Beekeeper (47 page)

It's coming now, thought Kohler, and smiled inwardly as Louis said the inevitable: ‘All things are of interest in murder, Secrétaire. The victim's family and little daughter live at 60 rue Lhomond. That is almost halfway between the Jardin du Luxembourg and Jardin des Plantes. The house will overlook place Lucien-Herr which divides the upmarket neighbourhood of the Panthéon from that of the little shopkeepers and working-class people to the east along the rue Mouffetard and other such streets, and it implies our Madame Dupuis was well educated. Was she a good conversationalist, Monsieur de Fleury?'

‘
Jésus, merde alors
, Jean-Louis, can you not let me fill you in? Me,
mon ami
! Your secrétaire general.'

‘Please, first his answer. We need everything. It's best my partner and I get it clear right away. The coffee is excellent, by the way, and most appreciated.
Merci.
'

Ah damn, thought Honoré de Fleury. ‘Céline was a very quick-witted girl – marvellously so, at times, and knowledgeable about many things. Birds – pheasants, guinea … Ah! I go on. Music …'

‘Operettas?'

‘Jean-Louis …'

‘Please, another moment.' Birds … why had de Fleury cut himself off like that? ‘Monsieur …?'

‘Musicals, Inspector,' snapped de Fleury. ‘Cabaret things and yes, operettas, but much, much more. Chopin, Debussy – she played the piano beautifully.'

‘At private dinner parties?'

‘Yes,' came the defeated reply as Hermann found the Inspector of Finances another cigarette and lit it for him at a bend in the road, a tunnel through tall plane trees whose mottled bark caught the blue, slit-eyed light from the headlamps, momentarily distracting their driver.

‘Place of residence: Hâtel d'Allier, on the rue des Primevères in Vichy,' went on Louis. ‘That's just upstream of the Boutiron Bridge, is it not, Secrétaire?'

‘If you know, why ask?'

‘Was the ID found on her person, or was she so well known no one had to ask who she was and it was only later taken from her room or handbag, or both?'

‘In short, tell us who found her, where she was found, how she was killed, and particularly,' demanded Kohler, ‘why the hell her body was where it was.'

‘The Hall des Sources,' grated Bousquet with an exasperated sigh. ‘Early yesterday morning.'

‘Naked?' demanded Hermann, not waiting for the other answers.

‘Clothed in a nightgown I had bought her, Inspector,' confessed de Fleury. ‘White silk with a delicate décolletage of Auvergne lace.'

‘It's winter,' grumbled Louis. ‘You've not mentioned an overcoat, a. warm dress, boots, or a scarf and gloves. Therefore she was either taken to this place as found, or went there freely and then put the nightgown on, after first undressing.'

‘Inspectors … Inspectors,
mon Dieu
, that is why we wished to speak to you in private,' sighed Bousquet. ‘The Hall des Sources is all but adjacent to the Hôtel du Parc. Footprints in the snow – a set clearly from her boots – suggest that Céline Dupuis was taken from the Hâtel du Parc by at least one other person. Jean-Louis, you've had experience at this sort of thing. In 1938, as an associate of the IKPK, you worked closely with Gestapo Boemelburg on the visit to France of King George VI and his Queen.'

‘The Blum Government were worried about an assassination, yes,' conceded St-Cyr. ‘The Internationalen Kriminalpolizeilichen Kommission's
*
Vienna office were all aflutter and no doubt the Gestapo used the visit to gain further insight into the workings of our Sûreté. But … but, Secrétaire, are you suggesting there is a plot to assassinate the Maréchal?'

Who has a bedroom and adjoining office in the Hôtel du Parc and loves the ladies! snorted Kohler inwardly. ‘And if so, please tell us why the mistress of this one was in her nightgown and knocking on that one's door?'

‘And, please, where were the guards that normally patrol those corridors?'

These two … Why the hell had the Premier had to ask for them, why not others who would be tractable? demanded Bousquet silently. He would ignore St-Cyr's question and tell them as little as possible. Yes, that would be best! ‘We French are no innocents when it comes to assassinations, are we? Admiral Darlan, only last Christmas Eve in Algiers. Marx Dormoy, the Popular Front's ex-minister, on 26 July 1941, and exactly one month later, an attempt was made on Monsieur Laval himself.'

‘On 27 August,' muttered Louis. ‘If I understand the matter correctly, Secrétaire, though out of office but still fulfilling some state functions, Monsieur Laval had felt there might be trouble and hadn't really wanted to present the flag to the first contingent of the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme.'

