Flykiller (23 page)

Hermann moved past him in a blur. He ran, he reached the stall ahead of the stablehands, snatched a prod from the wall, opened the door and vanished.

Sickened by what they must surely find, for the sculptress had given one last, piercing shriek that had been abruptly cut off, St-Cyr brushed past the others to enter the stall. Hermann had a firm grip on the halter and had tucked the prod under an arm, having used a shoulder to force the stallion against a wall and away from the girl.

‘Easy … Easy,' he said, his voice soothing. ‘Now calm yourself, my beauty. You pinch them on the neck or cheek, Louis. That distracts them, then offer the carrot if you have one. You're a handsome devil, aren't you?' he went on to the stallion, a magnificent three-year-old but still very high-strung. ‘You're worth plenty and are certain to take the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp this October, only it won't be held there due to possible acts of terrorism, they say, so it and the other races will be held at Le Tremblay to the north-east of Paris. Please don't worry.'

On and on he went, talking to the horse. He asked about the cinder track at Vincennes and how it was, said he was sorry that racing at Deauville had had to be cancelled in 1940. ‘The RAF simply don't understand, do they? Louis,' he said in that same carefully modulated voice. ‘Louis, the sculptress.'

Curled into a ball, trembling so hard she couldn't move, Inès Charpentier cowered in a far corner. No tears, nothing but shock.

‘Take her out now,' said Hermann. ‘Just do it gently.'

Her wrists were cold, her hands freezing, that lovely coat from the thirties, with its deer-horn buttons, in a mess that she didn't even notice.

Clinging to him, she quivered as they squeezed past Hermann; she was so thin, could be a killer, but couldn't, St-Cyr told himself, and finally said, ‘Let the tears come, mademoiselle. Please don't be ashamed.'

‘I can't,' she gasped. ‘I haven't cried in years.'

‘And you're terrified of horses, aren't you,' he said, ‘yet chose to come here anyway?'

‘I have to sculpt them, don't I?' she snapped, pulling away from him to place a steadying hand flat against the boards of the nearby wall.

‘Argue if you wish, mademoiselle, but anyone who claims to be fascinated by horses, as you did to Monsieur Grenier, must have been around them enough to know they can and will sense fear and often react accordingly.'

‘I hit the horse. I was flung right at it!'

‘But didn't think to try to calm it.'

‘Ferbrave … Henri-Claude Ferbrave of the Garde Mobile saw you coming and wanted to keep you from talking to Albert.'

Closed for the season, the Jockey Club's bar and restaurant would be pitch dark, Inès told herself. Still terrified by what had happened, still shaking, she knew the building must be huge, knew the beams from St-Cyr's and Kohler's distant torches must be flickering over empty tables with chairs leaning inwards. Sometimes she could hear the detectives, most often not, for in their haste to stop Henri-Claude, they'd left her far behind, hadn't realized,
grâce à Dieu
, that her eyes were giving her such trouble. They couldn't know that always now it was like this for her when going from a lighted room into darkness. Everything totally black. No use in blinking the eyelids to clear the eyes, though she often did this and must learn to stop. Always the panic, the terror, that cloying sickness of never knowing if and when someone might grab her or her handbag.

The detectives must be going up a staircase, for Herr Kohler's voice suddenly echoed. ‘Louis, you leave that
salaud
to me!' To me …

‘Never, and you know it!' shouted St-Cyr.

Their shoulders hit a door, Herr Kohler shouting at the occupants as it burst inwards, ‘Ferbrave?' The answer, one she knew the detectives could only dread: ‘Outside.'

And in the grandstand.

Feeling her hesitant way forwards – telling herself that she absolutely must somehow continue to keep from them her not being able to see – Inès stumbled blindly into a table, knocked over a chair, then … then started up the staircase. Henri-Claude had cared only to find out how much Albert really knew of the killings and the knife he'd found, and what the groundskeeper's son had told the detectives of the transport of illegal goods by vans of the Bank of France. There'd been no time to prise such answers from him in the stables. Ferbrave hadn't cared a damn about what might happen to her. She was expendable. She must hide the darkness from him, too, for he could just as easily have slit her throat and might still do so. He had run after Albert. Monsieur Gaëtan-Baptiste Deschambeault hadn't cared either and had run after them.

