Flykiller (29 page)

Bilberries
did
contain vitamin A.

‘But there is only this
Quatsch
to sweeten them, eh, Herr Kohler, this crap?'

A bowl of saccharin was thrust their way.

‘I'm a recluse, a stroller, and yes, I'm as well informed as I possibly can be, nor do I attempt to hide this or anything else from you. Small towns, and this is still very much one, are especially hard on those of their own, Inspectors. Between 1929 and '37 over seven hundred of our banks failed, mine too in '33, but even though I could not in any way have been responsible, since I was no longer there, still I'm castigated for its failure. The anonymous letters dribble in and occasionally in the dark of night a stone is thrown through a window. Of course, the pane is impossible to replace and the hole must be boarded up. I knew you'd have to come to see me. I've had time to think about things. Four murdered women, the most recent of whom was wearing some of my dead wife's jewellery. Since I've always been a target, I can only surmise that Premier Laval's Flykiller wishes you to arrest me. Please don't forget it was Laval who coined the name, just as it was Pétain who willingly coined the word collaboration and fed it to the Nation.'

But how had Olivier known of Laval's use of that name, wondered Kohler, and why was he being so incautious?

Louis seldom removed his overcoat or fedora during such interviews, preferring always to leave doubt in the mind as to when he'd depart, but this time he set the hat on the table with a finality that brooked no interference, and pulled off his overcoat.

As the jewellery was laid on the table, moisture quickly collected in Olivier's eyes. A quiver passed through him as he reached out to touch the trinkets.

‘Edith, please take Herr Kohler to her room. Show him where these were always kept. Not in my safe-deposit box, Inspectors. Not registered or listed – I've yet to be forced into that humiliation, so you'll just have to believe me when I tell you they must have been stolen.'

‘By whom?' asked Louis.

‘Outside of the killer or killers, I've no idea. No one visits except for the postman. There are only the two of us, and when I'm out, Edith is invariably in.'

And suspect? wondered St-Cyr.
Mon Dieu
, this one was clever. Having decided the best course of action, and weighed up the risks, which were considerable, Olivier hadn't wavered from that course.

Hermann departed with the housekeeper, leaving the two of them to themselves.

‘You were at Verdun, Chief Inspector. You were wounded twice. Like yourself I, too, saw the Maréchal in action. Instead of deciding to attack in an all-out suicidal charge, he practised two defensive lines, the second to still the panic of the first, and, in defiance of Foch and the other generals, he alone had the courage to say
matériel
kills men. The noria he introduced to quickly relieve men at the front was a godsend I greatly admired. He
was
my hero. That's how he met my Noëlle when he came here in 1924 to stay as a guest in this very house. I, who thought I knew men, had my life taken from me. So, yes, I have good reason to want him dead.'

Olivier had led him to this point, even to having Hermann removed from the room. In one hand he held the earrings, in the other, the sapphires.

‘You know what it's like to be made a cuckold, Inspector, but Paris is not Vichy. In a big city one can easily hide. Here things are so close the walls come tumbling down and you stand naked before the very people you once served and who once respected you. Your second wife and little son were killed on their way home to you, I gather, and for that I am deeply sorry, but it was, in so far as I can determine, a tragic mistake.'

Improbable as it seemed, knowing the attitudes of
les hauts
as he did, St-Cyr had to wonder if Olivier was of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans. ‘A Resistance bomb that Gestapo Paris-Central's Watchers left in place for me took them instead.'

‘War is never easy, is it? Dr Ménétrel knows all about that little affair of hers and the films the Watchers made of the couple and enjoyed. Naked and fornicating, that wife of yours crying out in ecstasy to another while you … you have had to bear the shame of it and the laughter.'

Olivier had even tried to provoke him but a calm front would be best. ‘Hermann had the films destroyed. The Hauptmann Steiner was sent, by his uncle, the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, to Russia where he was killed in action.'

‘And the chanteuse Gabrielle Arcuri, whose superb voice is regularly broadcast to the Boche and avidly listened to also by the Allies, came to know you.'

