Flykiller

‘Only three corpses, idiot! The first two are being kept at the morgue in spite of the pleas of relatives for their release; the latest one is just as she was found and nothing – I repeat, nothing – has been touched. Not in her room at the Hotel d’Allier, except for her carte d’identite which I myself removed, and not at the crime scene.’

‘Good, that’s as it should be,’ said Louis. ‘But, then, perhaps before we view the victim, Monsieur de Fleury would enlighten us as to why, since she was his mistress, Madame Dupuis was knocking at the great one’s door? And on what day and at what time, please?’

‘Celine didn’t want to do it but … but I begged her to, Inspector. The Marechal, he has a passion for beautiful young women. He’s old – oh bien sur – but age does not necessarily make a glacier of the urges.’

‘And you were pimping for him?’ blurted Kohler, startled by the admission.

‘A small favour,’ muttered Bousquet acidly.

‘One I felt I could no longer refuse,’ de Fleury added.

‘And at what time, then, Monsieur de Fleury, was he to have had his little moment?’ asked Louis.

‘Tuesday night, at … at 9.40. I … I dropped her off outside the hotel. She … she was wearing her overcoat, scarf and beret, her gloves too. These things, they … they have not as yet been found.’

Not found. ‘Height: 170 centimetres, Hermann (five feet seven inches); hair: blonde; eyes: blue; particular signs: none; nose: straight and average – normal, if you wish. Face: oval but the side profile doesn’t really do her justice. A very handsome young woman, Monsieur de Fleury. Stunning, I should think – you do like the pretty ones, don’t you? Complexion: pale.’

St-Cyr tapped his partner on the shoulder and passed both torch and identity card to him. ‘A young widow, mon vieux. A working girl with a child to support who is no older than the one the Marechal once bounced on his knee. Madame Petain is known to be a very jealous and spiteful woman.’

‘Idiot, Madame Petain is well aware of the Marechal’s infidelites!’ spat Bousquet.

‘And you are angry with me, Secretaire, when calmness is called for.’

‘Truncheon! Just stick to what you’ve been told to do and leave Madame Petain out of things. The fewer who know of this the better!’

Just before St-Germain-des-Fosses they stopped at the side of the road for a piss. Kohler stood upwind of de Fleury. ‘Was she good in bed?’ he asked companionably.

‘Inspector, you’re splashing my trousers.’

‘Oh, sorry. Did she enjoy sex, seeing as she’d tried to kill herself at the loss of her husband?’

‘Salaud! How dare you?’

‘Calm down and tell me exactly how faithful a mistress was she?’

‘We were going to get married. I was going to divorce my wife when … when it became possible.’

Divorce had all but been outlawed by Vichy. ‘Yet you asked her to service another?’

‘I had to! I didn’t know she’d be killed! How could I have?’

‘Just who else knew what you were up to?’

‘Merde alors, do you not take the hint Monsieur le Secretaire has given? Dr Menetrel, the Marechal’s personal physician and confidant. His personal secretary.’

‘And Menetrel okayed the session?’

‘Celine was not some cheap putain, damn you!’ Tears fell and were agitatedly wiped away with the fingers. ‘He gave his blessing. He said it was exactly what the Marechal needed to restore faith in himself during such a difficult time and that … that Celine would be handsomely rewarded as would … as would I myself.’

‘Then you were pimping and that’s an indictable offence, unless you followed Vichy’s latest ordinance on it to the letter. Oh don’t worry, mon fin, we’ll be discreet but if you’ve lied to me and not told us everything, you’d better watch out.’

‘She was a dancer. You must know what such women are like!’

‘And that bit about your marrying her?’

Would this Gestapo find out everything? ‘It … it wasn’t possible. I couldn’t have done so and she must have been well aware of this yet we spoke of it as if there was no impediment. A little game we played.’

How nice of him, but one must hold the door open so as to grab a breath of air. It took all types, thought Kohler, and the arrogance of top civil servants, though well known the world over, was legendary in France.

Had all of what had been felt necessary been said? wondered St-Cyr. The engine throbbed, the road climbed. Frost clung closely, snow was everywhere and darkness lay deep among the trunks and bracken.

For some time now each of them had withdrawn into private thoughts. Hermann, never one to keep still or silent unless necessary, had taken to staring out his side window but hadn’t bothered to clear the frost from it. Was he thinking of his little Giselle and his Oona, was he worrying, as he often did these days, that when the Allies invaded, as they surely must, his lady-loves would be caught up in things and blamed for sleeping with the enemy, with himself? Was he still trying to figure out a way to get them false papers and to safety in Spain or Portugal?