Flykiller

She shrugged. ‘He got angry. He thinks girls lead men astray – at least that’s what his mother has told him often enough. She’s very religious and had wanted a child so badly but had had to wait nearly for ever, so Albert, he doesn’t feel abortion is right either.’

And neither does the Marechal he worships, thought Kohler. ‘Where is this peephole of his?’

‘Actually there are two of them,’ said Carole. Picking her way round the day bed and past the doorless armoire, she found the crack high up in the wall and ran a finger along and right into it. ‘He stands on the wooden crate he uses as a footstool when reaching difficult places to set his snares.’

‘The other one is in the ceiling above Aurelienne, Inspector,’ said Nathalie dryly. ‘There’s a storeroom in which Albert must also set snares. Chez Crusoe would rather their kitchens and our dressing room were inundated every spring during the annual floods, than have all that stuff up there get wet.’

‘Cigarettes and pipe tobacco?’

‘Sugar, flour, chocolate, wine and champagne,’ said Carole, giving him the blankest of looks.

‘Orders are placed here, then, and the vans come and go?’ he asked, not missing a trick.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but please don’t tell anyone we let you in on it.’

‘And you all have rooms at the Hotel d’Allier?’

‘Yes,’ said Nathalie. ‘Inspector, forget about Albert. Think about the wives, as Carole has said. You see, they came here to Chez Crusoe. Not Bousquet’s – she’s in Paris – but Richard’s, de Fleury’s and Deschambeault’s. What they saw they did not like and were only too vocal about it. Everyone in the audience laughed, of course, ourselves especially. Mon Dieu, to be presented with such an opportunity for humour was too much to resist, but … but their husbands had left the club by then.’

‘Marie-Jacqueline, Camille, Lucie and Celine had gone with them to the Chateau aux Oiseaux Splendides,’ said Carole, lighting a cigarette for herself. ‘We joined the party later.’

Louis had shown him his notebook: ‘“Party, 24 October”,’ he muttered, ‘and just before the Allied landings in North Africa and total Occupation …’

‘But there have been other parties since,’ confessed Aurelienne, taking Nathalie’s hand in hers to kiss and grip it tightly. ‘Like Camille, Inspector, each of us has a husband who is a prisoner of war in your country, but unlike Celine’s, ours are still alive. Alive!’

‘Those bitches had the nerve to accuse us in public of being unfaithful,’ snorted Carole. ‘Oh for sure, they despise us for letting a little fun come into our lives now and then, but to threaten to tell our husbands we’ve been unfaithful? To write letters to the Marechal demanding that he get les Allemands to send us to the Reich and into forced labour in a munitions factory? Merde, how could anyone think of doing such a thing to another?’

‘We’re not saints, but we didn’t deserve what they said of us,’ said Nathalie. ‘I’ve two sons I board at a farm on the other side of Charmeil where I know they will get enough to eat. Carole has a daughter she left with her husband’s parents.’

‘I couldn’t stand to live with them any more. It drove me crazy, their constant carping. Now I work and save and hope we’ll have a future when my husband is released.’

‘Aurelienne comes with me, Inspector,’ said Nathalie. ‘Every second Sunday we visit the farm and take the boys to Mass at the same little church Petain sometimes attends. They call her auntie, and as for me, I know she loves them as much as I do, if not more.’

‘I haven’t had any of my own yet,’ confessed Aurelienne, shyly blinking away her tears. ‘There … there wasn’t time. One day we were married and the next my Yvon was sent to the front. Now a heavily censored letter still comes every once in a while but what’s a girl to do, eh? Pine away the whole of her life?’

‘Starve?’ said Carole.

‘Wear black?’ said Nathalie.

‘Wait when one never knows if her husband will ever come home and if he does, will he still feel the same way about her; will she still love him? Me, I can’t even remember his face!’ swore Carole.

‘We’re not here to judge.’

‘Don’t men always judge?’ she snapped. ‘And their wives too? Especially those who have everything and consequently think they’re better than those of us who have nothing?’

‘And at this chateau party, did any of the other wives join in the fight between Marie-Jacqueline and Sandrine Richard?’

‘Madame de Fleury found Honore with Celine and wept but couldn’t seem to move or say a thing. She just stood in the centre of that room with her head bowed and fists clenched,’ said Nathalie. ‘Never have I seen a woman more devastated.’

‘And Madame Deschambeault?’ he asked.

‘Her?’ snorted Carole. ‘For that one, Inspector, you have to understand that her mind isn’t at all well. She remained in the car with Madame Petain.’

‘Ah Christ!’