‘Forgive me,’ he said and grinned boyishly – a nice grin, bien sûr, but … ‘Sometimes I hate myself,’ he said. ‘You have to understand that my partner is always on about my letting the prettiest of girls take advantage of me. He’ll ask what I’ve learned and I’ll have to have something to tell him. You’ve no idea what he’s like. A real pain in the ass!’
Was that definitely all there was to the inquisition? wondered Inés. ‘You are forgiven and … and the compliment is much appreciated though I fear I am far too thin these days.’
And can’t get much to eat even on the black market, since about 600 francs a day was needed! ‘Salut,’ said Kohler, raising his glass to her. ‘À votre santé.’
‘Et à vous, monsieur.’
It was only in passing that he mentioned the quartier Petit-Montrouge, the Parc de Montsouris, and the École de Dressage, which was at the end of the street, thus letting her know that he knew Paris well enough but that she didn’t have to worry.
But I will, said Inés to herself. There were deep circles around her eyes and he had noticed them, no doubt concluding that they weren’t just from hunger but from too many late nights – particularly the one that had brought her here on the same train as he and that partner of his. The same! Would he check its passenger list? Would he?
More coffee came. The girl sat back with hands in her lap as the waiter poured.
‘Merci,’ whispered Inés, and then … then tried to smile across the table at this giant from the Kripo with the terrible scar down the left side of his face. ‘The Chante Clair Restaurant of the Hotel Majestic is lovely, isn’t it?’ she heard herself saying. ‘Very fin de siècle – turn of the century. Very of another time. Ferns and fishtail palms, Kentias and rubber plants – the smell of the orange and lemon trees in their glazed jardinieres – tulip shades of soft amber glass on goose-necked lamps and, above the widows, stained-glass panels of ladies bathing or drinking the waters and taking the cure.’
The place was filling up. Ministers of this and that would arrive singly or with their wives; the respective assistants would wait patiently, then dash in to ask if anything was required of them, or they would divulge the latest little confidence. Often there were glances up and around, whispers about the two visitors – these two, thought Inés, only to see Herr Kohler grinning at her again and hear him saying, ‘Don’t worry so much. The Minister of Culture won’t pester you while I’m here.’
Was this safer ground? ‘They’re all so serious,’ she whispered, leaning across the table as he did towards her. ‘No one smiles, all seem worried and not among friends.’
‘Tall, thin, short, corpulent or otherwise, they’re all wondering what the hell they should do. Leave the ship or stay until it goes down.’
Had Herr Kohler seen right through her? Had he wanted to test her yet another time? ‘I … I know nothing of such things. For me, it’s enough to have been chosen to do such an important commission, and my room and board is only one hundred francs in total, Inspector, for as long as it takes. A fabulous deal. Mind you, I doubt the family with whom I’m to board will be able to provide such luxuries.’
And where is it, exactly, that you’re staying? She could see him wondering this but there was no time for him to ask.
‘Inspector … Mon Dieu, you certainly don’t waste time! Mademoiselle …?’
It was the Secrétaire Géneéral of Police. Incredibly young and handsome for one so powerful, thought Inés, his eyes alive with imagined mischief and loving the joke of what he’d come upon. The hair, neatly trimmed and well back from the forehead, was parted high and to the left; the white shirt and blue tie were immaculate and showed clearly through the open V of his overcoat because there was no scarf, the broad lambskin collar making him look like an immensely successful banker or investment broker.
A lighted cigarette was held between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. There were nicotine stains on those fingers … ‘Charpentier, monsieur,’ she heard herself telling him. ‘Inès.’
‘The sculptress. Herr Kohler, I might have known! He has a reputation with the ladies, mademoiselle. I would watch it with him if I were you.’
Monsieur Bousquet sat down but continued to enjoy his little discovery. If he was upset about anything at all, he wasn’t going to let the assembled even guess at it. Dashing, always impeccably dressed and self-confident, he was one of the most well-informed and well-connected men in the country and yet here she was sitting at a table with him.
