Flykiller полностью

Madame Richard wore no hat or scarf – even the charcoal-grey woollen overcoat hadn’t been buttoned, so eager had she been to jump into that Citroen of her husband’s.

No gloves either, and watchfully tense, he noted. A woman in her late forties with straight jet-black hair that had been pulled to the right and back but had remained unpinned in haste, her eyes the hard and unyielding chestnut brown of the betrayed wife, socialite and mother, one of the Parisian beau monde, no doubt, with money, lots of money. Hers and his, ah yes. No wrinkles furrowed that most diligently tended of brows. Only at the base of the neck, above the everyday woollen dress, were there the cruel signs of ageing. A woman of more than medium height but not tall, the figure trim not because of the rationing, but because she ate only enough and never too much.

‘Inspector,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘We have to talk.’

‘A few small quest-’

‘Don’t you dare patronize me! That …’ She pointed accusingly to an oaken door, centuries old, which had seen the hammering blows of countless invaders. ‘Is where I found them and.’

She waited, still watching him as the hawks and eagles did.

‘Is where I had them photographed not once but several times!’

A dark Renaissance table was swept bare of its lamp and sundry other items. ‘Here, damn you!’ she shrilled as the sound of the breakage died and, sucking in a breath, snapped down print after twenty-by-twenty-five-centimetre print. ‘See for yourself what we were expected to put up with week after week, month after month. Elisabeth’s Honore de Fleury and that … that dancer of his; Madame Bousquet’s husband, our Secretaire General and his school teacher; Julienne Deschambeault and her Gaetan-Baptiste and his secretary. You should see what he’s done to that wife of his. Ruined her life. Made a decent, healthy woman into a nervous wreck who is constantly ill!’

She stamped a foot. ‘Of course I swore I’d kill Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux. That slut was always in heat.’

‘And those photographs, madame?’ asked St-Cyr, his voice somehow remaining calm while hers had climbed.

‘Were taken by the photographer I hired to accompany us.’

Trust the husbands not to have mentioned it! ‘And the negatives?’ he asked.

How good of him to worry about Alain Andre being blackmailed by the photographer! ‘For now I will keep them.’

‘No, madame. For now you will allow me that privilege.’

‘They’re not with me.’

‘Then when we leave here, you will take me to them.’

‘They’re at the clinic. I … I couldn’t keep them at home. Alain Andre would … would only have found and destroyed them.’

Had she threatened to blackmail her husband into behaving? ‘Did Monsieur le Ministre tell you to come here?’

His use of the word Ministre had been deliberate! ‘What do you think? That to save his career and reputation he begged me not to and I compromised by saying I wouldn’t give them to Herr Gessler who knows all about what went on here in any case?’

‘Madame, please just answer.’

‘Menetrel, you imbecile! That bastard telephoned to say that it would be wisest of me to destroy them.’

Then she had threatened Richard and he had then asked Menetrel to intervene.

‘If I could have tarred and feathered that slut I would have, Inspector. Instead, when I realized fully what was happening to my marriage, I was fool enough to take my troubles to Menetrel who suggested I masturbate to relieve the tension! Mon Dieu I hate it here. I always have and always will. The hypocrisy of the Marechal’s return to family values. All women are chaste, all girls virgins, is that it, eh? Pah, what idiocy! And what about the husbands? The fornicateurs? And Petain himself? A dancer? Well, he got what he deserved and so did she!’

Ah merde, her voice was echoing and she shouldn’t have said that. ‘I … Forgive me. This room. The memory of it. You can see the state I’m in. Well, can’t you?’ she shrilled.

‘Certainly.’

‘Then look at the photos. See for yourself!’

‘I will, but first, madame, who informed you of the party on 24 October last, and gave you not only the appropriate time to strike but also the precise locations of the four pairs of lovers that you would confront and have your man photograph?’

‘My husband was the last we surprised. As to who helped us, I can’t say.’

‘You’d best.’

‘Or you will arrest me?’

‘Just answer!’ At last the inspector had been moved to raise his voice.

‘Mademoiselle Blanche Varollier.’

‘Hired to inform on her employers?’

‘It was she who first came to me, but yes, I agreed to pay her ten thousand francs.’

‘One hundred thousand?’ It was a shot in the dark.

‘Two hundred and fifty.’

‘Then where were you, please, during the cinq a sept of Wednesday, 9 December last when Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux was drowned?’

The briefest smile of triumph was not reflected in the hardness of her eyes.

‘A dance recital at Therese Deschambeault’s ballet school. Elisabeth de Fleury’s daughter is very good and presently needs all the support we can give her.’