Flykiller

‘Who was to have checked in with her before the couple made their separate ways to catch the train to Paris, or to give her a lift to it, eh?’

‘She’s scribbled two items on a bedside note. A seven with a plus and minus sign and then a half-hour for the train to Clermont Ferrand, and an eight with the same for the early train to Paris, kidding herself that they still run so closely on time.’

‘A grigou.’

‘One of les gars, mon enfant.’ One of the boys.

4

The room was quiet, the hotel also. Alone with the corpse, St-Cyr tried to get a sense of what had really happened.

Lucie Trudel, the common, the ordinary working girl – certainly it was unfair to use such terms, but best to get things in perspective – had had every intention of going home to see her father but had suddenly changed her mind.

On her return, she had hurriedly unpacked a rather shabby cardboard suitcase – one of thousands these days – and had placed inside it, at a tight fit, an all but new one from Goyard Aine, at 233 rue du Faubourg St-Honore in Paris, founded in 1792.

This second suitcase had been packed well beforehand and with loving care. The scarlet silk Charmeuse evening dress and velvet shawl were from Pinnel, at 18 ave. de l’Opera – not designer originals but, especially with the shortages, exceedingly expensive. ‘Eighty-five thousand francs,’ he said flatly. The grey worsted suit that accompanied it was of an exquisite cut and worth probably fifty thousand.

There were slips and brassieres – two changes of everything – garter belts, silk stockings that most women and men could only dream about, silk underpants and nightgowns, all from J. Roussel, at 166 boul. Haussmann. Again, not quite designer originals but sufficient for all but the most discerning taste.

Two rough flannel nightgowns, some small, plain white towels and a bundle of sanitary napkins gave pause. The brown leather handbag was from Raphael, at 99 rue de Lafayette, the red leather high heels, with their thin and elegant ankle straps, were from Bonnard, at 53 Faubourg St-Honore, as were the brown Oxfords, except that no one used such terms in France any more. ‘Pumps,’ he grunted, ‘but with laces.’

She’d have put the cardboard suitcase in the left-luggage at the Gare de Lyon, would have taken off the one overcoat and … What? he demanded and, opening the Paris handbag, found a ticket for Chapitel, at 4 boul. Malesherbes. Dry cleaning was prohibitively expensive and all but impossible to organize, yet … yet she’d been able to arrange it. ‘A beige, cashmere overcoat, a small stain on the right sleeve. A smudge. Coffee,’ she had thought. Real coffee.

Sure enough, the Paris suitcase contained brown leather gloves, a soft yellow cashmere scarf and cloche, the handbag enough jewellery to satisfy a banker.

‘A grigou,’ he said tartly and, taking out the notes, read them again.

‘You would have seen that there was a message for you, yet you didn’t collect it on Friday,’ he mused, the doors to the armoire still open. ‘Your penny-pincher had insisted you have an abortion – that was the reason for this particular trip to Paris. You’d spend a few days together beforehand but not afterwards. You understood clearly that you couldn’t travel together. First and third class, the cardboard hiding the leather but no fear of its being searched at the Demarcation Line because …’

Dumping the everyday handbag out on her dressing table, he picked up the necessary laissez-passer and sauf-conduit, the letter also that, especially since it was in deutsch, would have stopped any such intrusion.

It was signed ‘Monsieur Gaetan-Baptiste Deschambeault, Sous-directeur of the Bank of France’. ‘You reached high, Mademoiselle Trudel, but then, so did he.’

Photographs in a bedside album revealed the girl she’d been: swimming this past summer at the tennis club’s pool, on the far side of the Allier. Sunbathing in the buff on one of the little islands that were just downstream of the Boutiron Bridge and were used for just such purposes; riding near the racecourse, which was also on that same side of the river; even a snapshot taken on the leafy, shade-drenched terrace of Chez Crusoe, with Celine Dupuis, Camille Lefebvre and Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux.

They had all known each other. All were smiling and dressed for an evening out, the dresses either off the rack or sewn by themselves. Delightful summery frocks that complemented the wide-brimmed, flowered chapeaux that had been all the rage in Paris last summer, here too, apparently. Marie-Jacqueline’s hat even had small oranges tucked among the blossoms.

There were several other photos of the riding stables, one of a dappled grey grazing in a paddock, another with its saddle empty.

Hugs and kisses, Lucie’s cheek pressed close, the girl fondly stroking the mare’s muzzle. Another with the riding crop hesitantly clutched, her expression one of … Ah nom de Jesus-Christ! Sex?