Salamander (16 page)

Thérèse Moncontre, who sold the tickets, hadn't moved a hair but now the softness of her throat rippled tightly, and suddenly, in confusion and wanting to disappear, she dropped her deep brown eyes and kept them on the carpet at her feet.

Alarmed, Kohler glanced at Frau Weidling but she seemed not to have noticed. He gave it a moment, could hardly believe their luck. Clearly the girl had
sold
Frau Weidling a ticket! Ah
merde.
He could not ask her just yet. She'd deny it out of fear, and Frau Weidling would ask Barbie to get rid of her. He'd have to let the girl think her little secret was safe.

Madame Gauthier had, however, noticed the girl's reaction to Leiter Weidling's wife. Kohler met her eyes and he had to ask himself, Were you and Robichaud really holding hands in that back row, or had you come to the cinema for something quite different? A meeting with the Resistance?

Klaus Barbie was afraid the firemen would join forces with the railwaymen. Was Lyon, with its warren of old streets and passageways and its rail connections to everywhere, about to become the centre of active resistance?

He remembered the revolver he'd found among the frozen ashes. He remembered the railway schedules and the maps that had pinpointed the locations of switches and tunnels and flatbed cranes that would be so necessary to clear the tracks of wreckage …

He picked up the grey fox-fur coat that should have been sent to the Russian Front but had somehow missed Frau Weidling's patriotic duty. Without a word of thanks or acknowledgement, she turned her shapely back on him and let him drape it over her shoulders.

‘That perfume …,' he began, foolishly caught off guard. She paid no mind, picked up her gloves and purse and departed with her husband chasing after her. Nice ankles … yes, yes … dark blue high heels.

Étranger
…

Kohler turned on the others and snapped, ‘Wait here. If any of you leave, I'll have you dragged before a firing squad without a priest!'

Ah
mon Dieu
, Louis, what the hell have we got ourselves into this time? he asked himself. A wife who'll stop at nothing to build her husband's reputation? But why would a woman like that marry a pair of ancient rubber boots when she could have had something far, far better?

He told himself he'd have to ask the usherette Suzie Boudreau if either of those two women had worn that perfume. He would have to ask Frau Weidling how she had come by it and if she had enjoyed the little she could have seen of that film.

He'd have to ask her about those other fires. Lübeck, Heidelberg and Köln, and just exactly how long she and that husband of hers had been in Lyon to have some fun. Two weeks … had it been two weeks?

A Salamander.

The concierge at Number Six rue du Boeuf was wary. Trapped in his cage, he fussed with a newspaper that was ten days old and shooed the cat out into the corridor. ‘Mademoiselle Bertrand said she had to drop into the pharmacy, Inspector St-Cyr. A cold in her chest, the phlegm like molten tar …'

‘Yes, yes, spare me the medical details, eh? I've been with her now for far too long and do not want your words to cause me to catch whatever it was she had.'

‘Then what would you have me say, Inspector?'

Ah
merde
, why must he be so difficult? ‘She was dressed for an evening out, isn't that right, eh? Come, come, Monsieur Aubin, surely a woman like that does not wear red high heels on ice in fifteen degrees of frost just to find herself a little friar's balsam?'

‘Was she murdered in my building? Is that what you're implying? Come, come yourself, Monsieur the Chief Inspector, let us have the truth of that!'

‘
Nom de Jésus-Christ
, don't try my patience!'

The Sûreté … everybody knew what shits they were. And corrupt! ‘She was a prostitute, a public woman. Maybe she went to visit a client, maybe not, Inspector, but she would not have informed me of this. Ah no, monsieur,' he wagged a reproving finger. ‘Not a family man such as myself whose daughters are generally visiting with their papa when he is not busy at his duties, or are likely to drop in on him at any time.'

St-Cyr took a deep breath and held it. Exhaling slowly, and more than exasperated, he said harshly, ‘What did you pay her in exchange?' but did not wait for the answer. ‘You agreed to look in on Madame Bertrand each evening, or one of your children did, or your wife perhaps. In exchange for this little service, Mademoiselle Bertrand was “friendly” towards you, eh? So, all right, there's no harm in that little arrangement if you can live with it and your wife is not infected. Now tell me when she left the building and when she came back?'

