Flykiller

No glances were exchanged. Madame Petain noticed a pulled thread in the tablecloth and plucked fastidiously at it.

‘Sandrine and Elisabeth haven’t had to watch that place in some time, Inspector. Even when they did, their surveillance was limited to those occasions when they felt certain something must be going on, often during the cinq a sept. Fortunately there is a cafe just across the boulevard de l’Hotel de Ville, one not much frequented by those of the Government.’

‘Seedy?’

‘A little.’

‘Madame, these two would have stood out like sore thumbs. Yourself also!’

‘Certainly, but the patron is a very understanding man, a White Russian who is married to a Jewess. Menetrel, to his shame I must say, is our most violent anti-Semite, so you see he could not possibly have been aware of our having used that cafe unless …’

Merde, what the hell were the three of them after now?

‘Albert Grenier,’ said Elisabeth de Fleury softly. ‘On several occasions I saw Albert going into or coming from that hotel, and often just after Madame Dupuis had left it.’

The resident rat-catcher …

‘And once, Elisabeth, someone else,’ prompted Sandrine.

‘Ah oui. His mother. At least, at first that is who I thought it was, but then Madame la Marechale corrected me.’

‘Edith Pascal,’ sighed St-Cyr, for Edith obtained newspapers from Albert. Sacre nom de nom, must he feel so completely out of his depth with these three?

It was Madame Petain who said, ‘Albert would have told his grand-uncle of that room, Inspector.’

‘And Charles-Frederic Hebert would have told Dr Menetrel,’ said Sandrine Richard, ‘but more recently, I think, and just before the killings started.’

This thing goes round and round, Hermann would have said.

‘Inspector,’ confided Madame Petain, her forearms now resting on the table, ‘Charles-Frederic is indebted to the doctor for the position he holds at that chateau of Herr Abetz’s and for the dreams he harbours of its return. Hebert must have known those girls were informants. Once the doctor had learned of their betraying the country, he would not have let that one forget it.’

‘So Hebert and Albert killed them?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And when, please, Madame de Fleury, did you first see Albert and Mademoiselle Pascal going into that hotel?’

‘First?’ she bleated.

‘First,’ he said.

‘Last August. The 16th, a Sunday afternoon. Honore and I were to have taken the children to the town’s swimming pool in the Allier, but … but at the last moment, my husband said he had to go in to work and that I should take them myself. “The children mustn’t be disappointed,” he said. “Here, let me give you a little something for their ices.”’

The bastard. Saccharin and ersatz flavours, and well before the raid when photos were taken at the chateau.

The sculptress had had some soup and a few of the egg-salad sandwiches from one of the trolleys and was now on her first cup of tea – ‘Real tea,’ she had exclaimed, ‘and petits fours like Celine and I used to buy from Monsieur Bibeau’s patisserie in the rue Mouffetard.’

Kohler knew he shouldn’t have let her enjoy herself. He hadn’t put the squeeze on her all the while Louis had been at that other table – still was, for that matter – though they desperately needed answers from her, if for no other reason than her own safety. Yet he couldn’t ask if she’d delivered messages in Paris for Olivier – that would be far too risky for Louis and himself, should Gessler get his hands on her. Somehow he had to go around that one and yet prise what he could from her about it.

‘You get sick a lot, don’t you? First in that snow-bound toilet and then in the sacristy.’

Flustered – caught out as if having taken something she shouldn’t have – Ines reluctantly set aside the half-eaten little wedge of Genoese sponge cake, with its filling of butter cream, glaze of apricot jam and coating of white icing. The meringues had looked so heavenly, the miniature eclairs also, but had Herr Kohler fed her simply to loosen her tongue?