‘Céline and I grew up together, Inspectors. She in that fine house of her parents on place Lucien-Herr and the rue Lhomond, myself with my uncle and aunt in a fourth-floor flat on the rue Tournefort. We met one day quite by … Well, it wasn’t by accident.’ Could she manage a faint smile of memory? she asked herself and, more confidently when that was done, said, ‘I’d planned to have my path cross hers, she mine, as it turned out, so when we bumped into each other, it was as if by accident, yet both of us knew we would.’
‘You were lonely,’ said Herr Kohler – was he always so sensitive? she wondered. ‘You’d lost your father and then your mother. It was as if they’d abandoned you.’
‘Yes … Yes, that’s exactly how I felt as a child. Was it so wrong of me?’
‘Mademoiselle,’ said St-Cyr harshly, ‘you are attempting to conceal things we need to know! Did you receive letters from Céline Dupuis that had been illegally carried across the Demarcation Line by Lucie Trudel?’
For which the penalty would be prison or transportation into forced labour. ‘Yes. Yes, I did, Monsieur l’Inspecteur Principal. Céline was afraid.’
‘Of what?’ asked Herr Kohler, the sensitivity still there.
Blanche and Sandrine were again intently watching her, Hébert chancing a glance, Albert so still that she could feel the continued pressure and warmth of his leg. ‘Of being killed – what else?’ she heard herself hotly demand. ‘I … I don’t know what she and the other victims were involved in. Really, I don’t. She … she did say she had to do things for les Allemands that she didn’t want to, and that …’ Now calm yourself, ma chére, she warned herself. Look at each of them as they sit around this lovely old table. ‘That someone important had found out about what they’d had to do and, not liking it, had … had then had each of them killed – “removed” was the word she used. But I haven’t got the letters, so can’t prove this, since they made their little fires in my studio stove as soon as they’d been read.’
Herr Kohler scribbled something on a page of his notebook and thrust it across the table to that partner of his. Panic made the creamy skin of Blanche’s cheeks become paler as the blood drained, but what had the Hauptmann Detektiv Inspektor Kohler just written to cause the girl such distress? wondered Inès. Was it: They were all informants, Louis, but did Ménétrel order their removal? Ménétrel, Mademoiselle Blanche Olivier? An éminence grise and confident of the Maréchal’s? A hater of les Allemands and lover of Vichy?
Blanche had gripped the edge of the table with both hands but, unlike Monsieur Hébert and Sandrine Richard or even Albert, hadn’t noticed she’d done this.
St-Cyr had noticed, Inès told herself. He quickly wrote something in return and shoved it back across boards scratched and gouged through centuries – gouges, Mademoiselle Blanche, like the one in your brother Paul’s wooden-soled shoe? she asked silently.
Blanche waited, knowing only too well the gouges in the table had been a reminder to the detectives, though none had been needed, but did she say, Paul! to herself, or, Paul, my darling, beware?
But what did St-Cyr write? wondered Inès. Hermann, Blanche purchased a Choix Supreme on Saturday, 30 January at 4.45 p.m. the very day Lucie was killed and three days before Céline – was that what he had jotted down? Or was it: Paul Varollier must have taken Céline to his sister who waited in the Hall des Sources?
The answer, if such it was, came with the Chief Inspector’s next question. A shiver ran through her – Inès tried not to let Albert feel how nervous she was, but he couldn’t have missed it.
‘Mademoiselle, were those letters from anyone else?’
From Capitaine Auguste-Alphonse Olivier, Inspector? From the compagnon d’armes and dearest friend of my father, Lieutenant Pierre-Thomas Charpentier, who was put before the firing squad on orders from Général Pétain, orders that Auguste-Alphonse had then to carry out?
Blanche’s cheeks had stiffened; the look in those dark blue eyes had hardened. Charles-Frédéric Hébert, the organizer of the little games of love, lust, rape and predator power, was watching her closely and no longer averting his gaze.
Albert’s fingers touched the haft of that butcher’s knife … Did St-Cyr ask himself of her, wondered Inès, Are you the threat Albert Grenier thinks you are? Always sniffing around, drifting in and out of our company, turning up at the most opportune times – coming here early this morning even though you must have had to leave your boarding house just after curfew to walk – yes, walk – through the bitter cold to meet Albert, whom you knew would be in his ‘little nest’, putting the coffee on?