And now? she asked herself, pausing to listen closely and to still the panic the darkness always brought. Now the curved iron of what must be an art nouveau balustrade was cold beneath her hand. Now Ferbrave would either protect himself and the others, and what had been going on for far too long, or fail.

The others, she thought and wept inwardly. Bousquet, Richard – Minister of Supplies and Rationing – the banker also and, yes most certainly, Honoré de Fleury, Inspector of Finances, to say nothing of their friends and associates.

‘Louis … Louis, where are they?' asked Kohler, dismayed by what lay before them.

Ice clung to the rows of seats, and in the beams from their torches, falling snow swept along. Away towards the far side of the grandstand, Kohler knew that neither he nor Louis could make out more than this; towards the lower railing and the racetrack, they could see little else.

There wasn't a sound but that of the wind and the incessant flapping of what were, most probably, swastikas on the flagstaffs that rose from the lower railing to stand well above the roof overhead. Having arrived on 11 November last, the Army of the South must have held a parade here, a show of force, and still the flags remained.

‘I'll work my way among the boxes,' muttered St-Cyr. ‘You take the lower rows of seats.'

‘They're not here. They're above us,' sighed Kohler, the beam of his torch having found a flagstaff cleat whose rope now trailed in the wind.

‘There has to be a better way.'

Albert had shinned up the flagstaff; Ferbrave had used the ladder that was at the back of the grandstand, behind the seats. The one had thought he could reach the trapdoor to hold it shut by lying on top of it; the other had beat him to it.

‘It'll be a skating rink, Louis. That's why they're so silent. Give me a moment, will you?'

Lowering a flag, he cut off its rope and let the wind take the rest.

‘Me first,' said St-Cyr. ‘Tie it around one of my ankles and anchor me to something. You know that knee of yours will only cause trouble.'

Gun and torch were handed over, hat and overcoat too. Up on the roof the little ridges, glazed and with wide and shallow troughs, ran straight downslope, the wind making mischief as it whipped the snow along.

‘Albert …' muttered St-Cyr to himself. ‘Ah
merde
, Hermann,' he yelled. ‘Keep your light on them!'

Spreadeagled next to the lower edge of the roof, the groundskeeper's son clung by one gloved hand to Henri-Claude who, in turn, clung bare-handed to one of the flagpoles.

‘
I didn't tell them anything! what vans?'
shrieked Albert.
‘I'm not hearing you
?'

‘
You keep that mouth of yours shut or else
!' cried Ferbrave.

‘
Can't shut what isn't open
!'

‘
Who used that knife and then dropped it
?'

‘
Vipère! serpent! I'm not listening
!'

‘
Then fly, asshole. fly
!'

Ah no … No! The roof was slippery, the rope loose, but was it long enough or too long? wondered St-Cyr.

Careering down over the ridges and hollows, he tried to slow himself by turning sideways, wasn't going to reach them, was going to shoot right past …

Snatching at Albert's ankles, he grabbed one and hung on as the rope tightened. Ferbrave winced at the strain. A moment passed and then another. ‘
Hermann, take up the slack
!'

‘Now pray, messieurs. You, Henri-Claude, that he doesn't fall to his death and walk you to the guillotine; and you, Albert, because we need you.'

‘I don't know who dropped that knife in the shit. I don't know anything about the vans. I thought I did but can't remember.'

Inès blinked and blinked hard but still couldn't see a thing. The door St-Cyr and Kohler had broken in was almost closed, but a wedge of light flooded out from an office of some kind, precious light that lifted her spirits and made her feel whole again.

Deschambeault and his son were in there – she knew this for she'd heard them arguing, their voices always muffled. But now they, like her, had to listen as, with agonizing slowness, Herr Kohler pulled his partner and Albert back up the roof.

Ferbrave had been left for the moment – he must have been, but where, exactly, he was located she couldn't tell and that, she warned herself, was a worry.

Pressing a cheek against the wall, she strained to hear the sousdirecteur and his son above the noises from the roof.

