‘You were born in Lyons on 18 February 1917 – that father of yours must have somehow got himself home on leave, or did he even partake of the Great War like so many, many of us?’
Those who hadn’t – Premier Laval among them – had found their reasons, but one would have to hear what Major Roux had to say. Perhaps he would be able to reveal the date, time and place of his daughter’s first meeting with Bousquet. It was a thought. And, yes, the Maréchal’s closest friends and acquaintances, though few, were often military men, so the two could well know each other. One had best be careful.
Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux, the nurse, had jet-black hair and deep, dark blue eyes that were widely set in an angular face whose expression must often have appeared vital, for the brow was high and wide, the chin narrow, the nose sharp, and there had once been dimples in her apple cheeks.
‘Not a tall woman, but “leggy”, my partner would have said, had he seen you strutting out across a park or walking along some hospital corridor under the appreciative gazes of others like him. The card that everyone has to have filled out when they apply for a marriage licence, a divorce, a lease or house purchase, et cetera – that great bankroll of index cards the Gestapo inherited from the Sûreté and all préfectures – states emphatically that you gave birth at the age of nineteen in Tours to twins just as your divorce came through. There were mitigating circumstances in the application and it was granted because your husband, a much older man, was one of the shell-shocked and you couldn’t possibly have been expected to cope any longer with his sudden fits of screaming in the night and at other times. The twins, two unnamed girls, were immediately given to the Carmelites, and as soon as you could, you moved to Paris.
‘Born 30 June 1906 in Tours, you were not the thirty-two or -three Secrétaire Général Bousquet imagined, but thirty-seven and hiding it well, though surely he would have examined your papers and this card? The mistress of the Minister of Supplies and Rationing?
‘And you were Bousquet’s,’ he said to Camille, ‘and you, that of an inspector of finances. Food, Police, and Money. That’s simpler than their long-winded titles, isn’t it?’
Marie-Jacqueline would have laughed – he was certain of this; Camille would have watched to see where the thought was taking him.
‘And Madame Dupuis?’ he asked. ‘Oh for sure, the Maréchal has exquisite taste, but you were completely unaware that someone was waiting on that little balcony. Once taken though, you did manage to slip away in the Hall des Sources – how was this possible? Did he call out to his associate? It was pitch dark – was he momentarily distracted?’
Her killer had also been waiting. The smell of cigar smoke must have permeated that of the damp and the hydrogen sulphide, especially since she had then to be hunted down.
‘A long strand of blue sapphires and a pair of diamond earrings,’ he said. ‘The first in the style of the 1920s to go with the dress and shoes; the second in that of the Belle Époque and the fin de siède but, really, the earrings could have been worn at any time since 1890 and beads were in vogue then too, so perhaps both came from the same source.’
There’d been no card or name in that gift box. There’d been two visits to her room, the first to leave her identity card, the second, the love letters, dress and jewellery.
‘The letters were tied with a pink ribbon as though cherished when, if I understand your feelings for the Maréchal, you didn’t want to have anything to do with him.’
Ménétrel had pronounced her dead at 7.32 a.m. on Wednesday as the groundskeeper’s son had babbled that she was only asleep. ‘But then our killer or her assistant must have ducked into the Hall to reposition your legs while desperately searching for something. Not the earrings, but was it this?’ he asked. ‘The post from a cheap, snap-on cufflink whose mother-of-pearl button is as common as dust?’
Ménétrel had made no mention of rigor having set in – the degree of frost would have delayed its onset. There’d been no sign of the knife, and he had maintained that the legs hadn’t been turned aside.
Then either whoever had searched had come in right after him and before rigor had made the legs so stiff that considerable force would have been necessary to change their position, or the doctor had lied and had moved them himself.
The garrotting of Camille Lefebvre had been done with iron wire, very fine but easily obtained before the war, and not even fastened at its ends to short pins, simply wound around the hands perhaps. ‘And carried coiled in a handbag or pocket, but apparently a professional killing all the same.’
