Flykiller

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Don’t know. Can’t say.’

  ‘Inspector …’ began the elder Deschambeault, only to be silenced by, ‘Must I remind you it’s Chief Inspector and that you will speak only when spoken to?’

  ‘Albert, you’d best tell him,’ said Inès. ‘If you don’t, I’m afraid the Chief Inspector will think I spoke to Lucie. I couldn’t have, of course, for I wasn’t here, hadn’t yet met you, but he’s a detective, and they are always suspicious.’

  ‘No one spoke to her.’

  ‘And the rats, Albert?’ asked Inès gently. ‘He’ll want to know who you think might have taken them.’

  ‘The owner of the knife.’

  ‘A woman?’ asked Inès.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I … I don’t know,’ she blurted. Albert had released her hand and had turned to stare at her as if she had owned that knife, as if she’d taken the rats from his shed without even having paid for them! ‘I … I didn’t kill her, Albert. I swear I didn’t.’

  ‘Your eyes are wet. You’re afraid. I can tell.’

  Ah Sainte Mère, Sainte Mère! ‘I’m just worried about you.’

  ‘No you aren’t.’

  ‘Albert, please!’

  ‘Hermann, take these three into another room and grill them. Leave me to deal with these two! Mademoiselle, you arrive supposedly on the same train as my partner and me, but take a sleeper so as not to be disturbed at the Demarcation Line. You say you are bringing cigars for the Maréchal, a gift from your director. You wear Shalimar, the perfume of the most recent victim, when found hanging about the lobby of the Hôtel du Parc. You then wander into the Hall des Sources to view that victim and leave your fingerprints all over the place thus destroying others we desperately needed. In the Chante Clair restaurant I find you hanging about watching my partner while he’s having a little meeting with Bousquet, Ménétrel and Premier Laval, and now … now we find you in the stable here and then following us to take a decided interest in the proceedings.’

  ‘I … I can’t explain coincidences. I had time on my hands and wished only to help.’

  ‘And have just provided one explanation but is it the truth? Your papers, mademoiselle. Papers, please.’

  ‘Of course. Albert, they are in my handbag. I’m sorry but you will have to move a little.’

  Handed over, the papers were scrutinized. St-Cyr was obviously unhappy with himself for having demanded them as so many did these days. Her place of work and residence were there – he’d see those quickly enough. Her age, physical features, all such things, but would he ask what he would need?

  ‘You had a good look at the corpse of Céline Dupuis, mademoiselle. Why such interest?’

  ‘The artist in me. Death has always interested that part of me. Must I apologize for something I, myself, don’t fully understand? The compulsion, the drive … Yes, that curiosity!’

  And no mention of the tears Hermann had noticed. Tears she had since said she hadn’t been able to shed in years. ‘You attended the Sorbonne?’ he asked.

  ‘The École des Beaux Arts. Painting, life-drawing and sculpture.’

  ‘And the uncle and aunt who raised you didn’t mind?’

  ‘I’ve already stated they encouraged me. Why shouldn’t they have?’

  ‘The expense.’

  ‘Papa had left everything to Maman, and through her, since there was no male heir, it passed to me, as did the small estate my uncle and aunt left.’

  ‘Your father was killed at Verdun?’

  ‘Buried near there, yes. I’ve already told you this earlier.’

  ‘Killed when, mademoiselle?’

  ‘In May 1917. The … the exact date I … I was never told.’

  ‘But tried to find out?’

  ‘I was a child! I needed to know.’

  ‘Was it during the mutinies, mademoiselle?’

  ‘The shelling. You and Herr Kohler must surely have experienced this in that war? Men dying like flies. He … he was ordered over the top as were the 137,000 others of his compagnons d’armes who manned the trenches along the Chemin des Dames and would die in that battle. He obeyed, Inspector. He did not run.’

  ‘Forgive me. One always hates to force those under questioning, mademoiselle. Even a Chief Inspector of the Sûreté – this one at least – is not without compassion. Albert, would you get her another marc, please? A cigarette, mademoiselle?’

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  Damn you, was implied. And yes, said St-Cyr sadly to himself, as the horror of that ten-day battle swept back in on him, one could never forget the screams of the dying. But the battle had begun at dawn on 16 April and had lasted for ten days. In May the médecin de l’Armée, as the poilus had started calling Pétain, had been sent in to deal with the mutineers. Men who, for good reason, and with no shame attached to their terror, had thrown down their arms and refused to take the madness any more.

