Flykiller

St-Cyr had remained standing halfway between the desk and stove. He had helped himself to the container of pipe tobacco, even filling both pouch and pipe, and had offered his partner a cigar from the humidor, a Choix Supreme no doubt, which had yet to be lit. Hadn’t offered one to the father who now sat stonily in one of the club chairs, the son tense and watchful behind that desk of his.

A bottle of the local marc had been found but this had been rejected by St-Cyr. ‘The Louis XIII,’ he had insisted. ‘The 1925.’

It hadn’t been available.

‘Inspector …’ hazarded the elder Deschambeault.

St-Cyr turned on him.

‘It’s Chief Inspector, Sous-directeur. Let’s observe the formalities since this is an official inquiry and you are now under suspicion also of trafficking.’

‘Jesus, merde alors, what the hell is the matter with you? A few cigars, a couple of bottles of champagne – gifts I’d managed to find in Paris for an old and very dear friend?’

‘The 1925 Bollinger Cuvee Speciale? Need I remind you that Mademoiselle Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux had been drinking that when found in the bath she shared with your colleague, Alain Andre Richard, Minister of Supplies and Rationing?’

‘Look, I … I know nothing of this. Bousquet would never have told me what was in her stomach. Mon Dieu, why would he?’

‘Inspector Kohler, please record what has just been said and get him to sign and date it,’ said St-Cyr.

‘Now listen, you …’

‘No, you listen, monsieur. Last year in the Department of the Seine alone there were over four hundred thousand arrests for violations of the food regulations-that is, for illegally buying and selling on the marche noir. The courts and jails are clogged with lampistes. Never the big fish, always the small fry, eh, Hermann, but now we’ve landed one of the biggest!’

In the silence that followed, St-Cyr yanked the cork from the bottle of marc and, finding four cut-glass tumblers, poured goodly measures into all but the last. ‘Albert,’ Ines heard him saying. ‘Albert, mon ami, would you care to join us? It’ll warm you up a little.’

And there’s much that you can tell us, thought Ines.

The big, raw hands, with their thick and stumpy fingers, were suddenly stilled atop the coarse, dark grey woollen gloves in his lap. Dirt lay beneath the cracked nails.

‘He’s trying to bribe me,’ whispered Albert into her right ear. ‘I knew he would!’ The breath of him was warm with the anise he must have been chewing. Anise and garlic.

‘He’d like to join us,’ Ines heard herself saying too loudly, too awkwardly, she felt.

Abruptly a glass was handed to her and another to Albert. ‘This friend?’ went on St-Cyr, sucking on that pipe of his and causing the elder Deschambeault to curse under his breath and look to his son for help that was not forthcoming.

‘The custodian of Herr Abetz’s chateau,’ said the sous-directeur flatly.

‘His name, please?’

‘Inspector … Chief Inspector, is this really necessary? He can’t have had anything to …’

Kohler knew Louis would tell him that everything was of interest, and smiled when he did.

‘Charles-Frederic Hebert,’ muttered Deschambeault.

Herr Kohler wrote it down, then flipped back a page in his little black notebook. ‘The parties, Louis,’ he said, not looking up but leaning across Albert’s lap to let her see the entry, the names of Paul and Blanche Varollier, and below the first of these: A deep gouge in the right, wooden sole.

‘Parties? Informal meetings. A few nights of cards, an occasional game of backgammon or chess, Inspector,’ objected the elder Deschambeault. ‘Brief respites from the affairs of state. Chances to discuss matters in private and away from the office. Often it’s best that way.’

‘Was any help called in?’ asked Herr Kohler. Deschambeault was sweating, the son’s expression empty, thought Ines.

‘Help?’ said the father. ‘I really wouldn’t know. One is too busy talking shop. The economy has been a terrible strain, the demands for new policy papers … Surely there’s hardly time to notice the help at such functions?’

‘A translator,’ muttered Herr Kohler, his partner watching everyone’s reactions and filing them away, Ines told herself.

‘My Deutsch is more than sufficient,’ said Deschambeault.

‘Then some of my compatriots attended these little gatherings of yours?’ asked Herr Kohler.

To say, They’re not mine, would be unwise. ‘A few.’

‘Girls?’ asked Kohler.

‘Lucie sometimes accompanied me but found it rather boring.’

‘Birds?’ demanded Herr Kohler.

Salaud! the elder Deschambeault must be thinking, thought Ines, and heard him saying, ‘The custodian keeps a few, but I’ve never seen them.’

A lie for sure, she told herself, chancing a glance at Henri-Claude Ferbrave, who must have torn the skin from the palm of his left hand – frost on bare metal would have done that. He had bandaged the hand with the white scarf he’d worn but now was realizing the silk would cling to the wound …