Flykiller

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘It doesn’t belong to one of the teachers, does it?’ asked Kohler of the bike.

  ‘Merde alors, you sound like the great one! Is pedantic logic always foremost in the mind of detectives too? Come, there’s more to see.’

  ‘A moment,’ cautioned Louis. ‘The clippings, Premier?’

  ‘Slid in an envelope under the door to my office at the Hôtel du Parc late last night or early this morning.’

  ‘In spite of the Garde Mobile’s redoubled presence?’

  ‘Perhaps because of it. The doctor is, of course, in a rage and once more Henri-Claude Ferbrave has been threatened with immediate dismissal. Derelict. Spending too much time with the horizontales of that maison de tolérance he favours. Ménétrel, in spite of the coarseness of his tongue, is very much a prude and family man, and is offended by the unbridled appetite of his chief lieutenant. The Hôtel is, I’m afraid, abuzz.’

  Workmen, among them the elder Grenier, were busily erasing the damage with scrapers, wire brushes and kerosene. Spectators stood about, lots of them. Passers-by paused. A Wehrmacht lorry dropped off a squad of burly Felgendarmen, the military police.

  The Hôtel du Parc and Hall des Sources had also been decorated.

  COURAGE ON LES AURA faced Pétain’s office and balcony, from where the Maréchal could be seen sadly gazing down at words he’d spoken to the troops at Verdun in 1917: Take heart, we’ll get them.

  BOUSILLER LES GARS! Smash – bump off – the boys! had been splashed directly below him on the ground-floor wall of the hotel, between its sticking-papered and blue-washed windows. And then, as if to rub it in, the artist had used one of the Ministry of Agriculture’s innocent campaign slogans for children. LUTTEZ CONTRE LES DORYPHORES! Fight against the potato beetle. Children all over rural France had been excused from classes, armed with bottles of water and, accompanied by their teachers, encouraged to swarm into the potato fields each summer to catch, drown and squash this pest. But now, of course, Doryphores also meant the Boche and everyone knew it!

  ‘Premier, the Hall, I think,’ said Louis determinedly.

  ‘I can tell you little.’

  ‘Sometimes even a little is enough.’

  ‘Are the boys next, now that you’ve seen the slogans for yourselves?’ Laval was clearly worried but calm.

  ‘Let us reserve judgement, Premier. Let us adopt one of yours and the Maréchal’s very first policies with the Occupier in 1940, that of attentisme.’

  ‘Wait-and-see has never been my way, Inspector, but had you the opportunity then, what would you have done?’

  ‘Exactly the same thing. You … we … had no other choice.’

  ‘Then let us go in and settle this little matter before Herr Gessler and his gang of thugs trample everything.’

  ‘And the thugs you, yourself, employ?’

  ‘Are Ménétrel’s men, the very ones who were among those who arrested me on 13 December 1940 after my first term here. Ménétrel, of course, begged Pétain to have them assassinate me, but Herr Abetz intervened. Now I employ them. That, too, is of Vichy. I insisted they guard me. One has to do things like that when one is Premier. Every day that they are with me they must worry about being killed in an assassination attempt that has not been of their own making, but also … Ah oui, mes chers détectives, they and that little doctor of ours are forced to realize not only the opportunity they missed but the mistake they would have made! Now, of course, if they were to kill me, they’d have no one.’

  Merde alors, the wily peasant at heart! ‘And Bousquet and the others?’ asked St-Cyr – Hermann would leave him to deal with Laval.

  ‘Are worth saving if for no other reason than to hold together what’s left and prevent anarchy. No scandal is going to erupt out of what they’ve been up to. Shocking as it was, and a severe embarrassment to my Government, that little business venture of theirs has been stopped. You, in turn, will find the murderer or murderers of those girls and then quietly leave.’

  ‘And if it’s more than that?’

  ‘The Résistance? We’ll deal with it.’

  ‘And if it’s one or more of the boys?’

  ‘Then he or they will be dealt with.’

  ‘And if it’s the wives?’

  ‘Those too.’

  ‘And if it’s the doctor?’

  Laval grinned.

