‘To snatch people from their farms and streets?’
‘By questioning anyone they think necessary,’ he countered.
‘Then let us hope we’re allowed to continue unhindered, or is it, Secretaire, that you still want roadblocks thrown up in front of us?’
‘Not at all. We’re here to cooperate.’
‘Then do so. Begin by realizing that we’re dealing with one or perhaps two persons who not only know Vichy extremely well, but are also in on everything you do.’
‘They know beforehand when things will happen,’ said Kohler.
‘Yet so far we really know very little about our victims,’ lamented Louis.
At a curt nod from Bousquet, Deschambeault said, ‘Inspectors, Lucie carried letters to Paris for Celine. Who they were to, I’ve no idea, but I warned her to be careful. Innocent … I’m certain the matter was perfectly innocent.’
But against the law.
‘She simply posted them for her in Paris,’ said Bousquet.
‘One or two or more per trip?’ asked Louis, draining the last of the bottles.
‘One, always, and to the same person,’ replied Deschambeault uncomfortably. ‘I know this because she told me not to worry so much, that they … they were simply to an old friend of Celine’s.’
‘And not to Madame Dupuis’s daughter?’ asked Louis, who was always such a stickler for detail, especially when someone had tried not to give him the whole truth.
The head was shaken.
‘Secretaire,’ said Louis, ‘I found no such letter among the things Mademoiselle Trudel had packed for her Paris trip. Not in her day-to-day handbag, not in the one she would have used in the city, nor in her suitcase.’
‘Maybe there wasn’t one,’ said Bousquet. ‘Maybe Celine, thinking that Lucie was going home to see her father, hadn’t given her one.’
‘Maybe, maybe,’ sighed Kohler. Louis hadn’t liked Bousquet’s response either. Had the letter been taken by her killer, or by Deschambeault? Was it all a cover-up?
Bousquet gave another curt nod, this time to Honore de Fleury, who said, ‘Inspectors, after Camille’s death, Celine felt certain Marie-Jacqueline hadn’t just drowned accidentally and that she would be next. She had always wanted to leave Vichy and return to her daughter, but she … she then became desperate.’
‘Thus agreeing to the little proposition Menetrel had put to you,’ said Louis sadly. ‘Monsieur, exactly what reward did the doctor promise?’
The others must know, thought Kohler, but even so it would hurt to have to say it.
‘He said that if I could convince Celine to answer the Marechal’s love letters with a little visit, he, the Marechal’s personal physician and confidant, would see that I became Directeur de Finance, but that if I didn’t, I could kiss my crummy job goodbye.’
‘And Celine … what was she offered?’
‘Two hundred thousand francs as well as the laissez-passer, sauf-conduit and necessary residence papers.’
‘Fernand de Brinon, our Government’s representative in Paris, is a shareholder of our little enterprise,’ confessed Deschambeault, not looking at any of them.
‘Everything had been taken care of,’ offered de Fleury. ‘Celine was happier than I’d seen her in weeks but was still very worried about Lucie having an abortion. That, I think, is why she wanted to talk to her.’
‘And the earrings, monsieur?’ asked Louis.
‘Believe me, I knew nothing of them, nor do I know why she would have tried to hide them from her killer.’
‘Jean-Louis, you spoke to Auguste-Alphonse Olivier. How did you find him?’ asked Bousquet.
‘Withdrawn and very reticent to discuss the robbery. I did get him to admit that the jewellery hadn’t been in his safe-deposit box but had been left where his wife had always kept it. When Hermann and I came downstairs from examining the room, he had gone out for another of his walks. A defeated man, Secretaire.’
That was good of Louis, thought Kohler, but God help them if Gessler found out the truth!
‘And the robbery?’ asked Bousquet.
‘The housekeeper confided that he often forgets his key and that she has then to leave the door unlocked.’
Good again.
‘Ah bon,’ nodded Bousquet. ‘A veteran, a war hero. It’s sad what life can do to a man.’
‘Petain made a cuckold of him,’ snorted Richard, ‘but fortunately Olivier poses no threat.’
‘Sadly none whatsoever,’ said Louis. ‘A recluse no one pays the slightest attention to. And now, Monsieur de Fleury, since you keep the accounts, would you tell us, please, who the other shareholders are?’
‘Charles-Frederic Hebert at the chateau — it was only proper of us to include him.’
‘Menetrel?’ asked Hermann, only to see de Fleury shake his head.
‘The doctor has always the well-being of the Marechal in mind,’ said Bousquet gruffly.
‘And the others?’ asked Louis blandly.
‘Inspector, is this necessary?’ asked Deschambeault.
It was. ‘Jean Bichelonne, Minister of Production and Communications,’ said de Fleury. ‘Philippe Henriot, Minister of Propaganda and Information.’
Radio-Paris’s Number One Boy.
‘Herr Otto Abetz, the German Ambassador.’
And owner of the chateau.
‘Edouard Guillaumet, Sous-directeur of the Tabac National at Vanves.’
And necessary.
‘Gerard Ouellette, Inspecteur des caves de la Halle aux vins.’
The huge Paris wine store: champagne and cognac too, of course — perfect.
‘Jean-Louis, the rest are prominent men of industry and commerce and members of the Cercle Europeen,’ said Bousquet, as if this ought to put them beyond reproach. ‘Aeronautics, automobiles and lorries, locomotives and railway trucks, coal, iron, steel, aluminium, beet sugar, cement and textiles, chemicals also. All keep horses at the racing stables.’
‘And occasionally enjoy a party or two?’ asked Hermann, having momentarily lost his appetite.
‘Of course.’
‘Then the vans aren’t the only vehicles that are used to transport goods, are they?’ he said.
‘That is correct.’
‘And anything you need you can get at a price?’
‘That, too, within reason, is correct.’
‘So last December who ordered in the 1925 Bollinger Cuvee Speciale that Marie-Jacqueline downed, and the Shalimar that Celine Dupuis was wearing when killed?’
‘Charles-Frederic Hebert,’ said Bousquet. ‘He’s very fond of the Marechal, though he no longer sees him and hasn’t since the tragedy. The Bollinger and the Remy-Martin Louis XIII were, I believe, Christmas gifts, but extra arrived with the consignment. As to the perfume, I don’t think any was ordered.’
‘What tragedy?’ asked Hermann innocently.
‘Why the suicide of Noelle Olivier. It was Charles who brought the couple together and he still blames himself for what subsequently happened. He was a major shareholder in Olivier’s bank and lost a fortune when it failed in 1933. Oh, by the way, Jean-Louis, I’ll take those billets doux, if you don’t mind.’
‘Later, Secretaire. Later. For now they must be considered as evidence.’
At 10 a.m. Berlin Time, Friday 5 February, the sun was ringed with frost. The wind, gusting like a bastard, swept snow from every ridge and hill, and in the valley of the Allier below, the river was gripped in iron, the gunmetal light enough to make the bones ache.
‘Mon Dieu, Hermann,’ said Louis, reverently ignoring the weather, his breath fogging an already iced-up windscreen, ‘it’s exactement as Caesar would have seen it in 52 BC. He’d been defeated by Vercingetorix and his Arverni at Gergovia, their hill fort, and had had to cross the ford down there to lick his wounds in the hot springs.’
Christ, were they to have another tiresome lecture at a time like this? They’d just driven through the little village of Charmeil, some seven kilometres north-west of Vichy, had first crossed the Boutiron Bridge without a murmur from the boys on the control, a bad sign. ‘That little aerodrome with the swastika wasn’t there, mon enfant, nor were the two Storchs or that Dornier that are warming up!’