The concierge tried to roll a cigarette from the collected tobacco of several cigarette butts. It was no use. Papers and tobacco showered on to the carpet.

His grizzled moon-face lifted. ‘She left at about seven in the evening—when she usually does. They came back at about nine thirty. Here, it is in the book.' He got up suddenly to push past and snatch up the ledger. ‘Seven ten and nine fifty-seven. Mademoiselle Bertrand and Madame Rachline.'

‘The two of them at both times?' blurted the Sûreté.

The man shook his head. ‘Only when returning. You see, I have put the little tick beside Madame Rachline's name.'

There was a nod, but only just. ‘And you're absolutely certain it was Madame Rachline?'

Théodore Aubin grunted, ‘But of course, monsieur, I have seen her many times. The tall figure, the little cloche with the bit of veiling. The black overcoat also.'

‘But did you see her face?'

Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ
, what was the cause of this suspicion?

‘Well?' demanded the detective harshly. ‘Yes or no?'

The fleshy throat was touched in uncertainty, the lower jaw gripped as if in cautious thought. ‘Then no, Inspector. I did not see that one's face. Madame Rachline, she has walked past my cage, you understand, to tap the toes of her shoes or boots on the floor to warm the blood a little after coming in from such cold.'

‘When did she leave the building?'

Be careful what you say, eh? Was that it? ‘Me, I do not know, Monsieur the Inspector. One of the other tenants complained of a broken tap in the lavatory that is outside this building in the courtyard. I … I went with him to discover the trouble. A pipe had frozen.'

Had it been a chance bit of luck? wondered St-Cyr. Chance so often played havoc when something needed to be pinned down.

‘Those pipes are always freezing in this weather, Monsieur the Inspector. Madame Rachline could not have stayed more than an hour at the most. During this time, I returned to get my tools and another light, since there is no electric light in the toilet. The tenants, they are always stealing the bulbs these days. I've left repeated warnings. What else could I do but remove all bulbs until the affair, it was over?'

‘Did she come here often?' asked St-Cyr, ignoring the outburst.

Aubin shook his head. ‘Once or twice a month, just to inquire as to how Mademoiselle Bertrand was if that one had been ill, which she often was—the chest, you understand. Sometimes to bring the mother a little soup or stew. That old woman didn't eat much, Inspector. I'm not surprised she died and only wonder which of them went first.'

‘Oh? Why is that?' asked the detective.

The concierge displayed a humble nature. ‘The mother, if she knew her daughter had died, would follow her, Inspector. That is often the way of those who are totally dependent on another.'

St-Cyr dragged out a broken package of cigarettes and offered one. ‘And if the mother had died first?' he asked.

‘Then Mademoiselle Bertrand, she … she would have been relieved of a burden she has been forced to carry for far too long.'

The Sûreté struck a match and held it out. ‘Did Madame Rachline know her friend was a prostitute?'

‘That one? Ah no … no, Inspector. How could she? Madame Rachline is a mother with two children and no husband to support them. She takes in mending, is a seamstress, a fixer of dresses. A make-over artist to whom my wife and others go when the need is dire. A wedding, a funeral … ah, excuse me. A funeral, yes, yes of course. Another visit will be necessary, no doubt.'

Aubin looked up and shrugged at the added cost. Of course they would have to attend the funeral since who else would?

St-Cyr began to pack his pipe. ‘Then this Madame Rachline lives nearby?' he asked non-committally.

The cigarette was budgeted with a sigh. ‘She rents that part of the house behind La Belle Époque, on the rue des Trois Maries, Inspector. I think, but cannot be certain, you understand, that Mademoiselle Bertrand used to work in that place. Perhaps that is how they came to know one another? The dresses, the sheets, the seamstressing. Perhaps it is that Madame Rachline does a little work for the house. In any case, she is a lady who protects her children from all such things, of this you can be certain.'

‘And her husband?' asked St-Cyr.

‘Gone as I have said. Where, I do not know since she never speaks of him, nor do either of her children. A son of ten and a daughter of twelve.'

He put the tobacco pouch away. ‘Did Mademoiselle Bertrand limp when she returned at nine fifty-seven?'

