Flykiller

‘My dear,’ interceded Madame Petain, ‘we have had to agree to turn them over.’

‘Gaetan has forbidden me to do so!’

‘Gaetan …?’ blurted Madame la Marechale, throwing Sandrine Richard a glance of alarm.

‘Madame, was he here?’ demanded St-Cyr.

‘Here?’ the woman asked, tossing back her hair. ‘He never comes here. He telephoned.’

‘Inspector …’ began Normand.

The room was rebounding with their voices. ‘A moment, Doctor. Madame, when, exactly, did your husband call you?’

Had the Inspector discovered the truth? Had he? wondered Julienne. ‘Late this afternoon. He said that if I would agree not to give up the negatives but to turn them over to him, he would see that I received the very best of legal defences and would want for nothing.’

Ah merde alors …

‘He accused you of killing Lucie Trudel, didn’t he?’ asked Elisabeth de Fleury, aghast at the implications of what must have happened. ‘He told you in complete detail how it was done.’

‘I wanted her dead! I wanted her smothered!’

‘But you didn’t do it, did you?’ implored Madame Petain.

Swiftly the woman looked to Sandrine Richard. ‘The negatives, Julienne,’ said that one firmly. ‘Don’t say anything. Just give them up.’

Beseechingly the gloved hands went out to her. ‘She lost the child, Sandrine. She spilled her baby into the armoire.’

‘Please, it’s best you do exactly as I’ve said!’ implored Sandrine.

‘My dear …’ attempted Madame Petain.

The woman tore her hair. ‘It would have been a son, Eugenie! An heir. I couldn’t have that happen, could I? She had to be stopped!’

‘Inspector, this isn’t right,’ seethed Madame Petain. ‘You can see the state she’s in. That … that husband of hers would call to accuse her!’

Elisabeth de Fleury had stepped from the group to comfort Madame Deschambeault, and hold the woman in a tight embrace.

‘The courts will be lenient,’ offered Raoul Normand blandly. ‘The judges are always very understanding in such cases.’

Madame Petain and Sandrine Richard exchanged glances of alarm.

‘Madame Deschambeault,’ said St-Cyr, ‘who told your husband that you would have the negatives?’

Again glances were exchanged. Madame de Fleury released Madame Deschambeault who, looking to Madame Richard, said, ‘Sandrine, forgive me, but he said that it was Alain Andre who had told him. They met and they talked. An urgent conference. Honore was with them, Elisabeth, and … and Secretaire General Bousquet.’

The four of them. ‘Then tell us, please,’ sighed St-Cyr, ‘what was on Lucie Trudel’s night-table?’

Once more the woman looked to Sandrine Richard for advice, then flicked an apologetic glance at Elisabeth de Fleury. ‘The Chomel, as I have it here on my own table.’

‘And the rats?’ he asked.

‘Rats?’ she bleated, throwing questioning looks at each of the other three. ‘What rats?’

Something would have to be said, thought Eugenie Petain. ‘Inspector, Julienne did want to smother Lucie Trudel. Sandrine was determined to drown Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux and to pay Henri-Claude Ferbrave to garrotte Camille Lefebvre, since Monsieur Bousquet’s wife was not among us.’

‘And God forgive me,’ said Elisabeth de Fleury, ‘I wanted desperately to stab Celine Dupuis in the heart.’

‘We spoke of it often, Inspector,’ confessed Madame Petain, ‘both here when visiting Julienne, and at our committee meetings in my flat, when Julienne was free to join us and when she has not, but I swear to you none of these ladies would have done as they’d said. It was all talk, but didn’t it help them to cope with what was happening to them? Didn ‘t I know exactly how each of them felt? How hurt and utterly betrayed, how insanely jealous, how totally exposed to the ridicule of others and to financial ruin?’

‘We also talked on the telephone when in need,’ said Elisabeth de Fleury. ‘No matter what hour of night or day, Madame la Marechale was always there to patiently listen and stand by each of us, but as to our carrying out such threats … Would that we had had the courage.’

‘Inspector, let the courts decide,’ advised Dr Normand. ‘Your task is simply to take down their proces-verbaux and then to leave it all up to the examining magistrate.’

‘It’s good of you to remind me, Doctor, but …’

‘Good Gott im Himmel, Louis, haven’t I told you time and again it’s the paperwork that counts?’ stormed Kohler as he barged into the room, a file folder in each hand. ‘Papers … papers, Chief. Always get the record down straight, even if you have to write it out twice, eh, Doc, and even if at one of those times it is dictated to you by another doctor?’

‘My safe … You …’ blurted Normand.

‘Had no right?’ shot Kohler, towering over him. ‘A member of the Geheime Stattspolizei, mein lieber Doktor? You’re the one who has no rights.’