Then it was true. He was of the FTP. ‘Hermann is aware she's involved with the Résistance.'

A cold, flat answer. So, good. Yes, that was good! ‘I just had to hear it from you yourself.'

This upstairs corridor to the bedrooms had always seemed so long, thought Edith. A journey and a half that never ended because Auguste would never let it end. Herr Kohler was right behind her and she knew he had realized love had yet to be consummated but that she would wait for ever if necessary.

‘They always had separate rooms,' she heard herself saying tartly. Would caution not stop her tongue? she wondered. ‘Auguste rose early, his wife often late. In those days he had the duties of mayor as well as chairman of the bank. Madame Olivier should have understood he had only so much time to spare. Like so many, he went away to war in 1914 and we seldom saw him for four years but still, a wife waits, does she not?'

‘Some do, some don't,' she heard Herr Kohler saying. ‘Did she fool around?'

And before the Maréchal?' ‘She had two little children. Perhaps they occupied her totally, perhaps not.'

‘But she liked older men?'

‘Her father felt she needed one and Auguste fitted that mould perfectly. He was thirty-six years of age and very successful, she not quite twenty. Guidance,
n'est-ce pas
, as if one could ever have guided that filly. Is not the key to a girl's heart that to the strongbox? I'm sure that father of hers thought this.'

Many are the ways to a girl's happiness, Hermann, Louis would have said, but the surest is the foresight of the father.
Les hauts
had a host of such expressions. ‘But Olivier loved her.'

‘Passionately. It's what every woman prays for but it wasn't sufficient. Married 13 June 1911, miscarried 27 October of that year when she fell off her horse, gave birth to twins 5 March 1913, and then lost Auguste to the war as so many did. I don't excuse her; I excuse his not realizing that in his absence she had not had the benefit of that precious guidance and was no longer the young girl he had married.'

‘And her maiden name? It's just routine.'

Did he know the twins were in Vichy?
Did he
? wondered Edith. ‘Varollier. An old family in Paris, once very wealthy and with connections to several banks including ours, but all of that was lost in the Depression. Oh for sure one could say, as many later did, that in marrying her Auguste was merely completing a business transaction and that she felt this terribly but it wasn't so. She was beautiful, was everything a man like him could desire, was tender when needed, vivacious, shapely,
voluptueuse
, and yet … and yet …'

Ah
merde
, had Herr Kohler somehow provoked her into speaking her mind or were things so close now she'd had to?

‘The children, mademoiselle,' he said, having stopped her in the corridor, having taken hold of her by the shoulder and turned her towards him.

What should she say – what
could
she say? ‘After what happened, he wasn't even sure they were his. Indeed, he had every reason to think not.'

‘Then Pétain wasn't the first?'

Abruptly her thin shoulders lifted in a questioning shrug but she didn't turn from him. Wouldn't!

‘There were others during the war. I'm certain of it.'

Jésus, merde alors
, with what were they dealing? ‘And you let him know this when he came back? It couldn't have been too difficult, could it, since you worked at that bank of his?'

‘He wouldn't listen! Even when so many later called him a cuckold and laughed at him, he wouldn't! “Pétain and only Pétain,” he'd always say and still does.'

‘And the Maréchal, does he ever come here?'

‘You can't know of our Head of State, can you? That one has probably forgotten all about her.'

‘And the house in Paris, in Neuilly? The one her grandmother left her?'

Had the twins told him of it? ‘Auguste sold it and gave the money to Les Soeurs de l'Immaculée Conception. Inspector, the room is just down these few steps. I'm not sure the electric light will work. Auguste … Auguste … hasn't been in there since she took her life.'

Herr Kohler must be thinking, A hard man to have sold the house on the children, hard to have sent them away like that, but he did not say so. Instead he said, ‘The children's bedrooms?'

‘Are just across the corridor. The nursery first and then … then the girl's room and then that of her brother. Always she was close to them, always their very special friend, but even that was not enough to stop her. She was pregnant. Did they tell you that?'

‘They?'

