Flykiller

‘One killing is a drowning, quick and easy, and no one sees it as murder, Hermann, until much later. The next is a garrotting, embellished only in that the wire, similar to that which Albert Grenier uses, is found embedded in the victim’s throat. The third killing is further embellished by a riding crop, dead rats, a corpse that is hidden in an armoire, as if a child, a young man, a naughty boy, had done it.’

‘Albert again.’

‘Only with the fourth killing, as we now know, do we see further embellishment. A cigar band, cigar ashes, a knife with a past; earrings and perfume of the same; but since we may no longer be dealing with two assailants, a man and woman, we had best go carefully over things.’

Steam rose from the waiting soup. ‘Blanche claims that Edith told her and her brother that Petain met their mother in the Hall the day Noelle took her life, Louis.’

‘Then everything with this fourth killing is to point to Olivier as the killer.’

The soup would still be too hot in any case and Louis was trying hard to face up to the worst of this affair.

‘A body is found by Albert just after curfew, and at 7.32 a.m. Menetrel pronounces Madame Dupuis dead, Hermann.’

‘Laval fails to mention the V for Victory, as does Menetrel, but was it there at 7.32 or is it left afterwards, but before Laval’s arrival?’

Sadly it was a good question, for if it was present overnight, the Resistance could well have killed Madame Dupuis; if not, then the matchstick could either have been left just before or after Menetrel’s viewing the corpse, either as a further warning to les gars or, if left by someone other than a resistant, to implicate them. ‘Left there overnight, perhaps,’ said St-Cyr, not liking it but motioning to Hermann to eat. ‘Crush up some bread. Here, let me do it for you.’

‘You know I can do that for myself!’

‘Yes! but I want the sculptress to see that we look after each other.’

‘A Resistance killing,’ muttered Kohler. Louis had seen that their discussing it couldn’t be avoided, but had the civil war begun? They did tend to leave other tokens of their presence, not just painted slogans. ‘But why, then, did Menetrel fail to mention it?’

That, too, was a good question. ‘Fear perhaps. Also a need to first find answers for himself. Remember, please, with what we are dealing.’

‘An eminence grise who’s accustomed to holding things close and is fiercely competitive, Louis, but let’s set that one aside for the moment, eh? It would still have been dark at 7.32 Berlin Time. The police hadn’t yet been notified. Albert would have had to give the doctor his torch or lantern.’

The sun not up for an hour. ‘Darkness, then, and yes, someone who could come and go at will and with no one the wiser, but with less than twenty minutes in which to complete the task, since Laval was there at near to eight.’

‘Someone who has an ear glued so closely to the ground that he, she or they would know beforehand what’s to happen,’ said Kohler.

‘They’d have had to know Laval would leave his office. It’s too tight a timing, Hermann. The V for Victory was left when she was killed.’

‘Or afterwards but before her body was first discovered.’

‘The girl is killed, the knife removed and dropped into a portable toilet, one that Albert is sure to investigate. But why remove it in the first place if one wishes to focus attention on Olivier? Just what the hell is really going on, Hermann? Love letters are left for us to find? Sapphires that the Resistance should, by rights, have stolen? Press clippings for Laval?’

‘An identity card.’

‘Charles-Frederic Hebert knew only of the earrings and the perfume, but was taken aback when he learned of the dress.’

‘As was Blanche Varollier.’

‘Light would have been needed if one was to duck into the Hall after the killing and Menetrel’s visit to the corpse. Light and then darkness, Hermann. Night blindness. Olivier told me he suffered from it. Ten minutes were required for his eyes to adjust. He knew Celine Dupuis. The girl had asked him to write to Mademoiselle Charpentier and send the letter with Lucie Trudel …’

Kohler set his soup spoon down and sighed. ‘He’d have walked behind Celine along that corridor in the hotel, would have let her lead the way to freedom – was that what he told her, Louis? That the FTP had organized an escape for her? No struggle, the girl not trying to get away until in the Hall.’

‘Only to then be killed.’

‘Having tried her damnedest to remove and hide the earrings.’

Herr Kohler methodically added more bread to his soup and stirred it in. He was not happy, thought Ines, was disgruntled.

‘Could Celine have been trying to protect Blanche and Paul, Louis? She must have known they’d taken the earrings for Menetrel, would have known de Fleury had been given them and had been told to tell her to wear them.’

‘Mademoiselle Charpentier was her friend and confidante, Hermann. She would have wanted to protect Olivier if only to protect the sculptress.’