2

Having caught a glimpse. of what was going on behind the blackout curtains of the foyer, Kohler found the Hotel du Parc’s side door that was off the rue Petit, between that hotel and the Majestic, and went quickly up its staircase. It was still early, not yet 5.45 a.m. Louis was keeping the troops busy. Louis was sitting on the floor of the foyer and bleeding, but there’d be time enough to settle that little matter. The Government of France stirred. From somewhere there was the sound of a cough, from elsewhere that of teeth being brushed. Mein Gott, were the walls that thin?

The Quai d’Orsay had taken the first and part of the second storey – Foreign Affairs – but Premier Laval also had his offices on the second. The Élysée Palace – Pétain and his retinue – were on the third. The main lift sounded. He paused, his heart hammering – those stairs; that Benzedrine he was taking; he’d have to watch himself.

The lift had stopped. The cage was being opened. Again sounds carried, again he heard them clearly but still couldn’t see the lift. Was that the Maréchal snoring? Pétain was known to be an early riser. Whispers were heard, the lift-cage closed, as it descended to the ground floor …

Céline Dupuis would most probably have come in through the main entrance to cross the foyer and step into the lift. Had she been challenged, given clearance, or had there been no one on guard in the lobby? And why wouldn’t the lift attendant have been on duty, or had he, too, been excused?

Questions … There were always questions. Presumably still wearing her overcoat, the girl had come up to this floor and then … then had walked towards the Maréchal’s bedroom, had been seen or heard by her killer who must have been about to target that same door, had been taken from the hotel, forced down the stairs – which stairs? – and out into the street and the Hall des Sources.

‘Without her overcoat,’ he sighed, ‘and in a white nightgown that would have been easily seen at night.’

Yet, in so far as Louis and he knew, no one had come forward to say they’d noticed her. And where, please, had she left her overcoat? And why, please, remove her if Pétain was to have been the intended target?

The corridor he was in was flanked by back-to-back pairs of tall wooden filing cabinets, with tiny makeshift desks between them and iron chairs that had been taken from the nearby park. Green-shaded lamps would give but a feeble light to the legions of clerks who worked here day in and day out. A duplicating machine leaked, a typewriter held an unfinished synopsis. Names … letters and postcards of denunciation – Pétain had received about 3,000 a day in 1940, now it was still about 1,800, and eighty per cent of them, like the thousands received by the Kommandantur in Paris and every other French city and town, were the poison-pen missiles of a nation that had all too willingly adopted the saying, ‘I’m going to les Allemands with this!’

A bad neighbour, jealous wife, unfaithful husband or cheating shopkeeper were all fair game. Old scores were constantly being settled and, to the shame of everyone, the authorities still gave credence to such trash.

Perhaps thirty of these bulging mailbags, fresh in from the main PTT, the Poste, Télégraphe et Téléphone station, were all waiting to be opened and synopses made for the Maréchal. Yet when Kohler came to the corridor on to which the lift opened, it was like that of any other big hotel, though here there were no trays outside the doors for the maids to collect, no newspapers lying in wait to be read. Simply brass nameplates below the room numbers, and on his right, first that of Captain Bonhomme, the Maréchal’s orderly, then that of the Secretariat, then that of its chief, Dr Ménétrel …

Stopping outside the Maréchal’s bedroom, Kohler looked back along the corridor – tried to put his mind into that of the victim. She hadn’t really wanted to do this, would have been nervous, worried, was wearing a pair of very expensive earrings – why, for God’s sake?

Had been let out of de Fleury’s car and had had to make this little journey all alone.

Ménétrel’s private office, he knew, was connected to Pétain’s bedroom. Rumour had it that there were two approaches to the Maréchal: the official one via the Secretariat and then down the corridor to the reception room and office at the very end; and the unofficial one, through Ménétrel’s office and into Pétain’s bedroom and. then to the reception room.

Had she stood outside the doctor’s office and done her discreet knocking there? Was that where she’d taken off her coat, scarf, beret and gloves, and if so, had the killer seen her slip back into the corridor, or had she intended to use the unofficial route?

The snoring was sonorous. Across the corridor were the rooms, the offices of more of the Maréchal’s immediate staff. Several of them not only worked here but lived, ate and slept here as well, but any of those doors could have been left unlocked; she could have left her things in any one of those rooms if told to do so, yet they hadn’t been found.

Searching – taking in the lingering odours of boiled onions, garlic and dinner cabbage or the sweetness of fried rutabaga steaks that had emanated from the various rooms over the years of the Occupation – he went along the corridor to its very end, to where a small balcony opened off it. The french windows were on the latch, but when released to a blast of frigid air and the threat of arrest for breaking the blackout regulations, he could see her coat lying neatly folded next to the windows. Beret, scarf and gloves were on top of it, but no handbag of course, for that would have been stolen, wouldn’t it?

She had been confronted by her killer – would have realized the windows hadn’t been on the latch but had been too worried about the Maréchal and her little visit to notice that someone was there.

Shining his torch across the snow-covered balcony with its frozen geraniums in terracotta pots, Kohler picked out the footprints, their hollows only partly hidden by the snow. There were lots of them, too, but when brushed clear, the prints weren’t from wooden-soled shoes but from the hobnailed boots of the Auvergne. Worn ones, too, with cleats, just like thousands and thousands of others.

The bastard must have waited here for quite some time, had been damned cold and had stamped his feet to get warm, but had he known she’d come, or had her little visit been unexpected? And why, please, hadn’t anyone with a grain of competence found her things and the prints yesterday, or had they all been far too worried about their own assassinations?

No signs of a struggle, though. None at all. The girl had simply gone with him quietly.

The toughs, les durs, were still hanging around the foyer, smoking their fag ends and looking as if they’d missed something. Pensive, the girl with the valise sat staring at her hands, avoiding Louis, not even glancing up at his partner who was carrying the victim’s clothes, which he had obviously just found.

Kohler helped Louis to his feet. They’d speak privately as was their custom when in company that strained to listen.

‘Hermann, was there a blouse?’

‘A what?’

‘The killer – a woman – was wearing one in the Hall des Sources and may have got bloodstains on it.’

‘But … but I found his footprints on the balcony.’

‘A man’s?’

‘Yes!’

‘Cigar ashes?’

‘None.’

‘Cigarette, then?’

‘None again. He’d have flicked them into the wind. No struggle either.’

‘Did she know him?’

‘It’s possible, but maybe he had a gun.’

A man and a woman. It would be best to let a sigh escape, thought St-Cyr, and then … then to simply say for all to hear, ‘Ah bon, mon vieux, the marmite perpétuelle begins to look interesting.’

The perpetual pot of soup that was to be found at the back of every kitchen stove in rural France! ‘It smells, and you know it,’ hissed Kohler.

More couldn’t be said, for they’d fresh company: dapper, of medium height and with newly shone black leather shoes – real leather – below dark blue serge trousers that were neatly pressed – no turn-ups these days, a concession to the shortages of fabric; the grey woollen overcoat was open and immaculate; the suit jacket double-breasted and with wide lapels, no shortages there; the grey fedora neatly blocked; the round, boyish cheeks of this thirty-seven-year-old freshly shaven, the aftershave still not dry; the dark brown eyes livid.

‘Pour l’amour du Ciel, why can’t people do as they say they will? Inspectors, why was I not taken to meet you at Moulins? The Secrétaire général promised to include me.’

Doctor Bernard Ménétrel was clearly up early and in one hell of a huff. ‘It was very late,’ tried St-Cyr, giving him a shrug.

‘Pah! That was nothing. Nothing, do you understand? It is I who am in charge of security. I who was left waiting at the train station here when I should have gone with them to meet you. Isn’t the Maréchal my responsibility? Don’t I look after his every need? An assassin? An abduction from our hotel? Another killing? Three … it is three of them now!’

‘And this?’ asked Louis, indicating the goose egg and not bothering to ask who had got the doctor out of bed or why Bousquet had chosen not to include him in the welcoming party.

‘Ferbrave?’ demanded Ménétrel.

‘The very one,’ mused Louis.

‘He will apologize. For myself, I regret the discomfort you have suffered, but you should have had clearance from me and I was not taken to meet you. Henri-Claude was just doing his duty. Surely a veteran such as yourself can understand the reflex of a defensive action?’