French volunteers who willingly joined the Wehrmacht on the Russian Front! ‘Both he and Marcel Déat were wounded,' said Kohler, picking up the thread. ‘Laval so seriously that a weaker man would have died.'

‘The bullet in the shoulder was removed without complications,' confided Bousquet, ‘but the other one had lodged so closely to the heart that the chief surgeon felt it necessary to leave it and only repair what damage he could.' This information was not well known.

‘A 6.35 millimetre and lodged an equal distance,' said St-Cyr. ‘Pneumonia set in, and for days Monsieur Laval's temperature hovered at around 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).'

These two had done their homework, so good, yes, good! thought Bousquet. ‘Our Premier and Marcel Déat revealed considerable understanding of the nation's psyche when they begged the Maréchal to show clemency and keep the boy's head from the breadbasket.'

The guillotine … ‘Paul Collette, age twenty-one and a former seaman from Caen who would otherwise have made a beautiful martyr,' said Kohler flatly. ‘And now you're telling us there's a plot to assassinate the Maréchal Pétain.'

Out of the darkness of his little corner, the nameless one tonelessly said, ‘Our Government does not want this to happen, Kohler, and you are to see that it doesn't.'

Scheisse!
‘Or else?'

‘Just make certain you understand that we are all treading on broken glass these days,' grunted Bousquet. ‘The hills of the Auvergne may well be a haven to terrorists.'

‘But … but if what little you've told us so far is true, Secrétaire, these terrorists, on being interrupted during an attempt on the Maréchal's life, took the girl from outside his door to silence her for fear of their being identified.'

‘That is correct – at least, it is what I suspect must have happened, and that is why Monsieur Laval has asked for you both.'

‘“Flykiller slays mistress of high-ranking Government employee,”' quoted Kohler, remembering the telex Laval had sent to Gestapo Boemelburg in Paris. ‘Why “flies”?'

‘An assassin!' swore Bousquet angrily. ‘Can you not listen?'

‘But … but a conclusion, Secrétaire, for which you have as yet offered no proof,' countered Louis, deliberately baiting him.

‘Only three corpses, idiot! The first two are being kept at the morgue in spite of the pleas of relatives for their release; the latest one is just as she was found and nothing – I repeat, nothing – has been touched. Not in her room at the Hôtel d'Allier, except for her
carte d'identité
which I myself removed, and not at the crime scene.'

‘Good, that's as it should be,' said Louis. ‘But, then, perhaps before we view the victim, Monsieur de Fleury would enlighten us as to why, since she was his mistress, Madame Dupuis was knocking at the great one's door? And on what day and at what time, please?'

‘Céline didn't want to do it but … but I begged her to, Inspector. The Maréchal, he has a passion for beautiful young women. He's old – oh
bien sûr
– but age does not necessarily make a glacier of the urges.'

‘And you were pimping for him?' blurted Kohler, startled by the admission.

‘A small favour,' muttered Bousquet acidly.

‘One I felt I could no longer refuse,' de Fleury added.

‘And at what time, then, Monsieur de Fleury, was he to have had his little moment?' asked Louis.

‘Tuesday night, at … at 9.40. I … I dropped her off outside the hotel. She … she was wearing her overcoat, scarf and beret, her gloves too. These things, they … they have not as yet been found.'

Not found. ‘Height: 170 centimetres, Hermann (five feet seven inches); hair: blonde; eyes: blue; particular signs: none; nose: straight and average – normal, if you wish. Face: oval but the side profile doesn't really do her justice. A very handsome young woman, Monsieur de Fleury. Stunning, I should think – you do like the pretty ones, don't you? Complexion: pale.'

St-Cyr tapped his partner on the shoulder and passed both torch and identity card to him. ‘A young widow,
mon vieux
. A working girl with a child to support who is no older than the one the Maréchal once bounced on his knee. Madame Pétain is known to be a very jealous and spiteful woman.'

‘Idiot, Madame Pétain is well aware of the Maréchal's
infidelités
!' spat Bousquet.

‘And you are angry with me, Secrétaire, when calmness is called for.'

‘Truncheon! Just stick to what you've been told to do and leave Madame Pétain out of things. The fewer who know of this the better!'

Just before St-Germain-des-Fossés they stopped at the side of the road for a piss. Kohler stood upwind of de Fleury. ‘Was she good in bed?' he asked companionably.

