Flykiller

All had either just had sex before they’d been killed, or had been about to, and only in the case of Madame Dupuis would it not have been with a man she regularly kept company with. But had she really loved Honore de Fleury?

Menetrel had made the couple an offer they couldn’t refuse.

She was blonde, blue-eyed, and had been born on 10 April 1915. ‘And therefore a couple of months short of your twenty-eighth birthday. When asked how and when you first met Monsieur de Fleury, Secretaire General Bousquet could not recall his ever having enquired of such a thing. Nor could he say with any certainty how long the affair had been going on, only that de Fleury had been careful – “discreet” was the word he used.

‘Camille Lefebvre nee Roux,’ he said, turning to her and noting how her expression so vastly differed from that of the latest victim. ‘Death by knifing brings sudden shock and disbelief, while that of garrotting brings panic and terror. Your identity card states you’ve brown hair and brown eyes, but really your hair is that lovely chestnut shade many men admire, and your eyes were of a soft, warm brown with flecks of green, or so our Secretaire maintains. But here, too, his memory is surprisingly unclear. Perhaps the two of you met at the races, or was it at the tennis or swimming club? Sunshine and long, hot days in any case, so last summer but late, he felt, in August. You introduced yourself to him – he is positive about this and says he wasn’t looking for an affair and is quite happily married and content. You asked if he could possibly give you a lift home but he has no further recollection of that first meeting. Was it late at night and did he initiate things, as I suspect? You’re beautiful and young – your husband has been locked up since the summer of 1940. Did Rene Bousquet consider you vulnerable? Remember, please, that he’s incredibly handsome, outgoing and self-confident, is only thirty-three and parks his wife and family in Paris for the schooling of their children.

‘You were born in Lyons on 18 February 1917 – that father of yours must have somehow got himself home on leave, or did he even partake of the Great War like so many, many of us?’

Those who hadn’t – Premier Laval among them – had found their reasons, but one would have to hear what Major Roux had to say. Perhaps he would be able to reveal the date, time and place of his daughter’s first meeting with Bousquet. It was a thought. And, yes, the Marechal’s closest friends and acquaintances, though few, were often military men, so the two could well know each other. One had best be careful.

Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux, the nurse, had jet-black hair and deep, dark blue eyes that were widely set in an angular face whose expression must often have appeared vital, for the brow was high and wide, the chin narrow, the nose sharp, and there had once been dimples in her apple cheeks.

‘Not a tall woman, but “leggy”, my partner would have said, had he seen you strutting out across a park or walking along some hospital corridor under the appreciative gazes of others like him. The card that everyone has to have filled out when they apply for a marriage licence, a divorce, a lease or house purchase, et cetera – that great bankroll of index cards the Gestapo inherited from the Surete and all prefectures – states emphatically that you gave birth at the age of nineteen in Tours to twins just as your divorce came through. There were mitigating circumstances in the application and it was granted because your husband, a much older man, was one of the shell-shocked and you couldn’t possibly have been expected to cope any longer with his sudden fits of screaming in the night and at other times. The twins, two unnamed girls, were immediately given to the Carmelites, and as soon as you could, you moved to Paris.

‘Born 30 June 1906 in Tours, you were not the thirty-two or -three Secretaire General Bousquet imagined, but thirty-seven and hiding it well, though surely he would have examined your papers and this card? The mistress of the Minister of Supplies and Rationing?

‘And you were Bousquet’s,’ he said to Camille, ‘and you, that of an inspector of finances. Food, Police, and Money. That’s simpler than their long-winded titles, isn’t it?’

Marie-Jacqueline would have laughed – he was certain of this; Camille would have watched to see where the thought was taking him.

‘And Madame Dupuis?’ he asked. ‘Oh for sure, the Marechal has exquisite taste, but you were completely unaware that someone was waiting on that little balcony. Once taken though, you did manage to slip away in the Hall des Sources – how was this possible? Did he call out to his associate? It was pitch dark – was he momentarily distracted?’

Her killer had also been waiting. The smell of cigar smoke must have permeated that of the damp and the hydrogen sulphide, especially since she had then to be hunted down.