  ‘Let me just see if my partner needs anything,’ he said. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Inès told herself he had realized Pétain had given the order to the firing squad’s captain and that Papa had been buried in an unmarked grave with the other fifty-six the army had admitted to having executed. He couldn’t know the love Papa had had for Maman, that at the last he would have cried out her name, that all he had wanted was to see her and hold them both.

  The Jockey Club’s boardroom was not nearly so wide as it was long. Always mystified by these ritual dens of the corporate elite, Kohler took a quick look around. Magnificent horseflesh here, there, and wouldn’t Cro-Magnon man have been thunderstruck? Another Lascaux, as in the Dordogne on that stonekiller investigation Louis and he had had to settle, but a modern one.

  Ferbrave sat midway to the side of the Luan mahogany landing field. The father was at its head, the son begrudgingly at his right; wasn’t it marvellous how readily such rooms sorted people out, and didn’t these three need sorting? There was even a portrait of Marcel Boussac, the textile manufacturer and racehorse owner who, after the Defeat, had got racing started again by hiring a Prussian baron to manage his stables.

  Good thinking that. No better horsemen than those boys, but to be fair, had Boussac not done this he’d have lost his stables and France its leading bloodlines.

  ‘Invincible,’ he said, not turning to look at them.

  ‘Gladiateur’s line, Inspector,’ offered the son, and by way of further explanation: ‘The Avenger of Waterloo was winner of the Derby, the Grand Prix de Paris and the St Leger in 1865. Proof undeniable that France could at last not only produce champions but would take the lead.’

  He’d mutter, ‘History,’ and still not turn from the photos and paintings. ‘Normandy Dancer … I gather Hyperion, 1933’s fabulous British stallion, was felt necessary as that one’s sire?’

  ‘Inspector …’

  ‘Oui?’ He would let the Chairman of the Board stew a little more.

  ‘Inspector, shouldn’t you clear things first with Herr Gessler?’

  It was time to face them. ‘Our Ernst? An unemployed shoemaker from Schrobenhausen?’

  ‘I was merely suggesting …’

  ‘One of the beefsteak boys of the Sturmabteilung, the Assault Section of 1933?’

  ‘Inspector, please …’

  ‘Red meat inside those brown shirts, eh? Must have kept a low profile or been whispering into Herr Goering’s ear about his pals in the SA before and during the purge of 30 June to 2 July 1934 – the Night of the Long Knives, that – because, voilà, he surfaces in the Berlin Kripo as a detective no less, and not a bruise on him. Even when I was assigned to the Lichtenberg district in ’37 and then the Prenzlauerberg in ’38, the boys in the cop shop used to whisper about him. I never met him, so can’t really say, but it’s a big city, or was.’

  Merde, what were they to do? wondered Gaëtan-Baptiste. Gessler had warned that Kohler would be trouble but had also hinted he would let the two from Paris sort things out and trust the French would then take care of
their own problems! ‘He’s a most proficient policeman, Inspector, and already has a firm grasp of things.’

  ‘Poland in 1939, of course, and that ghetto in Warsaw in late ’40 when almost a half-million of what Herr Himmler and others call the racially undesirable were bottled up until October ‘42, when they’d finally got the numbers down to a manageable seventy thousand and could spare him. Good at sniffing out trouble and valuables, the weak and deceitful. Came to the attention of several higher-ups. Sent to Rotterdam to deal with Dutch terrorists, then to Antwerp where he excelled in ferreting out housewives who were illegally hiding the enemy and still others of those R-people, the Rasenverfolgte, their children especially. And now …’

  ‘Inspector …’

  ‘No, you let me finish so that we all understand exactly who it is you want me to clear things with. Now considered so reliable that Klaus Barbie, over at the Hotel Terminus in Lyons – yes, that’s the SS-Obersturmführer himself – recommended his transfer to Vichy. Barbie’s an old acquaintance, by the way. A case of arson in Lyons, a salamander. Now give. Cut the horseshit and don’t ever try to threaten me.’

  Just like the corporate elite, they would pull together, thought Kohler, but he’d had to tell them and somehow would now have to break them.