Oh my, oh my, thought Kohler. The nose was fleshy, the mouth not big, not small, the neck close down on the squared shoulders. A medium man all round, the voice cherubic but acidic, the chin narrow and recessed so that the nose led the way in emphasizing everything he said. ‘Fix him, Doctor. Stitch him up. I need him.’

‘And you?’ demanded Ménétrel, stung by the intrusion and still incensed.

‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central.’

‘Gestapo. You belong over on the boulevard National* with Herr Gessler. Have you checked in with him? Well, have you?’

‘He sent me here,’ lied Hermann. ‘He told me to keep an eye on you.’

‘On me? Well …’

The doctor gave a shrill laugh. Quick-tempered, jealous of his place in the scheme of things, this court jester to some set down his bag and, motioning to Ferbrave and the others, called for a chair. ‘Sit,’ he said to Louis. ‘Let me have a look at that.’

In addition to an ample desk, propaganda posters of the Maréchal, designs for a. new postage stamp and banknotes, children’s books, school books, maps of France, directions to housewives on the baking of bread without flour or sufficient of it, to farmers on the need for their work, et cetera, Ménétrel’s office held a made-up cot that, judging by the scattered items on it, hadn’t been recently used.

The taint of moth crystals was mingled with those of disinfectant and aftershave; the doctor was clearly agitated. The needle went in. ‘Don’t move, Inspector!’ he breathed. ‘Five should do it and we still have four to go. In a few days they can be taken out and I’ll be pleased to do this since it will give us another chance to speak in private, and speak we must. Is that understood? These walls have ears, though, so one must whisper, and I don’t want the Maréchal upset any more than he already is. He knows nothing of Madame Dupuis’s murder, was completely unaware that she was even to have paid him a visit.’

It had to be asked. ‘Were there billets doux?’

Love letters … ‘If there were, you will see that I receive them immediately. Come, come, we can’t have a scandal. We don’t want to trouble the Maréchal with this business. He’s far too busy with the affairs of state, is worried enough.’

‘I’ll try to keep that in mind, but my partner …’

The needle went in, the gut was pulled, a gasp given by the patient. ‘Such things are larger than any of us,’ cautioned Ménétrel. ‘Please don’t be fooled into thinking that because the country is now fully occupied, power no longer rests in Vichy.’

‘Then when did the Maréchal first notice her?’

‘How long has the infatuation been going on – is this what you’re after? Ah! you police. Always looking for dirt, always suspecting the worst even when you should be doing your duty and finding this … this assassin before he strikes again – again, Inspector!’

‘And the Maréchal has had his eye on others, has he?’

‘Some.’

‘What was she like?’

‘On stage or in the drawing room and around the dinner table?’

The gut was being tugged! ‘Both, please.’

Ménétrel’s eyes lit up with mischief. ‘She’d a way with her, that one. Mon Dieu, I must grant her that. Naughty, ribald, voluptueuse, sensuelle yet diabolique – it was all an act, when on stage; when not, why, well brought up, très belle, très intelligente et differente. The Maréchal recognized this last instantly and, yes, he had set his cap at having her.’

‘Then there may well be love letters?’

‘Find them, damn you! I haven’t been able to!’

The patient winced, which was good and necessary, thought Ménétrel. St-Cyr had been a sergeant in a Signals Corps at Verdun. Wounded twice – the left thigh and left shoulder – he had managed to crawl back to the trenches. Unruly as a boy, he had been sent to the farm of distant relatives near Saarbrücken for the holidays each summer for three years; had then used the Deutsch he had learned to good effect in 1917; had managed to convince the Boches he was one of theirs in no-man’s-land and had got away.

No medals, no awards, just memories he shared with that partner of his from the other side. Like brothers, those two, grated Ménétrel. Both honest, both insufferable seekers of the truth who couldn’t be bought. And damn Laval for having asked that they be sent from Paris! Damn Bousquet for not having overruled that boss of his and found others who would listen! Damn him, too, for not having had the decency to have kept his word and included him, the Maréchal’s confident, in the briefing!

‘Where were you on the night of the murder, Doctor?’

The gut was yanked!

‘Was I here, in my office, eh? Did I plan to let that woman into his room and then to watch over the evening’s performance? Of course not. Have more sense. When privacy is called for, privacy is always guaranteed.’

‘Then where, exactly, were you?’

‘With my wife and children in the Hotel Majestic which is but a few steps away. I’ve a suite there, as has the Maréchal for Madame Pétain, but can be here in a matter of minutes.’

The needle was inserted again and again, the gut drawn, the carefully manicured short and finely boned fingers deft and swift. Ménétrel concentrated even as he clipped the gut at last, then sighed.

‘Now we will leave it bare, I think, so as to have it heal faster and better. Unfortunately you will look like a boxer who has just been punished, but that can’t be helped.’

And you’ve found out as much about me as possible, noted St-Cyr, but asked, ‘What rewards did you offer the victim and Monsieur de Fleury?’

The chin tightened. The doctor took a moment to answer.

‘I see that our Inspector of Finances has been indiscreet, but such rewards as I offered are a private matter, Inspector. Find this assassin before he kills his intended target. Bring him to justice and I will see that you are awarded one of these.’

‘The Francisque,’ sighed St-Cyr. The medal for the faithful that the doctor had had a retired jeweller design. ‘Modelled after the Victor of Verdun’s swagger stick, the blades after those of’ – Ah! one wanted so much to say Madame Pétain but must humbly substitute – ‘a two-headed battle-axe.’

‘Be the detective inspector I know you to be. Go where you wish, interview whomever you feel necessary, but be discreet. Leave the Maréchal and that wife of his totally out of it. Madame la Maréchale knows nothing of the matter and will only slow you down.’

And interfere? wondered St-Cyr. Ménétrel had been the one, it was said, who had arranged for the arrest of Premier Laval on 13 December 1940 when Pétain had dismissed the Auvergnat for assuming too much power. The Garde Mobile had locked up Laval in his château but had been stopped short of the requested assassination by an armed contingent of SS, under the leadership of Otto Abetz, the German Ambassador, who had arrived to whisk the former premier off to the safety of Paris.

Such were the state of things in Vichy then, and probably still.

‘Who knew of this little visit she was to have made?’

The doctor waved an impatient hand. ‘Ask de Fleury. He or Madame Dupuis must have let something slip. I didn’t.’

‘Yet you excused the Garde from their duties?’

The needle was put away, the excess gut dropped into an envelope for later sterilization.

‘They were called away. A false alarm.’

‘Not all of them, surely.’

Jésus, merde alors, must this salaud persist? ‘All right, I did tell them things would be secure enough. The visit would be in the evening. It’s the depths of winter … How was I to have known an assassin would strike so closely and in our hotel, a hotel that is always guarded?’

‘Then she wasn’t challenged as she entered the foyer?’

The bag was closed, the catches secured.

‘The lift attendant was also absent,’ confessed Ménétrel, not looking at him. ‘The Maréchal needed to have his self-confidence restored, Inspector. If I have erred, it was only for his sake, and I don’t really know how anyone else could have learned of her visit but someone obviously did.’

‘And were there any other such visits recently?’

‘From her, no!’

‘From others, then?’

Ah damn him! ‘Bousquet had to be summoned late one evening last autumn. The woman’s husband had got wind of the liaison and was pacing up and down outside the hotel in a fury. Fortunately our secrétaire général has the ability to pacify not only the Boches, but even a distraught cuckold whose wife is upstairs being penetrated by another.’

St-Cyr didn’t smile and that was as expected. Early last December he had lost his wife and little son to a Résistance bomb that had been meant for him but had been purposely left in place by Gestapo Paris-Central’s Watchers. She’d been coming home from a particularly torrid affair with the Hauptmann Steiner, nephew of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, and yet St-Cyr was still missing her, still blaming himself for what had happened!

‘Did you see the victim after she’d been found, Doctor?’

Such coldness of tone was commendable. ‘I did. I was the one who pronounced her dead. That imbécile of a groundsman who found her was incoherent.’

‘Then describe how she was. Leave nothing out.’

‘Were things tidied? Is this what you’re, wondering?’

‘I would not ask otherwise.’

