Flykiller

‘Jean-Louis, the rest are prominent men of industry and commerce and members of the Cercle Europeen,’ said Bousquet, as if this ought to put them beyond reproach. ‘Aeronautics, automobiles and lorries, locomotives and railway trucks, coal, iron, steel, aluminium, beet sugar, cement and textiles, chemicals also. All keep horses at the racing stables.’

‘And occasionally enjoy a party or two?’ asked Hermann, having momentarily lost his appetite.

‘Of course.’

‘Then the vans aren’t the only vehicles that are used to transport goods, are they?’ he said.

‘That is correct.’

‘And anything you need you can get at a price?’

‘That, too, within reason, is correct.’

‘So last December who ordered in the 1925 Bollinger Cuvee Speciale that Marie-Jacqueline downed, and the Shalimar that Celine Dupuis was wearing when killed?’

‘Charles-Frederic Hebert,’ said Bousquet. ‘He’s very fond of the Marechal, though he no longer sees him and hasn’t since the tragedy. The Bollinger and the Remy-Martin Louis XIII were, I believe, Christmas gifts, but extra arrived with the consignment. As to the perfume, I don’t think any was ordered.’

‘What tragedy?’ asked Hermann innocently.

‘Why the suicide of Noelle Olivier. It was Charles who brought the couple together and he still blames himself for what subsequently happened. He was a major shareholder in Olivier’s bank and lost a fortune when it failed in 1933. Oh, by the way, Jean-Louis, I’ll take those billets doux, if you don’t mind.’

‘Later, Secretaire. Later. For now they must be considered as evidence.’

At 10 a.m. Berlin Time, Friday 5 February, the sun was ringed with frost. The wind, gusting like a bastard, swept snow from every ridge and hill, and in the valley of the Allier below, the river was gripped in iron, the gunmetal light enough to make the bones ache.

‘Mon Dieu, Hermann,’ said Louis, reverently ignoring the weather, his breath fogging an already iced-up windscreen, ‘it’s exactement as Caesar would have seen it in 52 BC. He’d been defeated by Vercingetorix and his Arverni at Gergovia, their hill fort, and had had to cross the ford down there to lick his wounds in the hot springs.’

Christ, were they to have another tiresome lecture at a time like this? They’d just driven through the little village of Charmeil, some seven kilometres north-west of Vichy, had first crossed the Boutiron Bridge without a murmur from the boys on the control, a bad sign. ‘That little aerodrome with the swastika wasn’t there, mon enfant, nor were the two Storchs or that Dornier that are warming up!’

Grumpy still and no imagination! ‘Nor was the railway spur that’s at the foot of this hill from which Herr Abetz’s chateau commands such an imposing view.’

After leaving Chez Crusoe, they’d spent the rest of the night in yet another of the lousy flea-bitten hotels honest detectives had had to become accustomed to. Searing pain in that left knee and no time to boil chestnuts and mash a poultice as promised. ‘Caesar wouldn’t have campaigned in the dead of winter!’

A sigh had best be given. Hermann had tossed and turned all night. Sleep had been impossible! ‘You’re missing the point. Every schoolchild in this country your Fuhrer thinks is his has to memorize the heroics of that twenty-year-old warrior, less now, of course, due to the Marechal’s policy of collaboration. But still, when he or she hears that Vercingetorix was defeated later that same year at Alesia, they learn that, like all noble Celts, he praised his vanquisher and led the Arverni in the victory parade, only to be courted by the Romans and then put to death. I tell you this simply to emphasize first that treachery is common to the Auvergne, though not limited to its natives.’

‘And the chateau?’

Hermann found a cigarette and, breaking it in half, lit both halves to pass one over.

‘Merci. Is like Vipiacus, the former estate of the Roman, Vipius, now corrupted into Vichy and owned by one of your countrymen.’

‘When in Rome, do as the Romans, eh; when in Occupied France, as the Occupier?’

‘Buy up everything you can.’

‘Then let those who once owned it, look after it.’

‘You’re learning. I’m certain of it.’

‘And second?’