The Maréchal arrived with Premier Laval. Dr Ménétrel was right behind them. Throughout the dining room, coffee cups were put down, croissants abandoned, napkins quickly used and set aside as everyone stood.
The Glacier and the Moroccan carpet dealer, the horse-trader, the shady operator – le Maquignon – headed across the room to where a screen hid the Maréchal’s table from prying eyes.
Pétain said a brief good morning to everyone. Laval said nothing, Ménétrel ducking round behind the screen to join the conference, Bousquet … Bousquet saying, ‘If you will excuse me, Herr Kohler, mademoiselle, I’d best see what’s up.’
He, too, went behind the leaded glass panels on which bare-shouldered maidens, swathed in soft white towels, their curls pinned up, dabbled their pretty toes in the rushing waters of an imaginary stream.
The four of them are behind that screen, said Inés to herself, but to Herr Kohler, who was watching her reactions closely, she would have to say with a smile she knew would be weak and would utterly fail to mask her thoughts, ‘There is Vichy, Inspector. If you had told me this morning that I would shortly see them gathered around one table like that, I would not have believed you. Now I must leave. Excuse me, please. My presence here will only cause you further embarrassment, and I would not want that.’
Seen in the reflection from the corridor’s wall mirror and through a side entrance, the Chante Clair’s clientele grew increasingly uneasy. Whispers here, others there, thought Inès as she straightened her cloche and tidied her scarf. Oh bien sûr, they were now worried. Rumours of an aborted assassination attempt must have circulated; a dancer had been murdered – slaughtered perhaps to protect the identity of the would-be assassin. A hurried, urgent conference had been convened with the Maréchal …
From either side of that privacy screen they came, the conference suddenly terminated, Bousquet swift and no longer looking so confident, Ménétrel and Premier Laval grim and to the left, the Auvergnat easily elbowing the doctor out of the way so that the closest of empty chairs could be grabbed.
One by one they sat down at Herr Kohler’s table, leaving the Maréchal to dine alone but with thoughts of what? she asked herself. The nearness of death while having adulterous sex with a beautiful but lonely young woman whose child had had to be left in Paris, messieurs? Paris! The lack of guards? The affront of their not having been on duty?
‘I’d best join my partner, hadn’t I?’
Ah Sainte Mère, it was the Chief Inspector St-Cyr. For how long had he been watching her? From the moment she had sat down over coffee and croissants with his partner or simply now?
Doubt, suspicion and a too-evident interest filled the look he gave her, since she had pretended to tidy herself in the mirror …
He had seen right through her. Not waiting for a reply, the Sûreté departed. Fedora in hand and overcoat unbuttoned, he headed for that table and, seizing a free chair along the way, took it with him.
Then he, too, sat down but next to his partner so as to face the others and yet also see her still standing in this corridor.
Ducking her eyes, the girl turned away from the mirror, soon to cross the foyer and leave the hotel. A sculptress, said St-Cyr to himself. A patcher-up of battered detectives.
‘Hermann, a moment. Let me begin.’
‘No, you let me!’ seethed Ménétrel. ‘Which of you idiots told the lift operator that the Maréchal’s life had been threatened? Come, come, messieurs. I told you to be discreet – I warned you!�
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‘Bernard … Bernard, go easy,’ urged Laval, his olive-dark eyes glistening.
‘Easy, when the Maréchal has learned the Garde Mobile were not on duty and is furious? He’s … he’s demanding a full inquiry!’
‘But neither of these two would have released such information,’ said Laval, shaking his head. ‘These things simply have a way of getting out, Bernard.’
‘And to his ears?’
‘His good one, I trust. The Maréchal’s stone deaf in the left one, Inspectors.’
‘Messieurs, please,’ cautioned Louis. ‘This key was taken from the groundskeepers’ board in the furnace room of the Hotel du Parc. Whoever took it not only knew where to find it, but more importantly, since none of the keys was identified, exactly which one would be needed.’
‘A town resident, an employee, perhaps,’ said Ménétrel, not looking at them. ‘One who has passed by that padlock every day and has seen it many times.’