The clearing of a throat next door indicated Pétain was waiting for his daily massage and the heat treatments Ménétrel would administer. ‘A moment, Maréchal,’ sang out the doctor. ‘Let me just tie my shoelaces.’

‘Breakfast, Bernard. I want to go down. The hotel is up.’

‘Begin the exercises, please. The arms …’

‘Yes, yes,’ came the reedy answer, heard as clearly as if there’d been no connecting door.

‘Sometimes at night he drums his fingers on the wall above his bed,’ confided Ménétrel. ‘The older he gets, the less he sleeps. Now where were we? Oh yes … She was lying on her back, the left arm extended well above the head, the legs parted slackly. One knee – the left – was bent a little.’

‘And you’re certain the legs weren’t turned either to one side or the other?’

‘How did you find her?’

‘For now, Doctor, please just answer.’

‘The legs were as I’ve described. One hand, the right, was flattened over the wound. She’d been knifed, I felt, but didn’t move her hand to make certain of this. There was no sign of the weapon.’

Ménétrel took a moment, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.

‘Anything else?’

‘Her earrings. I had the feeling her killer must have taken one but had then panicked and left the other.’

‘Which one?’

‘The left. I’m certain of it.’

‘Blancs exceptionnels, Doctor. Who gave them to her?’

How pleasant of this Sûreté. ‘I only wish I knew.’

It seemed strange, stepping back into the Hall des Sources knowing what he now did, thought Kohler, carrying the victim’s overcoat, scarf, gloves and beret, but not her handbag. The place was still pitch dark in its recesses even with the lanterns glowing – hell, the dawn wouldn’t break until well past seven the old time and it wasn’t quite seven yet.

She couldn’t have cried out when confronted by the bastard on that balcony, hadn’t struggled, nor had the curtains or windows been damaged.

A gun, then? he asked himself again. Had she recognized her assailant’s voice? Had he been afraid of this? Had there really been two of them? The one here and waiting in an unlocked Hall – a woman with a knife and wearing no overcoat or woollen cardigan – the other bringing the victim to her at pistol point?

But the wrong victim.

‘Then they hadn’t wanted to kill Pétain in his bedroom for fear of awakening Captain Bonhomme, or someone else,’ he sighed, longing for a cigarette and for time to think it all through with Louis.

She’d got away from the one who’d brought her here. He would have called out to the killer, would have told her what had happened and that they had no choice but to silence Céline …

‘Madame Dupuis. I’ve got to think of her only that way,’ he said.

‘Inspector …’ came a voice.

It was the ‘iron man’, the police photographer and fingerprint artist – nothing ever upset these guys. Tough … Mein Gott, they could photograph anything and then patiently dust all round for prints. Old men who’d had their brains blown out, horizontales who’d been carved up, kids, housewives, it didn’t matter.

‘Marcel Barbault, Inspector.’

Merde alors, the son of a bitch looked like a defrocked priest! The body was round, the face round, the precisely clipped and black-dyed Hitlerian moustache perfect, the cheeks smooth, the throat no doubt dry and regretting the sour red it had consumed last night.

‘Ah bon,’ said Kohler, offering fresh nourishment and a light, for it took all types to make this world. ‘Give us shots of her and the buvette from all angles, Marcel, then one or two of the Buvette de la Grande Grille and another two of the Buvette Lucas, just for local atmosphere.’

Barbault grinned. ‘The corpse?’ he asked, eyebrows arching beneath a fastidiously blocked black homburg, the overcoat collar of carefully brushed velour.

‘Oh, sorry. She’s behind the bar. I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?’

‘A clean killing?’

‘Tidy, I think.’

‘You going to stick around in case there’s anything else you want?’

‘Of course. Prints on that dripping tap above her feet when you get to them.’

Barbault moved the lanterns so that they wouldn’t cast his shadow on the corpse. Popping flashbulbs, he went to work. Merde, how could he be so calm? He didn’t whistle like some, didn’t sing or mutter things to himself like others. ‘A good fuck,’ he said, his voice gruff and echoing. ‘A nice cunt for the old sausage to ram, eh, Inspector? They say he never wears a rubber, that he simply tells them to wash it out!’

‘I’m going to get a breath of air.’

‘Don’t catch your death.’

Jésus, merde alors!

The skies were clear but dark. Always before dawn it got like this, and which cities and towns at home would be in ruins? Jurgen and Hans had been killed at Stalingrad – just kids, really, his sons, and why hadn’t they gone to Argentina like he’d begged them to? Gerda, the ex-wife, was at home on her father’s farm near Wasserburg but was now married to an indentured French farm labourer …

Giselle and Oona were at the flat on the rue Suger in Paris, just around the corner from the house of Madame Chabot and Giselle’s old friends in the profession. Thank God Oona was there to keep an eye on her.

‘I really do have to get them out of France before it’s too late. Louis, too, and Gabrielle, his new love, though that definitely hasn’t been consummated.’ A chanteuse, a war-widow with a ten-year-old son, a beautiful lay who was keeping it only for Louis.

The Résistance would shoot that patriot simply because he worked with one of the Occupier and in their need for vengeance they’d make lots of similar mistakes.

‘Vichy can’t last,’ he muttered as, remembering the matter to hand, he hurried back inside the Hall. ‘Marcel, make sure you get close-ups of those cigar ashes on her front and on the counter, those also at the Buvettes de la Grande Grille and Lucas. I’ll show them to you when you’re ready.’

‘Cigars …?’ gasped a female voice. ‘Ah Sainte Mère, I have brought some for the Maréchal, Inspector.’

‘Just who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing in here?’

Here … Here … came the echoes on the damp, cold air.

‘Inès Charpentier … Sculptress and patcher-up of injured detectives. Is it really true that there is a sadist who rapes and then murders only virgins? I ask simply because … because I may have to work late and return to my boarding house after dark and alone.’

Had there been a catch in her throat? ‘Your information’s a little off. She wasn’t raped and wasn’t a virgin.’

‘Oh. The … the men who are clearing the snow have it wrong then. Are these really cigar ashes, Inspector? You see, the Maréchal detests cigarette smoke but apparently enjoys an occasional cigar, and my director, he … he has sent him a little gift of some Havanas, from Cuba by submarine, I think.’

Had the kid been crying? She was standing behind the bar, with her left hand wrapped tightly around that dripping tap and the other one flat on the counter, smudging the ashes. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at the corpse, was sickened, no doubt, and likely to throw up.

‘Come on,’ said Kohler gently. ‘You need what I need.’

‘And the ashes?’ asked Barbault, not turning from his work.

‘Find the rest of them yourself and then have her moved to the morgue.’

The broom kept going. The man, the boy under torchlight, didn’t look up but down at the snow he was clearing from the covered walk. The jacket of his bleus de travail was open, the coveralls well padded by two bulky pullovers, two flannel shirts and at least one pair of long johns.

A tricolour – a blue-, red- and white-banded scarf – trailed from its tight knotting about the all but absent throat. The face was wide and flat, the dark brown eyes closely spaced under a knitted woollen cap and inwardly grooved by fleshy folds of skin beneath frowning black, bushy brows.

‘Albert,’ said the father gently. ‘The Chief Inspector St-Cyr has come all the way from Paris to speak to you. Surely you could spare him a moment?’

‘I went round as I always do,’ retorted the son. ‘All the doors were locked except for that one!’

The broom flew up to fiercely point at the distant Hall des Sources, indistinct in the darkness.

‘Albert, I know you did. Haven’t I trusted you all these years we’ve worked together here? Inspector, my son is very intelligent, very diligent. No task is too big or too small. Each morning before I and the others arrive, Albert checks round the park to see if there is anything amiss. He found the padlock and chain in the snow beside the entrance to the Hall. The key was still in its lock, the door open.’

‘She was asleep, father! asleep!’

‘Now, now, let’s not have tears in public, eh, Albert? God gave you too much heart, but I know you can be tough on yourself when necessary.’

The nose was wiped, the broom lowered, the sweeping petulantly taken up again.

‘Ah, it’s a little early for our mid-morning snack but when it’s cold like this, a person needs something extra. Would you care to join us, Inspector?’

‘Coffee …’ said Albert slyly. ‘He thinks I’ll be fooled by temptation. Bread … is there any left, Father?’

