Flykiller

by J. Robert Janes

  You’re the fool, not the monsieur, one wanted so much to say, St-Cyr told himself sadly, for those same times could so easily have been used to pin down Olivier’s meetings with others of the FTP.

  Repocketing the knife and taking the laudanum bottle – feeling like examining magistrate, judge, jury and hooded executioner, and not liking himself one bit – he said as gently as he could, ‘For now we’ve seen enough, Hermann. Mademoiselle, please don’t think of leaving Vichy. You will only be hounded down.’

  ‘And Auguste?’

  ‘Will, I believe, have gone for one of his strolls.’

  A Peugeot two-door sedan can’t outrun a Wehrmacht motorcycle patrol in the dark of night, in a strange town where armed controls are on every bridge. It can try, of course, but when it finds itself wedged into the narrowness of a medieval street in the heart of the old town, with all exits blocked, it has to give up.

  Unblinkered headlamps – an emergency – blinded them. Steel helmets hid riders’ heads, goggles their eyes, black leather their massive shoulders and bulging arms. Gauntlets their hands.

  VAROOM … VAROOM!

  BANG! BANG! farted a wounded muffler. The shortages these days …

  ‘Talk to them, Hermann.’

  ‘Louis, you let Olivier go!’

  ‘I had to! I had no other choice.’

  ‘And Giselle and Oona and Gabrielle, eh? Did they have a choice? Gessler won’t stop if he lays his hands on him. It won’t just be you and me!’

  ‘I’m sorry, but …’

  ‘Admit it, that son of a bitch is Vichy’s section head of the FTP and your patriotism got to you. Jésus, merde alors, don’t I know all about it!’

  Hermann got out from behind the steering wheel, leaving his door open so that the thirty degrees of frost and its softly falling snow would find his little Sûreté Frog, his constant passenger.

  Strolling into the light, he gave the boys a nonchalant wave, a rush of banter, which was cut off by an Unterfeldwebel shouting, ‘Arrest? Ach! mein lieber Hauptmann Detektiv Inspektor, we aren’t to arrest you. Mein Gott, what gave you such a crazy notion? We’re to escort you to a meeting with the Chief of Police.’

  He didn’t say anything. For once Hermann was at an absolute loss for words, didn’t even lift a tired hand to indicate they would obediently follow.

  Tears frozen to his cheeks, he got back into the car to grip the steering wheel with bare hands.

  ‘You left your gloves on the bonnet, mon vieux.’

  ‘Fuck my fucking gloves! Think, Louis! Gestapo Gessler! We’ve got to have answers for him we can readily give.’

  ‘Like, you examined Madame Olivier’s bedroom and the scene of the theft, while I interviewed the recluse who was just that, lonely, bitter, very difficult and of little use to us.’

  ‘Bonne chance. It isn’t going to work.’

  ‘All right. Four murders that could just as easily have been eight and should have been if the boys were the targets, forgetting of course, for the moment, Pétain, Laval and Ménétrel!’

  ‘Gessler will like it if we say it must be a sadist who’s sexually incapable of rape. I’ll tell him the girls were killed because the assassins had a thing about marital infidelity and wanted to put the fear of God into their lovers.’

  ‘Who were obviously up to mischief, not just with them, and who needed to be taught a damned good lesson before the scandal of their using vans from the Bank of France erupted in the Government’s face.’

  ‘Give me that again, will you? Christ, I need a fag!’

  The car started off with a jerk – water in the petrol, always water these days. Following the eight bikes, they watched as the headlamp beams fled up and over the walls, revealing stonework and doorways from the days of the Célestins perhaps, when in 1410 a monastery had been established at one of the sources, not far from Olivier’s house.

  Louis repeated the thought, adding, ‘Is that not why Céline Dupuis’s note stated, “Lucie, we have to talk. It’s urgent”?’

  A scandal of massive proportions in an already shaky Government, not just one of an unfaithful wife and Pétain to titillate the local ears. ‘Madame Dupuis was afraid they, too, would be killed – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux and Camille Lefebvre already had been. All were friends – fast friends, I’m certain.’

  ‘Four girls, then, the first of whom constantly flaunted her affair with the Minister of Supplies and Rationing whom we’ve yet to meet.’