The key looked as if suitable for any padlock of that vintage. ‘Why the Hall des Sources?’ asked Laval. ‘Why plan to take the Maréchal there? Why not simply kill him in that bedroom of his?’
‘The girl would almost certainly have screamed,’ said Kohler. ‘There would have been a scuffle. Others would have been awakened and, if not, the Maréchal is still surprisingly fit.’
‘He exercises. I do the best I can,’ muttered Ménétrel testily. ‘If neither of you let it out, who did?’
It was Laval who, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking, calmly said, ‘Why not ask the switchboard operator, Bernard? You know as well as I do that the Maréchal always rings downstairs first thing in the morning to ask if there have been any calls.’
‘Sacré, that bitch! I’ll see she’s dismissed. Just let me get my hands on her. Passing classified information. Breaking our strict rules about secrecy …’
‘See to it, Bernard. We can’t have that happening, can we?’ urged the Premier, as the doctor bolted from the table to make his way across the room. ‘Red-faced and in a rage,’ chuckled Laval, delighted by the result, but then, taking a deep drag and exhaling smoke through his nostrils, he returned to business. ‘There’s more to this, isn’t there? Inspectors, you can and must speak freely. Secrétaire Général Bousquet and I are as one, and we both need to know.’
Bousquet remained watchfully silent, his cigarette still.
‘A man and a woman,’ said Louis levelly. ‘The first to encounter the victim and then to take her to the Hall, the second to lie in wait there.’
‘Two assailants … A team, is that it, eh?’ demanded Bousquet, sickened by the thought.
‘A vengeance killing?’ asked Laval. ‘Assuming, of course, that the Maréchal really was the intended victim and that this Madame Dupuis had simply to be silenced.’
‘As of now the matter is still open to question,’ confessed Louis and, finding that pipe of his and a too-thin tobacco pouch, frowned at necessity’s need but decided it would have to be satisfied.
‘He takes for ever to pack that thing,’ quipped Kohler. ‘It helps him think.’
And there is still more to this, isn’t there? thought Laval. That is why this partner and friend of yours is so carefully giving me the once over. He sees the hank of straight jet-black hair that always seems to fall over the right half of my brow to all but touch that eye. He sees not so much the swiftness of my glance as the glint of constant suspicion. He notes my dark olive skin, bad teeth, the nicotine stains, the full and thick moustache, double chin, the squat and all but non-existent neck and the white tie that has been so much a part of me since my earliest days as a trade-union lawyer and socialist candidate in Aubervilliers. He says to himself that tie really does make me stand out for any would-be assassins but readily admits I will never be persuaded to change it.
But does he hate me too? Does he call me, as so many do, le Maquignon, or is his interest simply that of detachment, the detective in him a student of life out of necessity?
St-Cyr returned the questioning gaze. Tough … mon Dieu, this one was that and much more. Premier from January 1931 to February 1932, Foreign Minister from May of ’32 until June ’35, Premier again until January ’36, after which he’d been out of office until September ’39 but always there behind the scenes, and back as Premier from July ’40 until his arrest on 13 December of that first year of the Occupation and now, since April ’42, Premier again.
‘A self-made man, Inspector,’ acknowledged Laval. ‘The youngest son of a butcher, café owner, innkeeper and postman – Father had a lot of irons in the fire and a wife and four children to feed. Châteldon is less than twenty kilometres to the south and a tiny place, but it’s home, you understand, and my house is the one on the hill.’
The château Laval had been bought in 1932 after that first term as Premier. He’d left the village when still a schoolboy, had insisted on taking his baccalauréat, then a degree in Zoology, then Law and, to finance himself, had taken a position as a pion, a supervisor of secondary schools in Lyons, Saint Étienne, Dijon …
He had bought into and then come to own several newspapers, Radio-Lyons and printing presses – the one in Clermont-Ferrand did all of Vichy’s printing and had done so since July 1940, even after his arrest by the Garde Mobile. One of his companies bottled a mineral water – La Sergentale – which was reputed to be a cure for impotence and had been sold on railways and oceanic liners before the war (now only on the trains, of course). Farming, too, was among his business interests, wine also.
