Flykiller

Monsieur Bousquet sat down but continued to enjoy his little discovery. If he was upset about anything at all, he wasn’t going to let the assembled even guess at it. Dashing, always impeccably dressed and self-confident, he was one of the most well-informed and well-connected men in the country and yet here she was sitting at a table with him.

The Marechal arrived with Premier Laval. Dr Menetrel was right behind them. Throughout the dining room, coffee cups were put down, croissants abandoned, napkins quickly used and set aside as everyone stood.

The Glacier and the Moroccan carpet dealer, the horse-trader, the shady operator – le Maquignon – headed across the room to where a screen hid the Marechal’s table from prying eyes.

Petain said a brief good morning to everyone. Laval said nothing, Menetrel ducking round behind the screen to join the conference, Bousquet … Bousquet saying, ‘If you will excuse me, Herr Kohler, mademoiselle, I’d best see what’s up.’

He, too, went behind the leaded glass panels on which bare-shouldered maidens, swathed in soft white towels, their curls pinned up, dabbled their pretty toes in the rushing waters of an imaginary stream.

The four of them are behind that screen, said Ines to herself, but to Herr Kohler, who was watching her reactions closely, she would have to say with a smile she knew would be weak and would utterly fail to mask her thoughts, ‘There is Vichy, Inspector. If you had told me this morning that I would shortly see them gathered around one table like that, I would not have believed you. Now I must leave. Excuse me, please. My presence here will only cause you further embarrassment, and I would not want that.’

Seen in the reflection from the corridor’s wall mirror and through a side entrance, the Chante Clair’s clientele grew increasingly uneasy. Whispers here, others there, thought Ines as she straightened her cloche and tidied her scarf. Oh bien sur, they were now worried. Rumours of an aborted assassination attempt must have circulated; a dancer had been murdered – slaughtered perhaps to protect the identity of the would-be assassin. A hurried, urgent conference had been convened with the Marechal …

From either side of that privacy screen they came, the conference suddenly terminated, Bousquet swift and no longer looking so confident, Menetrel and Premier Laval grim and to the left, the Auvergnat easily elbowing the doctor out of the way so that the closest of empty chairs could be grabbed.

One by one they sat down at Herr Kohler’s table, leaving the Marechal to dine alone but with thoughts of what? she asked herself. The nearness of death while having adulterous sex with a beautiful but lonely young woman whose child had had to be left in Paris, messieurs? Paris! The lack of guards? The affront of their not having been on duty?

‘I’d best join my partner, hadn’t I?’

Ah Sainte Mere, it was the Chief Inspector St-Cyr. For how long had he been watching her? From the moment she had sat down over coffee and croissants with his partner or simply now?

Doubt, suspicion and a too-evident interest filled the look he gave her, since she had pretended to tidy herself in the mirror …

He had seen right through her. Not waiting for a reply, the Surete departed. Fedora in hand and overcoat unbuttoned, he headed for that table and, seizing a free chair along the way, took it with him.

Then he, too, sat down but next to his partner so as to face the others and yet also see her still standing in this corridor.

Ducking her eyes, the girl turned away from the mirror, soon to cross the foyer and leave the hotel. A sculptress, said St-Cyr to himself. A patcher-up of battered detectives.

‘Hermann, a moment. Let me begin.’

‘No, you let me!’ seethed Menetrel. ‘Which of you idiots told the lift operator that the Marechal’s life had been threatened? Come, come, messieurs. I told you to be discreet – I warned you!’

‘Bernard … Bernard, go easy,’ urged Laval, his olive-dark eyes glistening.

‘Easy, when the Marechal has learned the Garde Mobile were not on duty and is furious? He’s … he’s demanding a full inquiry!’

‘But neither of these two would have released such information,’ said Laval, shaking his head. ‘These things simply have a way of getting out, Bernard.’

‘And to his ears?’

‘His good one, I trust. The Marechal’s stone deaf in the left one, Inspectors.’

‘Messieurs, please,’ cautioned Louis. ‘This key was taken from the groundskeepers’ board in the furnace room of the Hotel du Parc. Whoever took it not only knew where to find it, but more importantly, since none of the keys was identified, exactly which one would be needed.’

‘A town resident, an employee, perhaps,’ said Menetrel, not looking at them. ‘One who has passed by that padlock every day and has seen it many times.’

The key looked as if suitable for any padlock of that vintage. ‘Why the Hall des Sources?’ asked Laval. ‘Why plan to take the Marechal there? Why not simply kill him in that bedroom of his?’