Noted in the autopsy report, there was bruising on her back, where her killer’s knee had been jammed against it as she’d gone down …
‘You couldn’t have cried out much or struggled for long.’
There were bruises on Marie-Jacqueline’s throat and shoulders. She’d been held under, had struggled, had banged her left elbow on the stone steps of the bath. Strength would have been needed to hold her under even though she must have been light-headed and sleepy, yet the bruises were inconclusive as to the sex of her assailant. Older scratches and bruises, now all but healed, had also been noted. The arms and face, the breasts, knees and buttocks. A fight perhaps.
Céline Dupuis’s right arm had been bruised by her killer. That knee and thigh had also been badly bruised but in a fall, the coroner had felt, that must have happened some weeks ago …
A throat was cleared, a breathless voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Jean-Louis, I came as soon as my hotel received Secrétaire Général Bousquet’s summons.’
It was Felix Laloux, scruffy-bearded and looking grey and wasted in a shabby blue suit that was now far too big for him. Still blinking from behind wire-rimmed spectacles, the right lens of which was cracked, he was unaccustomed to the light.
‘I’ve been a guest of the state.’
‘Given free board and lodging?’ That is, prison.
‘Forgotten since the farce of the Riom trials.’
They’d been in the spring of 1941, when the Maréchal had tried to blame the Defeat of France on the ills of the Third Republic and the Blum Government, including its most vocal supporters of socialism and Freemasonry. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Don’t ask stupid questions of a man whose death sentence has just been commuted. Ask, Will I help you? The answer is yes, and I’m grateful you have remembered so fondly our working together in the past.’
‘Then look closely. Tell no one but myself or my partner of what you find – Hermann is on our side, so please don’t worry about him. He’s not the usual by far. But see if all three here were killed by the same person or persons.’
‘And yourself?’
‘Will look for links elsewhere, but trust my partner will have turned up something.’
Kohler didn’t hesitate but stepped into the telephone exchange at the Hôtel du Parc, the room no bigger than a large closet. There was constant clicking, constant motion. The operator, still with her shapely back to him, sat bolt upright on a high, wooden stool before the board on which eighty or so lines had connections. Headset strapped on over permanent wave, receiver clamped over the left ear, mouthpiece and transmitter dead in front of lovely lips, her left hand moving deftly to control the keys or yank out one of the cords with its brass plug-in, or flip back up one of the traps that fell open when a line was needed, the right hand putting the cords into the jacks on the board and jerking still others out, or writing up the day’s log. Lights flashing, demands being made, and ring … ring … ring!
‘Allô … Allô … Ne quittez pas, Monsieur Arnold. A moment. PTT, do you have Général Giradet for us yet? Please try his office again. Giradet? Ah! Monsieur le General, Monsieur Arnold at the Hotel du Parc wishes to speak with you. A moment, please. Monsieur Arnold, I have your connection. Go ahead now.’
Defence was in the Hotel Thermal, Finance and Justice in the Carlton, the Diplomatic Corps in the Ambassadeurs, Education in the Plaza at 9 rue du Parc, Marine in the Helder, the Senate in the
Salle des Sociétés Médicales over on the avenue Thermal, the Chamber of Deputies in the Grand Casino, and every outside call had to pass through here as well as those from room to room.
‘A quiet word, mademoiselle.’
‘C’est impossible! Something has set the hotel to buzzing. Allô … Allô …’
Kohler placed a hand over her left one and prised the receiver up a little from her ear. ‘The girl you relieved,’ he said.
‘In the cellars, I think.’
She stopped then. Yanked off the headset and blurted tearfully, ‘Lulu wouldn’t have told anyone someone had tried to kill the Maréchal. We’re all sworn to silence and each of us had to sign a paper that we understood a three-year prison sentence would be our reward if we broke our oath!’
‘But you just did.’
The scar on his face was cruel, the look in his pale blue eyes utterly empty. ‘You’re Gestapo. I … I overheard this in one of the conversations – a word or two, that’s all, Herr …’
‘Kohler, Hermann,’ he said and grinned like her son Paul, warmth and concern now entering his eyes. ‘Look, please don’t be upset. I’m here to help. Ménétrel’s crazy and just on one of his rampages. Let me calm him down.’