The elder Grenier patted his jacket pocket but said only, ‘Show the Chief Inspector where our nest is. I’ll just let the others know we’ve gone below.’

The broom was carefully leaned against one of the wrought-iron uprights, the booted feet were stamped to remove their snow. Deep in the cellars beneath the Hotel du Parc, the younger Grenier led him to the furnace room, to straight-backed wooden chairs, a warming pot of real coffee, a small glass jar of honey and one of milk … Simple things most of the nation hadn’t seen or tasted in years.

‘We’re lucky,’ said Albert shyly. ‘This is our very own place. Warm in winter, cool in summer.’

There were newspapers, well-read by others no doubt, before being gathered and smuggled down here. The Völkischer Beobachter – the People’s Observer, in Deutsch that probably none of the caretakers could understand. Die Woche, too, the Nazis’ weekly magazine with lots of pictures, and Signal – Hitler’s own magazine. Paris-Soir, Le Matin and other Paris dailies were with them – all collaborationist, all thin and heavily censored, but among these, and more significantly, were copies of L’Oeuvre Rassemblement National Populaire, the paper of Marcel Déat’s violently fanatical collaborationist and fascist party, and Le Cri du Peuple, that of Jacques Doriot and his PPF, the Parti Populaire Français, equally pro-fascist and violently collaborationist. The extreme far right of Paris, who reviled and ridiculed everything Vichy did and constantly plotted to take over.

‘Those were the doctor’s,’ spat Albert, indicating L’Oeuvre and Le Cri. ‘He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him either, but I prefer to read these.’

Stabs had been made at filling in the pictures of the colouring book but crayons were in such short supply only a few colours had been used.

‘Read this one, Inspector. It’s special.’

One had best say something. ‘The pictures are lovely. Perhaps the …’

‘They’re the nicest I’ve ever received as a present! That’s what it says.’

So it did.

‘This one is also my book.’

A fairy tale, an illustrated biography of the Maréchal who was pictured in a two-page spread as a fatherly figure sitting before a group of young children under a giant oak. Vichy flooded the country with its propaganda. Texts and books like this were in every school and at every reading level.

‘“And as he spoke,”’ said Albert reverently, ‘“all the rats, the wasps and worms that had done so much damage to la belle France – the termites, too, and spiders – suddenly ran away.” He promised he would make things better and he did, Inspector. He really did! He’s a good man. A great man. He has even signed my book – see, that is his very own writing.’

A forefinger was stabbed at the inscription.

Patience … I must have patience, said St-Cyr silently to himself. ‘Dated 4 November 1941 … Did the Maréchal also give you that ring?’

I’d better shake my head, thought Albert. I’d better not look at him. ‘I found it.’

‘In the Hall des Sources?’

The man, the boy, cringed. There was a nod, a further turning away and yanking off of the knitted cap. ‘It’s pretty. It’s mine. Finders keepers, losers weepers!’

‘Of course, but was it near her, Albert?’

‘I’m not listening. I can’t hear you.’

‘Albert, you’d best tell the Inspector,’ urged the father, pushing past them to warm his hands by clasping the coffee pot.

‘Do I have to?’

‘Ah mon Dieu, mon vieux, need you ask? Show him that you’re good at cooperating with the police and that you know right from wrong.’

‘He’ll only want it for himself.’

‘Just tell him, Albert.’ But had the boy found something else? wondered Grenier. Something so dear he would yield the one to keep secret the other?

‘It … it was lying on the bar of the Buvette du Parc when my torch discovered it as if by magic. Real magic!’

‘And then?’ prompted the father.

‘I … I found her in the Buvette du Chomel. Chomel!’

‘Now have your coffee, Albert. Serve the Inspector first. Put a little honey in his and some milk. Inspector, let my son keep the ring. It can’t be of any value.’

‘It’s too dangerous. Believe me, the fewer who know of it, the better.’

‘But … but surely Albert is no threat to this … this assassin?’

‘But the ring is, Monsieur Grenier. That band is from an El Rey del Mundo – the King of the World – cigar. A Choix Supreme or Corona Deluxe.’

‘A Choix Supreme, but it could just as easily have been a Romeo y Julieta Corona or a Davidoff Grand Cru. The Maréchal occasionally enjoys a cigar and that band is not the first of such rings my son has worn until they are so torn they can’t be mended. There are gold coins on it, and a gold coat of arms, but it’s mainly because, with him, by wearing it he feels just a little bit closer to his hero.’

‘Then tell him that if he values the Maréchal’s life he’ll let me have a piece of evidence that could well lead us to the killer.’

There is something else, thought Grenier. Albert is giving the ring up too easily. That sly and rapid glance he has just tossed the Inspector only confirms it. Sacré nom de nom, what am I to do? Stop him now, or wait to find out for myself?

I’d best wait. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. The boy’s upset enough as it is, and we can’t have that. Not with les Allemands and their Gestapo now here in force, not with the way they are known to treat such people.

Black coffee, hot, freshly baked croissants, real blackberry jam and a glass of brandy sat before the girl. Timidly Inés Charpentier reached for the napkin-draped wicker basket and brought it close.

‘It’s like a dream,’ she said, exhaling softly. ‘White sugar on the table. These,’ she said, indicating the croissants. ‘They’ve been banned in Paris and the rest of the zone occupée since the fall of 1940. And this? Oh for sure it’s an eau-de-vie de marc from the Auvergne and exactly what is needed to settle me down, but on a no-alcohol day? It is a Thursday. Aren’t Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the pas-d’alcools days even here in Vichy? I wouldn’t want to be arrested and you are, after all, a …’ She wouldn’t say Gestapo, said Inés to herself. ‘A detective.’

The kid had really been shaken up by the murder, still was for that matter. ‘Relax. Forget about the war and the Occupation. Tell me about yourself.’

Somehow she must try to keep her mind on things and try not to panic, thought Inés. ‘There’s not much to tell,’ she said, but did Herr Kohler find wariness in such a modest reply? ‘I sculpt and have done so since a child. Garden clay first, then plasticine – sketching things too. When one is driven by loneliness to such an urge one does not question it at first but only later sees that behind the desire there must have been escape. I’m happiest still when working and need little else.’

A simple soul, Louis would have said, that Sûreté head of his full of doubt simply because the kid, on viewing the corpse, had inadvertently destroyed whatever fingerprints had been on that dripping tap and had left her own in their place and elsewhere. Or had it been inadvertent? Ach, why must he always be expected to suspect the worst? Why must Louis constantly demand answers to everything? The kid was clean, no problem, but … ‘Do you live at home?’ he asked.

‘Ah, no. I’ve a studio in Paris.’

Offer little, Louis would have said and impatiently clucked that tongue of his as he nodded, but everyone tried to offer little these days. ‘That’s a pretty big city, isn’t it? My partner and I are seldom there.’

And you don’t know it well – is this what you’re trying to tell me, monsieur? wondered Inés, pleased that her resolve had stiffened. ‘It’s on the rue du Douanier* at … at number 5. One of several, and unheated these days or in the past, for that matter.’

‘Rent?’

‘Two sixty-five a month.’ Did he know Paris and its struggling artists well enough to see the truth of this reply?

‘Salary?’

‘Twelve hundred from the Musée and whatever else I can earn through part-time teaching and private commissions. It’s not even that of a ticket-taker on the métro, but don’t people always say that artists are doing what they like?’

‘Family?’

‘None.’

‘That’s too brief an answer, mademoiselle. Surely you’ve a past?’

And with croissants waiting! ‘My father is buried near Verdun, my mother in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. Father’s brother and sister-in-law took me in when I was two years old, Inspector. Both of them were much older than my parents and childless, and both have since sadly passed away.’

‘But they let you sculpt?’

‘Of course.’

‘Their names, then?’

She was becoming flustered, must remain calm! ‘Inspector, I thought I was to relax? Charpentier – what else? André-Émile, accountant for Le Printemps, one of the big department stores, and Odette née Marteau. I’ve some photos – a few even of the father and mother I never knew, but these, they are in a cardboard box in my studio.’ Would he check this out? Would he? demanded Inès silently.

