Flykiller

A girl of twenty-three, he reminded himself. A girl with chestnut curls and eyes, the face a pleasant oval, the lips slightly parted as if in expectation of some carnal excitement, the chin not defiant or proud but determined enough and greedy for it, yes.

‘Born 28 August 1919, at 133 bis 12c, avenue Charras,’ he said – the tone of voice, he knew, was businesslike. ‘That’s near the railway station in Clermont-Ferrand, mademoiselle. Nose: aquiline; mouth: average – my partner would have vehemently disagreed. “Lovely kissing lips,” he’d have said. “A nice der-riere.”’

Again he looked at the photo of her with the riding crop. Hermann would have had much to say about it!

‘Height: one fifty-seven centimetres; weight: fifty kilos; distinguishing marks: none.

‘Why did this pregnancy have to happen, eh? No capote anglaise, no little English riding hood and cape because he didn’t want to spoil things for himself? Was that it, eh, and you at your prayers and taking the chance? It’s typical of such men, so please forgive my impatience but I’ve seen it too often. Deschambeault couldn’t have married you even if he’d been single or a widower. Not a graduate of the grandes ecoles, not one of the haute bourgeoisie and product of the systeme. Certainly discretion was always necessary in such a little place as Vichy – there are no photos of him or any of the others’ lovers, are there? But in Paris he could show you off and did to his friends and business associates to engender envy and gain admiration, hence the clothes and the jewellery, though he couldn’t tolerate your keeping his child, could he, not even with abortion outlawed and its rare practitioners living in absolute terror of the breadbasket.’

Crammed into her corner, naked, stiff and soiled, she couldn’t respond, yet he felt she wanted to. ‘Why did he leave that note for you on Friday and then think it necessary to leave another on Tuesday? Come, come, Mademoiselle Trudel, you had refused him. That’s what he must have thought, and a man like that doesn’t take kindly to rejection. He should by rights have left you to suffer alone, yet he came here to the front desk also on Tuesday. A puzzle.

‘But what I can’t understand is why, if you were expecting him to give you a lift to the train on Saturday – and you were, I think – he left a note on Friday that implies he would meet you in Paris and not here first.

‘Two visits, then, to this hotel, mademoiselle, the first not on Friday as the note claims but on Saturday. He knew you were worried about the abortion, knew you might not join him, so he told his driver to wait and came up here to this room, but what did he find?’

He would let her consider this, thought St-Cyr. He would pocket the snapshot of the four victims on the terrace of that inn and the one of her with the riding crop. ‘Did he find you, not in bed as you’d hoped, but crammed into that armoire? Is that not why he wrote Friday’s note and then … yes, then returned on Tuesday to leave the other as proof positive that he hadn’t been here on Saturday. Old Rigaud, the concierge, could well not have noticed that Friday’s note had been hurriedly left on Saturday.

‘The train took him to Paris, mademoiselle, but had he discovered why you couldn’t join him?’

I was cold, she seemed to say. So cold in bed, but I wanted Gaetan to make love to me. I needed that reassurance, Inspector.

‘You had left the door unlocked. He was early – too early for the Paris train, but you said “Entrez” anyway when he knocked, only it wasn’t him,’ said St-Cyr, his voice gentle as he crouched to look closely at her. ‘Did you know your killer or killers, Mademoiselle Trudel? There is no sign of a struggle – of course things could have been tidied, but I doubt this. You didn’t scramble out of bed to try to escape, didn’t scream – although others would have been awakened and would have rushed to your assistance. Had you drifted off? Had someone intercepted you as you carried that bottle of Chomel from the Hall des Sources? Did they demand you tell them where the key to the Hall was kept? Had they known then that Celine Dupuis, your friend, would pay the Marechal a visit?

‘Did they know your lover would pick you up on his way to the train and was their intervention the reason you decided not to go home?’

As the sous-directeur’s shorthand typist, it would have been reasonable for her to accompany Deschambeault to Paris to cover whatever meeting he had to attend. ‘But he was worried you would bolt for home. He had to be certain you would take that train, mademoiselle, and so had told you he would be giving you a lift to the station.’

Again the killer or killers hadn’t chosen the logical target, but had left, in the rats, every indication that he, she or they would now do so.