‘Whoever told you of her suicide. Pregnant with Pétain's child!'

‘And your room?'

‘Is next to his on the other side of the staircase. One of the former guest rooms.'

A cold, bitter answer if ever there was one. The overhead light didn't work. Crowding her, Kohler flicked the switch on and off again. ‘You knew this, didn't you, because you had removed the bulb from its socket?'

They faced each other in darkness, she standing just inside the room, he still in the corridor. ‘We ran out. We had to have light. These days if you can find them in a shop, and have the necessary tickets, two used light bulbs are demanded as well for each new one, but there aren't any to be had. They've requisitioned them all for the Government. Pétain has light; the rest of us have to make do as best we can.'

The Nation's matches were brittle and often broke and threw flames or sparks or failed to work at all, but in the light of the two he held, Herr Kohler looked not into the room but at her. A giant with a cruel and recent scar down his left cheek from eye to chin, and others from the Great War, the graze of a recent bullet, too, across the brow. ‘The newspapers in the kitchen,' he said. ‘How did he come by them?'

He'd seen the dates, had seen that they'd not been less than a week old, except for
L'Humanité
, and had first been read by others. ‘A friend saves them and I … why I try to have a little something for him in exchange.'

Herr Kohler didn't ask the name of this friend, which could only mean that he sensed it must be Albert Grenier and that he wanted her to know he knew. ‘Let me find you a candle, Inspector.'

‘All the light bulbs are gone, aren't they?'

‘All, I'm afraid.'

Olivier let the silence grow between them until the hiss of green wood in the kitchen stove was heard. Abruptly he lifted his gaze from the jewellery, passed it quickly over this Sûreté from Paris, then returned it to the diamonds.

He fingered their hardness, feeling how cold they still were, for diamonds always felt cold. He said, ‘Two patriots have just exchanged those few words that would condemn them to death, Inspector, should either of them fall into the hands of Herr Gessler or Herr Jännicke.'

To say nothing of Gabrielle and Hermann, or of his Giselle and Oona! ‘Why
did
you feel I needed to know you were of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans?'

St-Cyr hadn't liked it one bit. Too dangerous, too cavalier, but sometimes one had to take such risks. ‘As its regional leader I must ensure that nothing is done to harm our position. We want you to stop this assassin before he or she or they cause irreparable harm. As it is now, our sources have word well in advance and we can take steps to protect ourselves, but should Pétain and Laval be assassinated, should even Bousquet or one of his confreres be killed, the Boche will unleash a savagery that can only lead to their taking over here completely. Make no mistake, what we have worked so hard to build will be shattered. Herr Jännicke is here because he's the cure Berlin believes may be necessary. He's a
spécialiste
in interrogation and has been sent on orders from Himmler and Gestapo Müller.'

To know such things could only mean an inside source but could Olivier be goaded into revealing it? ‘They're already raking the countryside for
maquisards.
'

‘We have to let them. To attempt to intervene would be both foolish and futile. We had six hours' advance warning of the
Sonderkommando
and took what steps were necessary to save our own.'

‘But not those of other Resistance groups? Not the innocent who had to shelter them, sometimes even at gunpoint?'

Was St-Cyr really so weak? ‘We couldn't interfere. In war there are always casualties. You of all people should know this.' He tossed a hand.

‘And putting my name on
L'Humanité's
list?'

‘Surely you must realize that was to convince the Boche of your loyalties? Though Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris doubts them, Monsieur Laval still wanted you and Kohler to deal with the matter; Bousquet and Herr Gessler didn't. In the end, Herr Kohler's boss won out perhaps simply because he's also that of Gessler.'

‘
Merde alors
, you heard of our being sent here even before we did!'

‘We have our ways.'

‘
Radio-trottoir or Radio-concierge
?' St-Cyr all but shouted.

Pavement or concierge gossip. ‘I can't tell you. The risk is too great.'

‘Yet we're expected to deal with a killer or killers who have also an equal ear to the ground? Forget it, monsieur. Me, I'm taking my partner and myself out of this and back to Paris!'