‘Forgive me,’ he said and grinned boyishly – a nice grin, bien sûr, but … ‘Sometimes I hate myself,’ he said. ‘You have to understand that my partner is always on about my letting the prettiest of girls take advantage of me. He’ll ask what I’ve learned and I’ll have to have something to tell him. You’ve no idea what he’s like. A real pain in the ass!’

Was that definitely all there was to the inquisition? wondered Inés. ‘You are forgiven and … and the compliment is much appreciated though I fear I am far too thin these days.’

And can’t get much to eat even on the black market, since about 600 francs a day was needed! ‘Salut,’ said Kohler, raising his glass to her. ‘À votre santé.’

‘Et à vous, monsieur.’

It was only in passing that he mentioned the quartier Petit-Montrouge, the Parc de Montsouris, and the École de Dressage, which was at the end of the street, thus letting her know that he knew Paris well enough but that she didn’t have to worry.

But I will, said Inés to herself. There were deep circles around her eyes and he had noticed them, no doubt concluding that they weren’t just from hunger but from too many late nights – particularly the one that had brought her here on the same train as he and that partner of his. The same! Would he check its passenger list? Would he?

More coffee came. The girl sat back with hands in her lap as the waiter poured.

‘Merci,’ whispered Inés, and then … then tried to smile across the table at this giant from the Kripo with the terrible scar down the left side of his face. ‘The Chante Clair Restaurant of the Hotel Majestic is lovely, isn’t it?’ she heard herself saying. ‘Very fin de siècle – turn of the century. Very of another time. Ferns and fishtail palms, Kentias and rubber plants – the smell of the orange and lemon trees in their glazed jardinieres – tulip shades of soft amber glass on goose-necked lamps and, above the widows, stained-glass panels of ladies bathing or drinking the waters and taking the cure.’

The place was filling up. Ministers of this and that would arrive singly or with their wives; the respective assistants would wait patiently, then dash in to ask if anything was required of them, or they would divulge the latest little confidence. Often there were glances up and around, whispers about the two visitors – these two, thought Inés, only to see Herr Kohler grinning at her again and hear him saying, ‘Don’t worry so much. The Minister of Culture won’t pester you while I’m here.’

Was this safer ground? ‘They’re all so serious,’ she whispered, leaning across the table as he did towards her. ‘No one smiles, all seem worried and not among friends.’

‘Tall, thin, short, corpulent or otherwise, they’re all wondering what the hell they should do. Leave the ship or stay until it goes down.’

Had Herr Kohler seen right through her? Had he wanted to test her yet another time? ‘I … I know nothing of such things. For me, it’s enough to have been chosen to do such an important commission, and my room and board is only one hundred francs in total, Inspector, for as long as it takes. A fabulous deal. Mind you, I doubt the family with whom I’m to board will be able to provide such luxuries.’

And where is it, exactly, that you’re staying? She could see him wondering this but there was no time for him to ask.

‘Inspector … Mon Dieu, you certainly don’t waste time! Mademoiselle …?’

It was the Secrétaire Géneéral of Police. Incredibly young and handsome for one so powerful, thought Inés, his eyes alive with imagined mischief and loving the joke of what he’d come upon. The hair, neatly trimmed and well back from the forehead, was parted high and to the left; the white shirt and blue tie were immaculate and showed clearly through the open V of his overcoat because there was no scarf, the broad lambskin collar making him look like an immensely successful banker or investment broker.

A lighted cigarette was held between the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. There were nicotine stains on those fingers … ‘Charpentier, monsieur,’ she heard herself telling him. ‘Inès.’

‘The sculptress. Herr Kohler, I might have known! He has a reputation with the ladies, mademoiselle. I would watch it with him if I were you.’

Monsieur Bousquet sat down but continued to enjoy his little discovery. If he was upset about anything at all, he wasn’t going to let the assembled even guess at it. Dashing, always impeccably dressed and self-confident, he was one of the most well-informed and well-connected men in the country and yet here she was sitting at a table with him.

The Maréchal arrived with Premier Laval. Dr Ménétrel was right behind them. Throughout the dining room, coffee cups were put down, croissants abandoned, napkins quickly used and set aside as everyone stood.

The Glacier and the Moroccan carpet dealer, the horse-trader, the shady operator – le Maquignon – headed across the room to where a screen hid the Maréchal’s table from prying eyes.

Pétain said a brief good morning to everyone. Laval said nothing, Ménétrel ducking round behind the screen to join the conference, Bousquet … Bousquet saying, ‘If you will excuse me, Herr Kohler, mademoiselle, I’d best see what’s up.’

He, too, went behind the leaded glass panels on which bare-shouldered maidens, swathed in soft white towels, their curls pinned up, dabbled their pretty toes in the rushing waters of an imaginary stream.

The four of them are behind that screen, said Inés to herself, but to Herr Kohler, who was watching her reactions closely, she would have to say with a smile she knew would be weak and would utterly fail to mask her thoughts, ‘There is Vichy, Inspector. If you had told me this morning that I would shortly see them gathered around one table like that, I would not have believed you. Now I must leave. Excuse me, please. My presence here will only cause you further embarrassment, and I would not want that.’

Seen in the reflection from the corridor’s wall mirror and through a side entrance, the Chante Clair’s clientele grew increasingly uneasy. Whispers here, others there, thought Inès as she straightened her cloche and tidied her scarf. Oh bien sûr, they were now worried. Rumours of an aborted assassination attempt must have circulated; a dancer had been murdered – slaughtered perhaps to protect the identity of the would-be assassin. A hurried, urgent conference had been convened with the Maréchal …

From either side of that privacy screen they came, the conference suddenly terminated, Bousquet swift and no longer looking so confident, Ménétrel and Premier Laval grim and to the left, the Auvergnat easily elbowing the doctor out of the way so that the closest of empty chairs could be grabbed.

One by one they sat down at Herr Kohler’s table, leaving the Maréchal to dine alone but with thoughts of what? she asked herself. The nearness of death while having adulterous sex with a beautiful but lonely young woman whose child had had to be left in Paris, messieurs? Paris! The lack of guards? The affront of their not having been on duty?

‘I’d best join my partner, hadn’t I?’

Ah Sainte Mère, it was the Chief Inspector St-Cyr. For how long had he been watching her? From the moment she had sat down over coffee and croissants with his partner or simply now?

Doubt, suspicion and a too-evident interest filled the look he gave her, since she had pretended to tidy herself in the mirror …

He had seen right through her. Not waiting for a reply, the Sûreté departed. Fedora in hand and overcoat unbuttoned, he headed for that table and, seizing a free chair along the way, took it with him.

Then he, too, sat down but next to his partner so as to face the others and yet also see her still standing in this corridor.

Ducking her eyes, the girl turned away from the mirror, soon to cross the foyer and leave the hotel. A sculptress, said St-Cyr to himself. A patcher-up of battered detectives.

‘Hermann, a moment. Let me begin.’

‘No, you let me!’ seethed Ménétrel. ‘Which of you idiots told the lift operator that the Maréchal’s life had been threatened? Come, come, messieurs. I told you to be discreet – I warned you!’

‘Bernard … Bernard, go easy,’ urged Laval, his olive-dark eyes glistening.

‘Easy, when the Maréchal has learned the Garde Mobile were not on duty and is furious? He’s … he’s demanding a full inquiry!’

‘But neither of these two would have released such information,’ said Laval, shaking his head. ‘These things simply have a way of getting out, Bernard.’

‘And to his ears?’

‘His good one, I trust. The Maréchal’s stone deaf in the left one, Inspectors.’

‘Messieurs, please,’ cautioned Louis. ‘This key was taken from the groundskeepers’ board in the furnace room of the Hotel du Parc. Whoever took it not only knew where to find it, but more importantly, since none of the keys was identified, exactly which one would be needed.’

‘A town resident, an employee, perhaps,’ said Ménétrel, not looking at them. ‘One who has passed by that padlock every day and has seen it many times.’

The key looked as if suitable for any padlock of that vintage. ‘Why the Hall des Sources?’ asked Laval. ‘Why plan to take the Maréchal there? Why not simply kill him in that bedroom of his?’

‘The girl would almost certainly have screamed,’ said Kohler. ‘There would have been a scuffle. Others would have been awakened and, if not, the Maréchal is still surprisingly fit.’