  ‘We’ve simply been far too busy for such social calls, but yes, our thirty-seven-year-old nurse must have made a nuisance of herself.’

  And Bousquet hadn’t exactly been telling them the truth.

  ‘Lucie was pregnant, Hermann, and had had a crise de conscience over the abortion Deschambeault had arranged. I think she may have been threatened early last Saturday morning on her way home from the Hall des Sources and that this is why she changed her mind and got into bed to await Deschambeault’s comforting embrace. She could well have become a considerable problem both to him and that family of his, judging by what little we’ve seen of it so far. Old money never appreciates a mistress who imperils the family fortune and drives an unhappy wife and mother to seek costly help in a private clinic.’

  ‘But Camille couldn’t have become a nuisance to Bousquet, could she?’

  ‘A Secrétaire Général de Police whose wife and children reside in Paris and who must have come to know the others here only last summer and not two years ago after the Defeat? He’d have had to take his rightful share of the rewards of their little scheme wouldn’t he? One of les gars?’

  ‘Laval trusts him, Louis.’

  ‘Laval told him to work closely with us and to keep him advised of our progress. An embarrassment, then, at the highest level, Hermann. Let us not forget this.’

  ‘They didn’t kill them, did they?’ It was a plea.

  ‘And try to pin it on Olivier?’

  ‘Who, in the first place, suggested that they had, right? Or at least that the killer or killers had.’

  They were now heading north along the river beside its park, the billowing snow from the motorcycles sometimes hiding the road ahead. The villa the Turkish Embassy used came into sight. Herr Gessler’s was next. Was God not watching? wondered Kohler. Did He really have to allow things like this to happen to honest, hard-working detectives?

  ‘An assassin or assassins, Hermann. One or two who move about this town so unobtrusively as to be seen but not seen, accepted but ignored, passed over and forgotten only until that final moment when truth arrives.’

  ‘One or two who have his or her ear – or both – to the ground at all times, eh?’

  ‘And who know well beforehand when things are about to happen and must have impeccable sources.’

  ‘Olivier, mon enfant. Olivier and his Edith, and you damned well let him go!’

  *

  Both older and more recent brand names are used, especially those of Nat Sherman, which so aptly suit the late 1930s, though the cigars themselves are not from Cuba.

  *

  A nickname Pétain earned, the country having been flooded with images of him. Vases, mugs, et cetera.

  *

  Now the boulevard de Russie.

  7

  Chez Crusoe was Hermann’s kind of place: loud, brassy and crowded, the tobacco smoke pungent, the girls half naked, their legs wrapped in black-mesh stockings and garters, their songs lewd, ribald, saucy or coy and sweetly virginal, with black bowler hats, stick canes and lighted cigars under spotlights; the keys of twin pianos furiously rippling to a thunderous drumbeat …

  ‘Gott im Himmel, Louis. Paradise instead of prison and the firing squad!’

  ‘Don’t count on it.’

  ‘No sign of Gessler.’

  Fin-de-siècle decor was everywhere if a trifle moth-eaten, the main dance floor huge, its timbered ceiling smoke-stained from the turn of the century and before. Probably 1890, or
1880.

  ‘I’ll get us a couple of drinks and see if there’s any food left.’

  ‘You won’t get through the crush.’

  ‘Pastis, right? Beer for me. It’s straight in from home.’

  Hermann was like a small boy greedily eating stolen chocolates at his first film. Mesmerized by it all, rejoicing and automatically joining in because that’s the way he was. Giselle and Oona would certainly have their hands full if he ever did get that ‘little place’ on the Costa del Sol.

  ‘Your hat, monsieur, and coat?’

  She wasn’t any more than fifteen, reeked of cheap perfume and underarm talcum powder. ‘I’ll keep them. These days that is often best.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Monsieur le Secrétaire Général Bousquet makes the telephone call while that one, he …’ Her bare arm pointed to a distant corner table all but hidden by the dim lighting and the smoke. ‘He awaits your pleasure. Personally … and I’m just saying this for myself, you understand,’ her childlike eyes widened mischievously only to duck away at the fierceness of a Sûreté frown, ‘he can have you.’

