Flykiller (6 page)

‘My case of tools, Inspector,' he heard her quickly saying as she indicated a worn leather valise with a tray of many compartments. Spatulas, hooks, knives and other wooden-handled tools – the same essentially as a taxidermist would use – were there. Scissors, balls of knotted twine, rolls of surgical gauze … a small, tightly stoppered phial of some kind of oil, another of the perfume – could he manage to get a closer look at it? he wondered. Some drawing pins …

‘All the rubbish of my humble trade, Inspector.'

‘And the Maréchal is to sit for you?' She was still close to him, still on her knees …

‘The Musée is always late when granting its commissions, but fortunately has decided Monsieur le Maréchal should have a head-and-shoulders done for posterity's sake. I am nervous, of course, but understandably so, even though experienced. Ten years, and with the medals to prove it.'

Pétain, like Charlemagne, would take his place in the waxworks of history at 10 boulevard Montmartre. ‘The Musée already has a life-sized statue of him, mademoiselle.'

‘Yes. The Victor of Verdun and on the white horse he once rode in a parade, but that … that was done long ago.'

‘Not so long. Not even twenty-five years ago. I was among those who marched in that Bastille Day parade of 1919, the Treaty of Versailles having just been signed in June.'

A veteran, then, but one who was determined to let her know of it. The young these days … Did he think them cowards? wondered Inés. ‘You are correct, of course, Inspector. The bust is simply to show how the demands of state have superimposed themselves upon those left by that other terrible war. One in which the father I never knew was taken from me, and at Verdun as well.'

An ice pack arrived and she gently placed it against his forehead, guiding his hand to hold it. Closing the case, she retreated to her chair. A girl of twenty-eight or so, not too tall but above medium height and of good posture. Very correct. Calm, too, now that the introductions were over.

‘You must rest a little, Inspector. There may be concussion. Please don't try to move. Just try to relax.' And let your dark brown, wounded eyes, now cleared, take in the swift-eyed little gangster who hit you. Please note the scar beneath the thinness of that black goatee he thinks so handsome. It's to the right of that chin which is so pronounced, and was caused, I assume, by the razor's edge of a broken lump of sugar
*
and a fight over some pimp's girl, but at the tender age of sixteen perhaps. Note, too, the insolent way he looks at you, the carefully trimmed moustache that extends to the turned-down corners of thin lips but is not so thick and bushy as your own. Note the forehead that is surprisingly free of wrinkles for one so bold. Note the nose, its sharpness, the clarity and paleness of the skin – he's no outdoors man, this Henri-Claude Ferbrave of the Garde Mobile, otherwise those beautifully chiselled and shaven upper cheeks would be ruddy,
n'est-ce pas?
The jet-black, carefully combed and parted hair glistens with a pomade that holds the scent of ersatz spices – cinnamon, I think, but it's doubtful. The deeply sunken dark brown eyes have late-night shadows that are caused, no doubt, by repeated visits to his favourite
maison de tolérance.
Note, too, the suspicion with which he now, under my scrutiny, gazes at me, Inspector. But please remember that I arrived late last night and can therefore have had absolutely nothing to do with this tragedy.

2

Having caught a glimpse. of what was going on behind the blackout curtains of the foyer, Kohler found the Hotel du Parc's side door that was off the rue Petit, between that hotel and the Majestic, and went quickly up its staircase. It was still early, not yet 5.45 a.m. Louis was keeping the troops busy. Louis was sitting on the floor of the foyer and bleeding, but there'd be time enough to settle that little matter. The Government of France stirred. From somewhere there was the sound of a cough, from elsewhere that of teeth being brushed.
Mein Gott
, were the walls that thin?

The Quai d'Orsay had taken the first and part of the second storey – Foreign Affairs – but Premier Laval also had his offices on the second. The Élysée Palace – Pétain and his retinue – were on the third. The main lift sounded. He paused, his heart hammering – those stairs; that Benzedrine he was taking; he'd have to watch himself.