‘He exercises. I do the best I can,’ muttered Ménétrel testily. ‘If neither of you let it out, who did?’

It was Laval who, lighting another cigarette from the butt of the one he’d been smoking, calmly said, ‘Why not ask the switchboard operator, Bernard? You know as well as I do that the Maréchal always rings downstairs first thing in the morning to ask if there have been any calls.’

‘Sacré, that bitch! I’ll see she’s dismissed. Just let me get my hands on her. Passing classified information. Breaking our strict rules about secrecy …’

‘See to it, Bernard. We can’t have that happening, can we?’ urged the Premier, as the doctor bolted from the table to make his way across the room. ‘Red-faced and in a rage,’ chuckled Laval, delighted by the result, but then, taking a deep drag and exhaling smoke through his nostrils, he returned to business. ‘There’s more to this, isn’t there? Inspectors, you can and must speak freely. Secrétaire Général Bousquet and I are as one, and we both need to know.’

Bousquet remained watchfully silent, his cigarette still.

‘A man and a woman,’ said Louis levelly. ‘The first to encounter the victim and then to take her to the Hall, the second to lie in wait there.’

‘Two assailants … A team, is that it, eh?’ demanded Bousquet, sickened by the thought.

‘A vengeance killing?’ asked Laval. ‘Assuming, of course, that the Maréchal really was the intended victim and that this Madame Dupuis had simply to be silenced.’

‘As of now the matter is still open to question,’ confessed Louis and, finding that pipe of his and a too-thin tobacco pouch, frowned at necessity’s need but decided it would have to be satisfied.

‘He takes for ever to pack that thing,’ quipped Kohler. ‘It helps him think.’

And there is still more to this, isn’t there? thought Laval. That is why this partner and friend of yours is so carefully giving me the once over. He sees the hank of straight jet-black hair that always seems to fall over the right half of my brow to all but touch that eye. He sees not so much the swiftness of my glance as the glint of constant suspicion. He notes my dark olive skin, bad teeth, the nicotine stains, the full and thick moustache, double chin, the squat and all but non-existent neck and the white tie that has been so much a part of me since my earliest days as a trade-union lawyer and socialist candidate in Aubervilliers. He says to himself that tie really does make me stand out for any would-be assassins but readily admits I will never be persuaded to change it.

But does he hate me too? Does he call me, as so many do, le Maquignon, or is his interest simply that of detachment, the detective in him a student of life out of necessity?

St-Cyr returned the questioning gaze. Tough … mon Dieu, this one was that and much more. Premier from January 1931 to February 1932, Foreign Minister from May of ’32 until June ’35, Premier again until January ’36, after which he’d been out of office until September ’39 but always there behind the scenes, and back as Premier from July ’40 until his arrest on 13 December of that first year of the Occupation and now, since April ’42, Premier again.

‘A self-made man, Inspector,’ acknowledged Laval. ‘The youngest son of a butcher, café owner, innkeeper and postman – Father had a lot of irons in the fire and a wife and four children to feed. Châteldon is less than twenty kilometres to the south and a tiny place, but it’s home, you understand, and my house is the one on the hill.’

The château Laval had been bought in 1932 after that first term as Premier. He’d left the village when still a schoolboy, had insisted on taking his baccalauréat, then a degree in Zoology, then Law and, to finance himself, had taken a position as a pion, a supervisor of secondary schools in Lyons, Saint Étienne, Dijon …

He had bought into and then come to own several newspapers, Radio-Lyons and printing presses – the one in Clermont-Ferrand did all of Vichy’s printing and had done so since July 1940, even after his arrest by the Garde Mobile. One of his companies bottled a mineral water – La Sergentale – which was reputed to be a cure for impotence and had been sold on railways and oceanic liners before the war (now only on the trains, of course). Farming, too, was among his business interests, wine also.

‘A happy family man, eh, René?’ he said, looking steadily at Bousquet. ‘One who adores his only child and daughter and dearly loves his wife, so doesn’t fool around with those of others. But if you are as well informed as I think you are, Inspectors, you will also be aware that my Jeanne often refers to the distinct possibility of Madame Pétain’s having Jewish blood in her family, whereas that good woman constantly refers to me behind my back as “that Moroccan carpet dealer”, or even “that Jamaick” – that Jamaican – she having dug that last one up from my days as a schoolboy more than fifty years ago.’

‘An éminence grise,’ said Louis guardedly, ‘but one who, whether I agree or not with your policies, causes me to realize that you are no ordinary man and that with you, things had best be up front.’

‘Two assailants?’ prompted Bousquet.

‘The female, having gained access to the Hall, removed her overcoat and, most probably, also a woollen jersey. Then, after lighting a cigar, waited for her victim.’

‘A cigar …?’ blurted Laval. ‘Was it one of Pétain’s?’

‘There’s a humidor in his office, Inspectors,’ interjected Bousquet. ‘People come and go all day long. Any of them could have helped themselves or been offered one they did not smoke at the time.’

Lost to the thought, Laval muttered, ‘Someone so close, he, she or both can come and go as they please, with us none the wiser. Is this what you’re suggesting, René?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘But … but cigars are available elsewhere?’ cautioned Laval. ‘The Marquis de Bon Goût, on the boulevard du Casino at the other end of the park, has plenty, Inspectors. Ask the elder Paquet to go through his register. Take the old man into your confidence a little. He knows everything there is to know about this town, save what’s left of the nation’s government. Maybe even that too.’ He glanced at his pocket watch and then turned again to Bousquet. ‘Rene, make certain they tell you everything. Relay it to me but keep that little Florentine intriguer of a doctor in the dark, eh? Find out who among his overblown staff knew about this liaison he’d arranged and if that person or persons squeaked it to anyone else, including the members of his private army. Let us show that starchy Rasputin a thing or two and baste his goose with the sauce it deserves!’

‘A moment, Premier,’ cautioned Louis as Laval got up to leave. ‘The killer knew enough about the heart muscle to know it would be best to enlarge the hole she was putting in it.’

‘The haft of the knife was lifted hard before the blade was withdrawn,’ offered Kohler blandly, ‘so we’re dealing with a professional and had best keep it in mind.’

‘And is the Maréchal the only target,’ snorted Laval, ‘or is it that this double-barrelled assassin of ours wants us all to feel the coup de grâce before it arrives?’

The finishing stroke … ‘We shall have to see,’ said Louis.

‘Premier, your use of the name Flykiller in the telex you sent Gestapo Boemelburg?’ asked Kohler.

Laval threw Bousquet a silencing glance. ‘Assassin would have been too harsh a word for the sensitive ears of our comrades and allies, Inspector. Surely as one of them, you would agree? Enjoy the coffee. Rene, a further word in private. Walk me to my office. Catch up with these two later.’

‘Transport …’ hazarded Hermann. Laval had left the table.

‘I’ll see what can be arranged,’ shot Bousquet. ‘For now, the morgue is within easy walking distance and she’ll soon be moved. Wait there, and don’t either of you go anywhere else until we’ve spoken. Please, I must insist. Have a look at those first two corpses and let us hope there won’t be any more.’

Daylight had finally crept over the Allier Valley to expose the iron fist of a purplish-grey ice fog. Out on the rue Petit breath steamed. Bundled up, some of them with only their eyes uncovered, people hurried to work, mostly civil servants and cursing weather that was normal for. the Auvergne at this time of year, so good, that was good, thought Kohler. They ought to suffer like the rest of us!

Vélo-taxis, those wretched bicycle-rickshaw things the Occupation’s lack of petrol and automobiles had brought, waited in a line outside the Hotels du Parc and Majestic. Blankets for the passengers and vacuum flasks of those equally wretched herbal teas, the tisanes Louis loved to drink. Anything for a few sous. There’d even be a ‘little charge’ for the rental of the blankets.

A horse-drawn cutter looked better. Whistling shrilly, Louis threw up a hand, startling the mare into going back on her hind legs. ‘Sûreté and Gestapo,’ he shouted before dropping his voice to all but a whisper. ‘The Hotel d’Allier, monsieur, and make it snappy unless you want this animal of yours to leave for the Russian Front.’

