Flykiller (40 page)

‘Now I am little different than the cuckold himself!'

Fresh hay had been strewn about the enclosures, their shelters insulated with it.

‘Ah
bon
,' he said. ‘Albert never forgets – one doesn't need to remind him, Inspector. Once a task has been assigned, he does it. Look … the snow has even been swept from each of the cages!'

‘The telephone exchange, monsieur?'

‘The old one was perfectly suitable. Adjacent to the Hotel Ruhl and only needing a small amount of upgrading. We should have left it at that. Instead, what did our chairman do but plunge the bank's resources into the most up-to-date exchange outside of Paris? A new PTT, new building, new everything, including far more employees than were ever needed. And where did he insist on putting it? In what had always been the Auvergne's loveliest of covered markets on the rue du Marché and avenue du Président Doumer. A meeting place, yes, yes, of course, for all our citizens but one we loved not for the chance to queue up and listen in to the telephone conversations of others, but for itself!'

‘But … but in 1933 he had long since resigned from the bank.'

‘Having sowed the seeds of its demise!'

The new Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone hadn't been opened until 1928, or was it 1930? wondered St-Cyr, deciding on the latter. The old PTT had been left empty for a time, due to the Depression, but would surely have now been put to use.

Feed was scattered, Hébert going from cage to cage by interconnecting side doors. Ring-necked pheasants, partridges, even a covey of ruffed grouse from Canada and two pair of snow-white ptarmigan were all spoken to, the custodian frequently getting down on his knees to coax the birds to eat from his hand.

‘They are God's creatures,' he said, looking sideways up through the wire. ‘Céline and Albert often shared this little task. The girl loved to help him. Never the harsh word from her if he was clumsy or did something he then tried to hide. In turn, he adored her and had, I'm certain – yes, certain – all those confused feelings of guilt and apprehension a young man has for a girl he secretly wants. When she told him she was using quills to write postcards to her daughter, Albert plucked tail feathers for her until I had to tell him to stop!'

Rock doves were cradled; captured finches perched on the brim of his hat.

‘Albert wouldn't have hurt any of those girls, Inspector. No matter what you hear from others, understand that my grand-nephew is incapable of such a thing. Certainly he has uncontrollable rages when things seem not to be going the way he believes they should be, and certainly he has sworn to protect and help the Maréchal in the best way he can, but a killer …? Ah no, it's impossible.'

A master of deceit and trickery, a prude, and now the rages? ‘Olivier, monsieur. Would he be aware his children are in Vichy?'

‘Aware? Not likely. Edith wouldn't have told him, and neither would those two. That father of theirs does not forgive easily, Inspector. Disinheriting them? Blaming them as much as myself for the suicide of their mother? Claiming they wanted her to leave him for Pétain, for the father of her unborn child and that they, too, weren't even his own? His own! The man was insane and still is. A recluse who hides from his community and former associates? A man who hates!'

‘A killer?'

One could not gesture with the hands full but could toss the head. ‘It's possible. Weren't the victims marriage smashers? Hadn't one of them a husband who'd gone off to war only to discover from behind barbed wire that his wife had been playing around in his prolonged absence?'

‘Camille Lefèbvre.' The birds, chickens of several varieties – white, russet, big, small – were making a hell of a racket!

‘And what of the rest of the cabaret group Céline was a part of, Inspector? Aurélienne Tavernier also has a husband who is a prisoner of war, as do Carole Navaud and Nathalie Bénoist. Your killer uses Noëlle's knife on Céline who wears his dead wife's earrings to a
liaison
with the man who had made him a cuckold? Wears even the perfume that wife was so fond of because Henri Philippe had bought it for her? What more evidence do you need?'

‘A dress was left in Céline's room …'

‘Dress …? What dress? Come, come, you must tell me.'

‘A halter-neck …'

‘Silvery, with see-through panels?'

‘High heels to match.'

Flustered – sickened – his mind so obviously in a turmoil that he felt betrayed, Hébert turned swiftly away. ‘Monsieur, that dress, do you know of it?' demanded St-Cyr.

