Flykiller

‘Yes, yes,’ sighed Louis. ‘The key, monsieur. Room 4-17.’ He pointed to the empty pigeon-hole.

‘She left very early on Saturday and has not returned,’ said Rigaud spitefully.

‘Stay here. If we need you, we’ll get you. Louis, it’s this way. I’m not taking that lift or any other.’

Caught once by the hanging thread of a broken cable, Hermann had a thing about lifts. Old or from the late thirties, repaired and constantly serviced or otherwise, it simply didn’t matter.

‘The exercise will do you good,’ he said, only to gasp in pain on the stairs and grab his left knee. ‘Ach!’ he shrieked. ‘Scheisse!’

He sat down hard. Pain blurred his eyes and twisted the whip scar on his cheek. ‘Go ahead,’ he managed. ‘I’ll join you in a minute. It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing? Remind me to fix that poultice for you tonight.’

‘Who sleeps? Not us. Now beat it. Fourth floor at the back, since Celine’s room in the attic was number 3 and at the front. Oh, here. You’d better take these.’

The messages.

Friday, 29 January

Cherie, je t’aime, toujours je t’aime. You know I want only what is best for you. Paris, cherie. Paris tomorrow. Though we won’t be able to travel together, I promise I’ll be with you when we get there.

It was signed: Ton petit grigou. Your little penny-pincher.

Saturday, 30 January

Lucie, please come back soon. We have to talk. It’s urgent.

Celine

Tuesday, 2 February

Cherie, I needed you. Every day without your warm embrace was a day of constant despair. Paris no longer held its magic and now I find that you went home in spite of our having discussed things and agreed.

This final note was unsigned but was obviously from her penny-pincher. Merde, were they to have yet another killing, wondered St-Cyr, or had it already happened?

As before, the stairs and corridors were narrow and poorly lit. Noises carried. Though most of the rooms would be unoccupied at this time of day, cooking was in progress somewhere, a gramophone was playing – Lucienne Boyer singing ‘Sans Toi’, Without You …

The room was not at the back of the hotel as Hermann had thought, but at the front, though here the blackout curtains were still drawn, the bed mounded with covers. Slacks, a woollen pullover, a blouse, brassiere and underpants lay in a heap beside it. One sock, her shoes, her overcoat, ah Jesus … Jesus … The pale blue glass bottle of water was on the bedside table. Woven wicker where the hands would hold it. The Buvette de Chomel … the Chomel …

Switching on the overhead light, he hesitated, asked silently, Was she smothered – is that how it was done?

The smell … always there was that clinging, throat-clawing sweetness Hermann now found so terrifying.

Flinging back the covers, St-Cyr sucked in a ragged breath and held it, forced himself to look closely as, grey and bloated, cut open, festering and crawling with maggots, five dead rats lay belly up, their entrails trailing.

‘Trapped … They were first trapped,’ he heard himself muttering and wondered where her corpse must be. Her corpse …

‘On Saturday,’ he said, his voice stiff with control, ‘30 January. Almost six days now, but was Bousquet supposed to find these?’ he asked when Hermann hobbled into the room to swear under his breath.

‘Where’s the girl, Louis?’

‘Don’t open that armoire. Let me.’

Dresses had been flung aside, others had fallen from their hangers. A brown velvet hacking jacket, a paisley silk cravat and brown whipcord riding breeches covered her. A slip, a half-slip, then a pair of lace-trimmed underpants, silk and expensive, were hooked over the end of the riding crop in her hand.

The cheeks were ashen to a contused greyish purple; her eyes were closed, sprays of petechiae dusting the lids, the bridge of her nose and forehead. Effluent and bloodstained oedematous fluid and froth had erupted and then oozed from her nostrils and mouth. There were blotches. The stench was terrible.

‘Smothered,’ he said softly. ‘Held down under a pillow on the bed, Hermann, then carried here while unconscious to be crammed into a corner and finished off, the other sock no doubt jammed into her mouth. She’s lost the child. About three months, I think. Laloux will be more precise. Aborted foetuses are a speciality with him, among other things.’

She had also voided herself.

‘These rats are all males,’ managed Kohler. ‘Why only those, unless they’re the next to get it?’

‘De Fleury, Bousquet, Richard, this one’s “lover”, and Petain, eh?’ snapped St-Cyr.

‘Mademoiselle Trudel was to have left for Clermont-Ferrand, Louis. There’s a third-class ticket on the floor with her clothes.’

‘Yet she changed her mind.’

‘Was agitated. Didn’t pick up Friday’s message. Went out very early Saturday morning to meet Albert and get that bottle. Forgot her hat and mittens. Must have been freezing, yet walked all the way there and back in the dark.’

‘Then took off her clothes and climbed into bed.’

‘To freeze and wait for her lover?’ hazarded Kohler.