Flykiller полностью

‘Bon. And for how long has it been going on?’

‘Inspector, we’ve a crisis on our hands,’ interjected the elder Deschambeault.

‘And had best get this out of the way so that we can deal with it. How long?’

Kohler was just ragging them. ‘A few months,’ said Ferbrave cautiously.

‘Sometimes a month would go by and there’d be no requests on the list, Inspector, no deliveries,’ offered Jean-Guy.

‘List? What list?’ demanded Kohler.

‘There was no list!’ swore the father.

‘Requests?’ snapped the Kripo, not turning to look at him and still sitting across the table from Henri-Claude.

‘Inspector, my son was merely trying to say that the whole matter didn’t amount to anything. Enough flour for a child’s birthday cake, a little powdered sugar for the icing. Alain Andre would …’

‘Marie-Jacqueline’s lover? Richard, the Minister of Supplies and Rationing?’

‘Would kindly offer to assist and the child would have its cake.’

‘And get to eat it from Government warehouses that are under lock and key?’

To smile ingratiatingly would be wrong. ‘Look, I know such luxuries are forbidden,’ acknowledge Gaetan-Baptiste, ‘but everyone bends the rules a little. Mon Dieu, these days one has to do many things one never would have done in the past. It was nothing.’

And like ripe fish, nauseating. ‘When, exactly, did it all begin?’

‘A year ago. One van. Only one. Two drivers and the security guard who always rides in the back,’ said the sous-directeur.

‘Armed?’

‘Of course. Even with the policing our German friends provide and the tightening up of our own police, there are still those who will try their luck.’

Didn’t he know detectives were only too aware of this! ‘Began two years ago,’ muttered Kohler, scribbling down the truth. ‘The late autumn of 1940, Sous-directeur, when things came into such short supply it looked to you and the others as though what little remained would be hard to obtain through the regular channels. Who buys it- what you don’t consume or give to those you need to pay off?’

Jean-Guy was still standing. Shattered, broken – terrified and now utterly useless. ‘Everyone who is anyone.’

‘But you’re so distant from it that you and Richard and the other lovers of those four girls are in the clear?’

‘I was and, yes, I still am, as are they.’

Was that a hint, eh? wondered Kohler. Ferbrave and a little accident, the FTP getting the blame and everyone lamenting the loss of two detectives from Paris who were only doing their duty but couldn’t have understood the difficulties of the terrain and the urgency of their being ever-vigilant? ‘This Flykiller or killers of Monsieur Laval’s, Sous-directeur. Who could have such an inside track?’

‘I only wish I knew, but it can’t have anything to do with the vans. Merde alors, why should it?’

‘The perfume, the cognac and champagne from 1925. Who requested those?’

‘I really wouldn’t know, nor would my son or that one.’

Ferbrave.

‘Inspector, you are only too aware of the scandal that will erupt if word of this gets out,’ said the sous-directeur. ‘Surely you must realize we could soon be on the verge of a civil war and that the Reich, for obvious reasons, doesn’t want this to happen and wishes the Marechal to remain in office and in Vichy. Ambassador Abetz is a personal friend and part-owner of the stables my son manages. If you were to speak to him, the Ambassador would’ satisfy you that what was done with the vans was necessary. Pour l’amour de Dieu, we had to keep up appearances. Thirty-two embassies, the papal nuncio among them. Constant delegations from the Reich, visiting dignitaries from all over the new Europe, submissions from our citizenry in the zone libre and even from the zone occupee. One couldn’t have undertaken such receptions in an aura of defeat, could one? The nation had to maintain an image, and in a small and humble way what I and my associates did, helped.’

A saint. ‘And the rats in that girl’s bed, the knife that was recovered?’

‘Albert Grenier may well know who took them and killed her but he’s a difficult boy. I would not have harmed him in the slightest. Henri-Claude arrived unexpectedly and … Well, you know the rest, and fortunately no one was seriously hurt.’

‘That hand,’ said Kohler of Ferbrave. ‘Merde, it doesn’t look good. I’d best get our sculptress to have a look at it. Hang on a minute.’