‘Inspector, you're splashing my trousers.'

‘Oh, sorry. Did she enjoy sex, seeing as she'd tried to kill herself at the loss of her husband?'

‘
Salaud!
How dare you?'

‘Calm down and tell me exactly how faithful a mistress was she?'

‘We were going to get married. I was going to divorce my wife when … when it became possible.'

Divorce had all but been outlawed by Vichy. ‘Yet you asked her to service another?'

‘I had to! I didn't know she'd be killed! How could I have?'

‘Just who else knew what you were up to?'

‘
Merde alors
, do you not take the hint Monsieur le Secrétaire has given? Dr Ménétrel, the Maréchal's personal physician and confidant. His personal secretary.'

‘And Ménétrel okayed the session?'

‘Céline was not some cheap
putain
, damn you!' Tears fell and were agitatedly wiped away with the fingers. ‘He gave his blessing. He said it was exactly what the Maréchal needed to restore faith in himself during such a difficult time and that … that Céline would be handsomely rewarded as would … as would I myself.'

‘Then you were pimping and that's an indictable offence, unless you followed Vichy's latest ordinance on it to the letter. Oh don't worry,
mon fin
, we'll be discreet but if you've lied to me and not told us everything, you'd better watch out.'

‘She was a dancer. You must know what such women are like!'

‘And that bit about your marrying her?'

Would this Gestapo find out everything? ‘It … it wasn't possible. I couldn't have done so and she must have been well aware of this yet we spoke of it as if there was no impediment. A little game we played.'

How nice of him, but one must hold the door open so as to grab a breath of air. It took all types, thought Kohler, and the arrogance of top civil servants, though well known the world over, was legendary in France.

Had all of what had been felt necessary been said? wondered St-Cyr. The engine throbbed, the road climbed. Frost clung closely, snow was everywhere and darkness lay deep among the trunks and bracken.

For some time now each of them had withdrawn into private thoughts. Hermann, never one to keep still or silent unless necessary, had taken to staring out his side window but hadn't bothered to clear the frost from it. Was he thinking of his little Giselle and his Oona, was he worrying, as he often did these days, that when the Allies invaded, as they surely must, his lady-loves would be caught up in things and blamed for sleeping with the enemy, with himself? Was he still trying to figure out a way to get them false papers and to safety in Spain or Portugal?

René Bousquet would also be on Hermann's mind, for here, beside his partner, was the man who had met with Reinhard Heydrich and others of the SS at the Ritz in Paris, on 5 May of last year. Here was the one who had convinced Karl Albrecht Oberg, the ‘Butcher of Poland' and Höherer SS und Polizeiführer of France, not to take over the French police but to let him handle things.

‘The Marseillais has a reputation as a practical joker, Secrétaire. He calls a tender shower of rain a tempest, a lost shirt from the laundry line an armed robbery in which the wife and daughters were strip-searched and their virtue plundered. But he has an even more significant reputation, one for vengeance. Has your suggestion of an attempted assassination been prompted at all by fear of repercussions over what the first
arrondissement
suffered? I ask simply because I must.'

The Vieux Port de Marseille had been a rat's nest of steep and narrow streets, the home of prostitutes, pimps and gangsters! ‘We did what we had to do.'

A month ago, on 3 January, German security forces had raided a
maison de passe
, one of those seedy, walk-in hotels where prostitutes took their clients for a little moment or an hour or two and then left. Suspecting to find
résistants
and Wehrmacht deserters hiding out and fast asleep, there had been an exchange of fire in which several on both sides had been killed or wounded. Hitler, in a rage on hearing of it, and having at that time all but suffered the final loss of the 6th Army at Stalingrad, had demanded the levelling of the whole of the first
arrondissement
and deportation of 50,000 of its citizens to camps in the east. Bousquet and Lemoine, the regional préfet, had managed to convince Oberg that French police should do the job, and at 3 a.m. on the night of the 13th-14th, 30,000 residents, having been told they had but a few hours to vacate their homes, had moved out. Their papers were all checked, but far fewer
résistants
and deserters than anticipated had been arrested and the homeless citizens, for want of anything better, had been shunted off to camps at Fréjus and Compiègne, where they still resided and would for as long as it took to free the country. Then on 15 January, Wehrmacht engineers had begun to dynamite every building – tenement houses, warehouses, churches, loading docks and port machinery – and had, by the 24th, even sent 173 vessels to the bottom thus unintentionally blocking the harbour for months.