Flykiller

‘One more floor,’ managed Kohler. ‘Right up under the eaves where the help used to sleep.’

A garret … In the spring of 1940 Vichy had had a population of 25,000, which had now almost doubled. The Hotel d’Allier, never first or second class during the fin de siecle or at any time since, had been converted into a rooming house for the legions of secretaries and clerks that had been needed – dancers too, and singers.

‘Number 3,’ swore St-Cyr, catching a breath and vowing to smoke only certified tobacco, not the sometimes necessary experiments with dried, uncured beet tops, celery leaves and other things.

The doorknob was of white porcelain, the lock not difficult. Through the lace curtains of a grimy mansard window, daylight filtered to touch the terracotta pots of a tiny kitchen garden – herbs, chives, green onions, lettuces, geraniums too – and among these, as if it belonged there for ever, a plump white rabbit stirred in its little cage but otherwise ignored them.

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to kill it, thought St-Cyr, parting the curtains. So many kept meat on the hoof in their flats and rooms these days. Guinea pigs, the latest Paris food fad, chickens, pigeons – cats that had been captured, kidnapped dogs too, if they could be silenced and were obedient.

The small glass pitcher she had used to water things had shattered with the frost but there was water in the rabbit’s dish and even winter grass that must have been recently scavenged from one of the parks or country roadsides.

Beyond the roofs of houses that would some day surely be demolished, he could see the river and above its far bank the racecourse and stables. Upstream, a little to his left, was a narrow weir and footbridge, the Pont Barrage, and to his right and downstream, the much wider, larger Boutiron Bridge.

Though still well within the town, they were some distance from the Hotel du Parc. ‘The blackout curtains have been opened, Hermann.’

‘Louis, Bousquet is already taking the lift.’

The sound of it came clearly through the walls. An iron four-poster, one of its brass knobs long gone, was unmade, but the pillows had been smoothed. A clutch of hairpins marked the place where Celine Dupuis had last sat.

There was a photograph of her daughter, another, in uniform, of the husband who’d been killed during the Blitzkrieg, a third of her parents and the house at 60 rue Lhomond.’

The leather-clad alarm clock from the early thirties had stopped at 11.22. The alarm, though, had been set for 7 a.m.

‘A rehearsal?’ asked Kohler.

‘She left in a hurry on Tuesday,’ muttered St-Cyr. ‘Flannelette pyjamas, heavy woollen socks, a cardigan, knitted gloves and a toque are in a heap on the carpet next to that wicker fauteuil she must have rescued from the hotel’s garden. On that side table below the wall mirror whose gilding has long disappeared there are a tin basin and a large enamelled pitcher of water whose ice she would have had to break had she not been in such a hurry. The facecloth, towel and carefully rationed sliver of soap are neatly piled and were unused.’

‘Louis, the lift. It’s stopped.’

‘Must you keep on about it? There are still two sets of stairs for him to climb. Just let me memorize the room.’

‘You haven’t time. Why not concentrate on the bed? Women who’ve been out working late at night and have to get up early invariably hug the pillows for a stolen moment after the alarm’s been shut off. If I were you, mein brillanter Oberdetektiv, I’d be asking myself who the hell slipped in here to tidy up?’

‘The same person who fed and watered the rabbit?’

‘And opened the blackout curtains?’

‘Or the one who …’

‘Nom de Jesus-Christ, do you two not listen?’ demanded Bousquet, fedora in hand as he stormed breathlessly into the room. ‘I told you to go to the morgue I …’

‘You felt it prudent to beat us here, Secretaire,’ said Louis, not backing off. ‘You had, I think, to take another look in case whoever left her identity card but not her handbag had also left something you had missed.’

‘Nothing … There was nothing else.’

‘No ration tickets? No residence permit?’ They were all but shouting.

‘All right, all right! Those must have been in that overcoat you found, Kohler, and were taken from it, or were in her bag which has yet to be found, and yes, whoever killed her came back here afterwards to leave the card!’

‘And these?’ asked Louis, removing the first of the freshened pillows to expose a neat little pink-ribboned bundle of letters in their scented envelopes.

‘Those weren’t there when we found her carte d’identite on Wednesday morning,’ managed Bousquet, sickened by what must have happened. ‘We searched. Mon Dieu, but we did. Menetrel insisted on accompanying me and at the time I realized those must have been what he was after, but they simply weren’t there then.’

Not then. ‘So this unknown visitor must have come back?’ asked Louis.

‘Yes!’