Sufficient evidence … Had he time to listen? wondered Jouvet. The Obersturmfuhrer would want him out there watching for Juliette and Kohler.…
‘First,’ said St-Cyr, ‘Madame Fillioux, on seeing who had come to meet her, would have tried to save herself if it had been you. Admit it, though, you were only too aware she intended to poison you.’
‘The bitch. Always bellyaching, always listening to that daughter of hers.’
‘She deserved to die, didn’t she?’
The grin was broken. ‘What if she did deserve everything she got? I didn’t kill her.’
‘Perhaps, but you see,’ said the Surete, tossing a dismissive hand, ‘my partner firmly believes you did.’ This was not true – at least, he didn’t think it was – but useful. Besides, Hermann could not yet know of Jouvet’s having been in Sarlat at the time of the killing.
‘I’m waiting for the other reason.’
The dark brown eyes held nothing but emptiness.
‘The second reason is more difficult and that is why I cannot let you see the contents of that bag.’
The Luger came up. The shot shattered the silence, terrifying some pigeons among the rafters. Madly they flapped about up there. Feathers … feathers were falling so slowly, but then something plummeted to the ground at St-Cyr’s feet and he saw the plump little body with blood all over its breast.
‘Don’t tempt me, Inspector,’ said Jouvet tightly.
‘It’s Chief Inspector, Captain.’
‘Just tease the words from your lips as a whore sucks juice from a fig or urine from a helmet.’
Ah merde … ‘Henri-Georges Fillioux has returned from the dead.’
The Luger jerked. Life came momentarily into the eyes only to vanish as the lips spread into a wolfish grin. ‘Returned,’ sighed the veteran. ‘So she meant to kill the two of us but he got to her first. She always swore he hadn’t been killed. What did he do? Hide out in Belgium?’
‘That we do not yet know.’
‘But he’s definitely back?’
‘So it seems.’
Jouvet thought a moment, then said, ‘They’ve been paying me. The one called von Strade. Yes, yes, Chief Inspector, I am an adviser on this film of theirs. She was only going to cause them trouble. I warned them. I told them she would stop at nothing to protect her lover’s reputation. Her lover? Hah! Does Juliette know her father has returned?’
‘Perhaps.’
Jouvet’s eyes narrowed. ‘Her father and mother were in contact, weren’t they, but Juliette did not know of it because that bitch was too afraid to tell her.’
‘You knew she would poison you if she could but you failed to realize there was someone else. Fillioux, my friend. Henri-Georges Fillioux!’
The filthy black beret jerked, the shot splintered the oak panelling above his left shoulder, the carpet-bag came up and was ripped open and dumped out. ‘Look for yourself then. Read if you can!’ shouted St-Cyr.
Stone tools, photographs of the young man that … that woman had married, lay among rolls of tracing paper and bundles of postcards, a scattering of louis d’or and some other things. Letters and bits of jewellery.
‘Show me.’
‘Of course.’
One room led to another, from darkness into a chamber holding back-lit figures who stood in a row in front of an overturned lamp between two complete skeletons, the one of a massively-boned, furrow-browed Neanderthal, the other of a Cro-Magnon who was quite like present-day humans. Tables held stone tools seen only out of the corner of the eye.
‘None of these are very good specimens, are they?’ said Oelmann, his tone of voice betraying how much he despised what he had stumbled into.
The Radom moved slightly to indicate the others but returned to Madame Jouvet. He’d kill her. Kohler knew this.
The two boys, of ten or twelve years, were naked and so terrified at having been found out, they shivered uncontrollably in tears. Herr Eisner was between them and looking decidedly uncomfortable. Stripped of even a hastily grabbed towel, the prehistorian from Hamburg was wet and worried and not without good reason. His life, liberty and career were up for grabs. Homosexuality of any kind was officially a no-no with the Nazis.
‘I didn’t mean to …,’ he stammered. ‘We were only sharing a bath.’
‘Of course,’ said Kohler, ‘but you see, I’ve two boys in Russia, my friend, with von Paulus and the Sixth. As a father I have to take exception to people like yourself, as a detective.… Well, what can I say, eh? but that it’s interesting von Strade should want to give you everything just to keep you quiet about that cave of his.’
Oelmann teased the Webley from his hand. Juliette Jouvet sighed with anguish.
‘So, what now?’ quipped Kohler. ‘Am I allowed to ask our friend a few things … things that might perhaps clarify that SS mind of yours?’
‘Such as?’ snapped Oelmann, backing away until he found a chair half-way between the visitors and the others.
‘Such as why the Professor Courtet thought it necessary to keep a loaded gun in his room.’
‘Fillioux … my father,’ blurted Madame Jouvet. ‘He has returned and the professor is afraid of him. Danielle.…’
‘Is Fillioux’s daughter,’ said Eisner.
‘His daughter? Please, what is this you are saying, monsieur?’ She blanched. ‘That my father, he was married when he met maman? That he had already had a daughter to call his own?’
‘A child and a wife. Courtet was well aware of it and told me.’
‘A child … Ah no, this … this I cannot believe. Why Arthaud, please?’
She was going to pieces and couldn’t stop herself.
‘The child’s mother applied for a divorce, madame, but by then your father had been declared missing in action and presumed dead. Three years later she remarried. The parents refused to accept the new marriage and disinherited their former daughter-in-law and Danielle. They wanted her to remain a war widow but she refused because your father was going to leave her for another. Arthaud was the new husband’s name and Danielle took it. She was only six years old at the time and had little choice.’
‘What do you mean, they disinherited Danielle?’ asked Kohler.
‘Just that. She’s bankrupt. She gets nothing.’
‘And now?’ he asked. Eisner would sing to save himself and Oelmann would have to listen because … ah yes, because the bastard should have known all about it long ago if he had been doing his job.
‘Now Danielle is perfect for the part she plays and an excellent instructress for the others. I don’t think anyone else is aware of who her real father was. Willi might be. It’s possible. But none of the others, apart from Courtet, of course.’
‘Please let the boys go to their rooms,’ said Madame Jouvet. ‘They are so little. Not much older than my son.’
‘Photograph them first. There is a Graflex and flash on Herr Eisner’s desk. Use it, Kohler. Become a Press photographer.’
He found the camera but had to ask how to use it. He fiddled with the film pack and finally got it in. Focusing on the group, he told Madame Jouvet to move the lamp from behind them. ‘Back-lighting will only spoil the shot.’
‘Don’t even think of trying anything,’ snorted Oelmann. ‘Madame, do as he says and then come to kneel on the carpet before me.’
Ah Gott im Himmel, could nothing go right? Blinded by the flash, Oelmann would have been at a decided disadvantage.
Juliette picked up the lamp by its standard but lost the shade and had to go back for it. Tears filled her eyes … Her father married and not telling maman a thing about it! A girl of seventeen and so in love with him, she would spend the rest of her life waiting and would remember every word he had said, every smile, every tenderness.
Kohler saw her accidentally swing the lamp towards him from behind the naked figures and when Eisner leapt as the hot glass touched him, he tripped the flash at Oelmann and threw the camera.