Flykiller

‘How long has the infatuation been going on – is this what you’re after? Ah! you police. Always looking for dirt, always suspecting the worst even when you should be doing your duty and finding this … this assassin before he strikes again – again, Inspector!’

‘And the Marechal has had his eye on others, has he?’

‘Some.’

‘What was she like?’

‘On stage or in the drawing room and around the dinner table?’

The gut was being tugged! ‘Both, please.’

Menetrel’s eyes lit up with mischief. ‘She’d a way with her, that one. Mon Dieu, I must grant her that. Naughty, ribald, voluptueuse, sensuelle yet diabolique – it was all an act, when on stage; when not, why, well brought up, tres belle, tres intelligente et differente. The Marechal recognized this last instantly and, yes, he had set his cap at having her.’

‘Then there may well be love letters?’

‘Find them, damn you! I haven’t been able to!’

The patient winced, which was good and necessary, thought Menetrel. St-Cyr had been a sergeant in a Signals Corps at Verdun. Wounded twice – the left thigh and left shoulder – he had managed to crawl back to the trenches. Unruly as a boy, he had been sent to the farm of distant relatives near Saarbrucken for the holidays each summer for three years; had then used the Deutsch he had learned to good effect in 1917; had managed to convince the Boches he was one of theirs in no-man’s-land and had got away.

No medals, no awards, just memories he shared with that partner of his from the other side. Like brothers, those two, grated Menetrel. Both honest, both insufferable seekers of the truth who couldn’t be bought. And damn Laval for having asked that they be sent from Paris! Damn Bousquet for not having overruled that boss of his and found others who would listen! Damn him, too, for not having had the decency to have kept his word and included him, the Marechal’s confident, in the briefing!

‘Where were you on the night of the murder, Doctor?’

The gut was yanked!

‘Was I here, in my office, eh? Did I plan to let that woman into his room and then to watch over the evening’s performance? Of course not. Have more sense. When privacy is called for, privacy is always guaranteed.’

‘Then where, exactly, were you?’

‘With my wife and children in the Hotel Majestic which is but a few steps away. I’ve a suite there, as has the Marechal for Madame Petain, but can be here in a matter of minutes.’

The needle was inserted again and again, the gut drawn, the carefully manicured short and finely boned fingers deft and swift. Menetrel concentrated even as he clipped the gut at last, then sighed.

‘Now we will leave it bare, I think, so as to have it heal faster and better. Unfortunately you will look like a boxer who has just been punished, but that can’t be helped.’

And you’ve found out as much about me as possible, noted St-Cyr, but asked, ‘What rewards did you offer the victim and Monsieur de Fleury?’

The chin tightened. The doctor took a moment to answer.

‘I see that our Inspector of Finances has been indiscreet, but such rewards as I offered are a private matter, Inspector. Find this assassin before he kills his intended target. Bring him to justice and I will see that you are awarded one of these.’

‘The Francisque,’ sighed St-Cyr. The medal for the faithful that the doctor had had a retired jeweller design. ‘Modelled after the Victor of Verdun’s swagger stick, the blades after those of’ – Ah! one wanted so much to say Madame Petain but must humbly substitute – ‘a two-headed battle-axe.’

‘Be the detective inspector I know you to be. Go where you wish, interview whomever you feel necessary, but be discreet. Leave the Marechal and that wife of his totally out of it. Madame la Marechale knows nothing of the matter and will only slow you down.’

And interfere? wondered St-Cyr. Menetrel had been the one, it was said, who had arranged for the arrest of Premier Laval on 13 December 1940 when Petain had dismissed the Auvergnat for assuming too much power. The Garde Mobile had locked up Laval in his chateau but had been stopped short of the requested assassination by an armed contingent of SS, under the leadership of Otto Abetz, the German Ambassador, who had arrived to whisk the former premier off to the safety of Paris.

Such were the state of things in Vichy then, and probably still.

‘Who knew of this little visit she was to have made?’

The doctor waved an impatient hand. ‘Ask de Fleury. He or Madame Dupuis must have let something slip. I didn’t.’

‘Yet you excused the Garde from their duties?’

The needle was put away, the excess gut dropped into an envelope for later sterilization.

‘They were called away. A false alarm.’

‘Not all of them, surely.’