Flykiller

‘One hundred. A marvellous weapon and so easily carried in a handbag or pocket. The style is Spanish, though that of the blade goes much farther back in time and is Turkish, I believe. In the twenties and thirties the knives became increasingly popular outside of the Auvergne as tourists visited the village, and many were made to individual specifications, each client stating their needs and even the design on the haft and the choice of wood or horn. In short, the Laguiole became a cult item and expensive, a mark of distinction that others who also owned one would recognize and appreciate.’

‘Let’s hope we do.’

The tisane finally arrived in a dirty mug but was brusquely shoved aside. ‘Bring the Chief Inspector St-Cyr a pastis. He’s going to need it. I’ll have a beer and not one of those near-beers, eh? Gestapo, mon fin. Gestapo, and don’t you forget it or spit in our drinks either.’ The Walther P38 was taken out and laid on the table. ‘That’s so as to have it ready,’ he said to the waiter.

The knife and the pistol were stark against the worn glass of the table top beneath which a faded menu listed the brioches and croissants of long-lost days. ‘It shall be as you wish, m’sieur. Who am I to object to your breaking a law that was made only for us?’

‘Piss off!’

‘Certainly.’

‘Now he’ll cough into our drinks, idiot! How many times must I tell you that a little patience is always necessary?’

‘We haven’t time. The Bank of France has been humping stuff from Paris for friend Ferbrave.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Gut. I’ve finally got your attention.’

As was their custom when on short rations and at other times, they shared a cigarette, Hermann managing to find one in a pocket. Damaged, of course, and dribbling stale tobacco, but still … ‘Merci.’

‘Take two good drags and take your time, eh?’

‘Three murders, three supposed assassination attempts that failed to find their respective targets but chose another.’

‘A lover, a mistress.’

‘The first of whom was known to flaunt her liaisons and no doubt to laugh in the face of Madame Richard.’

‘Did her husband know the vans were being used to haul rationed goods that had been purloined?’

‘We’ll have to ask him.’

‘A shorthand typist with the Bank of France, Mademoiselle Lucie Trudel, asked Albert to let her into the Hall des Sources, Louis. A bottle of the Chomel for a sick father, at just after 5 a.m. last Saturday.’

‘And not seen since?’ blurted St-Cyr, alarmed, no doubt, by the prospect of a killing as yet undiscovered.

‘Away on compassionate leave. I … I forgot to ask where. Sorry.’

‘We’ll deal with it.’

‘She lives in the. Hotel d’Allier.’

‘And is not away at all, but staying in her room and able to enter Celine Dupuis’s at will to leave these?’

Louis set the love letters on the table and then the carte d’identite with its head-and-shoulders profile. The knife was still there …

‘Someone who can come and go at will,’ said Kohler, ‘and must have damned well known the Garde Mobile and lift operator would be absent.’

‘Menetrel gave them the night off.’

The cigar band was added to the collection, the earrings also and the sapphires, lastly the cufflink’s stud.

‘And a dress, plus a pair of high heels,’ muttered Kohler.

‘Why leave the ID like that for Bousquet, mon vieux? In neither of the other killings was such a thing done. Though the reports are thin and add little, both of those victims had their handbags with them – Camille Lefebvre’s was found untouched with her clothes in the cabin; Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux’s was in the lockup at the Grand etablissement thermal, also untouched and with her clothing.’

‘They’ll have sold Celine Dupuis’s other papers. You know as well as I do there’s one hell of a racket in stolen bread cards, to say nothing of the other ration tickets.’

Before the Defeat, the French had become accustomed to eating – and tasting – their food only if it was accompanied by bread. From around a kilo per day, the adult consumption had dropped to about 200 grams if one could get it, and then it usually came in the form of 25-gram slices of the grey National, or in its thumping-hard and very questionable loaves.

‘If they were that desperate, Hermann, then our two assailants are not entirely the professionals we’ve come to believe and could well be resistants.’

‘The one was sick, Louis. She threw up in the portable toilet when she dropped the knife. No sign of the cigar, though, or of its ashes. I checked just to make sure.’

‘A killer with a queasy stomach!’ Louis dragged out two megot tins, one of which had once held mints; the other, dressmaker’s pins. ‘Camille Lefebvre’s,’ he said of the former. ‘Bousquet let it slip that she greedily smoked cigarettes whenever she could get them and that her father had accused her of selling herself for them. That’s what made me take this from her bag, and then, that of Marie-Jacqueline.’