‘A happy family man, eh, René?’ he said, looking steadily at Bousquet. ‘One who adores his only child and daughter and dearly loves his wife, so doesn’t fool around with those of others. But if you are as well informed as I think you are, Inspectors, you will also be aware that my Jeanne often refers to the distinct possibility of Madame Pétain’s having Jewish blood in her family, whereas that good woman constantly refers to me behind my back as “that Moroccan carpet dealer”, or even “that Jamaick” – that Jamaican – she having dug that last one up from my days as a schoolboy more than fifty years ago.’
‘An éminence grise,’ said Louis guardedly, ‘but one who, whether I agree or not with your policies, causes me to realize that you are no ordinary man and that with you, things had best be up front.’
‘Two assailants?’ prompted Bousquet.
‘The female, having gained access to the Hall, removed her overcoat and, most probably, also a woollen jersey. Then, after lighting a cigar, waited for her victim.’
‘A cigar …?’ blurted Laval. ‘Was it one of Pétain’s?’
‘There’s a humidor in his office, Inspectors,’ interjected Bousquet. ‘People come and go all day long. Any of them could have helped themselves or been offered one they did not smoke at the time.’
Lost to the thought, Laval muttered, ‘Someone so close, he, she or both can come and go as they please, with us none the wiser. Is this what you’re suggesting, René?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘But … but cigars are available elsewhere?’ cautioned Laval. ‘The Marquis de Bon Goût, on the boulevard du Casino at the other end of the park, has plenty, Inspectors. Ask the elder Paquet to go through his register. Take the old man into your confidence a little. He knows everything there is to know about this town, save what’s left of the nation’s government. Maybe even that too.’ He glanced at his pocket watch and then turned again to Bousquet. ‘Rene, make certain they tell you everything. Relay it to me but keep that little Florentine intriguer of a doctor in the dark, eh? Find out who among his overblown staff knew about this liaison he’d arranged and if that person or persons squeaked it to anyone else, including the members of his private army. Let us show that starchy Rasputin a thing or two and baste his goose with the sauce it deserves!’
‘A moment, Premier,’ cautioned Louis as Laval got up to leave. ‘The killer knew enough about the heart muscle to know it would be best to enlarge the hole she was p
utting in it.’
‘The haft of the knife was lifted hard before the blade was withdrawn,’ offered Kohler blandly, ‘so we’re dealing with a professional and had best keep it in mind.’
‘And is the Maréchal the only target,’ snorted Laval, ‘or is it that this double-barrelled assassin of ours wants us all to feel the coup de grâce before it arrives?’
The finishing stroke … ‘We shall have to see,’ said Louis.
‘Premier, your use of the name Flykiller in the telex you sent Gestapo Boemelburg?’ asked Kohler.
Laval threw Bousquet a silencing glance. ‘Assassin would have been too harsh a word for the sensitive ears of our comrades and allies, Inspector. Surely as one of them, you would agree? Enjoy the coffee. Rene, a further word in private. Walk me to my office. Catch up with these two later.’
‘Transport …’ hazarded Hermann. Laval had left the table.
‘I’ll see what can be arranged,’ shot Bousquet. ‘For now, the morgue is within easy walking distance and she’ll soon be moved. Wait there, and don’t either of you go anywhere else until we’ve spoken. Please, I must insist. Have a look at those first two corpses and let us hope there won’t be any more.’
Daylight had finally crept over the Allier Valley to expose the iron fist of a purplish-grey ice fog. Out on the rue Petit breath steamed. Bundled up, some of them with only their eyes uncovered, people hurried to work, mostly civil servants and cursing weather that was normal for. the Auvergne at this time of year, so good, that was good, thought Kohler. They ought to suffer like the rest of us!
Vélo-taxis, those wretched bicycle-rickshaw things the Occupation’s lack of petrol and automobiles had brought, waited in a line outside the Hotels du Parc and Majestic. Blankets for the passengers and vacuum flasks of those equally wretched herbal teas, the tisanes Louis loved to drink. Anything for a few sous. There’d even be a ‘little charge’ for the rental of the blankets.
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