‘Jean-Guy, it's got to stop. Things are getting far too close,' said the elder Deschambeault.

‘Stop,
mon père
?'

‘
Merde, imbécile
, must you taunt me at a time like this? One van and no one was the wiser, but then another and another and what am I to do now, eh? Go to the Maréchal and beg forgiveness when there are assassins about?
Assassins
, Jean-Guy!'

‘
Résistants
?'

‘It's possible. Those people from Paris also. Doriot or Déat may have sent in the Intervention-Referat or the Bickler Unit to teach us a little lesson.'

The son took a moment to consider this, felt Inès, then she heard him asking suspiciously, ‘Did you inform Secrétaire Général Bousquet of your concern?'

‘Pah! Don't be a fool. He's the one who suggested it and knows far more about them than I do!'

Again the son took his time to reply but now there was sarcasm. ‘You worry too much, Papa.'

‘Will you never learn?' demanded the sous-directeur. ‘Lucie's dead. It's over. Will that not satisfy you and that … that mother of yours?'

That bitch of a mother? she could hear the son thinking.

‘Maman hasn't yet heard of your loss, and neither have Thérèse or Martine. Was it a boy or a girl that
putain
of yours dropped?'

Ah
merde
!

‘
Bâtard
, how can you speak to me like that? I who brought you here from Paris and saw that you were given the position you have? You were always the
lanterne rouge
of the class, Jean-Guy.' The rear light. ‘Failure at mathematics, at chemistry, at everything else. This job, that job. Gambling, losing, cheating, lying.
Mon Dieu
, the number of times I've had to cover for you, yet you treat me like this? Ah! I admit you're good at what you do here. One of the best. And perhaps in time, when this Occupation is over and things settle down, these stables will be yours.'

Sugar there. Some sugar, thought Inès.

‘What is it, then, that you want, Papa, the olive branch?'

‘You know very well. Quit visiting that brothel Ferbrave knows you visit because it's his also. Leave it and stop all use of the vans. Tell the drivers they'll continue to receive their extra wages for the long runs but are to keep silent or face immediate dismissal. Enough is enough, Jean-Guy. Good while it lasted. Oh
bien sûr
, but finished for now because it has to be.'

‘And Lucie?'

‘I didn't kill her, if that's what you're thinking.'

‘Admit it, she was trouble.'

‘Trouble? Tell your mother I'll visit her soon. All right, tell her I'll even sleep with her if that will satisfy her.'

Again the son took his time before saying, ‘Broken fences are never easy to mend.'

‘And that doctor of hers? That quack who claims to calm her at my expense?' hissed the father. ‘What part has he had in breaking those same fences, eh?'

‘Has he been fucking her – is that what you think?'

‘You know it isn't, but why should I care, eh?'

‘She's very ill,' said Jean-Guy. ‘Why can't you realize she's psychotic? Torn by delusions, lives in hell because of you and your mistresses! Not just Lucie. The others before her!'

Still they hadn't raised their voices. ‘How self-righteous you are,' said the elder Deschambeault. ‘You who prefer the tenderest.'

Girls of fourteen and fifteen, said Inès to herself.

‘Ménétrel knows that “quack” as you call him, father. Everything Maman has ever said to Dr Normand has been repeated to Ménétrel.'

The father must have been taken aback, for he hesitated and then asked suspiciously, ‘Have you seen him there when you visited her?'

Perhaps the son smiled. ‘Of course. Thérèse and Martine have also seen him at the clinic with Dr Normand, discussing Mother's progress.'

‘And Lucie?'

‘Most certainly.'

‘At Chez Crusoe and the parties at the chateau?' asked the sous-directeur.

‘Just as he makes a point of knowing everything else, Ménétrel knows, Papa.'

‘Because you told him? Or was it Thérèse or Martine?' shot the elder Deschambeault.

‘I didn't!' retorted the son. ‘I can't, of course, vouch for my sisters whose eyebrows are always raised when they speak of their father having sex with his latest, but in any case, since none of us ever attended any of those “sessions” at the chateau, how could we possibly have known of what went on?'

‘Sessions? Meetings of the board, idiot!
Nom de Dieu
, you must hate me.'