Flykiller

‘You hit her and I’ll kill you,’ breathed Kohler, pressing the muzzle of the Walther P38 to the back of the bastard’s head. ‘Maybe I will anyway. Now get out, all of you. Out, fast! RA US! RAUS! SCHNELL!’

‘Herr Kohler …’

‘Silence! Ach! bugger off before I do it, Doctor. I’m Gestapo, eh? Gestapo! And don’t any of you forget it!’

They weren’t happy but they fled. Kohler found a broken cigarette and, putting the pistol away, tried to straighten the Gauloise bleue for her.

‘Merci,’ she said, ‘but I really must take a piss.’

‘She … she can use our pail.’

‘Your name?’ asked the Gestapo, looking over a shoulder.

‘Al … bert. Groun … Groundkeeper.’

The boy, the young man, had wet himself. ‘Don’t be afraid any more, Albert,’ said Kohler. ‘Henri-Claude isn’t going to hurt her while I’m around and he won’t hurt you either. Just show Madame Lulu to your pail and then bring her back here for a chat.’

‘It’s … it’s warm in the furnace room. We’ve a little nest there.’

‘Then that’s where we’d better go.’

Whenever she could, and too often, Lulu Beauclaire turned the conversation and his attention back to Albert Grenier. Mein Gott, she was tough but damned wary and scared, too, thought Kohler. Shrewd enough to know that Ferbrave or Menetrel, or both of them, would be after her, yet willing to be made a fuss over here if it didn’t necessitate breaking her vow of silence. Instead, using an innate curiosity mingled with motherly patience, she balanced the books by coaxing answers for him from the groundsman’s son who could know nothing of the telephone calls she daily arranged.

‘The keys …?’ she said as if they weren’t staring at her from a board that was nailed to one of the furnace room’s uprights.

‘Three down, one over. Hall des Sources,’ chimed in Albert as he opened the firebox door to bring an added blast of heat and let everyone see the glowing coals.

‘Casino?’ she said, taking it all in, the room with its gargantuan furnace and boiler, the pipes, the ‘nest’ with its coffee pot, broken chairs and lunch boxes, the newspapers …

‘Five over, three down,’ came the swift response, Albert’s back still turned to her.

‘Toilette number one?’ she shot back. ‘There are two of them in the park, Inspector.’

‘One over, one down. I’ve got them all memorized. You won’t catch me out!’

‘Remarkable, isn’t it, Inspector? And to think his mother had a terrible fall when he was eight months in the womb. Fifteen stone steps and then the wall of that old church. It broke her waters and harmed Albert, but not too much, I think. How is Yvette, Albert? You see, I know the family, Inspector. Yvette and I … Ah! the times we had as girls and she not getting in the family way until nearly forty. Forty, I say! Prayed constantly for it and finally the Virgin had to listen.’

‘A miracle,’ sighed Albert shyly. ‘She’s fine, Madame Lulu. She’s going to bake me a pave de sante just like her mother used to for her but it’s … it’s against the law.’

Gingerbread. The pavement or cobblestone of good health. And there’s no ginger or butter, no flour or sugar, or is there? wondered Kohler.

‘All of us girls try to catch Albert out with the keys, Inspector,’ hazarded Lulu quickly.

‘Mademoiselle Trudel didn’t. She just asked me which one was for the Hall des Sources. She couldn’t remember,’ said Albert.

‘And has now gone away to visit her father who is ill.’

‘She wanted a bottle of water for him. The Chomel, Madame Lulu. I … I let her fill one.’

Ah, nom de Dieu …

‘You see, Inspector. Not an unkind bone in his body and so conscientious, he sometimes gets here two hours before any of us.’

‘Five. She was waiting for me at just after five because she had to catch the morning train. Half frozen and shivering in that thin coat of hers. No mittens. No hat. I brought her here to get warm while I built up the fire and got the key.’

One had best go easy. ‘When? What day, Albert?’ he asked.

‘Last Saturday. I know, because she said she wouldn’t be seeing me at church and she didn’t, Madame Lulu. She didn’t!’

‘Lucie is a shorthand typist with the Bank of France,’ yielded Lulu, letting him have benefit of it with a curt nod. ‘Mademoiselle Trudel is really needed these days, but it is odd, now I think of it, Albert, that she was able to arrange compassionate leave at such a time when everyone is so busy.’

Trying to govern a country someone else occupied.

‘She’s very fond of her job and lives in the same hotel as Madame Dupuis used to,’ went on Lulu, butting out her fourth cigarette.

Oh-oh was written in the look the detective threw her, so now she had best give him another titbit. ‘Albert, what’s the name of that club by the bridge? You know, the place some of the girls go to after work? Chez Robinson, was it?’