Flykiller

by J. Robert Janes

  As with the list of occupants of the Hôtel d’Allier, to go through even this small portion of the register would require far too much time.

  Taking out Camille Lefèbvre’s mégot tin, he opened it. ‘Surely she wouldn’t have mixed tobacco from the cigar butts with that from the cigarettes?’

  Paquet lifted his gaze from the tin. ‘To inhale such smoke would only make one sick, I should think. Far too harsh. The curing is quite different, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘Ah, oui, but are they …’ The detective hurriedly flipped open his little notebook to the note he had just made. ‘The Demi-Tasses of the cabaret dancer, Madame Nathalie Bénoist?’

  ‘They are. At least, they could quite possibly be hers.’

  ‘And these cigar bands?’ he asked, opening another tin that had once held dressmaker’s pins.

  ‘An El Rey del Mundo Choix Supreme and a Romeo y Julieta double corona maduro. The latter’s dark brown leaf is the result of extra maturing which produces a richly flavoured cigar with a mild aroma. The British Prime Minister was very fond of them.’

  Pacquet turned the heavy register towards himself and, finding a page several years back, quickly located the name. ‘A brief visit in the summer of 1913. Mademoiselle Mailloux was very much interested in seeing his signature. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty then. A very determined gentleman with decided views as to his choice of cigar, the français atrocious, but I did manage to understand him. Two dozen of the maduras at twenty francs each. Mon Dieu, how prices have risen. Mademoiselle Mailloux laughed a little when I gave her that band but she didn’t enlighten me as to what she saw as being so funny. Albert Grenier wearing it, I suppose. She was a bit of an imp and loved putting one over on the pompous stuffed shirts, as she’d have called them. Madame Dupuis was most upset to learn of her death, as were others, myself included, and especially Madame. Lefebvre and Mademoiselle Trudel. Four doves, I used to call them. Birds, wanting only to fly in these harsh times of ours, and now they’ve all been murdered. A tragedy.’

  Céline’s note to Lucie had stated they needed to talk. ‘It’s urgent,’ she had said.

  ‘Monsieur, when found, Madame Dupuis was wearing one of these. The stones are blancs exceptionnels, the earrings perhaps from the fin de siècle, or from the twenties.’

  Paquet didn’t need to touch them. ‘Was there an exquisite strand of sapphires?’

  It would be best to lay the necklace on the table and tell him of the dress.

  ‘And why wasn’t she wearing both earrings?’

  ‘That is one of the questions we are trying to settle.’

  ‘Then please don’t avoid the obvious.’

  ‘She tried to remove and hide them from her killers, succeeding only with one.’

  ‘Was she also wearing the silver dress and the sapphires?’

  ‘Ah no. No, she wasn’t.’

  ‘A white silk chemise de nuit and black-meshed underthings, the cabaret costume?’

  Word must be flying. A nod would suffice, Paquet raising a forefinger to indicate he would need a moment.

  When he returned much saddened, it was with a box of Choix Supremes, quite obviously a part of a client’s private store but long forgotten. ‘The Maréchal was not the only one to favour these, Inspector. Auguste-Alphonse Olivier and his wife would often come into the shop on their way to the theatre or casino, or to some function or other. There was also a tiara, a thin headband that had been purchased for Madame Noëlle Olivier in Paris, from Cartier’s on place Vendôme by Monsieur Olivier, as had the necklace. The earrings had been his. mother’s, I believe. But … but why should Madame Dupuis have had them? Surely that one was no thief? She had a daughter she missed terribly. Always a postcard or two from the child, or the latest she was sending her. She was fiercely determined to return to Paris, felt she had saved up enough. “It’s all been arranged,” she said. “The laissez-passer and sauf-conduit will soon be here, the residence permit also.”’

  ‘Did she say who had arranged them for her?’

  ‘Ah no, but … but I felt it had to have been Dr Ménétrel, the Maréchal’s personal physician. Inspector, why would such as these not have been in Monsieur Olivier’s safe-deposit box? Oh certainly, there are now the lists everyone has to fill out just as they did in the north, in the zone occupée in 1940. All items above a value of a hundred thousand francs, the louis d’or one has kept against the devaluations and the inflation. Has anything happened to him?’

  To admit that they didn’t know would sound foolish but had best be done.

