‘I had to. I was distraught and couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop myself. Father Michel made me tell God everything.’
Father Michel! swore St-Cyr. The bottle was forgotten.
‘And yet … and yet,’ said Héloïse, ‘the good father did nothing to stop Alexandre from torturing me like that, and nothing … nothing at all to prevent that husband of mine from beating the shit out of me and causing me to lose my babies.’
‘And would he have wanted Angèle-Marie to return to the house of her childhood?’ hazarded Leroux.
How very cautious of Jean-Claude, thought Héloïse. ‘No. No, I’m certain of it. That old priest has much to answer for and no one but his God to confess to.’
The kid on stage at the Club Mirage wore little and was distracting. Momentarily torn between watching her and searching the crowd for Louis, Kohler hesitated, for when she gyrated the silver hoop about her waist, she juggled ersatz oranges to which white feathers had been glued.
Locked in for the night, eight hundred of the Occupier, most in uniform, some with their girlfriends, others entertaining collabos and big shots from the black market, whistled and applauded. Now the torso moved as well and the sky-blue propellers that hid her nipples began to spin in opposite directions as her head was tilted back.
The oranges went higher and higher; the hoop raced the propellers. One knee came up. A falling orange was hit and lifted into the tobacco-fogged air only to be caught with others on its descent as she turned away and … mein Gott, bounced orange after orange into the crowd with the most beautiful backside on earth.
‘Jésus, merde alors, her timing’s perfect!’ he swore.
The piano player flew over the keys, the drummer gave a parade roll and one by one, as they were dutifully returned, the kid caught the oranges.
She was radiant. ‘As she should be!’ roared Kohler, shoving his way through to the bar. ‘Has Louis been in yet?’ he called out to Remi Rivard, the one with the open leather jerkin, red plaid workshirt and gut of an iron barrel. The brother of the Corsican with the face and hands of ground meat.
‘Not yet. You been rolling around in a beehive or something?’ Remi pointed to the greatcoat.
‘Oh this. It’s just a bit of wax and honey and a few dead bees. I’ve been robbing hives.’
Two beers were set before him, the froth overflowing.
‘Bees or no bees, I’d get that coat cleaned in a hurry.’
Remi, whose face was that of a mountain, all crags and clefts and shadows, with hard dark, empty eyes, gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the balcony. ‘Table four over from the clock, front row. You’ve company.’
An SS major from the avenue Foch sat between two miliciens, one older, the other younger but stronger, bigger. None of them had the slightest interest in the kid on stage. They were concentrating hard on the bar.
‘Tell Louis I’ll meet him at his house.’
A study in perpetual motion, Remi had already surmised as much and had moved away to serve the crush of others. At a run, Kohler headed for the courtyard exit. Crossing the stage, he dragged off his coat and pitched it from him, called out to the kid, ‘Hey, chérie, look after that for me, eh? You were terrific!’
The three on the balcony were making for the stairs. Leaving the stage, Kohler fought his way past the chorus line where bared breasts wore glued pasties and the girls grinned or smiled. Red lips, bare arms and feathers … ostrich feathers …
Miliciens jammed the exit. Others were behind them. All wore black chasseur alpin berets, dark blue tunics and trousers, brown shirts and black ties … Brass knuckles, too, and hatred in their eyes. Hatred for what he’d done to two of their own!
Pivoting, Kohler raced back to the stage, was caught, was dragged down, hit and hit hard. Blood blinded him. Boots felt as if caving in his ribs. ‘MAUDIT SALAUD! VACHE!’ COW! they shrieked, the slang for cop. ‘Dog-fucker!’ The pain was killing him. Curled up, he rolled on to his side and tried to clear his eyes. The kid was stricken. Oranges were bouncing all around her. The crowd was in a rage. Thinking him one of their own, the boys in grey-green were clambering on to the stage. The miliciens were dragging him up. ‘AN ARREST!’ they shrieked at the rescuers but a whistle blew sharply. As one, the men all stopped and stood to attention, or crouched and did not move.
‘Take him,’ said the SS major, with a dismissive toss of his hand. ‘He’s wanted for questioning.’
The kid, bless her, was in tears and on her knees, and when she reached out to him, Kohler felt the trembling urgency of her hand on his blood-smeared cheek. ‘Gabrielle … Gabi asked me to watch out for you,’ she blurted. ‘But I … I had to do my act. Forgive me.’
‘Tell Louis I’m in trouble,’ he gurgled. ‘Trouble, eh? Louis …’
With no whistle to blow, what was one to do? wondered St-Cyr, still in the catacombs, in the darkness of the corridor. The lantern was now resting on the lip of the spring between the custodian and the woman, but had Leroux put it there on purpose? The iron bar was uncomfortably close to hand.
If one said, Sûreté, you’re both under arrest, Leroux would simply tip the lantern into the spring and snatch up the bar. The woman would cry out but not for long.
‘That old priest,’ said Leroux. ‘He’ll have to be dealt with.’
‘I can’t kill a priest, Jean-Claude. I won’t.’
‘You told him everything.’
Frantic, her eyebrows arched as she spat, ‘And what of Alexandre, eh? For years now he’s known who the four of you were.’
‘You told him, too?’
‘I had to. A woman’s most private parts are her tenderest. Each time the bees fed … Need I say more?’
‘Then why the charade of his trying to find out all our names?’
‘Another torture of his. Admit it, yours and the other families, mine too, lived in fear of him, as did the four of you and myself. Would he go to the police; would he not do so? When he came back from the war he had that little cemetery of his built and then … then started to work on all of us.’
‘Never once did he suggest to me that he knew.’
‘Of course not! That would have spoiled his fun. He was both examining magistrate and judge, and wanted the torture to last. Look how he despised that wife of his? The son of another — he never let her forget it, not for a moment.’
‘You’ll have to poison Father Michel, too, Héloïse. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. Otherwise …’
Leroux took the letter opener from a pocket and fingered it. ‘Otherwise, ma chère compagne dans le meurtre …’
‘You wouldn’t!’ she hissed and began hesitantly to move away.
‘Agree,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be generous. Do it within the next two days or …’
‘Monsieur, please put that down. St-Cyr, Sûreté.’
‘Ah!’
The lantern went into the drink, the iron bar scraped on the stones as it was dragged up. A skull was smashed. The woman shrieked and began to run — ran into a wall, clawed at the bones, for some fell around her. Cried, wept — begged.
Another skull was smashed. Femurs and tibiae were struck. The bar hit solid stone. The woman shrieked again, and finding the exit corridor at last, ran.
‘Monsieur, give yourself up this instant!’ managed the Sûreté and from the steps of the spring, thought Leroux. ‘You’re under arrest!’
Perhaps the custodian shifted the bar to his other hand, perhaps the letter opener. Nothing was said. Water trickled constantly.
In the far distance, the woman stumbled and fell but dragged herself up and went on in terror, screaming for Leroux to spare her. ‘HE POISONED ALEXANDRE, INSPECTOR,’ she shrilled. ‘HE WAS ONE OF THOSE WHO RAPED HIS SISTER.’