No patience whatsoever and still knows damn all about horses, snorted Kohler to himself. ‘Idiot, don’t speak like that in front of or behind her. She’s sensitive. She’ll …’

‘She was volunteered for service and rejected seven times, monsieur,’ said the driver, bitching silently too, and with a dead fag end glued to his lower lip and a moustache that was coated with frost.

‘Jésus, merde alors,’ shrilled Louis, ‘must we have an argument?’

‘Only if you insist,’ countered Hippolyte Simard as the two from Paris clambered into the sleigh without permission.

‘Then the eighth review will be her one-way ticket to adventure and your loss,’ went on Louis. ‘Now get this crap-heap moving.’

The stitched-up wound above the left eye was cruel, the goose-egg red and probably still swelling. A fight, then, chuckled Simard to himself, so good – yes, it was good to see a cop that had been taught a lesson, though this one had obviously not yet learned it!

‘Paris … Must all those who come from the centre of the world lord it over us, Marguerite? Pay no attention to the acid, mon ange. Let us do as this flic asks and leave others to question his manners.’

Oh-oh, this wasn’t going to end unless someone intervened. ‘Louis, I thought we were to head for the morgue?’

‘Certainly.’

‘The morgue, messieurs? But it’s at the other end of …’

‘Just do as you’ve told the angel who’s doing all the work unless you want to take her place. Repeat anything we’ve said and you’ll be wearing two of what I’ve got on my forehead!’

‘He’s right. I wouldn’t fool with him,’ grinned Kohler. ‘If you think this is cold, you ought to try Russia.’

Silence followed.

‘There, that shut him up,’ sighed Kohler, sitting back. ‘You should always leave such things to me, Louis. No arguments. He simply hears authority in my voice and understands.’

‘Sacré, you’re sounding like the Occupier! If I were you, I’d be careful.’

They turned towards the river and were soon racing through the English Garden that Napoléon III had commissioned in 1861. Snow on the branches of the silver birches and tulip trees, last leaves still clinging … More snow on the Lebanese cedars. A bandstand … a rose arbour … a lone woman carrying a thin burlap sack of sticks, a German officer on a dappled grey, others of the Occupier on skis and looking as if on holiday, still others on patrol – twenty in all and most of them boys no older than seventeen, wearing cut-down uniforms that were still far too big for them.

‘They look ridiculous,’ said Kohler sadly. ‘But why couldn’t my boys have had that chance? Paradise here; hell where they died.’

A large swastika flew above the entrance to one of the villas that had been built in those early days, the Turkish flag was next door, the tricolour still in the near distance atop the Hôtel du Parc.

‘Maybe God thought He needed them in Russia, Hermann, just as He thinks we’re needed here.’

Louis was always calling that God of his to account for being miserable to honest, hard-working detectives. ‘You know Bousquet doesn’t want us to go anywhere but the morgue.’

‘And that, mon enfant, is exactly why we’re going elsewhere!’

‘You want to have a look at where he supposedly found the carte d’identité that should have been with our victim and in her handbag or pocket.’

‘Why the earrings, Hermann? Why try to hide them? Was it simply fear of robbery or was there some other reason for that Florentine intriguer’s saying to me with all sincerity that he “wished he knew who’d given them to her”?’

‘Admit it, you were stopped cold in your tracks. Don’t be bitter. The good doctor just wanted to make certain he was out of bed and at the hotel before we got there.’

‘You leave Henri-Claude Ferbrave to me. I don’t need my big Bavarian brother to take care of such things.’

‘Flies, Louis? Why the hell did Laval throw Bousquet such a silencing glance when asked about that telex?’

Good for Hermann. ‘High-ranking administrators, even those as gifted as our secrétaire général, must be cautioned from time to time. He also shouldn’t have told us he had found the victim’s ID in her room and has now realized the killer or someone else must have deliberately put it there, and so he is worried he might have missed something else.’

They had arrived at the Hôtel d’Allier. The mare was sucking air. ‘Louis, what’s a Florentine intriguer?’

‘The Medici, the Renaissance, deceit, treachery, torture and court killings that time alone has not been able to erase the memory of. Their knives, dirks and especially their ghastly poisons. Stick around. I’m sure you’ll have ample opportunity to find out!’

‘And when I do?’

Must Hermann always have the last word even when they were in a hurry? ‘Just make sure you’re right behind me.’

They were running now, going up the steep and narrow staircases two and three steps at a time. At each landing, hips banged against waist-high wooden wainscoting, shoulders against wallpaper whose turn-of-the-century flowers were faded.

Gleaming, the banister’s railing and darker spindles led the way, their steps hardly muffled by the thin carpet.

‘One more floor,’ managed Kohler. ‘Right up under the eaves where the help used to sleep.’

A garret … In the spring of 1940 Vichy had had a population of 25,000, which had now almost doubled. The Hotel d’Allier, never first or second class during the fin de siècle or at any time since, had been converted into a rooming house for the legions of secretaries and clerks that had been needed – dancers too, and singers.

‘Number 3,’ swore St-Cyr, catching a breath and vowing to smoke only certified tobacco, not the sometimes necessary experiments with dried, uncured beet tops, celery leaves and other things.

The doorknob was of white porcelain, the lock not difficult. Through the lace curtains of a grimy mansard window, daylight filtered to touch the terracotta pots of a tiny kitchen garden – herbs, chives, green onions, lettuces, geraniums too – and among these, as if it belonged there for ever, a plump white rabbit stirred in its little cage but otherwise ignored them.

She hadn’t been able to bring herself to kill it, thought St-Cyr, parting the curtains. So many kept meat on the hoof in their flats and rooms these days. Guinea pigs, the latest Paris food fad, chickens, pigeons – cats that had been captured, kidnapped dogs too, if they could be silenced and were obedient.

The small glass pitcher she had used to water things had shattered with the frost but there was water in the rabbit’s dish and even winter grass that must have been recently scavenged from one of the parks or country roadsides.

Beyond the roofs of houses that would some day surely be demolished, he could see the river and above its far bank the racecourse and stables. Upstream, a little to his left, was a narrow weir and footbridge, the Pont Barrage, and to his right and downstream, the much wider, larger Boutiron Bridge.

Though still well within the town, they were some distance from the Hôtel du Parc. ‘The blackout curtains have been opened, Hermann.’

‘Louis, Bousquet is already taking the lift.’

The sound of it came clearly through the walls. An iron four-poster, one of its brass knobs long gone, was unmade, but the pillows had been smoothed. A clutch of hairpins marked the place where Céline Dupuis had last sat.

There was a photograph of her daughter, another, in uniform, of the husband who’d been killed during the Blitzkrieg, a third of her parents and the house at 60 rue Lhomond.’

The leather-clad alarm clock from the early thirties had stopped at 11.22. The alarm, though, had been set for 7 a.m.

‘A rehearsal?’ asked Kohler.

‘She left in a hurry on Tuesday,’ muttered St-Cyr. ‘Flannelette pyjamas, heavy woollen socks, a cardigan, knitted gloves and a toque are in a heap on the carpet next to that wicker fauteuil she must have rescued from the hotel’s garden. On that side table below the wall mirror whose gilding has long disappeared there are a tin basin and a large enamelled pitcher of water whose ice she would have had to break had she not been in such a hurry. The facecloth, towel and carefully rationed sliver of soap are neatly piled and were unused.’

‘Louis, the lift. It’s stopped.’

‘Must you keep on about it? There are still two sets of stairs for him to climb. Just let me memorize the room.’

‘You haven’t time. Why not concentrate on the bed? Women who’ve been out working late at night and have to get up early invariably hug the pillows for a stolen moment after the alarm’s been shut off. If I were you, mein brillanter Oberdetektiv, I’d be asking myself who the hell slipped in here to tidy up?’

‘The same person who fed and watered the rabbit?’

‘And opened the blackout curtains?’

‘Or the one who …’

‘Nom de Jésus-Christ, do you two not listen?’ demanded Bousquet, fedora in hand as he stormed breathlessly into the room. ‘I told you to go to the morgue I …’

‘You felt it prudent to beat us here, Secrétaire,’ said Louis, not backing off. ‘You had, I think, to take another look in case whoever left her identity card but not her handbag had also left something you had missed.’

‘Nothing … There was nothing else.’

‘No ration tickets? No residence permit?’ They were all but shouting.