  ‘He’s never been the same, not since she took her life on 18 November 1925. Thirty cubic centimetres of laudanum and into the river with her. Toute nue, which only made the heads here buzz all the more, I’m afraid. She was only thirty-four years old. Lovely, so lovely. It broke his heart. A cuckold.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘A bitter man who keeps much to himself and is seldom seen except in the late evening when strolling through our English Garden along the river. Solitary, the hat pulled down, the scarf tight, the walking stick and stride no longer purposeful.’

  Olivier had withdrawn his last cigar from the box at noon on that fateful day.

  ‘Monsieur Auguste-Alphonse used to love his after-dinner cigar, Inspector. It was then that he would contemplate the day behind him and plan for the one ahead. Madame Noëlle … She was his life away from the world of finance, his constant ray of sunshine in a world that was too often clouded with difficulties. Not only had he been our mayor for several years, he was our foremost banker.’

  Laval had said to take Paquet into their confidence but would it be wise to reveal more?

  The inspector laid a number of billets doux on the table; the powder-blue envelopes and handwriting of the address were enough. ‘God seldom makes us perfect,’ said Paquet. ‘Even a most esteemed and austere Head of State has weaknesses. The Maréchal set his cap for her and won, only to then leave her in despair. She and Monsieur Olivier had two children, a boy and girl. In spite of this, there were frequent trips to Paris by Madame Noëlle – too many, some said; others that she was young and beautiful and that to live in Vichy must be stifling for her after being raised among les hauts of Paris. The grandmother had left her a mansion in Neuilly, not far from the Bois de Boulogne.’

  ‘But when the Maréchal wrote this, she killed herself?’ asked the Inspector, tapping the missive.

  ‘Oui. Auguste-Alphonse went in search of her, the letter in his hand, but found only her clothes and the empty dark blue bottle that had held the laudanum her grandmother must once have been in the habit of taking. There is a weir and a footbridge that crosses our river, the Pont Barrage. It leads to the sports club and golf course. Her clothes were found on it, the body downstream on one of the islands where, in summer, it is said couples sunbathe in secret.’

  ‘The two children, monsieur, where are they now?’

  This one would leave no stone unturned. ‘In the north, in Paris. He sent them away to avoid the scandal that had erupted and ruined him. They were raised by his wife’s family, and he has had, I believe, no further contact with them.’

  ‘Their ages now?’

  ‘They were twelve at the time.’

  ‘Thirty, then, and a set of twins.’

  ‘Inspector, there was one other item Madame Noëlle left with her clothing. A knife. A Laguiole. It was felt she had thought of killing herself with it but had, at the last, taken what she felt was a better way. The slumber. The water, though cold, would soon have overcome her.’

  The inspector opened its blade, and, laying the Laguiole on top of the billets doux, tossed off his cognac, needing no further answer.

  ‘You’re sworn to secrecy, monsieur. What you now know could well be dangerous for you and your son. Just let it rest in peace among your cigars and leave my partner and me to deal with it.’

  The gate to 133 boulevard des Célestins was rusty, the gilding of its heraldic fleur-de-li
s gone. Above twin neoclassical pillars of black Auvergne basalt, single Grecian urns of the same would once have held spills of ivy and fuchsias in season but were now broken and devoid of all but the last of their earth.

  His breath billowing impatiently, Hermann lowered the beam of his torch to the rusty bell pull. Seizing its loop, he gave it a yank and then another. Like death, the dull, flat sound of a cracked bell thudded in the near-distance.

  No lights would come on. It was now almost nine, the blackout complete, the boulevard unlit except for the soft diffusion of clouded moonlight on snow.

  Across from them in the Parc d’Allier, where Napoleon III had had the river dyked, its marshes filled in and acacias, sycamores and cedars planted, there wasn’t a sign of life. But then, these days, when automobiles of any kind pulled in alongside a house and two men in fedoras and overcoats with raised collars piled out, people tended to wait and watch from a distance or vanish.

  Hermann shook the gate but the lock was fast. ‘And freshly oiled,’ he swore, having dropped the beam of his torch to it. ‘So why the uncaring disrepair of the recluse yet the oiling, in a nation that has so little of that commodity nearly everything squeaks, even its filles de joie?’