  ‘Personally I would like nothing better than to present to the Maréchal the procés-verbal his éminence grise had to sign under the stern gazes of a Sûreté and a Kripo that I, myself, had requested. What better an example of mutual cooperation between our two nations than for the Général, the Vainqueur de Verdun, to acknowledge that our two police forces, united in the battle against common crime, have found my Flykiller? Of course, the lance corporal with the Iron Cross Second and First Class would appreciate it too. Even Herr Hitler has, I’m sure if one searched desperately enough for it, a certain sense of humour.’

  From inside the Hall des Sources, where she stood next to frozen Kentia palms and near-dead, pollarded lime trees, Inès could see the workmen quite clearly as they scraped away the COURAGE ON LES AURA. Like blue-clad flies in winter, they were pinned to the tall, arched windows from whose delicate friezes long icicles hung, and where sheets of discoloured ice had lain beneath the artist’s brush, those segments of the letters rapidly vanished.

  Beyond the workmen who faced her, others across the street at the Hôtel du Parc had their backs to her, and wasn’t that also like Vichy? she asked herself. To confront, to shun, to erase the truth and turn the back on so many?

  Laval, St-Cyr and Kohler had gone over to the Buvette du Chomel, to where Céline had been finally cornered and slain, but had she known her killer or killers? How had she got away from the one, only to then be trapped by the other? What words had been said? Last words …

  Sandrine Richard stood near the entrance, perhaps not wishing to come closer for fear of betraying herself. And Blanche? asked Inès. Blanche was halfway between herself and the others but had found that she, too, could approach no closer.

  Voices echoed. The detectives made no attempt to hide their questions or the answers given. Perhaps they did this to taunt her and the others, perhaps it was simply for expedience. Laval’s description of the corpse fitted Ménétrel’s – St-Cyr acknowledged this. The Premier had, on crouching to examine the body, lost a button from one of his shoes and, having heard it clatter away, had searched for and found it, only to then find that its backing had slipped out and been lost.

  Her hair had been gone through. Had he opened her nightgown? St-Cyr had asked – one of its ties had been snapped. ‘No had been the answer.’

  ‘Yet you moved her legs and hips,’ St-Cyr had challenged.

  ‘I had to,’ Monsieur le Premier had answered, lighting a fresh cigarette and erupting in a hacking cough.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell others of this?’ Herr Kohler had demanded. ‘Ménétrel, certainly the investigating police?’

  ‘I didn’t want the doctor knowing I was concerned enough to have come in here to see her for myself. Convinced that it could well be a threat to Richard and the others, I personally telexed Gestapo Boemelburg requesting assistance and then telephoned him. Boemelburg agreed to my request and I told Secrétaire Général Bousquet that even though he was opposed to my choice of you both, he was to work closely with you.’

  ‘They’ve all tried to cover things up!’ said St-Cyr.

  ‘They had much to hide,’ countered the Premier.

  ‘Then what, please, other than another victim, another of your flies, convinced you of the threat?’

  ‘Yes, what?’ Inès heard Herr Kohler ask, and then …

  Then from Laval, ‘There was a burnt matchstick, broken and left in the sign of a V.’

  ‘Ah merde, Hermann, now he tells us!’

  ‘And I ask again, Inspectors,’ replied Monsieur Laval calmly, ‘is it a campaign of terror that now threatens us?’

  And never mind the victims!

/>   ‘Where is it, please, this matchstick?’ demanded St-Cyr, clearly very upset with him.

  ‘I removed it. I felt I had to. I didn’t want to compound the matter until we had further information.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone of it?’ the Sûreté demanded archly.

  ‘None.’

  ‘And yet Ménétrel made no mention of it, Hermann. Why, please, did he not think that necessary?’

  ‘Security,’ snapped Laval. ‘Ménétrel is terrified our friends will move in en masse and kick his precious Garde out!’

  And that, too, was of Vichy, thought Inès, holding her breath and waiting for their answer.

  ‘A Garde who are excused their duties …’ muttered St-Cyr.

  ‘Who miss an early-morning postman they should have caught, Louis,’ said Herr Kohler – referring to the press clippings Laval had shown them.

  ‘A Flykiller or killers who can come and go at will, Hermann, and know beforehand exactly what the boys are planning.’

  ‘Premier,’ said Herr Kohler, obviously not liking this new piece of evidence one bit, ‘how was it found?’

