Flykiller

Again, as before, the hotel seemed to sense there was trouble and, keeping itself utterly still, waited for them to make their way down to the fourth floor. When they got there, Louis plucked at his sleeve and silently mouthed the words, ‘Let me take care of it.’

Tucking the newspaper into a pocket and securely out of sight, he went on ahead, shabby in that battered brown fedora and threadbare overcoat, unassuming, broad-shouldered and tough, mein Gott, tough. The Lebel Modele d’ordonnance 1873 six-shooter, with its 11mm black-powder cartridges that had been left over from just after the Franco-Prussian War, was in his right hand. Double action and weighing nearly a kilo, the revolver also served as a club. Though Louis could hit a sou at thirty paces with the thing, it wasn’t even the 1892, 8mm smokeless, ‘modern’ version that had been lost in Lyons on another case!

The older Lebel was all that Gestapo Paris-Central would allow him and even then the gun was not to be handed over by his partner until after the shooting had started!

But rules were to be broken, especially at times like this.

Louis slid the gun away and, facing the brass and diamond-patterned mesh of the cage, stood waiting.

There’d been whispers – there must have been – but these had stopped. Unsmiling, Bousquet stood beside a tall, grim-faced, black-overcoated, broad-shouldered, white-shirt-and-tie man whose black homburg was loosely held in the left hand. Wedding ring and all, thought Kohler. Married and no doubt with a grown or nearly grown family. Wealth and power, the face broad and determined, the hair jet black but unfortunately thinning where vanity would be sure to notice, the nose wide and fierce.

‘The lower lip is thicker than the upper,’ confided Louis quietly, not turning to face his partner. ‘The cheeks and chin are freshly shaven, Hermann, and still tingle from the lotion his coiffeur had just applied as the chair had suddenly to be vacated due to an important and unpleasant summons. He’s missed his luncheon engagement and looks at us as if at a plate of soup in which a fly has had the audacity to make a crash-landing. Be careful. Let me do the talking.’

‘Jean-Louis, I came as soon as word reached me,’ began Bousquet, forcing a grin as he opened the cage.

‘And Rigaud, Secretaire?’

‘Is at his desk. We just saw him.’

‘Ah bon, then come with me. Hermann, please check the fifth-and sixth-floor rooms that are directly above that of the victim and her child. I heard something up there. Fire twice if needed and the three of us will join you.

‘It’s police work, Secretaire,’ he continued. ‘I’m sure you know all about it. Mes amis, this way, please.’

*

Threads and patches of dark blood were interwoven with the waste she had evacuated. The umbilical cord was a deep bluish purple to flaccid grey and netted with dark veins, the child, the foetus, tiny and curled up in the puddle.

Eyes stinging as the stench rushed in at him, Deschambeault jerked his head back and clapped a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. Rage, fear, doubt … ah, so many things were in the look he gave. Bousquet, to his credit, exhibited only concern and worry, a touch of sickness also.

‘Enough, damn you!’ choked Deschambeault. ‘How dare you force me to look at her squatting in her filth? She’s gone. Finie, eh? Isn’t that enough for you?’

‘Jean-Louis …’

‘Secretaire, a moment …’

‘A Surete? A Chief Inspector? Rene, is this imbecile the one that Laval insisted Paris send us? Well, is he?’

One should never back away from an insult, especially not from a haut bourgeois and a political! ‘Monsieur, you will excuse the first-hand experience, but it’s necessary. You see, she was rendered unconscious by smothering and then placed here. Look closely … Come, come, both of you. Another simple introduction to police work, eh? You see there are fibres in the frothy, bloodstained, oedematous fluid that has erupted from her mouth. Some cotton wool, perhaps, or ersatz cloth you ask? Her killer found that the pillow he had used was insufficient, n’est-ce pas? A sock was jammed into her mouth while she was unconscious, then the nostrils were tightly pinched until the body’s convulsions had ceased and the child had been aborted. That sock, in so far as I can presently ascertain, is missing but I may, perhaps, have found its mate. Now talk. Give me everything. Avoid arrest for the moment, Monsieur Gaetan-Baptiste Deschambeault, Sous-directeur of the Bank of France, since there are more pressing matters.’

‘Arrest? What is this he’s saying, Rene?’

‘Jean-Louis …’

The room was close, the door closed, the hotel silently listening no doubt, but it was now or never and they had to be made to cooperate. ‘Secretaire, all four of the victims knew each other, yet you failed to tell us this. I need not remind you that such a lapse of memory could well bring arrest, dismissal, disgrace and a penalty of no less than five years.’