  He was in rare form. Again he yanked on the bell and again! ‘Patience, mon vieux. Patience. This is not one of Napoleon III’s villas – those are downstream a little and nearer to the Parc des Sources and the Hotel du Parc. This is simply a private residence, an hôtel particulier, a mansion but …’

  ‘But another of your travelogues? Piss off. It’s cold, I’m hungry and we still have to register at our hotel before curfew or those bastards will lock us up! They will, Louis. That Scharführer wasn’t kidding. Those boys would like nothing better than to get their hands on two Schweinebullen. We should call back here tomorrow morning. Don’t you be so impatient!’

  Hermann had had difficulty in locating Inès Charpentier’s boarding house, across the river on the outskirts of the suburb of Bellerive-sur-Allier. He had had to cross and then recross one of the bridges and had been hassled twice more!

  ‘Messieurs … What is it you wish?’

  Ah merde, a woman, a dark silhouette, stood just behind the bars of the gate, shrouded in the cloud-shadow of one of the pillars.

  ‘Auguste-Alphonse Olivier. Sûreté and Kripo.’

  ‘Detectives … Whatever for? He can’t know anything of use to you. He never goes out during the day, never walks up into town. You’ll only upset him. His supper …’

  ‘Ach! Open up, Fräulein. Sich beeilen! Dépêchez-vous!’ shrieked the Kripo.

  Hermann would use Deutsch and then French! ‘Verfluchte Franzosen,’ he went on. Cursed French. ‘Always causing trouble.’

  One shouldn’t let that pass! ‘I thought it was les Allemands who caused the trouble,’ snapped St-Cyr.

  ‘Calme-toi, Louis. Calme-toi.’

  The key, though probably fashioned in the late 1860s, had difficulty finding the lock after that little exchange but once there, it turned smoothly and, surprise of surprises, the gate swung open without a sound.

  ‘I can answer whatever you wish to ask,’ she said determinedly. ‘There is absolutely no reason for you to question him. Is it the house that you think to requisition? Well, is it?’

  The path to the street had been cleared and freshly swept. Only her footprints dented the snow ahead. In the foyer, and once beyond the blackout curtain that shrouded all such doors these days, the light from a single sconce of mid-nineteenth-century brass and frosted glass was grey and dim. A plain walking stick leaned forlornly against a small, bare table. Another of those urns was to Hermann’s left, on a short pillar of grey marble, the fer forgé balustrade and stone staircase rising majestically to a landing beneath a magnificent Beauvais tapestry before turning to lead to room upon cold room.

  ‘All right, messieurs,’ she said tartly, ‘you will now answer me.’

  Arms tightly folded across her chest, she blocked further progress. Severe was the word one would most use to describe her, felt St-Cyr. Dark and very widely set eyes lay under fiercely plucked brows. The long straight black hair was tied behind but pulled down in front to hide the left side of her forehead, making her look like what? One of Man Ray’s photos, the stern maîtresse of a girls’ boarding school?

  The nose was prominent, the lips thin, the face with its slanting knife-edged creases on either side of that nose, sharply angular. The ears were pierced and held wedding-ring loops of gold; the neck was no longer youthful, the head perched as if that of a tortoise protruding from the loose and cable-knitted cowling of a grey-blue, woollen, long-sleeved dress.

  ‘Well?’ she asked harshly. ‘If not the house, then what?’

  ‘Your name, mademoiselle?’ asked Louis, having raised a cautionary hand to silence his partner who was still taking her in, still trying to get a feel for this place. Ah yes!

  ‘Pascal, Edith, secretary and, since some time now, cook, housekeeper and maid of all work.’

  She was in her early fifties. The cheeks were indented, the complexion sallow, or was it the lack of lighting? wondered Kohler. Black eye shadow had been used only at the extreme far corners of her eyes to emphasize their shade and severity. The eyebrows were much, much thicker nearest the bridge of the nose so that their arch tapered swiftly to pencil thinness and the gap between them was reinforced by their blackness.

  In 1918 there had been so few eligible men left in France, Germany and Britain after the Great War that spinsters like this had been minted in. their hundreds of thousands.

  ‘Employed here since November 1925?’ asked Louis pleasantly enough.

  ‘If you must know, yes,’ she said, having read his partner’s mind and not liked what she’d read.