  ‘I was merely suggesting that Herr Gessler could well offer much-needed assistance, Inspector. After all, should anything happen to the Maréchal, the Führer would be most displeased.’

  ‘And Louis and I’d be held responsible? Good Gott im Himmel, you don’t listen, do you? Monsieur Jean-Guy Deschambeault, please stand up!’

  ‘Up?’

  ‘Verdammt, you heard what I said!’

  Blanching, the son looked to Ferbrave for support but that one was busy gently teasing the bloodied scarf from his hand and sucking on a dead fag end.

  ‘Gut,’ snapped Kohler in Deutsch, just to remind them that he was Gestapo, before switching back to the lingua franca. ‘That wireless set in your office had its dial glued to the forty-metre band. “Ici Londres,” eh, mon fin? “Des Français parlent aux Français.” You’ve been listening to. Général de Gaulle.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Jean-Guy, why must you be such a fool?’ swore the father sadly. ‘Inspector, I’m sure we can come to an understanding.’

  Best to glance at the open door and the corridor beyond it, thought Kohler. Best to hesitantly wet the upper lip and softly say, ‘I’m listening.’ Inès Charpentier had also noted the position of that dial but had lowered her eyes when she’d realized that this Kripo had been looking at her.

  ‘Three years’ forced labour in the Reich,’ he went on, letting them have it. ‘Gessler will, of course, have to respond in the appropriate manner since I’ll have to put it into my report to Gestapo Boemelburg and never mind what you’ve been told about how well we’re regarded by the rue des Saussaies in Paris. My partner and I produce, and that’s all Boemelburg really wants because, by doing so, we give some semblance of law and order to a nation that’s sadly lacking in it.’

  Gessler, if he wanted, could then easily take the heat off himself by claiming Jean-Guy was a suspected résistant, thought Ferbrave, impressed with what Kohler had just implied. Old money – and there was plenty of it with what had been added – would vanish into Gessler’s pockets and the son would be shot, the father, mother and sisters deported to camps. ‘You said you were listening, Inspector?’

  This little dur obviously fancied himself as a ‘number’ – damned dangerous in the lexicon of such – and maybe he even had dreams of becoming an ‘individual’, but one must play it out. ‘I am. Cut me in and I’ll turn a blind eye to what’s been going on.’

  ‘And if your partner should notice those same things?’ asked Ferbrave. A cigarette and a light were offered by the Kripo. The other two were seemingly forgotten for the moment, Jean-Guy still stupidly standing.

  ‘Louis? He does what he’s told. Don’t get the wrong idea. He may be a chief inspector but I still pull the strings.’

  The rope! snorted Ferbrave silently. ‘What is it you’d like to know?’

  ‘First, how many trips a month to and from Paris with the vans?’

  ‘One a week.’

  He would have to kill Kohler. St-Cyr’s name was already on the FTP’s latest list. No one, not even Gestapo Boemelburg, would question the loss. Ménétrel would be convinced the Garde Mobile was more necessary than ever and there would be no more threats of dismissal, no more shrieking about assassins lying in wait or about finding who had betrayed the Government, his precious Government!

  ‘Four a month, then – I’d better jot that down,’ said Kohler.

  ‘Perhaps fewer, Inspector. Once or twice a month,’ acknowledged Ferbrave.

  ‘Bon. And for how long has it been going on?’

  ‘Inspector, we’ve a crisis on our hands,’ interjected the elder Deschambeault.

  ‘And had best get this out of the way so that we can deal with it. How long?’

  Kohler was just ragging them. ‘A few months,’ said Ferbrave cautiously.

  ‘Sometimes a month would go by and there’d be no requests on the list, Inspector, no deliveries,’ offered Jean-Guy.

  ‘List? What list?’ demanded Kohler.

  ‘There was no list!’ swore the father.

  ‘Requests?’ snapped the Kripo, not turning to look at him and still sitting across the table from Henri-Claude.

  ‘Inspector, my son was merely trying to say that the whole matter didn’t amount to anything. Enough flour for a child’s birthday cake, a little powdered sugar for the icing. Alain Andre would …’

  ‘Marie-Jacqueline’s lover? Richard, the Minister of Supplies and Rationing?’

