Flykiller

‘My stomach hasn’t been right since the Defeat, Inspector. The constant diet of vegetables is impossible. Carrots always; rillettes and chops of rutabaga when I can’t stand the taste and woody texture of swedes and know the hospitals are full of appendicitis cases and other bowel complaints. The “rabbit stew” in the little restaurant I sometimes go to only tells me Monsieur Lapin has leaped the casserole and made good his escape, leaving mystery meat behind. The grey National causes gas and diarrhoea, and I can understand fully the concern of the doctors. I once dissolved some of that bread in a bowl of water to see what rose to the top and sank to the bottom, and have ever since wished I hadn’t. What one doesn’t know is often better than what one does, n’est-ce pas? Sawdust, little bits of straw, the wings and carapaces of beetles or weevils perhaps, fibres of some kind – cotton, I think, but hemp also from the grain bags – and a slimy coagulation of grey-green to black particles that are greasy and not of pepper.’

Rat shit but merde alors, hadn’t she unwound her tongue about it! ‘And at the bottom?’ he asked.

‘Sand-sized grit and larger particles from the grinding stones. That is what gave me the toothache I complained of and still have. A hairline crack, I think, in an old filling.’

‘And oil of bitter almonds instead of cloves …’

Had he not believed her? ‘Yes. Cheated twice. First by the Government adding weight with sand, and then by the salaud I had to deal with on the marche noir. He swore it was oil of cloves and I … I was stupid enough to have trusted him.’

Dentists seldom could offer anaesthetic. These days everyone was avoiding the drill, even Louis. ‘Albert didn’t just reject you. At the Jockey Club he tried to stick as close to you as possible and then, at the chateau, tried to kill you. Any ideas?’

‘None. I know it looks bad and, believe me, I’m trying hard to understand and forgive him.’

Her tea was getting cold. ‘Then start by telling me why that one is also wary of you.’

‘Blanche …?’ Did Herr Kohler suspect Monsieur Olivier had warned her about them, that Blanche and her brother had forced Edith Pascal to let them into his house? ‘Perhaps it is that she’s afraid of what Celine might have told me in the letters Lucie brought.’

‘That she and her brother live alone and share the same bed?’

Incest … was this what Herr Kohler wanted her to say? ‘That Blanche and Paul, being all but identical twins, are very close and that she worries constantly about his health and looks after him as a mother would.’

‘And doesn’t wonder what Celine told you of Olivier, or that one of himself, or even whether the two of you have met since you arrived in Vichy?’

So there it was: Olivier. ‘We haven’t met. I want to but … but there hasn’t been time yet.’ A lie of course, but would Herr Kohler accept it?

‘Too busy following us around, eh? What about Edith, then? Have you met her?’

She must force herself to gaze frankly at him. ‘Neither one nor the other, Inspector, and as for my “following” you and the Chief Inspector around, it is, as I’ve said, only because I’m waiting to get on with the job the Musee sent me to do and because I want, also, to find out who killed my friend.’

‘Lucie doesn’t seem to matter much to you.’

‘Yet we met in Paris and so I should be concerned? Mon Dieu, I am, but naturally more about Celine.’

Pas mal, pas mal. Not bad for an answer. ‘That wax portrait in your case …’

‘Needs only a touch-up, yes. If okayed by Monsieur le Marechal and Dr Menetrel, I may, I suppose, need do nothing further.’

Honesty at last, was that it? ‘Then you’re not here for as long as it takes.’

‘Well, in a way I am. Of course, I should have told you it was all but complete. I … I had thought to but … but wanted to give myself time to find out what I could about Celine’s murder.’

‘And you’re certain you’ve never met or spoken to Olivier? You wouldn’t have used the telephone to contact him? Few do these days if they can avoid it and there isn’t one in that house of his in any case, is there?’

‘I … I wouldn’t know. He … he did write to me once, as I’ve said, Inspector, and Celine did know he was my father’s compagnon d’armes.’

‘Verdammt! I knew I’d forgotten something.’

Taking three snapshots from a jacket pocket, he looked at her and then at each of them. ‘This one, I think,’ he said. ‘But first, admit that you knew Olivier had been forced by Petain into giving the firing squad its orders.’

After the Battle of Chemin des Dames … after the mutiny that followed in May 1917. She mustn’t let her eyes moisten, must gaze steadily at him and say clearly, ‘That just can’t be true, Inspector. Monsieur Olivier would have told me of it in his letter and begged my forgiveness. Instead, he wrote only of what a fine comrade Papa was, how brave and kind and honest, and how he had spoken constantly of me, the child he was never to see.’