‘Please let me finish! Oh for sure, in 1924 and '25, when they were not together in Paris, I allowed my friend Henri Philippe Omer Pétain and Noëlle Olivier to meet in secret here to spend a few quiet hours in each other's arms. What else are friends for when the dice have already been cast? Auguste-Alphonse had been told many times by myself and others that the Maréchal was not the first of her lovers.
Mon Dieu
, he was too busy at that bank of ours, too concerned with squandering our money on bringing a modern telephone exchange to Vichy. Officers … for years we've had a military hospital. Not the badly wounded, you understand. Colonials mostly. Convalescents and men on special leave who came, and still do, for the cure. Noëlle would often help entertain the boys with games, walks,
thés dansants
and concerts,
bals masqués
and cabaret nights in which she loved to take part and was always the favourite.
Le cigare, la figure
, the black stockings, eh, and garters. The bawdy songs and gestures.'

He paused. He waited to see if his words had sunk in, so one had best let him talk it out!

‘Please remember that Auguste-Alphonse was away for all but a few weeks during the '14-18 war, Inspector. Four years can be an eternity to a young woman who is
très sensuelle, très adorable et élégante
and outstanding even among the Parisian
hautes mondaines
who came to Vichy for
la saison des curistes
after that war. Men were always at her feet – Auguste was well aware of this and proud of what he'd married. Ah yes, he loved to show her off to friends and business associates! But is it any wonder then that she found what she wanted in the
buffet
he himself had provided?'

Cage after cage faced the sun, each with its shelter, the tiled roof of the barn extending well out for further protection.

‘The bank, monsieur. You said, “Our bank”.'

Hébert continued to the nearest of the enclosures, that of the guinea fowl, whose little tribe hurried relentlessly round and round it.

‘
Oui.
It was his and mine and that of others,' he said, turning sideways to look, not directly at him, but slightly downwards.

‘During the war I had to take over in his absence and things went well. It was only later, when he returned, that the problems started. A fortune I lost when that bank went bust in '33. A fortune!'

‘And now?'