Salamander (18 page)

Still there was that quietness to Barbie's voice. ‘Not certain. Call it an educated guess, Frau Weidling. If we're wrong, nothing is lost. If we're right, then a great deal has been gained.'

‘Yet Herr Robichaud still goes free?'

God, how sweet they were to each other! thought Kohler.

Barbie's hand fell. Her fingers having gripped her dress, lessened their hold, then gave it up and tensely smoothed the fabric over shapely thighs. She would be only too well aware of the Obersturmführer's reputation as a notorious womanizer. Was she wondering if he'd ask her to take off her clothes or was she hoping he wouldn't?

Infuriatingly, Barbie's leg with its regulation black shoe, and his hand disappeared from Kohler's view. ‘Perhaps, Frau Weidling, we will let your husband destroy Herr Robichaud's credibility. Lyon's fire chief could then commit suicide.'

Her hands had come to a stop again, this time with the fingertips at the hem of her skirt and touching the meshed silk stockings of dark Prussian blue. ‘And Robichaud's mistress?' she asked so quietly one had to strain to hear the coyness in her voice.

‘A double suicide. Yes, yes, that would be nice.'

‘Good.'

Ah
Gott im Himmel
, the bitch! What now? wondered Kohler. Barbie was like a banker, a businessman—without the uniform he'd pass totally unnoticed as a middle-class Frenchman in a crowd. No problem. He spoke fluent French with only a faint accent. Ah yes. Son of a bitch.

He wasn't tall, was really quite diminutive for the head of Section IV of the Lyon KDS, the Einsatzkommando under Lieutenant-Colonel Werner Knab. Repression of political crimes
i.e.
, Jews, Communists, escaped workers, counterespionage and all those carrying false papers of any kind. An archive too, mustn't forget that. All were under Barbie's command which was not bad for a guy who really ought to have been allowed to go on to the university if grandpapa had given humanity even the blinking of an eye.

‘You are attending the concert on Sunday evening.' It wasn't a question but she answered Yes like a shy schoolgirl ready to yield her honour, her little capital.

It was Barbie's turn to say Good and he did it in such a clipped manner, she was startled and confused but only for a split second.

Then recognition, perhaps, entered her pretty head. She smiled knowingly and said again, with eagerness this time, ‘Yes … yes, I will be there. Is Johann to be in charge of security?'

He was. This pleased her so much she got up quickly and went over to Barbie and out of sight, ah damn.

‘A small fire is quite possible,' he said, ‘but we will make certain there will be no panic except in those areas where we might want it.'

merde
!

‘Shall I inform my husband of this?' she asked, the schoolgirl again.

‘No. No, it would be best to leave it between ourselves.'

This time she must have reached out to take him eagerly by the hand, for she gushed, ‘I'm so grateful, Herr Obersturmführer.'

His heels crashed together in the little bow a bastard like that would give. ‘Then consider it my Christmas present to you, Frau Weidling. Heil Hitler.'

She stopped him at the door. ‘Why is it you think the Salamander a man? Please, is there something I should know? Johann, he is certain it is, but for myself, I … I have my doubts.'

I'll bet you do! snorted Kohler silently.

‘And you'd like to know?' asked Barbie, teasing her now. Would he have sex with her right there on the floor?

‘Yes. Yes, I would,' she answered demurely.

Kohler could feel her quivering. Ah
Gott im Himmel
, was the woman having an orgasm over it?

‘Then read the profiles your husband has in his briefcase, Frau Weidling. The first is the most thorough and least speculative. It covers all three of those fires in the Reich in 1938 and suggests strongly that our Salamander is a man. A student at the time of those fires, perhaps, or the jealous lover of one.'

Though taller by far than Barbie, she leaned in close and down to brush her lips against his cheek and give him a tender whiff of perfume. Ah yes. Musk and civet and God knows what all else. Strong and earthy in any case. In heat but not wanting to rut.

Kohler heard her whispering that it was a pity Barbie couldn't stay longer. ‘It gets so boring sometimes. Johann is always so busy.'

Barbie didn't spare her. ‘Then perhaps it is, Frau Weidling, that you would enjoy sitting in on one of our interrogations? We have a woman in custody, a girl of twenty-two who refuses to answer my questions.'

‘A woman?'

‘Yes.'

That girl with the bicycle? demanded Kohler silently.

‘If … if I can be of any service, Herr Obersturmführer, you … you have only to ask.'

‘Good.'

The door closed and she stood there pilloried with her forehead pressed against it and her hand still clinging to the knob as she struggled with what Barbie had just implied about her. ‘Enjoy,' she blurted. ‘
Enjoy
, ah damn!'

A minute passed. Another and another. Then she brutally locked the door and hurried through to Weidling's bedroom.

Knowing he'd best leave while he could, Kohler watched her in a sliver of mirror as she read the profiles. She was quick about it, flustering only when she came to the last of them.

Lips parted, she looked up and across the room. Her throat constricted. Her eyes watered. ‘Johann,' she croaked. ‘Johann, how could you have done this to me?'

The profiles were returned and the briefcase taken with her. Kohler heard her undressing in her bedroom. Her clothes went underfoot and over a chair. A gorgeous figure. A round, high posterior with smooth, tight buttocks, good, slim hips and a long and supple back that gracefully and methodically bent as she undid each of her garters and smoothly rolled the stockings down.

Her breasts were not large but handsome, the nipples rosy and stiffening as, lost in thought, she touched them, then ran her fingers through the richness of her hair and dragged off the bracelets.

Lastly the ear-rings were removed, a hand running down her front to press flatly against her tummy, the dark auburn triangle of her pubes below.

