Flykiller

‘It’s a pas d’alcools day and the wine has been watered twice in any case.’

‘Then at least some of the tisane, Edith. It’s very cold out there. Mon Dieu, two pullovers on under my coat and still I froze! Inspectors, what brings you to us?’

He had finished his soup and bread. Though his cheeks were still coloured by the frost and he’d doubtless been outside recently, newspapers were spread before him. L’Humanite, Paris-Soir, Je Suis Partout, the Volkischer Beobachter, Das Reich also, and still others … How had they come by them?

The couple had been arguing – that was abundantly clear, thought Kohler. Reclusive Olivier might be but those walks of his had served him well. The ex-banker’s grip was strong, the hand roughly calloused. Once sure of himself no doubt, this haut bourgeois – never one of the nouveaux riches, for the house was of old money – had been reduced to avoiding the gaze of others but that’s where it all stopped. On his lapel lay not only the red ribbon of the Legion d’honneur but that of the Croix de guerre and the yellow and green of the Medaille militaire. Though sixty- eight or seventy years of age, he was still quite handsome, if now rough and ready. The blue suit jacket had obviously been something he might have once worn to that bank of his, but now it had frayed cuffs and mismatched buttons. The pullover beneath it was one he must favour, the plaid workshirt beneath that, frayed right round at a collar that had already been turned.

There were bags and dark circles under the deep brown eyes and these made the still-averted gaze even more sorrowful. There was also the perpetual evening shadow of Paul Varollier, though stronger and definitely not sickly.

‘Inspectors, we tend to live in the kitchen,’ he acknowledged with a gesture. ‘As a boy I spent much time here, so that is all to the good. Sit, please. Smoke if you wish. We’ve a fire as you can see, but the wood is from one of my own trees. A windstorm took it.’

Was the emphasized singsong accent of the Auvergnat deliberate? wondered St-Cyr.

Olivier slid a saucer their way, refusing Hermann’s offer of the last of his partner’s cigarettes.

‘I gave it up,’ he said. ‘One has to. The tobacco ration alone can put more on the table than the francs that china vase* of ours issues. Butter at three twenty to the kilo on the marche noir, sugar at two thousand, coffee the same. Even the potatoes here have risen to over two hundred the five kilos. A new suit of haircloth is six thousand or half a year’s hard-earned for many of our men. We refuse to deal on it, don’t we, Edith? What others, including our bishop, will sanctify, we prefer not to.’

A louis d’or was spun on to the table, the eyes of the banker flicking swiftly over them to come to rest on it. ‘In 1857 that was worth twenty francs and the same in 1869 when Napoleon III minted the second of them. I can trace back my family in Vichy to well before that.’

‘Auguste, please …’ attempted Mademoiselle Pascal, nervously fidgeting.

‘No, Edith, let them hear it. What can that all but lanterne rouge of his class at the military academy trace himself to, eh? The farm of the peasant heritage he’s so proud of that he never worked a day in the fields? The Victor of Verdun, the medecin de l’ Armee? Oh bien sur, I was there and worshipped him like so many others. That,’ he indicated the coin, ‘was worth one thousand francs in 1940 after the Defeat and now … why now it’s close to eight thousand and the price of a new bicycle if one can find one. In Lyons the St Paul prison, and even the St Joseph’s for women, are packed to overflowing. The Fortress of Montluc has been requisitioned by Obersturmfuhrer Barbie, and it, too, is jammed. Five and six to a cell with only two bunks so they sleep in shifts but that’s not allowed by the warders, is it?

‘You’re police officers. You should know all this. The Sante in Paris was built to hold a thousand and now houses between five and six thousand. One in every five men has been deprived of his liberty and all contact with his loved ones, and Secretaire General Bousquet and the others wonder why their lives are being threatened? Sacre nom de nom, do they need Laval’s clairvoyant to show them the truth?’

‘Auguste … Auguste, you’re shouting. The … the inspectors, they want to ask you about Noelle’s … Messieurs, my employer apologizes. Isolation has made him incautious.’

And yet … and yet he knows we’ll not arrest him for it, said St-Cyr to himself. Has he still contacts in Paris who can tell him how it is there for us?