‘Know of it?' Hébert sucked in a breath, held one of the hens too tightly, then released it. ‘Who wouldn't among those of us who'd seen her in it? Noëlle … Noëlle wore it to the party I threw here in the late summer of 1924 to celebrate the Victor of Verdun's return to Vichy.'

Then why can't you turn to face me? wondered St-Cyr. The chickens crowded round the custodian who, oblivious to their commotion, knelt among them, forgetting entirely that they were now greedily ravaging his bowls of feed.

Merde
, who the hell had put that dress in Céline's room for St-Cyr and that partner of his to find? wondered Hébert. Had it been Auguste or … or Edith? Could it have been them? How could it? Had they learned of the earrings and the knife?

‘Auguste-Alphonse felt particularly honoured to have Henri Philippe stay at his house, Inspector, before coming out here to spend a few days away from the crowd. A man of the soil. Noëlle visited frequently. Alone, of course, for Auguste was far too busy to take notice. There was, I believe, a strand of blue sapphires which Noëlle wore with that dress and the earrings. Like everyone else, Henri Philippe couldn't help but take notice of her at that party, even though married himself.'

Find the leader of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, Hébert had said in the kitchen, but did he suspect Olivier was that leader?

He'd have had him arrested! And what of the dress and the necklace – Hébert hadn't known of their having been left in that room, had been badly shaken by the news. ‘Monsieur, the Bollinger Cuvée Spéciale, the 1925, and Rémy-Martin Louis III?'

Had the detectives told no one else of their having found the dress? wondered Hébert. He'd have to stand, would have to face this Sûreté. ‘Ménétrel let it be known he was going to have de Fleury present a little gift to Henri Philippe. Naturally I searched my mind for something suitable, something which would also remind the Maréchal of a friendship gone cold since the loss of fortune. I'd had an equally fine Cuvée and cognac sent to the couple's room that first summer. What better way, then, for me to toast his latest conquest and remind him of our friendship? A man in his eighty-seventh year whose wife, I must tell you, when she discovered the affair with Noëlle, took his service revolver out of a drawer and told him in no uncertain terms to choose!'

Ah
bon
, the ultimate target, then, and either the betrayed wives as the killers or the cuckold. ‘Yet it wasn't Céline who drank the Cuvée, monsieur. It was Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux.'

A last cage was ignored but for a few handfuls of hurriedly tossed feed, the hawks and eagles still to come.

‘Didn't you find the bottles I sent for Céline to take with her? A picnic hamper? Saint-Louis crystal, caviar, a little pâté, a baguette and some of the Cantal and Saint-Nectaire? I packed these especially for the Maréchal and even included a corkscrew he would not fail to recall. My knife … ah, not so handsome as Noëlle's and much worn, but still … I knew he'd recall it and remember the affair.'

‘A Laguiole?' hazarded St-Cyr.

‘Why, yes. It was one I'd had since a boy. Albert can confirm, since it was he I asked to deliver the hamper to Céline at Chez Crusoe early last Tuesday evening.'

Albert …

‘Inspector, the hamper …'

‘Has not been found.'

‘Was it taken – intercepted?' demanded Hébert.

‘Perhaps.'

The Laguiole, with its opened blade, was fixed in memory as Inès fought to see and again stumbled blindly. Cascades of what must be seepage clung to the passage walls of these cellars they were now in, cellars that had been built in the twelfth or thirteenth century. At each breath's escape she knew a little cloud of vapour would appear in the torchlight but still she couldn't see a thing. Blanche was ahead of her, blocking the light; Herr Kohler well out in front of her, and with the torch. Water trickled distantly, the taste of its sulphur in the air and on the tongue. And wasn't that what Vichy was all about? she demanded. A coldness that made one cringe, a warmth that was as if subterranean and filled with innuendo, its sound constantly hollow, the air acid?

Céline hadn't mentioned the chateau's spring in her letters, nor had Monsieur Olivier said anything about it. But, then, after his first letter, the rest, without names or addresses on their little envelopes of thin paper, had been concealed in those from Céline, and she had had to courier them to others to his contacts in Paris, had
wanted
to do this. Never the same café, never, even, the same contact. No names there either. Just greet as if old friends – the contact always recognizing her from a photo perhaps?