  Alone, Alain Andre Richard, Ministre des Vivres et du Rationnement – Supplies and Rationing – seemed impervious to the grey-green uniforms of the Occupier intermingling with the Occupied, the constant commotion, the comings and goings of cigarette girls selling everything including tobacco, and waitresses who should have known better than to wear such draughty costumes among soldiers and Government employees who only wanted to forget the war and their humdrum lives.

  An intense little man in his mid-fifties, the face was pinched, the black hair thinning and carefully groomed, its dye-job perfect just like the rest of him. Even the blue serge suit had a gold Francisque pinned to its lapel.

  ‘Ah merde,’ muttered St-Cyr under his breath as he all but reached the table. ‘Must our top civil servants always be so difficult?’ The glass before Richard had remained untouched, perhaps because it was dirty or because he simply didn’t think a gin and gazeuse would help the stomach that had been giving him trouble of late. The cigarette that wasted its little life in the chipped ashtray had company of the same, but what, really, had Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux seen in this one besides money?

  ‘Monsieur …’

  ‘You’re late! Why is this, please?’

  Even the voice was tight. ‘A small matter, Monsieur le Ministre. Unfortunately detectives can’t always determine beforehand if their time will be used unnecessarily. Please pardon the delay.’ And never mind that we weren’t even aware we were to meet you!

  ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté. I know all about you.’ Richard sniffed in as if wishing a pomander were to hand.

  ‘Good. That’s as it should be.’

  The despicable fedora was summarily dropped on the table, the dishevelled overcoat removed to be perfunctorily dumped over the back of a cane chair.

  ‘It’s hot in here,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Now perhaps, monsieur, while we have a moment to ourselves you would be good enough to provide me with a clear statement of your illegal activities?’

  ‘Cochon! Imbécile! Bâtard! Do you think you can mess with me?’

  Pig, and the rest of it, and not bad for a start. ‘Ah bon. Let’s see now. How can I put this down?’

  A little black notebook was opened to a half-scribbled page, the Sûreté, with that black-stitched bulge above his left eye, wetting the end of his pencil, to write and say: ‘Opportunity given.’

  That bushy moustache was touched with a knuckle, the fist clenched.

  ‘A few cigars, Inspector. A little flour and sug—’

  ‘Ministre, we’ve heard it all before. One blows the dust away, n’est-ce pas, only to find that the floor needs to be washed, only to then find that the varnish is cracked and the boards are in need of replacement, the joists also.’

  ‘I came here to discuss the murders, damn you, and whether they’re the work of one or more assassins!’

  Spittle, too, had erupted. ‘Then please proceed.’

  ‘And we’ll get to the other later, is that it, eh?’

  ‘Begin, monsieur, by telling me about Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux.’

  A hand was irritably tossed, a shrug given.

  ‘The silly bitch made a mockery of me. Always flaunting her ass when at the office on one of her impromptu visits. Always cheeky. Did she think others would not notice?’

  ‘Your wife and children perhaps?’

  ‘Are among those who noticed, yes. Scene after scene. I had constantly to warn her that she was going too far. She shouldn’t have ridiculed my wife in front of others. That was unforgivable but Sandrine should also have understood Marie-Jacqueline meant nothing to me. Nothing, absolutely!’

  ‘Elaborate, please.’

  Again a hand was waved. ‘It’s not important.’

  Patience, mon vieux, patience, St-Cyr counselled himself. ‘Everything is important.’

  ‘A party. A small gathering. A little fun – what could have been more innocent? Nom de Jésus-Christ, the stress has to be relieved now and then, does it not?’

  Mon Dieu, the arrogance! ‘Where?’

  ‘Le Château aux Oiseaux Splendides.’

  ‘And your wife turned up. A little surprise?’

  ‘Oui. It … Ah …’ He threw out both hands, gesturing with them and raised a cautionary finger. ‘It was nothing. Marie-Jacqueline and I on a …’

  ‘A staircase?’ It was just a shot in the dark.

  ‘To the small tower that was off the bedroom we were using. The beam of Sandrine’s torch found us. Instead of trying to cover her parties sexuelles, Marie-Jacqueline leaned back on the stairs, laughed at my wife and … and spread her legs. We’d … we’d just had sex.’