Your valise, mademoiselle. Did you leave it there again? You must have.
Father, help me, she said silently, and then … then, ‘The letters were from no one else, Inspector. Céline and I were like twins. Each of us shared equally the life of the other. Annette Dupuis is my goddaughter; I was bridesmaid at Céline’s wedding, and it was I who found her when she had slashed her wrists.’
Mon Dieu, the control, Hermann, thought St-Cyr. Those sea-green eyes aren’t full of tears as they should be, but reveal a coldness that brings back the very words she spoke when rescued at the stables and told to cry: ‘I can’t. I haven’t cried in years.’ But of course she had cried at the sight of her friend.
Some strands of the fine, reddish hair were hastily brushed from her brow; the freckled, turned-up nose was touched with a knuckle.
‘I am what I say I am, Inspectors. When Céline convinced herself to take the job here in Vichy, we vowed we’d meet; either I would visit her, or she me. Monsieur Gilbert, my directeur at the Musée Grévin, was well aware of this and when the opportunity arose, he allowed me to come only for me to then find my dearest friend had indeed been murdered.’
‘Hence her interest in the corpse, Louis,’ said Herr Kohler gently.
‘Merde alors, idiot, must you always go soft when the pretty ones put the squeeze on! Mademoiselle, that little dissertation in no way justifies the answer you gave my partner: that death has always been of interest to the artist in you.’
There are enemies and there are enemies, she warned herself, and was Herr Kohler not taking just that line of approach so that his partner and friend could then be hated, himself liked, so as to prise further answers? ‘I couldn’t tell you the truth, could I?’ she heard herself ask. ‘I didn’t even know who either of you really were or what you were doing in Vichy.’
‘You most certainly did!’ said the Chief Inspector and, reaching for that cold and empty pipe of his, took it up, only to put it down as if furious with her! ‘What brand, please, of cigars did that director of yours give you to bring to the Maréchal as a gift? Choix Supremes?’
‘Yes. Yes, I believe that is what they were but I had to hand them over to Dr Ménétrel, so am not positive.’
‘Albert … Albert, mon vieux,’ interjected Hébert, ‘please go to the storehouse in the big barn and get the Chief Inspector a tin of our Dutch pipe tobacco. The one that smells so good, n’est-ce pas?’ A black iron key was taken from a ring and slid across the table to his grand-nephew. ‘Bring the Inspector Kohler one of the tins of fifty Wills Gold Flake cigarettes. These last are courtesy of the RAF, Inspectors, and were included, I believe, in some of the parachutages they have now taken to illegally dropping to the terrorists.’
The Resistance, as if that battle, in itself, justified everything else, thought Inès, relieved that Albert hadn’t said to his grand-uncle, I can’t hear you!
Madame Richard, though wanting badly to leave the chateau and get free of the detectives and of Hébert, had listened avidly to everything, but had remained apart as much as possible. Forgotten, her cigarette, the third, Inès told herself, gave to the room its little pillar of smoke … Smoke that reminded one of the burning barns and farmhouses during the Blitzkrieg and the exodus from Paris when Annette and she had become separated from Céline and her parents. Their automobile was found in flames, as were countless others. The road had been a carnage of s
hattered prams, wagons and bodies … bodies everywhere, the wounded crying out for help, having been machine-gunned and bombed by Messerschmitts and Stukas bent on clearing the roads for advancing armour.
Albert had taken the butcher’s knife – why? she asked. Had he been afraid she might have put it somewhere – on the floor under her feet, perhaps?
Or had he felt Herr Kohler or St-Cyr would remove it?
‘Mademoiselle,’ said Herr Kohler, having received the curtest of nods from his partner and friend – and how was it, please, that these two could be friends even if St-Cyr was, as Monsieur Olivier had confided, a patriot and Kohler the arch-doubter of Germanic invincibility and Nazi dogma? Like brothers? she had asked Olivier. Not quite, he’d replied, but be careful. The two are birds of a feather. A feather!
‘Mademoiselle,’ Herr Kohler continued, ‘your father and this one’s.’ He indicated Blanche. ‘Was Olivier forced to give the order after the Battle of Chemin des Dames and the mutinies of May–June 1917? Did Pétain order him to do it?’