  ‘Placed on the back of the right hand that clasped her breast. Here … here, I have it in my pocket. A sharp splinter underlines the burned half of the V when the match is opened.’

  A pair of earrings, a knife from the past and a touch of perfume, a cigar band, the tin-plated post from a small, mother of pearl button, and a V for Victory, for that is what the match had meant: such little symbols, this one taken from the now-familiar gesture of the British Prime Minister, were increasingly to be found.

  ‘The Résistance, Louis,’ grated Herr Kohler. Mon Dieu, he could put such feeling into those few words! thought Inès.

  ‘Or the killer or killers wish us to blame them, Hermann,’ cautioned his partner and friend.

  ‘So as to unleash a campaign of terror which has now already started?’ scoffed Kohler, referring to the ratissage the Sonderkom mando were conducting.

  ‘Premier, the doctor pronounced her dead at 7.32 a.m. on Wednesday,’ said St-Cyr. ‘At what time did you step in here?’

  ‘At just before eight. The police hadn’t yet been notified. The door was open. Staff were hurrying past to their offices. I simply ducked in unnoticed.’

  ‘Having learned of the killing how?’ asked the Sûreté.

  ‘One overhears everything in that Hotel,’ snorted Laval. ‘Ménétrel was in a frightful turmoil, claiming he’d been betrayed and that there’d been a flagrant breach of security. Ferbrave was, of course, to blame and had been dismissed, but it wasn’t the first time our ranting doctor had made that little threat, so I paid it no mind and simply went to see for myself.’

  ‘Your footprints in the snow must have been noticed by the police,’ said St-Cyr, ‘yet none were mentioned in the report?’

  ‘Clearly I had no reason to kill her and was above suspicion. I’d been at home, at my chateau in Châteldon, and could prove it. I simply pointed out my footprints to the sous-préfet when he and his men were deciding which prints might be useful.’

  ‘Among those that hadn’t been trampled?’ asked St-Cyr as if stung by such incompetence on the part of the local police.

  ‘We were, I’m afraid, all caught by surprise.’

  ‘Yet all of you knew of the little visit she was to pay the Maréchal,’ said Kohler.

  ‘I didn’t. I hadn’t the slightest inkling of it.’

  ‘Even though one can overhear everything in that hotel?’ he demanded.

  ‘Even then.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Sandrine Richard. ‘How could I have?’

  ‘But Mademoiselle Blanche and her brother knew of it, Louis.’

  ‘Yes! Yes, a thousand times,’ cried Blanche, ‘but we didn’t kill her, I swear it! We took the earrings and a little of mother’s perfume in a phial I had brought along but only because Dr Ménétrel had demanded this.’

  ‘And when did you leave them with him, mademoiselle?’ asked Louis.

  ‘On Monday afternoon, late.’

  ‘And the knife?’ asked Herr Kohler, quickly leaving the buvette to stand before her.

  ‘Was lying on the chair in her room, with the laudanum bottle.’

  ‘This one?’ asked St-Cyr, showing the bottle as he joined his partner.

  ‘Yes!’ Blanche’s voice quavered. ‘My father had brought it home with the clothes Mother had left on the Pont Barrage the day she drowned herself. It was, I think, the last time he ever set eyes on that room of hers. A broken man.’

  ‘And neither you nor your brother touched this knife?’ asked St-Cyr, the bottle in one hand, the weapon in the other.

  ‘Paul … Paul did open it on our first visit. Edith … Edith was so upset, he … my brother put it back.’

  ‘With the blade open or closed?’ he asked.

  ‘Would it really matter?’ she yelped. ‘We didn’t take it! We’re not killers. At first we only wanted what was rightfully ours, and then … then we agreed to do what was asked simply to protect Paul from the forced labour.’

  Head bowed in despair, Blanche clenched her fists at her sides. ‘Please, you must believe me. If Papa would have listened to us, Paul and I would have gone straight to him, but we knew he wouldn’t. When we first went to her, Edith had told us it would be useless to try.’

  It was Herr Kohler who gently asked, ‘Could Mademoiselle Pascal have noticed you’d taken the earrings and come after them?’

  ‘To the Hotel d’Allier?’ blurted Blanche. ‘It’s … it’s possible, yes.’