The lift had stopped. The cage was being opened. Again sounds carried, again he heard them clearly but still couldn't see the lift. Was that the Maréchal snoring? Pétain was known to be an early riser. Whispers were heard, the lift-cage closed, as it descended to the ground floor …

Céline Dupuis would most probably have come in through the main entrance to cross the foyer and step into the lift. Had she been challenged, given clearance, or had there been no one on guard in the lobby? And why wouldn't the lift attendant have been on duty, or had he, too, been excused?

Questions … There were always questions. Presumably still wearing her overcoat, the girl had come up to this floor and then … then had walked towards the Maréchal's bedroom, had been seen or heard by her killer who must have been about to target that same door, had been taken from the hotel, forced down the stairs – which stairs? – and out into the street and the Hall des Sources.

‘Without her overcoat,' he sighed, ‘and in a white nightgown that would have been easily seen at night.'

Yet, in so far as Louis and he knew, no one had come forward to say they'd noticed her. And where, please, had she left her overcoat? And why, please, remove her if Pétain was to have been the intended target?

The corridor he was in was flanked by back-to-back pairs of tall wooden filing cabinets, with tiny makeshift desks between them and iron chairs that had been taken from the nearby park. Green-shaded lamps would give but a feeble light to the legions of clerks who worked here day in and day out. A duplicating machine leaked, a typewriter held an unfinished synopsis. Names … letters and postcards of denunciation – Pétain had received about 3,000 a day in 1940, now it was still about 1,800, and eighty per cent of them, like the thousands received by the Kommandantur in Paris and every other French city and town, were the poison-pen missiles of a nation that had all too willingly adopted the saying, ‘I'm going to
les Allemands
with this!'

A bad neighbour, jealous wife, unfaithful husband or cheating shopkeeper were all fair game. Old scores were constantly being settled and, to the shame of everyone, the authorities still gave credence to such trash.

Perhaps thirty of these bulging mailbags, fresh in from the main PTT, the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone station, were all waiting to be opened and synopses made for the Maréchal. Yet when Kohler came to the corridor on to which the lift opened, it was like that of any other big hotel, though here there were no trays outside the doors for the maids to collect, no newspapers lying in wait to be read. Simply brass nameplates below the room numbers, and on his right, first that of Captain Bonhomme, the Maréchal's orderly, then that of the Secretariat, then that of its chief, Dr Ménétrel …

Stopping outside the Maréchal's bedroom, Kohler looked back along the corridor – tried to put his mind into that of the victim. She hadn't really wanted to do this, would have been nervous, worried, was wearing a pair of very expensive earrings – why, for God's sake?

Had been let out of de Fleury's car and had had to make this little journey all alone.

Ménétrel's private office, he knew, was connected to Pétain's bedroom. Rumour had it that there were two approaches to the Maréchal: the official one via the Secretariat and then down the corridor to the reception room and office at the very end; and the unofficial one, through Ménétrel's office and into Pétain's bedroom and. then to the reception room.

Had she stood outside the doctor's office and done her discreet knocking there? Was that where she'd taken off her coat, scarf, beret and gloves, and if so, had the killer seen her slip back into the corridor, or had she intended to use the unofficial route?

The snoring was sonorous. Across the corridor were the rooms, the offices of more of the Maréchal's immediate staff. Several of them not only worked here but lived, ate and slept here as well, but any of those doors could have been left unlocked; she could have left her things in any one of those rooms if told to do so, yet they hadn't been found.

Searching – taking in the lingering odours of boiled onions, garlic and dinner cabbage or the sweetness of fried rutabaga steaks that had emanated from the various rooms over the years of the Occupation – he went along the corridor to its very end, to where a small balcony opened off it. The french windows were on the latch, but when released to a blast of frigid air and the threat of arrest for breaking the blackout regulations, he could see her coat lying neatly folded next to the windows. Beret, scarf and gloves were on top of it, but no handbag of course, for that would have been stolen, wouldn't it?

