‘Aurelienne comes with me, Inspector,’ said Nathalie. ‘Every second Sunday we visit the farm and take the boys to Mass at the same little church Petain sometimes attends. They call her auntie, and as for me, I know she loves them as much as I do, if not more.’
‘I haven’t had any of my own yet,’ confessed Aurelienne, shyly blinking away her tears. ‘There … there wasn’t time. One day we were married and the next my Yvon was sent to the front. Now a heavily censored letter still comes every once in a while but what’s a girl to do, eh? Pine away the whole of her life?’
‘Starve?’ said Carole.
‘Wear black?’ said Nathalie.
‘Wait when one never knows if her husband will ever come home and if he does, will he still feel the same way about her; will she still love him? Me, I can’t even remember his face!’ swore Carole.
‘We’re not here to judge.’
‘Don’t men always judge?’ she snapped. ‘And their wives too? Especially those who have everything and consequently think they’re better than those of us who have nothing?’
‘And at this chateau party, did any of the other wives join in the fight between Marie-Jacqueline and Sandrine Richard?’
‘Madame de Fleury found Honore with Celine and wept but couldn’t seem to move or say a thing. She just stood in the centre of that room with her head bowed and fists clenched,’ said Nathalie. ‘Never have I seen a woman more devastated.’
‘And Madame Deschambeault?’ he asked.
‘Her?’ snorted Carole. ‘For that one, Inspector, you have to understand that her mind isn’t at all well. She remained in the car with Madame Petain.’
‘Ah Christ!’
They were subdued, these men of influence, said St-Cyr to himself and, for just this once in their corrupted lives, reduced to silently watching two overworked detectives enjoy a much-needed meal. Bousquet, again absenting himself had gathered the unfaithful around their table at Chez Crusoe, but Laval had made certain of the meal. From one of the restaurants he frequented along the Allier, the Premier had sent a splendid sampling of the rustic fare for which the Auvergne was justly famous.
Pounti could be no more than a hash of bacon with onions, Swiss chard and eggs, but here it was golden brown, piping hot, cut into wedges, containing chopped ham, pork, raisins, cream and herbs — tarragon and chervil especially — and was accompanied by the dark green lentils that were grown only in the Puy de Dome and had such a remarkably distinctive flavour.
Two bottles of the Chanturgue red — ah, not a Beaujolais of course — were totally acceptable. Truffades were waiting. A kind of potato cake, but shredded coarsely, fried in lard with Cantal cheese cut in strips over them and left until melted only to be then turned over, the fire now low, the aroma superbe.
A salade de lentilles aux saucisses also waited — dried country sausage cut in rounds, the lentils, which had been soaked overnight with onions and carrots, simmered and drained, the carrots, et cetera, saved for the never-ending pots of soupe aux choux, the lentils cooled, mashed with a fork and given a drizzle of whisked egg yolks, vinegar, olive oil and Dijon mustard.
The bread? he asked himself, refilling Hermann’s glass and then tearing off a fistful from the round and golden cross-hatched loaf, was a meal in itself.
But, to business, he said, looking silently round the table and asking himself, Marie-Jacqueline Mailloux and this acid little Minister of Supplies and Rationing, this Alain Andre Richard? A patently indiscreet nurse with a private practice who was on call at the girls’ school where Camille Lefebvre was a teacher, and who had also worked part-time at the clinic of Dr Raoul Normand where Julienne Deschambeault sought constant help? Marie-Jacqueline, monsieur, age thirty-seven, not thirty-two or — three, and born in Tours. A divorcee at the age of nineteen who had just given birth to twin girls she had given up to the Carmelites. A woman with jet-black hair, dark blue eyes, an angular face, sharp nose and chin and dimpled apple cheeks. What, please, had Julienne’s reaction been when attended to by such a creature? Intense hatred, a traumatic fit perhaps, or did Madame Deschambeault simply swear to drown her?
Gaetan-Baptiste Deschambeault, the husband and Sous-directeur of the Bank of France, was tall and not unhandsome, broad-shouldered under an open black overcoat, the black hair thinning, the aristocratic blue eyes swift to every nuance. Was he thinking of his little Lucie who’d been smothered at the age of twenty-three? His very personal shorthand typist, the one he’d got pregnant? Was he remembering the foetus between her blotched and putrid thighs, the effluent and bloodstained oedematous fluid that had still oozed from her, or was he thinking instead of her chestnut curls and dark brown, mischievous eyes, the riding crop clutched licentiously — was that not so, monsieur? — and leather thongs waiting, but to tie up which of you?
And Honore de Fleury? he asked. For the first time we get a good look at you and I have to say you’re quite ordinary, even for an inspector of finances, all of whom look ordinary. Nervous still, and not liking being forced to sit here — Bousquet must have told them all they had no other choice. And Laval would have made certain his Secretaire general did just that!
De Fleury’s faded green eyes were closely set in a finely boned and freckled face. Age fifty-six and greying, the reddish hair rapidly receding, the hands small and light. A man of numbers, an accountant and yet … and yet he’d had a mistress who’d been knifed. Age twenty-eight, a dancer, a piano player, teacher, singer … blonde, blue-eyed, a widow with a little daughter Annette to whom she had written postcards using the quills from increasingly exotic birds. Celine Dupuis, formerly of 60 rue Lhomond. Taught ballet part-time to the girls at Camille Lefebvre’s school, as well as at the ballet school of Therese Deschambeault. Ah yes!
Celine, who had worn two costumes and a black velvet choker, and whose hair, of below shoulder length, had been all over the place due to someone’s desperate search for something they’d left behind.
As always, one had to wonder what such a gorgeous and hardworking woman could possibly have seen in such a moth-eaten older man. Position, money, the good times, the ‘fun’, but really oughtn’t there to have been something else? Unattached in a place like this, a girl would always be badgered. Attached, she would have got a good meal every now and then, and others would have left her alone. And she hadn’t believed de Fleury could possibly divorce that wife of his, that Eisabeth. A little game they had played, he had said to Hermann. A game! But had Eisabeth de Fleury wanted Celine Dupuis murdered? Had she hired a professional?
All three victims had been friends of Camille’s, the teacher with thick auburn hair and brown eyes, her carte d’identite had stated. Chestnut hair and deeply warm brown eyes with flecks of green and gold, Bousquet had said. Her husband a POW, a captain; her father one of the disbanded Army of the Armistice who hadn’t liked his daughter playing around and had always bitched about what a coward his son-in-law was. Garrotted savagely by another professional, or the same one. Born in Lyons — had she, too, been caught in flagrante delicto but with Bousquet at that infamous chateau party?
Real coffee, black and strong and made over a wood fire in an iron pot, nothing fancy, awaited, as did fouaces, pancakes made with fine, unleavened flour, cooked sous la cendre, under the ashes, with butter, egg yolks, saffron, cinnamon and nutmeg and filled with that marvel of marvels of the Auvergne, its crystallized fruit, with even a few glazed walnuts being added for good measure.
Wedges of Cantal and Saint-Nectaire also waited, bringing moisture to this poor detective’s eyes. It had been years since he’d seen such simple, wholesome fare but, alas, he’d best continue to deal with the matters at hand.