She must give the faintest possible answer as if stricken, thought Inès, and then … then must divert their attention to Blanche. ‘I … I can’t believe it possible, Inspectors, but have no way of knowing. Mademoiselle Blanche, I … I thought your name was Varollier?’
‘It is!’ came the harsh retort from one who knew only too well that she and her brother had been using Edith Pascal to get them repeatedly into that house of their father’s when he was absent from it. Olivier had been adamant about this, though he hadn’t yet confronted Mademoiselle Pascal. I’ll wait, he had said, until I know more.
‘Then perhaps you can enlighten the inspectors?’ said Inès.
You bitch! – everything in Mademoiselle Varollier-Olivier’s expression registered the thought.
‘A knife,’ said the Chief Inspector and, taking it out, laid Noëlle Olivier’s little legacy open on the table as Albert returned.
The Laguiole was gone, Albert’s shriek of anguish at the sight of it still reverberating. He had snatched it away as the tins and butcher’s knife had fallen from his hands. No one had been prepared for his reaction, thought Inès, sickened by what had happened. No one. It’s blade had gleamed, for it had been lying on the table pointing straight at her. At her!
‘Inspectors,’ cautioned Hébert grimly as he turned to pick up one of the tins. ‘Let him be. I’ll get the knife back.’
‘My bag. My papers,’ cried Inès. ‘I wouldn’t have killed Céline. How could I have done such a thing?’
‘Louis, I’ll go.’
‘Et moi?’ she shrilled, frantic now, for Albert had also taken her handbag and lost papers were all but impossible to replace and would cause extreme trouble, especially since she was not in her designated area of residence!
Though the reaction had been a shock, deliberately pointing the knife at the sculptress had done its work. ‘Hermann, take her along. Mademoiselle Varollier, please show them the way.’
‘Try the chapel first, and then the cellars, Herr Kohler,’ shot Hébert and, when they’d left the kitchen, ‘Let us hope Albert behaves himself. That boy can be a master of deceit and trickery. Certainly he worshipped each of those murdered girls but was also most distressed to find them participating – “doing filthy things”, he called them – things that mother of his constantly condemns in the sight of God while the boy is on his knees with her.’
‘And Blanche, monsieur. Did she “participate”?’
Sandrine Richard had paused while lighting herself another cigarette, noted Hébert. The slut was still listening intently, but had everything now suddenly gone her way? ‘Blanche didn’t join in, Inspector. She and her brother are very close – too close, perhaps. One never knows with twins, does one, especially when of the opposite sex and living alone? They remained indifferent – aloof perhaps – or so I had thought until she betrayed us so that this one could then drown Marie–Jacqueline and hide her guilt behind others.’
A sweet little smile would be best, thought Sandrine. ‘And did Julienne Deschambeault smother Lucie Trudel? Did her madness allow for that, monsieur, and the hiding of the corpse in an armoire? Did Élisabeth de Fleury, that most gentle of women, drive that knife into Céline Dupuis after first smoking a cigar, something Élisabeth would never do since she can’t stand the smell of them and vomits every time!’
Ah nom de Dieu, had it been said deliberately? wondered St-Cyr. And what of the armoire? Had Albert done it, madame?
‘Madame de Fleury would have nothing if Honoré deserted her, Inspector,’ said Hébert. ‘A woman with two young boys and a teenaged daughter? The jealous wives hired an assassin. If enough is paid – and this one must have paid Blanche Olivier to inform on us; please let us not forget that last name – an assassin can be found even in Vichy with the Garde Mobile on the alert twenty-four hours a day!’
‘But not, monsieur, when Céline was to offer herself to the Maréchal,’ countered Sandrine swiftly.
Hébert tossed his head back as if struck and gestured with both hands. ‘It was perfect, wasn’t it, madame? Henri-Claude Ferbrave and his boys are given the night off – you would have known of this. Admit it!’
‘And Ferbrave, monsieur?’ she seethed. ‘Did he do the job, eh? That one has got too big for his boots, Inspector. Why not take a look in the “warehouse” this one sent his psychotic nephew to? Ask, then, how big Henri-Claude has become?’
Psychotic …? Did she feel she had to drive the nail in? wondered St-Cyr.
‘All she wants is to protect her family’s fortune, Inspector. Hers and that of her husband. Grasping … always grasping, eh, madame? Well, grasp this then. Albert saw you talking privately to Henri-Claude last Friday at noon. “Huddled,” he said, and …’
Hébert ran a thumbnail through the paper seals of the tin of Wills cigarettes and, opening it, shook them out sufficiently for one to be easily removed.