  ‘Would kindly offer to assist and the child would have its cake.’

  ‘And get to eat it from Government warehouses that are under lock and key?’

  To smile ingratiatingly would be wrong. ‘Look, I know such luxuries are forbidden,’ acknowledge Gaëtan-Baptiste, ‘but everyone bends the rules a little. Mon Dieu, these days one has to do many things one never would have done in the past. It was nothing.’

  And like ripe fish, nauseating. ‘When, exactly, did it all begin?’

  ‘A year ago. One van. Only one. Two drivers and the security guard who always rides in the back,’ said the sous-directeur.

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘Of course. Even with the policing our German friends provide and the tightening up of our own police, there are still those who will try their luck.’

  Didn’t he know detectives were only too aware of this! ‘Began two years ago,’ muttered Kohler, scribbling down the truth. ‘The late autumn of 1940, Sous-directeur, when things came into such short supply it looked to you and the others as though what little remained would be hard to obtain through the regular channels. Who buys it- what you don’t consume or give to those you need to pay off?’

  Jean-Guy was still standing. Shattered, broken – terrified and now utterly useless. ‘Everyone who is anyone.’

  ‘But you’re so distant from it that you and Richard and the other lovers of those four girls are in the clear?’

  ‘I was and, yes, I still am, as are they.’

  Was that a hint, eh? wondered Kohler. Ferbrave and a little accident, the FTP getting the blame and everyone lamenting the loss of two detectives from Paris who were only doing their duty but couldn’t have understood the difficulties of the terrain and the urgency of their being ever-vigilant? ‘This Flykiller or killers of Monsieur Laval’s, Sous-directeur. Who could have such an inside track?’

  ‘I only wish I knew, but it can’t have anything to do with the vans. Merde alors, why should it?’

  ‘The perfume, the cognac and champagne from 1925. Who requested those?’

  ‘I really wouldn’t know, nor would my son or that one.’

  Ferbrave.

  ‘Inspector, you are only too aware of the scandal that will erupt if word of this gets out,’ said the sous-di
recteur. ‘Surely you must realize we could soon be on the verge of a civil war and that the Reich, for obvious reasons, doesn’t want this to happen and wishes the Maréchal to remain in office and in Vichy. Ambassador Abetz is a personal friend and part-owner of the stables my son manages. If you were to speak to him, the Ambassador would’ satisfy you that what was done with the vans was necessary. Pour l’amour de Dieu, we had to keep up appearances. Thirty-two embassies, the papal nuncio among them. Constant delegations from the Reich, visiting dignitaries from all over the new Europe, submissions from our citizenry in the zone libre and even from the zone occupée. One couldn’t have undertaken such receptions in an aura of defeat, could one? The nation had to maintain an image, and in a small and humble way what I and my associates did, helped.’

  A saint. ‘And the rats in that girl’s bed, the knife that was recovered?’

  ‘Albert Grenier may well know who took them and killed her but he’s a difficult boy. I would not have harmed him in the slightest. Henri-Claude arrived unexpectedly and … Well, you know the rest, and fortunately no one was seriously hurt.’

  ‘That hand,’ said Kohler of Ferbrave. ‘Merde, it doesn’t look good. I’d best get our sculptress to have a look at it. Hang on a minute.’

  Ferbrave hadn’t screamed when she’d done as Herr Kohler had asked and had poured the iodine on to that torn strip of flesh. He had simply looked at and through her, thought Inès, and she had realized he had been convinced she knew more than she was letting on. Bien sûr, Herr Kohler had warned him that if anything further should happen to her or to Albert he would be held responsible, but Henri-Claude would find a way. Albert hadn’t revealed a thing. Adamantly he had refused to tell the detectives who he’d seen dropping that knife into the outhouse. And now? she asked herself, hunching her shoulders under her overcoat for warmth and cramming her hands deeply into its pockets. Now my ten minutes of utter darkness have again passed undiscovered by the detectives and moonlight bathes the snow-covered garden that runs behind the Grenier house on the boulevard de l’ Hôpital. Moonlight that is so beautiful as it glistens off the rows of cloches beneath which vegetables will soon be started, the garden extending straight out to the railway embankment above the marshalling yards and the station beyond. And at its very back, next to the family’s outdoor toilet, is the shed Albert uses.