‘All right, all right! Those must have been in that overcoat you found, Kohler, and were taken from it, or were in her bag which has yet to be found, and yes, whoever killed her came back here afterwards to leave the card!’

‘And these?’ asked Louis, removing the first of the freshened pillows to expose a neat little pink-ribboned bundle of letters in their scented envelopes.

‘Those weren’t there when we found her carte d’identité on Wednesday morning,’ managed Bousquet, sickened by what must have happened. ‘We searched. Mon Dieu, but we did. Ménétrel insisted on accompanying me and at the time I realized those must have been what he was after, but they simply weren’t there then.’

Not then. ‘So this unknown visitor must have come back?’ asked Louis.

‘Yes!’

‘And recently, too,’ said Kohler, indicating the curtains. ‘Had we not been here, Secrétaire, I wonder what might have happened to you? A big place like this and you here all on your own.’

‘And waterers of rabbits are killers, are they?’

He had a point. ‘Were no fingerprints taken after that visit?’ demanded St-Cyr.

‘Ah! don’t be so difficult. It was a crisis.’

‘And how, please, did you and the doctor find her carte d’identité?’

‘Why should it matter?’

‘Just answer, please,’ said Louis, keeping up the pressure.

‘On the bedside table, leaning up against that photograph of her husband.’

‘As a warning?’

‘As a reminder, perhaps, of our lost heroism. All right, it was deliberately left there for me, or so I felt at the time.’

‘Why you, Secrétaire?’

‘I … I don’t really know.’

‘And Dr Ménétrel?’

‘Felt the same, I’m certain.’

‘A visit that was done after the killing and that anticipated your coming here,’ said Louis. ‘And then another, which anticipated our own and yours again. It’s odd, is it not?’

‘Look, people come and go in this place at all hours up to and even beyond the curfew. Anyone could have slipped in and out if asked to – the killer too, of course. Old Rigaud, the concierge, was having a hell of a time keeping track of the residents and finally went on strike. They were driving him crazy simply for the fun of it, so we had to let him stay on.’

‘Please wait downstairs or in your car, Secrétaire. Hermann and I won’t be long.’

‘Will there be fingerprints on those?’ He indicated the letters.

‘Other than the Maréchal’s, Madame Dupuis’s and those of any number of postal clerks, since the letters were mailed? Not likely, but they’ll have to be dusted.’

‘Then don’t tell the doctor what you’ve found. Let him continue to worry about them. Learn that it’s always best to keep him in the dark and distracted.’

‘Merde, Louis, he’s really edgy,’ sighed Kohler when Bousquet had left them. ‘Does he think he’s the target?’

‘He must, but does the killer or the one who took her to the Hall have a room here, Hermann, or do both of them? And is this what our secrétaire is now wondering since you so kindly pointed it out to him?’

‘Someone so close to each of them, he, she or they can come and go at will and all are targets.’

‘Pétain and his right hand; Laval and his. And why, please, did Monsieur Bousquet not drag along the local flics, eh? Look for little things, Hermann. Things that will tell us not only who our victim really was but why the Secrétaire Général de Police should have such a lapse of duty.’

‘Things that may have been missed by our visitor or left on purpose, Dummkopf. Things we might never know the reason for their being here but others will.’

A Saint Louis crystal perfume bottle was still in its presentation box, tucked away at the back of her dressing table drawer. Right inside the lid, and probably never read by Pétain, there was a note: Maréchal, please accept this small token for your dear wife in recognition of our esteem and devotion to you both. It was signed M. Jean-Paul Brisset and Mme Marie-Louise of 32a bis rue Dupanloup, Orléans. Though their numbers had dwindled, Pétain still regularly received such gifts from supporters all over the country. A bit of lacework from Normandy, a Sèvres soup tureen or vase, silver tea and coffee services, paintings too, signed and sent by their artists, books by their authors. All such things ended up in storage rooms at the stately home, the maison de maître, he had rented as a weekend retreat in the tiny village of Charmeil just six kilometres by road to the north-west of Vichy.

Céline Dupuis had obviously read the note and had carefully returned it to its place before shoving the box well out of sight.

Hermann was thumping a book he’d taken from the pile she’d been reading when time allowed …

‘La Cuisinière Bourgeoise et Économique, Louis. Well thumbed, somewhat tattered and probably published in 1890.’

The charming housewife on the cover wore a long, striped white and red dress, with white apron and frilly cap, but was holding a bloodied butcher’s knife that was far more than needed to decapitate the chicken she’d just finished plucking for the steaming pot on the stove behind her.

‘But why learn to cook, Louis, unless you plan to leave here or at least to leave the profession you’re in?’

The wicker hamper at the woman’s feet had spilled a rush of vegetables on to the floor. Pots hung in the background; pots that now would have been commandeered for scrap metals!

‘Do you really need the reminder, eh? You know damned well people go to the films to watch the feasting, and that they read cookbooks that are centuries old just to taste the food they can only dream about.’

She hadn’t heated the leftovers of some ‘coffee’ in a pot on the simple electric ring that served for all cooking. There were three carrots in the little larder, a thin slice of questionable cheese, a bit of bread – the grey ‘National’ everyone hated – two onions, a few cloves of garlic and some cubes of Viandox, a beef tea that was all but absent from the shops. Little else.

Her underwear, beyond a couple of pairs of pre-war silk, was nothing special, thought Kohler. Manufactured lace on the brassieres, a pair of black, meshed stockings she’d rolled up and had set aside to try to mend, a few slips and half-slips …

‘Blouses, Hermann. Part of a costume, perhaps. The uniform of a troupe. Look for ones with cheap, mother-of-pearl cufflinks that may have been left in. Her killer might have been a colleague.’

Kohler went quickly through the contents of the armoire. Evening dresses, halter-necked and off-the-shoulder ones, a couple of suits with trousers, a few skirts …

The flat box of pre-war cardboard, a gift, was lined with tissue paper, the halter-necked dress of a soft, silvery silk over which were panels of see-through, vertically pleated strands, each about three millimetres apart and five centimetres long, separated by horizontal panels of scalloped, sequined lace. A long strand of blue sapphires lay atop the dress. A fortune.

‘The earrings, Louis. Were they to have been worn with this?’

‘The shoes … There are leather high heels to match.’

‘She’d have looked fabulous in them.’

‘No attempt has been made to steal the sapphires.’

‘Then were these left for us to find along with the love letters?’

‘The perfume, Hermann. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s the same as our sculptress wore. It’s Shalimar, one of Guerlain’s, and was a smash hit in 1925. Sandalwood, bergamot and jasmine, absolute rose and iris, but vanilla also and that is what set it off to create the sensation it did at the International Exhibition in the Grand Palais. Our victim was wearing it when killed. This cheap little phial was on her dressing table.’

‘And a hugely expensive dress from the twenties,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Did de Fleury give it to her, and if so, why the hell didn’t he tell her to wear it?’

‘You’re forgetting the sapphires.’

‘And that she must have put the earrings on after de Fleury had let her out at the hotel.’

‘But were the necklace, the dress and the earrings all from the same person?’

‘Blue eyes and fabulous blue stones, Louis. Nice and dark.’

The strand was dangled. ‘Surely no résistant worth his salt would have left these when funds are so desperately needed by them?’

‘And the ID, Chief?’

‘Could well have been left by a résistant, yes.’

A tail feather from a male hen harrier had been used as a quill in an unsuccessful attempt at writing a postcard to the daughter. That of a pigeon had proved little better but the victim was, she had stated, ‘planning next to use those of the quail, the merlin and guinea fowl or even one from a peacock’.

The postcard was a photo of the Maréchal in uniform with the words of the song every schoolchild in the country had to sing each day during opening exercises. Maréchal, nous voilà! Devant toi, le saveur de la France. Marshal, here we are before you, France’s saviour. Nous jurons, nous, les gars, De servir et de suivre tes pars. We, your ‘boys’, swear to serve you and follow in your footsteps. For Pétain is France and France is Pétain!

And weren’t they all now worried that the Resistance, the ‘terrorists’ or some other unknown would bousiller les gars? Smash the boys, bump them off?

*	Changed to the boulevard États-Unis after the Second World War.
*	Now the rue Braque.