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.’
Merde, this town, this investigation! ‘And was Celine Dupuis there?’
No hint of triumph passed her lips.
‘Monique de Fleury was her best student. A dance from the Ballet Russe. It was marvellous. Madame Dupuis played the piano.’
Sacre nom de nom, the acid of that put-down! But did everyone know everyone in this town? ‘And were Madame de Fleury’s daughter and Celine Dupuis close, as a teacher and her prized pupil would have to have been?’
‘Very. So you see, Inspector, Celine did not just betray Elisabeth, but her daughter as well!’
The kid with the pigtails was uneasy and with good reason, felt Kohler. In November, when the Wehrmacht had suddenly taken over the zone libre, her boss had been recalled to Berlin. Urgent consultations, questions about his loyalties and loving the French and all things French too much. Abetz’s wife, Suzanne, came from France’s de Bruyker family and was a sensation when the couple had taken up residence in Paris in July 1940, never here. Mein Gott, who’d want to live near Vichy in a draughty old chateau in a winter like this when the City of Light beckoned? France and Germany together in happy alliance and marital bliss in the showcase of showcases. Reception after reception, designer dresses, jewels, champagne and all the rest, the races too. Abetz and Fernand de Brinon, that pedlar of laissez-passers and Vichy’s ambassador to the Occupied Territories, had been old friends from the mid-thirties when Abetz had got de Brinon and other like-minded collabos to join his Comite France-Allemagne. A hotbed of sympathizers, some of whom had willingly spied on their own country and helped to place Sicherheitsdienst agents in France.
But now, as could happen with the most loyal of former drawing instructors — and Abetz had been one of those — there were doubts.
And this little Madchen fur alles, this bonne a tout faire, had been up to more than mischief and had realized he knew it.
‘Look, relax,’ said Kohler and grinned. ‘All I want is a little information.’
‘Sicherlich!’ — I’ll bet! she swore and pulled away to stop in the corridor with her back to him. ‘I only did what I was told.’
‘Befehl ist Befehl, eh?’ An order is an order.
‘All of us used to report to Herr Schleier who came from Paris once every so often, but now … now we have yet to be informed of who our new contact will be.’
Schleier — who was Abetz’s assistant and, at forty-one, the embassy’s oldest member and most senior Nazi of the 568 Paris staff, of whom 367 were from home — was now temporarily in charge.
‘Ach! don’t worry so much,’ he said, chucking her under a chin that could, no doubt, be soft and tender when necessary. ‘Gemutlichkeit prise useful information. Rudolph won’t forget that such cosy friendship with the Occupied is useful and that your loyalty is beyond reproach. He’s just busy. Mein Gott, doesn’t he like uniforms, medals and official receptions even more than Herr Abetz? He’ll delegate someone. Just give him a chance to put his glass down.’
‘They’ll close this place and send us home. I know they will!’
To live like God in France had been everyone’s dream, except that this kid was Alsatian and her bilingualism had been deemed useful.
‘Show me your room and tell me what went on.’
‘My room …?’
‘We’ve lots of time. That partner of mine’s a bird-lover.’