She didn't know, was not to know, and had accepted this. Simply telephoned a number from a café no one could trace her to when a letter arrived, the time and place of meeting then being assigned eight hours before that given and always two streets away to the south from the one given. Even the telephone number to call had changed with each letter.

Wear Shalimar
, Céline had said in her last letter.
That way, if anything happens to me, M. Olivier will know it's really you
.

St-Cyr had been quick to notice the perfume but would he see that she'd worn it expressly for that purpose?

These days so much had to be hidden. And, yes, Céline had said she would be wearing it too.

‘Stay here,' said Herr Kohler.

‘
No!
' implored Blanche.

‘Please don't leave us,' Inès whispered.

‘I'll only be a minute. Either Albert took the left fork or the right.'

‘Or went straight ahead,' she managed but, suddenly, Herr Kohler was gone from them and Blanche and she were left alone to listen in the dark. No images, no anything. Just a deep, dark, black emptiness before her eyes … Her eyes.

He made no sound, gave no further indication of his whereabouts, must even have switched off the torch. Had he really done so? Had he?

Uncannily the water bubbled forth, its sound echoing in the distance.

‘Albert's unpredictable,' swore Blanche, not liking their being left alone. ‘Edith Pascal can get him to do anything simply by bullying and because he's terrified of being berated by her.'

Somehow Inès found her voice. ‘Did he put the rats in Lucie's bed?'

‘He'd have taken the livers if he had, but Edith could well have done it herself. Edith hates Pétain and all he stands for. She blames him not just for my father's rejection of her but for all the pain he's suffered.'

‘So she killed the four of them, is this what you're saying?'

To not even ask about Edith first implied knowing her. ‘Just what the hell are you really doing in Vichy?' grated Blanche. ‘Albert's certain there's something wrong with your being here. He wouldn't have taken that knife otherwise.'

‘And my bag? Why would he have taken that?'

‘To find out everything he can about you.'

‘But he can't read more than a few words. Even if he looks at my
carte d'identit
é and travel permits, he won't be able to understand them.'

And you're still so very afraid of him, aren't you? silently demanded Blanche. ‘He smells and gets the feel of them. He'll try to surprise us first and then … then will hole up somewhere to examine every little thing you've got in that bag of yours. Be grateful you parked that valise of yours with his father or he'd have taken it too. Admit that you met with Lucie in Paris.'

‘Céline's letters were simply posted to me!'

‘You're lying! Lucie told me you'd met each time she went to Paris.'

‘Now you're the one who's lying!' cried Inès as Blanche grabbed her by the arm only to suddenly release her hold.

‘Look, let's stop this!' swore Blanche. ‘Let's help each other. My father was the best friend of yours. Céline had him write to you about the firing squad.'

They'd been whispering urgently but had yet to realize this, thought Kohler, having moved back along the corridor to stand nearby.

‘Céline did no such thing,' countered the sculptress. ‘Oh for sure she knew Monsieur Olivier was my father's
compagnon d'armes.
Since the age of seven or eight she had to listen to the details of my searchings for what really happened to Papa. One evening she took it upon herself to speak to Monsieur Olivier in the English Garden by the river. Tears leaped into his eyes at her mention of my father and, asking her to follow in a few moments, he led the way to his house. They did not go inside because Edith Pascal was there. They simply sat and talked in the dark.'

And he told you a little about Edith, did he? ‘Admit it, letters were exchanged. Not only did you write to Céline, but to my father!'

But why, please, does this upset you so? wondered Inès. And if a little is yielded, will not the same be done in return? ‘All right, we exchanged letters. Lucie and I did meet. The Louvre, the Sorbonne, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Musée Grévin … She first found me there, but after that would always telephone ahead or leave a message.'

‘Didn't you think that dangerous?'

All calls were monitored, all such messages were read by others, but was Mademoiselle Blanche fishing for something else, a Resistance connection? wondered Inès. ‘Of course I thought it dangerous – the penalty alone for carrying or receiving such letters is extremely harsh and totally unreasonable, but … but Lucie was my only link with Céline and it was the only way I'd know she was back in the city.'