‘Huddled, Inspector, and money handed over. A “bundle”, Albert said.’
‘I …’ Ah sacré! ‘All right, I paid Henri-Claude twenty thousand.’
‘Francs or Reichskassenscheine?’ shot Hébert, his cigarette still unlit.
Flustered, she stubbed hers out. ‘The Occupation marks. He … he wouldn’t take francs. He said that … that in Paris some of the shopkeepers were afraid they’d soon be discontinued.’
‘Four hundred thousand francs, madame?’ hazarded the Chief Inspector, giving their value.
‘I didn’t pay to have him kill them! I … I paid for lingerie and perfume, a special order, and … and for a small collection of objects of virtu in tortoiseshell. A cigar case for the pocket, a cigarette case, comb-and-brush set and box for the cufflinks … Alain Andre has always been fascinated by the fact that, after heating and pressing, the shells of certain types of sea-turtle can be used for such things. He loves the look and feel of them. A gift, that’s all it was. A set Henri-Claude had seen in an antique shop and on the rue du Faubourg St-Honoré. I paid in advance and for that purpose and no other.’
‘Other than to convince her husband to return to the nest, Inspector, since the one he’d been so deliciously roosting on had become ice-cold!’
‘Bâtard, why are you trying to pin her killing on me?’
‘Yes, why are you?’ asked St-Cyr.
‘One only tries to help,’ said Hébert.
A lighter was found, the cigarette lit, the custodian taking up the butcher’s knife to start in on preparing more feed for his birds. Everything was finely and swiftly chopped, as he had done thousands of times before.
‘Each of those girls massaged the neck of a collabo, Inspector,’ he said gruffly, not looking up from the butcher’s block. ‘Find the leader of the FTPs and you have your man. Setting an example has always been foremost in the minds of the communists.’
‘À chacun son Boche?’ snorted Sandrine. To each his German, the communists were rumoured to urge one another. ‘À chacun sa putain, eh? Why not tell him whom you have st
eadfastly blamed and hated for your losing this chateau? Our resident recluse whose housekeeper’s brothers are railway workers, Inspector. Auguste-Alphonse Olivier, the father who disinherited Blanche and Paul Varollier and sent them away at the age of twelve when this one, having caused the suicide of their mother, forced Olivier to resign in shame and leave his bank so that others could take over. Others led by no other than Charles-Frédéric Hébert, who was the first and most vocal of those to call his former friend and business partner a cuckold!’
The slut, but how good of her to have inadvertently responded as wished when pricked! snorted Hébert inwardly. ‘Alain André enjoyed Marie-Jacqueline, madame. He often said that fucking her just once made up for all the years of boredom. Now, please, Inspector, my birds. They get nervous if not fed on time.’
Through the iron-grilled stained-glass windows of the little chapel where Albert slept when at the chateau, light filtered, causing slashes of ruby red, emerald green, dark blue and amber to be cast upon the floor. The crucifix, to one side behind the stone slab of the altar with its antependium of gold brocade on white, was nailed to the wall with spikes as thick as her thumbs, thought Inès uncomfortably.
Black torchères with beeswax candles flanked the arched sanctuary. A banner hung above, and to her left. The lectern, to that side of the altar, though all but hidden in shadow, still held what must be its original vellum-bound, illuminated book of prayers for every Mass of the year.
The water in the stone font was frozen solid; the worn black prie-dieux exuded centuries of piety. These simple wooden stands had plain, forward-pointing boxes for the knees and three thin stilts that rose straight up to the briefest of forearm rests and, Ave Maria grátia plena: Dóminus tecum. Benedicta tu in muliéribus: et benedictus fructus ventris tui …
Without even thinking, she crossed herself and genuflected as she ducked her head and touched her brow and lips.
‘Albert’s not here,’ said Blanche, a breath escaping softly.
The chapel would have held forty, if crowded, thought Kohler. Two iron rings and an inscription marked a tomb in the floor of the sanctuary. ‘Honoré Hébert’, he read aloud. ‘From 1480 to 1527, Chevalier de Charmeil et de Vichy, Compagnon d’Armes des Ducs de Bourbon. Sans peur et sans reproche.’ Without fear and without reproach.
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