She had been confronted by her killer – would have realized the windows hadn't been on the latch but had been too worried about the Maréchal and her little visit to notice that someone was there.

Shining his torch across the snow-covered balcony with its frozen geraniums in terracotta pots, Kohler picked out the footprints, their hollows only partly hidden by the snow. There were lots of them, too, but when brushed clear, the prints weren't from wooden-soled shoes but from the hobnailed boots of the Auvergne. Worn ones, too, with cleats, just like thousands and thousands of others.

The bastard must have waited here for quite some time, had been damned cold and had stamped his feet to get warm, but had he known she'd come, or had her little visit been unexpected? And why, please, hadn't anyone with a grain of competence found her things and the prints yesterday, or had they all been far too worried about their own assassinations?

No signs of a struggle, though. None at all. The girl had simply gone with him quietly.

The toughs,
les durs
, were still hanging around the foyer, smoking their fag ends and looking as if they'd missed something. Pensive, the girl with the valise sat staring at her hands, avoiding Louis, not even glancing up at his partner who was carrying the victim's clothes, which he had obviously just found.

Kohler helped Louis to his feet. They'd speak privately as was their custom when in company that strained to listen.

‘Hermann, was there a blouse?'

‘A what?'

‘The killer – a woman – was wearing one in the Hall des Sources and may have got bloodstains on it.'

‘But … but I found his footprints on the balcony.'

‘A man's?'

‘Yes!'

‘Cigar ashes?'

‘None.'

‘Cigarette, then?'

‘None again. He'd have flicked them into the wind. No struggle either.'

‘Did she know him?'

‘It's possible, but maybe he had a gun.'

A man and a woman. It would be best to let a sigh escape, thought St-Cyr, and then … then to simply say for all to hear, ‘
Ah bon, mon vieux
, the
marmite perpétuelle
begins to look interesting.'

The perpetual pot of soup that was to be found at the back of every kitchen stove in rural France! ‘It smells, and you know it,' hissed Kohler.

More couldn't be said, for they'd fresh company: dapper, of medium height and with newly shone black leather shoes – real leather – below dark blue serge trousers that were neatly pressed – no turn-ups these days, a concession to the shortages of fabric; the grey woollen overcoat was open and immaculate; the suit jacket double-breasted and with wide lapels, no shortages there; the grey fedora neatly blocked; the round, boyish cheeks of this thirty-seven-year-old freshly shaven, the aftershave still not dry; the dark brown eyes livid.

‘
Pour l'amour du Ciel
, why can't people do as they say they will? Inspectors, why was I not taken to meet you at Moulins? The Secrétaire général promised to include me.'

Doctor Bernard Ménétrel was clearly up early and in one hell of a huff. ‘It was very late,' tried St-Cyr, giving him a shrug.

‘Pah! That was nothing.
Nothing
, do you understand? It is I who am in charge of security. I who was left waiting at the train station here when I should have gone with them to meet you. Isn't the Maréchal my responsibility? Don't I look after his every need? An assassin? An abduction from our hotel? Another killing? Three … it is
three
of them now!'

‘And this?' asked Louis, indicating the goose egg and not bothering to ask who had got the doctor out of bed or why Bousquet had chosen not to include him in the welcoming party.

‘Ferbrave?' demanded Ménétrel.

‘The very one,' mused Louis.

‘He will apologize. For myself, I regret the discomfort you have suffered, but you should have had clearance from me and I was not taken to meet you. Henri-Claude was just doing his duty. Surely a veteran such as yourself can understand the reflex of a defensive action?'

Oh my, oh my, thought Kohler. The nose was fleshy, the mouth not big, not small, the neck close down on the squared shoulders. A medium man all round, the voice cherubic but acidic, the chin narrow and recessed so that the nose led the way in emphasizing everything he said. ‘Fix him, Doctor. Stitch him up. I need him.'

‘And you?' demanded Ménétrel, stung by the intrusion and still incensed.