‘Albert, what the Chief Inspector wishes to know is did Lucie tell you anything that might be useful?’
‘Can’t say. Don’t know.’
‘You filled the bottle for her,’ tried St-Cyr.
‘She hugged it. She was free-zing. She said she’d love to have a bathe in it, but …’
‘But was too afraid to go to the etablissement thermal?’ he asked.
‘My nurse was drowned there. Now I don’t have my nurse any more. It hurts.’
‘What hurts?’ asked Ines.
‘My back, my shoulders, my spi-ine!’
‘Albert, did Lucie speak to anyone else that morning?’ asked the Chief Inspector, his voice too insistent, Ines felt.
‘Don’t know. Can’t say.’
‘Inspector …’ began the elder Deschambeault, only to be silenced by, ‘Must I remind you it’s Chief Inspector and that you will speak only when spoken to?’
‘Albert, you’d best tell him,’ said Ines. ‘If you don’t, I’m afraid the Chief Inspector will think I spoke to Lucie. I couldn’t have, of course, for I wasn’t here, hadn’t yet met you, but he’s a detective, and they are always suspicious.’
‘No one spoke to her.’
‘And the rats, Albert?’ asked Ines gently. ‘He’ll want to know who you think might have taken them.’
‘The owner of the knife.’
‘A woman?’ asked Ines.
‘What do you think?’
‘I … I don’t know,’ she blurted. Albert had released her hand and had turned to stare at her as if she had owned that knife, as if she’d taken the rats from his shed without even having paid for them! ‘I … I didn’t kill her, Albert. I swear I didn’t.’
‘Your eyes are wet. You’re afraid. I can tell.’
Ah Sainte Mere, Sainte Mere! ‘I’m just worried about you.’
‘No you aren’t.’
‘Albert, please!’
‘Hermann, take these three into another room and grill them. Leave me to deal with these two! Mademoiselle, you arrive supposedly on the same train as my partner and me, but take a sleeper so as not to be disturbed at the Demarcation Line. You say you are bringing cigars for the Marechal, a gift from your director. You wear Shalimar, the perfume of the most recent victim, when found hanging about the lobby of the Hotel du Parc. You then wander into the Hall des Sources to view that victim and leave your fingerprints all over the place thus destroying others we desperately needed. In the Chante Clair restaurant I find you hanging about watching my partner while he’s having a little meeting with Bousquet, Menetrel and Premier Laval, and now … now we find you in the stable here and then following us to take a decided interest in the proceedings.’
‘I … I can’t explain coincidences. I had time on my hands and wished only to help.’
‘And have just provided one explanation but is it the truth? Your papers, mademoiselle. Papers, please.’
‘Of course. Albert, they are in my handbag. I’m sorry but you will have to move a little.’
Handed over, the papers were scrutinized. St-Cyr was obviously unhappy with himself for having demanded them as so many did these days. Her place of work and residence were there — he’d see those quickly enough. Her age, physical features, all such things, but would he ask what he would need?
‘You had a good look at the corpse of Celine Dupuis, mademoiselle. Why such interest?’
‘The artist in me. Death has always interested that part of me. Must I apologize for something I, myself, don’t fully understand? The compulsion, the drive … Yes, that curiosity!’
And no mention of the tears Hermann had noticed. Tears she had since said she hadn’t been able to shed in years. ‘You attended the Sorbonne?’ he asked.
‘The Ecole des Beaux Arts. Painting, life-drawing and sculpture.’
‘And the uncle and aunt who raised you didn’t mind?’
‘I’ve already stated they encouraged me. Why shouldn’t they have?’
‘The expense.’
‘Papa had left everything to Maman, and through her, since there was no male heir, it passed to me, as did the small estate my uncle and aunt left.’
‘Your father was killed at Verdun?’
‘Buried near there, yes. I’ve already told you this earlier.’
‘Killed when, mademoiselle?’
‘In May 1917. The … the exact date I … I was never told.’
‘But tried to find out?’
‘I was a child! I needed to know.’
‘Was it during the mutinies, mademoiselle?’
‘The shelling. You and Herr Kohler must surely have experienced this in that war? Men dying like flies. He … he was ordered over the top as were the 137,000 others of his compagnons d’armes who manned the trenches along the Chemin des Dames and would die in that battle. He obeyed, Inspector. He did not run.’
‘Forgive me. One always hates to force those under questioning, mademoiselle. Even a Chief Inspector of the Surete — this one at least — is not without compassion. Albert, would you get her another marc, please? A cigarette, mademoiselle?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
Damn you, was implied. And yes, said St-Cyr sadly to himself, as the horror of that ten-day battle swept back in on him, one could never forget the screams of the dying. But the battle had begun at dawn on 16 April and had lasted for ten days. In May the medecin de l’Armee, as the poilus had started calling Petain, had been sent in to deal with the mutineers. Men who, for good reason, and with no shame attached to their terror, had thrown down their arms and refused to take the madness any more.
‘Let me just see if my partner needs anything,’ he said. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Ines told herself he had realized Petain had given the order to the firing squad’s captain and that Papa had been buried in an unmarked grave with the other fifty-six the army had admitted to having executed. He couldn’t know the love Papa had had for Maman, that at the last he would have cried out her name, that all he had wanted was to see her and hold them both.
The Jockey Club’s boardroom was not nearly so wide as it was long. Always mystified by these ritual dens of the corporate elite, Kohler took a quick look around. Magnificent horseflesh here, there, and wouldn’t Cro-Magnon man have been thunderstruck? Another Lascaux, as in the Dordogne on that stonekiller investigation Louis and he had had to settle, but a modern one.
Ferbrave sat midway to the side of the Luan mahogany landing field. The father was at its head, the son begrudgingly at his right; wasn’t it marvellous how readily such rooms sorted people out, and didn’t these three need sorting? There was even a portrait of Marcel Boussac, the textile manufacturer and racehorse owner who, after the Defeat, had got racing started again by hiring a Prussian baron to manage his stables.
Good thinking that. No better horsemen than those boys, but to be fair, had Boussac not done this he’d have lost his stables and France its leading bloodlines.
‘Invincible,’ he said, not turning to look at them.
‘Gladiateur’s line, Inspector,’ offered the son, and by way of further explanation: ‘The Avenger of Waterloo was winner of the Derby, the Grand Prix de Paris and the St Leger in 1865. Proof undeniable that France could at last not only produce champions but would take the lead.’
He’d mutter, ‘History,’ and still not turn from the photos and paintings. ‘Normandy Dancer … I gather Hyperion, 1933’s fabulous British stallion, was felt necessary as that one’s sire?’
‘Inspector …’
‘Oui?’ He would let the Chairman of the Board stew a little more.
‘Inspector, shouldn’t you clear things first with Herr Gessler?’
It was time to face them. ‘Our Ernst? An unemployed shoemaker from Schrobenhausen?’
‘I was merely suggesting …’