Flykiller

‘Allo … Allo … Ne quittez pas, Monsieur Arnold. A moment. PTT, do you have General Giradet for us yet? Please try his office again. Giradet? Ah! Monsieur le General, Monsieur Arnold at the Hotel du Parc wishes to speak with you. A moment, please. Monsieur Arnold, I have your connection. Go ahead now.’

Defence was in the Hotel Thermal, Finance and Justice in the Carlton, the Diplomatic Corps in the Ambassadeurs, Education in the Plaza at 9 rue du Parc, Marine in the Helder, the Senate in the Salle des Societes Medicales over on the avenue Thermal, the Chamber of Deputies in the Grand Casino, and every outside call had to pass through here as well as those from room to room.

‘A quiet word, mademoiselle.’

‘C’est impossible! Something has set the hotel to buzzing. Allo … Allo …’

Kohler placed a hand over her left one and prised the receiver up a little from her ear. ‘The girl you relieved,’ he said.

‘In the cellars, I think.’

She stopped then. Yanked off the headset and blurted tearfully, ‘Lulu wouldn’t have told anyone someone had tried to kill the Marechal. We’re all sworn to silence and each of us had to sign a paper that we understood a three-year prison sentence would be our reward if we broke our oath!’

‘But you just did.’

The scar on his face was cruel, the look in his pale blue eyes utterly empty. ‘You’re Gestapo. I … I overheard this in one of the conversations – a word or two, that’s all, Herr …’

‘Kohler, Hermann,’ he said and grinned like her son Paul, warmth and concern now entering his eyes. ‘Look, please don’t be upset. I’m here to help. Menetrel’s crazy and just on one of his rampages. Let me calm him down.’

‘He … he threatened to feed her to the pigs or let the boul. National have her.’

Though officially here only since 11 November last, Herr Gessler had already made a name for himself. In Paris, just after the Defeat, people had soon come to speak in hushed tones of the rue des Saussaies – the Gestapo; the rue Lauriston also – the French Gestapo; and av. Foch, the SS. All were dreaded for equal reasons. Now here, the boul. National …

‘Look, I hate what’s been happening, but why the pigs?’

She shrugged and, dragging the receiver back over her ear, winced at further thoughts.

Lulu wasn’t upstairs in the doctor’s office, she was deep in the cellars, and even from a distance Kohler could hear them.

‘Salope’! shrieked Menetrel. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll let Hercules have you first before the sows dine.’

‘Hercules?’ shouted the woman.

‘The boar, idiot!’

‘Oh la la, docteur, I might even enjoy it, eh? after all, I’ve not had it since my husband fell to one of the Kaiser’s bullets.’

‘Putain, the boar’s cock is a corkscrew,’ yelled Menetrel. ‘Those two pork chops you call labia will be torn to shreds if you don’t give me answers!’

Answers … Answers …

‘Maudit salaud, how can you treat a trusted employee like this?’

‘We’ll let Hercules have a ride in your little shanghai train first!’

Jesus, merde alors, Menetrel certainly did warrant his reputation for crudity! She was sitting on a wooden stool, jammed into the far corner of the freight lift, had seen this Kripo before the others, had seen the pistol in his hand. Ferbrave was with the doctor; two others blocked all escape.

‘Then ask elsewhere,’ she hissed, glaring up at Menetrel. ‘Ask Madame Petain what she said to her coiffeur the day that girl was murdered. Find out what Monsieur Laurence then whispered to another, don’t ask me. My lips have always been sealed. My husband worshipped the Marechal and I would do nothing to discredit his good name or that of my own, and you know it. Now give me a cigarette and don’t tell me you haven’t any when I damn well know you have plenty. Quit picking on a girl half your size and old enough to have been your mother, may God forgive her. You exhaust me, Docteur. And all this after a twelve-hour shift. Merde, c’est scandaleux! It’s enough to make a saint want to piss during his final confession, and now I have to.’

She tossed her faded curls, Ferbrave swung his fist back. Plum-dark in the doughy pan of her face, her eyes leaped. ‘Go ahead, mon brave. Beat a war-widow and grandmother to a pulp. That way my lips will be sealed and I won’t ever be able to tell anyone how you get those cigarettes or the brandy and the cigars. Ah! I see that I’ve made you reconsider.’

The fist wasn’t lowered.