Flykiller

Snow filtered down, and as the light over the Allier River and the hills beyond it became a deeper grey in the gathering dusk, the line of waiting traffic moved ahead a few metres. Homeward-bound farm wagons and gazogene lorries that had obviously hauled firewood and other produce into Vichy were ahead of them and, at the very end, this lonely Peugeot.

‘Merde,’ swore Louis bitterly. ‘The nation that expects the Blitzkrieg from us at all times provides delays that can only impede progress! Deschambeault cuts short an important meeting to visit a racing stable but makes certain he takes along the resident rat catcher? Ines Charpentier insists on joining them and wears Shalimar when first encountered but no longer does so, and no longer carries the flacon in her valise because I was foolish enough to have mentioned it? The 1925, Hermann, and, as you well know, the same as Celine Dupuis was wearing when killed! That dress, the necklace and earrings could all be from the same year!’

And Marie-Jacqueline had had three-fifths of a bottle of the Bollinger Cuvee Speciale in her, the 1925.

‘Our sculptress worries me, Hermann. She’s like a leech that has to draw blood, only with her it’s a fascination with what we are about that is so troubling. Did she once possess a knife like this?’

Louis dragged the thing out. ‘Does she know Paul Varollier and his sister, Blanche?’ asked Kohler. ‘The soles of Monsieur Paul’s shoes matched those the flics circled in the snow.’

‘And you let me wait in this line-up? You don’t tell me things like that right away? Sacre nom de nom, how could you not have done so?’

‘I just did. Blanche had keys to both Celine’s and Lucie’s rooms but says she returned the latter.’

‘And was able to come and go at will, leaving love letters presumably to taunt Menetrel; the identity card to warn Bousquet that les gars are indeed being watched?’

‘Those letters are to Celine, aren’t they?’ asked Kohler.

‘Of course they are! Ah mon Dieu

, you doubt my word? Look, then!’

Madame Dupuis, Hotel. d’Allier was written on the top envelope, the hand firm enough, the cancellation stamp dated Monday, 1 February 1943.

‘Read it,’ said Kohler. ‘Go on, don’t be shy. Since when did you owe the Marechal any privacy?’

‘Must I?’

‘And spoken like a loyal poilu! I might have known!’

They were both exhausted and bitchy. Kohler yanked the packet from him and tore it open, freeing the envelope to let him have it verbatim. ‘Ma che

re Ange,’ – my dear angel – ‘your eyes are like the blue of the finest sapphires, your breath the soft, sweet nectar to whose scent the bee finds he must come.’

‘Foragers are females!’ snorted St-Cyr. ‘Doesn’t the old drone know anything about bees?’

They’d just come off the case of a Parisian beekeeper …

‘When I see you dancing, I want to make you my Goddess of the Water Sprites. More bullshit, and even more of it,’ said Kohler, flipping impatiently through the thing until … ‘There are places we can meet where no one else will know. Please say the word and still the quivering of a heart that longs to kiss its little flower and caress its soft and exquisite petals

. Oh-oh, the horny old goat, eh, Louis?’

The line of traffic moved ahead one space, the car jerked as Hermann let out the clutch, then slammed on the brakes.

‘I must embrace you. Bernard can arrange everything. Bernard, my sweet. Look upon him as a friend in need and his loyalty and absolute discretion will be yours, as they are my own. No wonder Menetrel wants the letters, Louis. They as much as say he arranged the liaison that led to her death, but why the hell would anyone, even Blanche Varollier or that brother of hers, remove and then return them?’

‘To be found not by Bousquet or the doctor, Hermann, but by ourselves.’

‘But … but surely our killer or killers couldn’t have known we’d go there soon? Surely Blanche and her brother couldn’t have?’

‘But someone did. Someone who knows us well. The very staircase I would take in that hotel, my name on that list before we even knew we’d have to leave Paris.’

‘Someone so close to things here, he, she or they are not only aware of what’s going on moment by moment, but can come and go at will.’