Flykiller

As the car drove off, Kohler let the blackout curtains at the end of the sixth-floor corridor fall back into place. No sound came up from the lift, or from anywhere else. It was eerie how quiet the hotel could be; it simply wasn’t good.

Room 6-11 was as close as peas in a pod to being above that of Lucie Trudel and below that of Celine Dupuis. And why the hell did the Resistance have to put Louis’s name in print and do so in advance of their visit?

That, too, was eerie and not good.

Kneeling – ignoring the sore-tooth pain in his knee – he tried to peer through the keyhole only to find the key had been inserted into the other side of the lock. ‘Okay, mein Liebling,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘two can play this game.’

Using a half-round feeler from the ring of lock-picking tools in his jacket pocket, he silently gave the key a gentle push and felt it move, hoped there’d be a carpet and heard the bloody thing crash on the parquet floor. Through the keyhole he saw a plump white rabbit suddenly lift its head and prick up its ears, then return greedily to its feeding.

Slices of dried apple had been tossed on to the worn Aubusson carpet to keep the creature quiet. Beyond it, there was a plain wooden coffee table, a carpenter’s bench in years gone by perhaps, with books, ashtrays, a japanned chest, a bronze model of the place Vendome’s column, an Empire-style desk lamp with jade-green shade and, at either end of the table, two china mugs: blue as well, to match that of the carpet.

Steam issued from the mugs but there were no knees or hands in sight.

Beyond the table, beyond a narrow space with piled tin trunks, cluttered shelves with square openings rose all but to the ceiling. More books, some porcelain – Chinese perhaps – a few figurines, a soft purple tulip-glass with white silk narcissi and, at the very top, four experiments in beginner’s taxidermy: a dove, a rook, a starling and a seagull.

‘Un moment,’ confessed a faint but carefully modulated female voice, the accent perfect. Not a trace of the rolling, singsong accent of an Auvergnate, more of Paris and the Sorbonne. Of wealth and place and the long, long tumble from it. Of hesitation too, and fear? he wondered.

Fabric moved to block his view as the key was collected. She didn’t tremble when fitting it back into the lock, was outwardly calm. ‘Monsieur?’ she said, the look in her dark blue eyes empty.

‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central.’

Her throat was lovely and slender, what he could see of it, the collar of the black and crimson brocade dress all but touching the delicately smooth fantastic line of her lower jaw and chin. About thirty, he told himself, the hair a dark, rich auburn and long but pinned up and worn in the style of the fin de siecle, her brow partly hidden by it, the face thin and sharply featured, aristocratic, yes, the whole of her being from that other time and nervous. Yes, nervous.

‘Well, Herr Kohler, to what do we owe this pleasure?’ she asked.

It would sound foolish, but he’d have to say it. ‘A moment of your time, Madame …’

‘Mademoiselle Blanche. Everyone calls me that, but I suppose you will need another label. Varollier. Grand-papa was an architect. The mairie, the hotel de ville – how do you say it in Deutsch, Inspector?’

The town hall. ‘Das Rathaus, but my French is good enough. Please continue using it and don’t worry.’

‘Forgive me. It’s just that … that so few of our visitors speak our language. Japanese, of course, at their embassy, Spanish, too, at theirs, and Italian at theirs, but seldom what is so often required, which makes me of some small service when needed. The mairie of the eighteenth arrondissement has magnificent stained-glass windows which cover its courtyards. The Eglise de Notre-Dame-de-Clignancourt, opposite it, was finished at about the same time, in 1896 and four years later, I think.’

She was almost as tall as he was, and the dress went right to her ankles, belted by linked art nouveau silver plaques with intriguing patterns in dark green, red, blue and white enamel.

‘My brother, Inspector. Paul … Paul, darling, this is Herr Kohler.’

Open book in hand, back to the door and facing one end of the shelving, the brother continued to read.

‘Paul … Paul, you heard me. Please don’t be difficult.’

‘We’ve done nothing. Why, then, does he have to bother us?’

Whereas she tried desperately to be calm, the brother was highly strung and wary and didn’t seem to give a damn if it showed.

‘Well, come in if you must,’ he said. Her twin, he had the same height and build, the same blue eyes but much lighter, more reddish-brown hair, a hank of which had flopped down over the left side of his brow, the expression intense. ‘Blanche, please ask the Inspector to be seated. Offer him some coffee, otherwise ours will just get cold.’

‘It’s made from wild-rose petals Paul and I. collected and roasted, Inspector. It’s sweetened with a puree of chestnuts we also gathered.’