‘
So
,
gut
,' she said in throaty, brutal German. ‘Yes,
gut
, Herr Obersturmführer. We shall see.'

A chanced look showed her soaking in the tub, smoking a cigarette and sipping cognac with the briefcase beside her on the floor. Self-satisfied and excited. Thrilled by what she had accomplished and by what the future might hold.

She blew on the end of the cigarette and gave that little laugh of a woman in heat knowing gratification was near. She looked at the embers but did not burn herself. She just liked the thought of it perhaps, the thought of pain in other women.

Now that the briefcase was out of reach, there was only one place he could find what was needed and that was in Klaus Barbie's office just down the street. Gestapo HQ Berlin wouldn't give it to him. Not after all the trouble Louis and he had caused the SS. They were dead fish,
verboten
and barely tolerated.

He'd have to manage it somehow.

Piling her hair up with a hand, she went under and for a moment he had only the sight of her cognac glass and the cigarette in its ashtray. Then … then the sight of her posterior rising from the suds like some strange creature of the sea. Gorgeously round and sleek and draining water over a skin that glistened with bath oil, glistened with … Were those the scars of welts? Had she been beaten, not once but several times and long ago?

Then the back … beautifully melded to the hips and seat, but revealing more faint scars.

Ah
merde
! She'd been thrashed to Jesus.

Finally her head emerged as she gasped, drew in a breath and filled her lungs. Once, twice, three times—still bent over as if beaten and having only just dragged herself up on to her knees.

He could not understand why she had forced herself to stay under so long. It made him uncomfortable and afraid. Muttering,
nom de Dieu!
Louis, to himself he slipped away, still thinking of the scars.

She would remember she had put the lock on—he had no doubt of it. She went under again and he heard the silence grow as the little wavelets in the tub began to die. She stayed down so long, he turned in panic and was starting back towards her when she came up for air to suck it in and fill the suite with her choking!

Verdammt!

It was almost too much to hope the girl with the bicycle would come to the temporary morgue. As unobtrusively as possible, St-Cyr searched the queue only to find the hush made him increasingly uneasy.

Two abreast and looking shabby through the softly falling snow, the motley line stretched along the rue de la Bourse and around the corner on to the rue du Bat d'Argent, the street of the packsack of silver.

There were far too many French Gestapo plain-clothes in the line—one could spot them so easily from here for they stood in pairs with their snap-brims pulled down, trench coat collars up and cigarettes—yes, in a nation where tobacco was gold, they could afford to toss their butts away and light another.

But apart from them, there was not a whisper of the German presence. Instead, the préfet's men in dark blue kept order.

Klaus Barbie was using the queue to trap people. Once inside the doors, all papers would be examined and the names recorded to be later checked against the growing list of victims and those other lists: the badly burned who were still in hospital, the not-so-badly-burned who had been treated and released, that of the audience members who had escaped unscathed, and that of all others who in any way had been connected with the cinema of the Beautiful Celluloid.

Barbie had known that those whose sons or other loved ones had disappeared without leaving a forwarding address to avoid the forced labour or to go into hiding for any other reason, the maquis perhaps … all would come in hopes their loved ones had not been found among the dead.

Only in the faces of the curious was there any sign of quickness but even they had had to succumb to the hush of the grieving.

The line crept forward. Occasionally someone would realize what was up and think to turn away, only to see that they dare not draw attention to themselves, that it was better to simply tough it out.

He wanted to shout, Go home. It's a trap! but could not do so, knowing only too well that like them, he, too, could be hustled away and into silence for ever.

When he found the girl, she was nearest the shop fronts, not far from the corner. And he realized then that she was using the windows to mirror the street and warn her if anyone had spotted her. The collar of the fawn-coloured, double-breasted overcoat was turned up. Muffled in a beige angora beret and scarf, she searched the glass as if looking at the window displays of suits made out of human hair or wood fibre and shoes with soles made out of wood or cork.

He let her believe she hadn't been spotted. Flashing his badge and holding up a cautioning hand to overcome objections, he slid into line four persons behind her. He hoped she would not panic when she discovered she would have to leave her name and address. He must not do anything that would give her away, must not let the préfet or the Gestapo get their hands on her or get any indication of whom he was after.

It took another hour but by then the girl had gone on to view the corpses amid the stench, wearing one of the regulation cloth masks and forcing herself to do so while the préfet confronted him.

‘Well, Louis, is it that you are so brazen you would show your face to me, eh?'

A brawler, a tough in uniform, Guillemette clenched a fist and shook it threateningly. ‘You and Kohler smashed up one of my best men in the rue des Trois Maries last night. Why have you done such a thing? He was there for your own safety, imbecile! Myself, I personally delegated him to watch over the two of you.'

How nice. ‘But … but, Préfet, we thought he was a robber! There was no light. There was someone with him.'

‘Who?'

‘My partner and I never found out. We were forced to leave your man in the street and—'

‘In the
gutter
, Jean-Louis! A broken nose that will take months to reset, four splintered teeth, twenty-six stitches about the face and five cracked ribs. No wallet or papers, no gun or knife or bracelets. Come, come my friend, what did you and Kohler do with them?'

No gun or knife or handcuffs … the papers stolen …? Ah
merde—
someone else had taken them! ‘Préfet, those narrow streets are dangerous after curfew. The next time—if there should be a next time—please ask your men to identify themselves well beforehand.'

Guillemette grunted savagely. ‘Don't play around with me, you little fart from Paris. What were you doing in the rue des Trois Maries?'

Madame Rachline could not have told him of their visit. ‘Nothing, Préfet. We had simply lost our way in the dark.'