  ‘And the love letters?’ demanded St-Cyr.

  ‘Were any of them taken?’ she asked, caught suddenly by surprise.

  ‘Please just answer.’

  ‘Then no! Edith … Edith would have noticed right away if we’d so much as touched them. She goes into that room every day to finger Mother’s things as if in doubt, in hope. I know she’s read those letters often, know she sleeps in Mother’s bed. Why … why does she do such things if not demented?’

  ‘The dress, mademoiselle, and the strand of sapphires?’ he asked.

  ‘Dress? Which dress, please?’

  ‘Left in Madame Dupuis’s room after the killing,’ said Louis gruffly, the sternness of his Sûreté gaze not leaving her. She tried hard to meet it and finally succeeded.

  ‘One that we would find and not Bousquet,’ said Kohler, watching her intently.

  ‘Who had earlier been left Céline’s identity card,’ breathed St-Cyr.

  ‘As a warning from the Resistance, Louis. A warning!’

  ‘Premier, although you’ve already given us a reason, why, please, did that telex you sent to Paris really use the name Flykiller?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘Those damned girlfriends were like flies,’ spat Laval. ‘Always buzzing about their men and threatening to spoil things for us. I was all but certain they were informants and have now been proven correct!’

  They sat alone, those two detectives, in the Chante Clair Restaurant where the ladies, the crème de la crème of Vichy, wore fashion’s latest whim, the colourful turban. The wives were at afternoon tea and gossip, the sound of their voices suddenly rising to a shrillness that frightened before dropping to a whisper that only served to increase anxiety.

  Sandrine Richard had curtly been given permission to join Madame Pétain and Élisabeth de Fleury, their heads close in urgent conference. Blanche, alone and looking lost, sat at a table beneath the stained-glass lights of tall, streaked windows that overlooked the snow-dusted statuary of the inner courtyard. And I? mused Inès. I, instinctively not wishing to sit with Blanche, nor she with me, sit alone, having just learned that Albert has been released into his father’s recognizance.

  St-Cyr had agreed to do this, perhaps out of kindness, but had he also wanted to see what would happen? she wondered.

  Kohler, in defiance of the hour, the head chef and the kitchen staff, had loudly ordered pea soup with ham, sausages and sauerkraut, and ‘good German beer’; a past
is for his friend and partner. ‘A double.’

  Since he sat with his back to her, she could only clearly see St-Cyr who, from time to time, an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth or in a fist, would look across the crowded dining room to see her sitting primly beneath one of the wall mirrors, her back to that very wall, knowing she couldn’t possibly overhear them now or see what lay before them. That tin-plated little post, Inspector? Laval au poteau? Had it been a coincidence, post and post? Would Monsieur le Premier wonder if it had meaning and make a hurried visit to his clairvoyant, Madame Ribot, of the Hotel Ruhl, at 15 boulevard de l’Hôtel de Ville, to ask her advice?

  Would he believe what the cards, the stars, the moon and conjunctions said?

  ‘Hermann, our sculptress is still without her precious valise. Just what the hell is she really doing here?’

  ‘Blanche asked the same thing.’

  ‘Ah oui. She makes Albert edgy and now she’s got me edgy too.’

  The understatement of the year! ‘Relax. Eat up.’

  ‘And try to concentrate? Merde, I’ve no appetite. How can I when I know Herr Gessler must be watching the clock – our clock – and counting off the minutes? If he gets his hands on that one …’ he indicated the sculptress, ‘neither of us will be able to save her.’

  Stripped naked, shrieked at constantly, her head shoved repeatedly under water in the bathtub those bastards were fond of using, she’d be strung up and further clubbed with rubber truncheons if she didn’t tell them what they wanted, or thrown to the swill-soaked floor to be kicked by hobnailed boots until dead.

  ‘Please don’t let us forget that, Hermann.’

  ‘You know I won’t. How could I? It applies also to Blanche and that brother of hers as well as to Albert and others, especially Olivier and his Edith.’

  ‘Olivier,’ said Louis, opening Noëlle’s knife. Quickly arranging. the items and ignoring the food, he set the V for Victory beneath the knife; the earrings, laudanum bottle and billets doux to the left; the button-post to the right and isolated for the moment.