  ‘Unprotected?’

  ‘Inspector …’

  ‘It’s Chief Inspector, Monsieur le Ministre, and unless I’m mistaken, which I’m not, you are already guilty of misuse of your office and misappropriation of goods you yourself are in charge of rationing, so let us have the truth.’

  ‘Not protected.’

  One could imagine the rest, the wife with her gaze riveted on the offending female, jealousy, hatred and unbridled rage in her eyes and acid on her tongue. But it would be best to sigh and say, ‘Let’s have the date and time.’

  ‘The Saturday six weeks before she drowned. As to the time … perhaps my wife found us at midnight, perhaps a little after that.’

  ‘And she had clearance to be out after curfew?’

  Ah damn this one! ‘I have a pass, the car its Service Public sticker.’

  And signed by the Commissaire de Police, a petrol allocation also. Party, chateau, 24 October 1942, was jotted down. ‘These parties, Monsieur le Ministre, who else was there and how often were they held?’

  Maudit salaud! ‘One never really knows at such gatherings.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘René and the others, as well as still others. Maybe forty, maybe a few more. It depended on …’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘The success of …’

  ‘Your little enterprise?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘So, a party every fortnight?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Netting how much a month, please, this enterprise?’

  Was St-Cyr a saint? ‘Four or five hundred thousand francs, seldom more.’

  ‘A week?’ asked Hermann, setting a double pastis without water on the table before his partner and chum, and two of Paulaner’s Münchner Hells for himself.

  ‘A week,’ sighed Richard, realizing only too clearly that Bousquet had buggered off and had left him to face the music on his own.

  ‘One and a half to two million a month, Louis. Between eighteen and twenty-four million a year. Among how many shareholders, monsieur?’

  These two … René had been warned not to let Boemelburg assign them to the investigation. Laval would intercede on the detectives’ behalf by personally telephoning the Gestapo Chief! ‘Fifteen. No more. It’s always best to
minimize such things.’

  ‘All well-placed in the Government ministries or doing business with it? Good business?’ asked Kohler.

  ‘All.’

  ‘That four or five hundred thousand a week is too little, Louis. Think of the expenses, the buying on the marché noir, then selling on it. Two breaches of the law, of course, but the commissions also, the pay-offs. Travel to and from Paris and other cities and towns. The price of flour alone tells us it has to be more. What’s Henri-Claude Ferbrave’s cut?’

  Ah merde! ‘Ten per cent.’

  ‘And Jean-Guy Deschambeault’s?’ demanded Hermann.

  ‘Another ten.’

  ‘And the guards and drivers of those armoured vans of his father’s? Their hush-money?’

  Must Kohler threateningly lean over the table and not sit down? ‘Ten again.’

  ‘Five million a week, Louis. At least five and probably fifteen.’

  ‘Look, I … I don’t know the details. How could I? Ask Honoré de Fleury. He … he oversees the accounts.’

  ‘Our Inspector of Finances, Hermann. Supplies and rationing, the police, the Bank of France, and finance.’

  ‘And no income tax because none of it’s reported, since de Fleury makes certain of that, and Bousquet lets him.’

  ‘Four murders, Hermann.’

  ‘The threat of further and more important assassinations, Louis.’

  Hermann would now leave the rest of the interview to his partner and enjoy his beer and the scenery. ‘Monsieur le Ministre, unless you fully cooperate you will accompany me to the morgue where we will continue our little discussion over the corpse of your former mistress.’

  Must the fun, the laughter, the sound of the pianos, the singing and dancing swirl around the island of their little table? wondered Richard acidly. ‘Marie-Jacqueline told my wife that Sandrine couldn’t possibly be any good at making love since I had not only sought her company but had done so repeatedly and for almost two years. They fought. They screamed at each other and tumbled down the stairs and out on to the carpet next to the fireplace and the fire. Sandrine’s coat was torn open, her hair pulled, the dress and blouse ripped and a breast repeatedly grabbed and squeezed; Marie-Jacqueline’s skin was deeply scratched and bled in several places. Threats were shrieked. Fists pummelled one another. Sandrine did cry out several times that she would kill Marie-Jacqueline but it meant nothing, I’m certain.’