Barbault grinned. ‘The corpse?’ he asked, eyebrows arching beneath a fastidiously blocked black homburg, the overcoat collar of carefully brushed velour.
‘Oh, sorry. She’s behind the bar. I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?’
‘A clean killing?’
‘Tidy, I think.’
‘You going to stick around in case there’s anything else you want?’
‘Of course. Prints on that dripping tap above her feet when you get to them.’
Barbault moved the lanterns so that they wouldn’t cast his shadow on the corpse. Popping flashbulbs, he went to work. Merde, how could he be so calm? He didn’t whistle like some, didn’t sing or mutter things to himself like others. ‘A good fuck,’ he said, his voice gruff and echoing. ‘A nice cunt for the old sausage to ram, eh, Inspector? They say he never wears a rubber, that he simply tells them to wash it out!’
‘I’m going to get a breath of air.’
‘Don’t catch your death.’
Jesus, merde alors!
The skies were clear but dark. Always before dawn it got like this, and which cities and towns at home would be in ruins? Jurgen and Hans had been killed at Stalingrad — just kids, really, his sons, and why hadn’t they gone to Argentina like he’d begged them to? Gerda, the ex-wife, was at home on her father’s farm near Wasserburg but was now married to an indentured French farm labourer …
Giselle and Oona were at the flat on the rue Suger in Paris, just around the corner from the house of Madame Chabot and Giselle’s old friends in the profession. Thank God Oona was there to keep an eye on her.
‘I really do have to get them out of France before it’s too late. Louis, too, and Gabrielle, his new love, though that definitely hasn’t been consummated.’ A chanteuse, a war-widow with a ten-year-old son, a beautiful lay who was keeping it only for Louis.
The Resistance would shoot that patriot simply because he worked with one of the Occupier and in their need for vengeance they’d make lots of similar mistakes.
‘Vichy can’t last,’ he muttered as, remembering the matter to hand, he hurried back inside the Hall. ‘Marcel, make sure you get close-ups of those cigar ashes on her front and on the counter, those also at the Buvettes de la Grande Grille and Lucas. I’ll show them to you when you’re ready.’
‘Cigars …?’ gasped a female voice. ‘Ah Sainte Mere, I have brought some for the Marechal, Inspector.’
‘Just who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing in here?’
Here … Here … came the echoes on the damp, cold air.
‘Ines Charpentier … Sculptress and patcher-up of injured detectives. Is it really true that there is a sadist who rapes and then murders only virgins? I ask simply because … because I may have to work late and return to my boarding house after dark and alone.’
Had there been a catch in her throat? ‘Your information’s a little off. She wasn’t raped and wasn’t a virgin.’
‘Oh. The … the men who are clearing the snow have it wrong then. Are these really cigar ashes, Inspector? You see, the Marechal detests cigarette smoke but apparently enjoys an occasional cigar, and my director, he … he has sent him a little gift of some Havanas, from Cuba by submarine, I think.’
Had the kid been crying? She was standing behind the bar, with her left hand wrapped tightly around that dripping tap and the other one flat on the counter, smudging the ashes. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at the corpse, was sickened, no doubt, and likely to throw up.
‘Come on,’ said Kohler gently. ‘You need what I need.’
‘And the ashes?’ asked Barbault, not turning from his work.
‘Find the rest of them yourself and then have her moved to the morgue.’
The broom kept going. The man, the boy under torchlight, didn’t look up but down at the snow he was clearing from the covered walk. The jacket of his bleus de travail was open, the coveralls well padded by two bulky pullovers, two flannel shirts and at least one pair of long johns.
A tricolour — a blue-, red- and white-banded scarf — trailed from its tight knotting about the all but absent throat. The face was wide and flat, the dark brown eyes closely spaced under a knitted woollen cap and inwardly grooved by fleshy folds of skin beneath frowning black, bushy brows.
‘Albert,’ said the father gently. ‘The Chief Inspector St-Cyr has come all the way from Paris to speak to you. Surely you could spare him a moment?’
‘I went round as I always do,’ retorted the son. ‘All the doors were locked except for that one!’
The broom flew up to fiercely point at the distant Hall des Sources, indistinct in the darkness.
‘Albert, I know you did. Haven’t I trusted you all these years we’ve worked together here? Inspector, my son is very intelligent, very diligent. No task is too big or too small. Each morning before I and the others arrive, Albert checks round the park to see if there is anything amiss. He found the padlock and chain in the snow beside the entrance to the Hall. The key was still in its lock, the door open.’
‘She was asleep, father! asleep!’
‘Now, now, let’s not have tears in public, eh, Albert? God gave you too much heart, but I know you can be tough on yourself when necessary.’
The nose was wiped, the broom lowered, the sweeping petulantly taken up again.
‘Ah, it’s a little early for our mid-morning snack but when it’s cold like this, a person needs something extra. Would you care to join us, Inspector?’
‘Coffee …’ said Albert slyly. ‘He thinks I’ll be fooled by temptation. Bread … is there any left, Father?’
The elder Grenier patted his jacket pocket but said only, ‘Show the Chief Inspector where our nest is. I’ll just let the others know we’ve gone below.’
The broom was carefully leaned against one of the wrought-iron uprights, the booted feet were stamped to remove their snow. Deep in the cellars beneath the Hotel du Parc, the younger Grenier led him to the furnace room, to straight-backed wooden chairs, a warming pot of real coffee, a small glass jar of honey and one of milk … Simple things most of the nation hadn’t seen or tasted in years.
‘We’re lucky,’ said Albert shyly. ‘This is our very own place. Warm in winter, cool in summer.’
There were newspapers, well-read by others no doubt, before being gathered and smuggled down here. The Volkischer Beobachter — the People’s Observer, in Deutsch that probably none of the caretakers could understand. Die Woche, too, the Nazis’ weekly magazine with lots of pictures, and Signal — Hitler’s own magazine. Paris-Soir, Le Matin and other Paris dailies were with them — all collaborationist, all thin and heavily censored, but among these, and more significantly, were copies of L’Oeuvre Rassemblement National Populaire, the paper of Marcel Deat’s violently fanatical collaborationist and fascist party, and Le Cri du Peuple, that of Jacques Doriot and his PPF, the Parti Populaire Francais, equally pro-fascist and violently collaborationist. The extreme far right of Paris, who reviled and ridiculed everything Vichy did and constantly plotted to take over.
‘Those were the doctor’s,’ spat Albert, indicating L’Oeuvre and Le Cri. ‘He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him either, but I prefer to read these.’
Stabs had been made at filling in the pictures of the colouring book but crayons were in such short supply only a few colours had been used.
‘Read this one, Inspector. It’s special.’
One had best say something. ‘The pictures are lovely. Perhaps the …’
‘They’re the nicest I’ve ever received as a present! That’s what it says.’