Flykiller

‘Messieurs …’ began the sculptress, only to be told, ‘You left your valise unattended in the cellars of the Hotel du Parc yesterday, mademoiselle. You couldn’t have known the Resistance got at it. Even Gestapo Gessler didn’t find the bomb!’

The windows shattered. Glass rained inwards, pieces and pieces of coloured glass, the stench of cordite and plaster, of stone dust too.

Kohler caught and dragged her down as Louis fell. Blood spattered the tablecloth and the Marechal’s brow. ‘Merde!’ exclaimed Petain. ‘It’s exactly as it was at Verdun!’ And hadn’t Madame Ribot predicted just such a thing?

The shrieks, the accusations, denials, threats and counterthreats were now over.

Subdued, still very much in terror of being arrested, Ines stood on the platform a little to one side of the detectives. The train, though agonizingly late, had finally arrived but it could not and would not be allowed to leave until Laval had spoken to them. A fag end glued to his lower lip, the Premier hurried towards them.

‘Ah bon,’ he said, ‘and in the nick of time, eh?’ Meaning their arrival at the Chante Clair.

‘Premier …’ began Louis, only to be silenced by an upraised hand.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he said to Ines, ‘you make a mask of the Marechal, and it blows up nearly killing all of us. Herr Gessler continues to have serious doubts about you, but is forced to admit that he and Herr Jannicke examined that valise of yours, while I …’

‘Premier, she could not have known of the bomb,’ insisted Louis.

‘She was cheated, had mistakenly bought a phial of bitter almond instead of one of cloves. For … for the toothache, you understand.’

‘But Albert had a look, Premier,’ said Kohler.

‘He spilled almost all of it,’ muttered Ines hesitantly.

‘Olivier also had ample opportunity to get at that case,’ said Louis.

‘My valise …’ wept Ines. She had let Monsieur Olivier open it, had shown him the portrait mask but … but dare not say anything of this. ‘Celine … Celine and others knew I always carried my first-aid kit in it.’

‘But by the time the bomb was planted in blocks of beeswax to replace your own, mademoiselle,’ said Louis, ‘it would not have mattered, since Albert had, by spilling that phial, done the necessary to divert us all from the smell of the Nobel 808.’

Had he been told to do so? wondered Ines. Had he?

‘Peut-etre,’ muttered Laval. Should he have this girl arrested? One whose life was still ahead of her? ‘Go then. Take her with you. Ah! I almost forgot.’

Digging into his overcoat pocket, he pulled out the telegram he had received from Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris, and handed it over.

‘“Karneval,” Hermann. “Kolmar. Contact Kommandant Rasche. Hangings, Stalag III Elsass. Heil Hitler.”’

Alsace and what was now the Reich. Louis would have to cross the frontier. He’d have no authority there, would …

‘A POW camp, Louis. A little warning of Boemelburg’s for us to keep quiet about things here or else.’

But what kind of Carnival? wondered St-Cyr, looking up to that God of his. What kind of a warning? Paris … they’d both wanted desperately to get back to Paris.

Rasche … Hadn’t he heard that name before? wondered Kohler, not liking the thought but conscious of Louis. ‘Maybe this Kommandant won’t keep us too long, mon vieux,’ he said, the memories flooding over him like ice-cold spa water, for not only did he damned well know who Rasche was, he’d spent nearly two years in such camps, had learned to speak and write French while there, hadn’t known how useful it would become.

The Premier handed the chief inspector a packet of Gitanes and, tipping his hat, grunted, A bon chat, bon rat, mes amis. Tit for tat. One good turn deserves another. Au revoir, mademoiselle. A safe journey.’

Through the soot-streaked windows of their compartment, Ines watched as Monsieur le Premier shouldered his way along the platform, to finally disappear from view. St-Cyr had lighted a cigarette – one only – and sensing, she surmised, that it was a moment he and his partner must share, had passed it to Herr Kohler.

Two men from opposite sides of this war, thrown together by chance and common crime, Ines told herself, and taking a pencil and paper from her handbag, sketched the two of them as they were. No smiles, each so different, yet both grave with concern for the other and this new task, their respective loved ones also, and for what would happen to them and to France when spring finally came.

Tue-mouches – Flykiller – was the nom code, the code name, of the resistant Jean Schellnenberger, who was captured, interrogated and then shot in Dijon in 1942.