‘Limp? But …? Why … why, yes. Yes, she had lost a shoe.'

‘Good!' St-Cyr crammed the pipe-stem between his teeth and lit up. Blowing smoke, he waved the match out and nodded sagely. ‘Don't touch the rooms. Let the police do their work. They will remove the bodies and dust for fingerprints and then they will seal everything until further notice.'

5

G
RIMLY
S
T
-C
YR DREW ON THE PIPE HE LONGED
to enjoy. It was Christmas Day, and for one brief glimpse, the grey above cleared as church bells pealed.

He reached the centre of the pont Alphonse Juin and leaned on its carved stone parapet, gazing downriver at the Saône. Sheet-ice had formed in places. Vapour rose above pools where brown scums of sewage froth overflowed to stain that pristine glacial sheath.

Two women, the one now dead, the other a ‘seamstress', the mother of two children, the madam of a very high-class bordello.

Childhood friends, one of whom had been ‘special'.

A convoy of Wehrmacht lorries began to cross the bridge, startling him and scattering the
vélo-taxis
, vibrating the ancient footings which seemed to cry out, For shame! How can you let this happen to us?

The convoy was travelling at a march-past to impress the populace and not suffer the indignity of skidding on the treacherous surface that had already spilled too many. Three motor cycles were ahead of an open touring car. Klaus Barbie and some woman …

The grey fox-fur coat rippled in the breeze. She laughed, wore no hat and must be freezing but would not let on. Flashing grey-blue eyes and dark auburn hair, not French, ah no, definitely not. Frau Weidling … was it Frau Weidling?

The lorries threw their shadows over him and when the last of them had passed, he heard the rudeness of a flatulent trombone and saw that it came from a concert band.

The convoy reached the far side and turned downstream along the quai des Célestins. The sewage bubbled up from the bottom of the river. The stains followed the lorries, flooding over the ice as if unstoppable.

Two women, three fires in 1938 in the Reich and now another and far worse fire in Lyon and an attempt that could so easily have ended in disaster.

The shards of a gilded glass tree-ornament, an antique taken, no doubt, from La Belle Époque so as to have a bit of decoration, a little something to love and remind one of Christmases past and childhood friends, the beach at Concarneau. Ah yes.

And a girl with a bicycle. One whose earnest brown eyes had looked searchingly across place Terreaux towards the ruins of the cinema.

A girl with short, light brown hair, no lipstick and no rouge. A grey plaid skirt and dark grey woollen argyle kneesocks. Flat-heeled brown leather walking shoes—was she English? Had she once visited England and adopted that style of dress? Had she been so agitated and distracted she had forgotten to wear her winter boots?

Not beautiful, not plain either. About twenty-five or -six years of age. A schoolteacher perhaps and therefore formerly a student.

A priest who took advantage of lonely women. A jewelled cross and a wealthy benefactor who could well have been in the priest's debt: Monsieur Henri Masson.

La Belle Époque.

The girl had returned to the scene of the fire. She had been worried, had been struggling valiantly with her conscience. Why else the yellow work card of Mademoiselle Claudine Bertrand? Why else the one thing that would most easily lead them to the brothel and then to the prostitute's body?

Kohler warily let his eyes sift slowly over a pair of women's shoes that would come well above the ankles and were of black leather with lacing up the front and pointed toes. The shoes were on the floor at the back of the closet in which he had hidden for so long. But shoes they were and he knew that if presented with them, Suzie, the usherette who was still downstairs in the bar of the Hotel Bristol, would recognize them instantly as the ‘boots' she had seen on one of those two women.

Frau Weidling and Claudine Bertrand must have sat side by side in that cinema. But two women had come in late, and he was almost certain Frau Weilding had come in alone.

Three women, then, had there been
three
of them? Frau Weidling first and sitting elsewhere, then the two who had come in late. Ah
merde.

At last the chambermaids he had followed into the Prince Albert Suite departed and he was able to step out of the closet and take a look at the place. Room upon room opened before him, with ornately carved and gilded mirrors and Louis XVI furniture. There would be nothing like this back home at the Fire Protection Officers' School in Eberswald.