Flykiller

‘Asshole, am I? Then what about this, Inspector? His first wife left him in despair; the second … ah! should I tell you of her? All but a virgin and only twenty-one, she fell down the cellar stairs here and bled to death behind … yes, yes, Inspector, behind a door that should not have been found closed and locked after her fall but was, it is whispered, slammed on her!’

‘Imbecile, she was drunk and had pulled the door closed behind her!’

‘But she couldn’t have locked it, could she?’ shouted Sandrine, getting up from the table to face him with clenched fists. ‘Not when naked, terrified and running away from two of your friends who’d been at her in that bird-room of yours because she’d sworn she was going to leave you! A girl whose wealth was more than your own and went straight into your pockets!’

‘Espece de salope! Putain!’

‘Fucking bitch, am I? A whore, eh?’

‘Talk is cheap, madame, and that is all you women ever do!’

‘Ah oui, mon fin, but surely we do it not for entertainment? Surely it is to get at the truth of vermin like yourself!’

The warehouse, the barn, was chock-full of dehydrated food. ‘Enough for an army,’ breathed Kohler, in awe of what lay before them.

For as far as they could see, sealed crates were stacked to the roof timbers. Narrow aisles threaded their way through this maze. There was no sign of Albert beyond the last of his footprints in the snow and now … now, thought Ines, only the droplets of blood that, on either side of him, had shadowed those footprints.

‘He’ll have built himself a little nest in here,’ said Blanche. ‘He’ll have gone to ground and will wait until you and the Chief Inspector leave.’

‘Then he’s got a long wait,’ grunted Kohler.

‘Must we find him?’ bleated Ines, sickened by the thought. ‘He … he might do something.’

‘Just why are you so afraid of him if you’ve nothing to hide?’ he asked.

‘Because these days even when one has done nothing, one can still be blamed.’ And why, oh why did Albert suspect her? She’d given him no sign she’d cause trouble, had done nothing but try to befriend him. Had even shown him the wax portrait of Petain in her valise and had watched as his eyes had searched it for each detail, in wonder, yes, but had that been when he’d first decided to take exception to her, or had it been later at the Jockey Club?

They came to cases and cases of pipe tobacco, then to those of cigarettes, one of which had been opened at a corner to reveal tins of Wills Gold Flake. ‘Fifty to a tin,’ quipped Kohler, ‘and wouldn’t you know it, these never saw the underside of a parachute.’

There was tea and there was coffee, cognac too – case after case of it and no concern about its freezing; the champagne and wine were kept in the cellars, no doubt. And cigars? wondered Ines.

‘They’d have picked up the aromas of too many other things,’ said Herr Kohler. Had he read her mind?

Blanche had said nothing further but had stayed close, too close. Sunlight, pouring through the cracks between the boards, filtered in. At a turning, the translator’s hands touched her shoulders, lightly, so lightly …

At another turning, the corridor ran straight to the very centre of the barn and to a ladder up into the loft.

There was blood on the first of the rungs, then only on every third and fourth one and its side rails. The rats … had there been dead rats? wondered Ines, Had they banged against the ladder as Albert had climbed it?

He was right under the cupola, had made himself a little shelter and was sitting, legs sprawled on the floor, with the beige dust of dehydrated beef-and-noodle soup showered all over his tricolour scarf, knitted cap and bleus de travail, along with the diced, rock-hard carrots and peas, the tomato, too, of a minestrone and the pale white of a leek-and-potato. Several packets had been torn open, sampled, consumed or discarded. Two silver foils of Swiss, dehydrated bar chocolate were half gone. The soup and the chocolate were smeared all over his face, guilt in his eyes, and four dead rats hanging by their tails from wires that were hooked to his belt.

Slim and sleek, Noelle Olivier’s Laguiole lay open in his lap. The butcher’s knife was on the floor next to his left hand. The contents of her bag were strewn about, having been well thumbed. Her carte d’identite, sauf-conduit, lipstick and compact, some photos of Celine and herself as teenagers, the phial of perfume … Again Blanche touched her shoulders. Instinctively Ines ducked. Albert leapt! Herr Kohler hit him hard and he dropped like a stone.

‘Get him some snow to eat. Not too much or he’ll swell up like a balloon.’

‘He was hungry. He wouldn’t have hurt anyone,’ swore Blanche, frantic but not, perhaps, at the sight of Albert or of what he’d almost done. ‘Now he’s bleeding. He’s cut his head.’

‘Mother him. Pet him like you let him pet that rabbit of Celine’s.’