‘He … he threatened to feed her to the pigs or let the boul. National have her.’
Though officially here only since 11 November last, Herr Gessler had already made a name for himself. In Paris, just after the Defeat, people had soon come to speak in hushed tones of the rue des Saussaies – the Gestapo; the rue Lauriston also – the French Gestapo; and av. Foch, the SS. All were dreaded for equal reasons. Now here, the boul. National …
‘Look, I hate what’s been happening, but why the pigs?’
She shrugged and, dragging the receiver back over her ear, winced at further thoughts.
Lulu wasn’t upstairs in the doctor’s office, she was deep in the cellars, and even from a distance Kohler could hear them.
‘Salope’! shrieked Ménétrel. ‘Fuck with me and I’ll let Hercules have you first before the sows dine.’
‘Hercules?’ shouted the woman.
‘The boar, idiot!’
‘Oh là là, docteur, I might even enjoy it, eh? after all, I’ve not had it since my husband fell to one of the Kaiser’s bullets.’
‘Putain, the boar’s cock is a corkscrew,’ yelled Ménétrel. ‘Those two pork chops you call labia will be torn to shreds if you don’t give me answers!’
Answers … Answers …
‘Maudit salaud, how can you treat a trusted employee like this?’
‘We’ll let Hercules have a ride in your little shanghai train first!’
Jésus, merde alors, Ménétrel certainly did warrant his reputation for crudity! She was sitting on a wooden stool, jammed into the far corner of the freight lift, had seen this Kripo before the others, had seen the pistol in his hand. Ferbrave was with the doctor; two others blocked all escape.
‘Then ask elsewhere,’ she hissed, glaring up at Ménétrel. ‘Ask Madame Pétain what she said to her coiffeur the day that girl was murdered. Find out what Monsieur Laurence then whispered to another, don’t ask me. My lips have always been sealed. My husband worshipped the Maréchal and I would do nothing to discredit his good name or that of my own, and you know it. Now give me a cigarette and don’t tell me you haven’t any when I damn well know you have plenty. Quit picking on a girl half your size and old enough to have been your mother, may God forgive her. You exhaust me, Docteur. And all this after a twelve-hour shift. Merde, c’est scandaleux! It’s enough to make a saint want to piss during his final confession, and now I have to.’
She tossed her faded curls, Ferbrave swung his fist back. Plum-dark in the doughy pan of her face, her eyes leaped. ‘Go ahead, mon brave. Beat a war-widow and grandmother to a pulp. That way my lips will be sealed and I won’t ever be able to tell anyone how you get those cigarettes or the brandy and the cigars. Ah! I see that I’ve made you reconsider.’
The fist wasn’t lowered.
‘You hit her and I’ll kill you,’ breathed Kohler, pressing the muzzle of the Walther P38 to the back of the bastard’s head. ‘Maybe I will anyway. Now get out, all of you. Out, fast! RA US! RAUS! SCHNELL!’
‘Herr Kohler …’
‘Silence! Ach! bugger off before I do it, Doctor. I’m Gestapo, eh? Gestapo! And don’t any of you forget it!’
They weren’t happy but they fled. Kohler found a broken cigarette and, putting the pistol away, tried to straighten the Gauloise bleue for her.
‘Merci,’ she said, ‘but I really must take a piss.’
‘She … she can use our pail.’
‘Your name?’ asked the Gestapo, looking over a shoulder.
‘Al … bert. Groun … Groundkeeper.’
The boy, the young man, had wet himself. ‘Don’t be afraid any more, Albert,’ said Kohler. ‘Henri-Claude isn’t going to hurt her while I’m around and he won’t hurt you either. Just show Madame Lulu to your pail and then bring her back here for a chat.’
‘It’s … it’s warm in the furnace room. We’ve a little nest there.’
‘Then that’s where we’d better go.’