  ‘A few pieces of jewellery,’ he continued, unruffled as usual.

  ‘There is no jewellery here. Why should there be?’

  ‘Perhaps if you would simply take us to your employer, he might allow you to stay while we question him?’

  ‘Stay? of course I’ll stay! Haven’t I been at his side all these years since she …’

  ‘Drowned herself?’ asked Louis, keeping up the heat.

  ‘How dare you say that in this house?’

  ‘Edith … Edith, who is it?’ called out a distant voice.

  ‘Detectives, Auguste.’

  ‘Then have them come into the kitchen. Could we offer them a little of our soup and some of the National?’

  ‘No soup and no bread, Auguste. There’s barely enough as it is.’

  ‘A little of the wine?’

  ‘It’s a pas d’alcools day and the wine has been watered twice in any case.’

  ‘Then at least some of the tisane, Edith. It’s very cold out there. Mon Dieu, two pullovers on under my coat and still I froze! Inspectors, what brings you to us?’

  He had finished his soup and bread. Though his cheeks were still coloured by the frost and he’d doubtless been outside recently, newspapers were spread before him. L’Humanité, Paris-Soir, Je Suis Partout, the Völkischer Beobachter, Das Reich also, and still others … How had they come by them?

  The couple had been arguing – that was abundantly clear, thought Kohler. Reclusive Olivier might be but those walks of his had served him well. The ex-banker’s grip was strong, the hand roughly calloused. Once sure of himself no doubt, this haut bourgeois – never one of the nouveaux riches, for the house was of old money – had been reduced to avoiding the gaze of others but that’s where it all stopped. On his lapel lay not only the red ribbon of the Legion d’honneur but that of the Croix de guerre and the yellow and green of the Médaille militaire. Though sixty- eight or seventy years of age, he was still quite handsome, if now rough and ready. The blue suit jacket had obviously been something he might have once worn to that bank of his, but now it had frayed cuffs and mismatched buttons. The pullover beneath it was one he must favour, the plaid workshirt beneath that, frayed right round at a collar that had already been turned.
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  There were bags and dark circles under the deep brown eyes and these made the still-averted gaze even more sorrowful. There was also the perpetual evening shadow of Paul Varollier, though stronger and definitely not sickly.

  ‘Inspectors, we tend to live in the kitchen,’ he acknowledged with a gesture. ‘As a boy I spent much time here, so that is all to the good. Sit, please. Smoke if you wish. We’ve a fire as you can see, but the wood is from one of my own trees. A windstorm took it.’

  Was the emphasized singsong accent of the Auvergnat deliberate? wondered St-Cyr.

  Olivier slid a saucer their way, refusing Hermann’s offer of the last of his partner’s cigarettes.

  ‘I gave it up,’ he said. ‘One has to. The tobacco ration alone can put more on the table than the francs that china vase* of ours issues. Butter at three twenty to the kilo on the marché noir, sugar at two thousand, coffee the same. Even the potatoes here have risen to over two hundred the five kilos. A new suit of haircloth is six thousand or half a year’s hard-earned for many of our men. We refuse to deal on it, don’t we, Edith? What others, including our bishop, will sanctify, we prefer not to.’

  A louis d’or was spun on to the table, the eyes of the banker flicking swiftly over them to come to rest on it. ‘In 1857 that was worth twenty francs and the same in 1869 when Napoleon III minted the second of them. I can trace back my family in Vichy to well before that.’

  ‘Auguste, please …’ attempted Mademoiselle Pascal, nervously fidgeting.

  ‘No, Edith, let them hear it. What can that all but lanterne rouge of his class at the military academy trace himself to, eh? The farm of the peasant heritage he’s so proud of that he never worked a day in the fields? The Victor of Verdun, the médecin de l’ Armée? Oh bien sûr, I was there and worshipped him like so many others. That,’ he indicated the coin, ‘was worth one thousand francs in 1940 after the Defeat and now … why now it’s close to eight thousand and the price of a new bicycle if one can find one. In Lyons the St Paul prison, and even the St Joseph’s for women, are packed to overflowing. The Fortress of Montluc has been requisitioned by Obersturmführer Barbie, and it, too, is jammed. Five and six to a cell with only two bunks so they sleep in shifts but that’s not allowed by the warders, is it?