Whenever she could, and too often, Lulu Beauclaire turned the conversation and his attention back to Albert Grenier. Mein Gott, she was tough but damned wary and scared, too, thought Kohler. Shrewd enough to know that Ferbrave or Ménétrel, or both of them, would be after her, yet willing to be made a fuss over here if it didn’t necessitate breaking her vow of silence. Instead, using an innate curiosity mingled with motherly patience, she balanced the books by coaxing answers for him from the groundsman’s son who could know nothing of the telephone calls she daily arranged.
‘The keys …?’ she said as if they weren’t staring at her from a board that was nailed to one of the furnace room’s uprights.
‘Three down, one over. Hall des Sources,’ chimed in Albert as he opened the firebox door to bring an added blast of heat and let everyone see the glowing coals.
‘Casino?’ she said, taking it all in, the room with its gargantuan furnace and boiler, the pipes, the ‘nest’ with its coffee pot, broken chairs and lunch boxes, the newspapers …
‘Five over, three down,’ came the swift response, Albert’s back still turned to her.
‘Toilette number one?’ she shot back. ‘There are two of them in the park, Inspector.’
‘One over, one down. I’ve got them all memorized. You won’t catch me out!’
‘Remarkable, isn’t it, Inspector? And to think his mother had a terrible fall when he was eight months in the womb. Fifteen stone steps and then the wall of that old church. It broke her waters and harmed Albert, but not too much, I think. How is Yvette, Albert? You see, I know the family, Inspector. Yvette and I … Ah! the times we had as girls and she not getting in the family way until nearly forty. Forty, I say! Prayed constantly for it and finally the Virgin had to listen.’
‘A miracle,’ sighed Albert shyly. ‘She’s fine, Madame Lulu. She’s going to bake me a pavé de santé just like her mother used to for her but it’s … it’s against the law.’
Gingerbread. The pavement or cobblestone of good health. And there’s no ginger or butter, no flour or sugar, or is there? wondered Kohler.
‘All of us girls try to catch Albert out with the keys, Inspector,’ hazarded Lulu quickly.
‘Mademoiselle Trudel didn’t. She just asked me which one was for the Hall des Sources. She couldn’t remember,’ said Albert.
‘And has now gone away to visit her father who is ill.’
‘She wanted a bottle of water for him. The Chomel, Madame Lulu. I … I let her fill one.’
Ah, nom de Dieu …
‘You see, Inspector. Not an unkind bone in his body and so conscientious, he sometimes gets here two hours before any of us.’
‘Five. She was waiting for me at just after five because she had to catch the morning train. Half frozen and shivering in that thin coat of hers. No mittens.
No hat. I brought her here to get warm while I built up the fire and got the key.’
One had best go easy. ‘When? What day, Albert?’ he asked.
‘Last Saturday. I know, because she said she wouldn’t be seeing me at church and she didn’t, Madame Lulu. She didn’t!’
‘Lucie is a shorthand typist with the Bank of France,’ yielded Lulu, letting him have benefit of it with a curt nod. ‘Mademoiselle Trudel is really needed these days, but it is odd, now I think of it, Albert, that she was able to arrange compassionate leave at such a time when everyone is so busy.’
Trying to govern a country someone else occupied.
‘She’s very fond of her job and lives in the same hotel as Madame Dupuis used to,’ went on Lulu, butting out her fourth cigarette.
Oh-oh was written in the look the detective threw her, so now she had best give him another titbit. ‘Albert, what’s the name of that club by the bridge? You know, the place some of the girls go to after work? Chez Robinson, was it?’
‘Chez Crusoe,’ trumpeted Albert. ‘It’s by the Boutiron Bridge and not far from her hotel. They play records and dance. Sometimes when she comes to Vichy, Yvonne Printemps sings there after hours and there’s a piano player, but usually it’s … it’s only records or the wireless. Never the news from the BBC London. Never! That’s … that’s against the law.’
‘And the cigarettes, the brandy and cigars Henri-Claude Ferbrave gets?’ asked Herr Kohler quietly.
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