Salamander (22 page)

‘When did you give it to her and where?'

Ah how guarded their questions and answers were!

‘In the shop on the morning of that fire. Claudine came to see me. She wanted help—financial help—to start a new life somewhere else. She was insistent but …'

Henri's expression was pained. The back of the left hand was touched and then the top button of his jacket … He could not know that Claudine had come to see her that very same afternoon. Ah no …

‘But I had given so much in the past, Inspector, I could not give any more—there was the robbery too, you understand, and the cash that would be needed to carry on. Claudine owed me … A moment, please. I have the account book.'

‘A moment yourself, monsieur. Please,' cautioned the detective with an upraised finger. ‘A new life some place else?' he asked.

Henri gave that shrug she knew so well, that reassuring smile. ‘Claudine was always short of money, Inspector, and always wanting to leave Lyon. It was nothing new, I assure you. She keeps two daughters in a convent school in Orléans. She was always saying she wanted to live closer to them but of course, with the Occupation, that was impossible. Virtually all her earnings went to them and now I shall have to take care of it for her.'

Two daughters. ‘Who is the father, monsieur?'

‘That … that I do not know nor … nor did I ever ask.'

Henri went over to the secretaire to pause briefly as if struck by the sight of the bracelet just lying there—how could his little sister have been so careless? Is that what he was thinking, the poor darling? wondered Martine.

Quickly he opened a drawer and found the red, moroccobound booklet that was no bigger than one for listing telephone numbers.

The detective accepted the proffered evidence. He would note the precision of the penmanship and that, in each entry, the sum was the same. Ah yes. ‘Two thousand francs to the total of one hundred and sixty-eight thousand?' he said.

‘Over the past ten years, Inspector. Ever since my grandfather died and Claudine went to work for Ange-Marie at La Belle Époque.'

‘She would have been twenty-two at the time; Ange-Marie twenty-four and yourself, monsieur?'

‘Twenty-six but it's of no consequence.'

Though the detective kept his thoughts to himself, he would not leave things so simply defined. Ah no, he was too persistent, too dedicated, thought Martine. ‘Perhaps,' he said, ‘but then … ah then, Monsieur Charlebois, age so often has its meaning. One is older, another is much younger, and one is in between.'

Had it been wise to tell him of the money, of loans that could never be repaid?

Henri said nothing. What could he have said about those days when the three of them were young and so much had happened?

An interruption at the door brought the impasse to its close. She would let Henri do the answering. Yes, yes, it would be best to get him away from the detective.

It was Jean-Pierre and Fernand and Lorraine, her three
zazous
in dark glasses, and they had come with a little gift for their teacher. Henri was irritated and upset on seeing them at his door. He did not like their grins or constantly erratic motion. He did not value the attentions they paid his little sister and thought such an extracurricular association undignified and unprofessional of her. Yet he could be very nice to them when he wanted. Had they startled him for some other reason? she wondered. Had their presence alarmed him? He was afraid.

With difficulty and muttered apologies, he allowed them to come in and called her from the kitchen.

She would throw on an apron and seize a tea towel—would pretend to wipe her hands as she went toward them. Each removed the dark glasses and the huge cock-hate, the earmuffs of gold and orange and livid green. Ear-rings on the boys no shirts this evening but leather jackets open to the navel in spite of the freezing cold.
And
pegged trousers that exposed bare ankles and sockless feet that were tucked into laceless shoes which had not a trace of polish. Lorraine was opening the umbrella that was always carried closed in the rain to infuriate passing adults who had none. There was long, greasy hair on all three of them. Lorraine's pleated skirt was so short her shapely thighs half exposed their pinkish blush of frost. They'd all get pneumonia. They were rebellious youth unleashed and wanting to show the Occupiers and everyone else exactly what they thought of them. But ah
mon Dieu
,
mon Dieu
, they were so lovely! Her two heroes and her little heroine.

St-Cyr watched the greetings of the sister with interest. While the brother remained aloof and uncomfortable, the sister hugged each of them, kissed their cheeks and made a fuss.

‘Come in … come into the kitchen and warm yourselves. A little gift … Ah, you shouldn't have. What is it?' And so the chatter went until the three of them clutched mugs of herbal tea that had been sweetened with a purée of chestnuts.

‘Inspector …' began Charlebois, hoping to get him back into the salon.

‘Ah no, monsieur. For me, the kitchen is fine.'

The teenagers were ebullient. They threw themselves around in states of sloppiness but were grateful for their teacher's warmth and admiration. ‘A detective,' said the one called Jean-Pierre with awe. ‘Paris … Monsieur, permit me, please, to ask are we …'

‘Are we like the
zazous
of the clubs on the Champs-Élysées? The Ledoyen?' asked Lorraine with a seriousness one found disconcerting.

He would take them all in with a sweeping glance. He would exercise caution and preach patience to himself. ‘Very,' he said, finding the will to grin. ‘Exactly as those I've seen at the Colisée, the Bar Select and other places.'

This set them to talking rapidly amongst themselves while their teacher basked in the praise and fluttered around with ersatz biscuits of some sort. Fig perhaps.

Fernand, a pimply-faced youth of fifteen, produced Swiss chocolate with a flourish. Jean-Pierre ignored the loot and offered real coffee and cigarettes.

Lorraine had several tubes of lipstick to display. All the items were offered for sale and this was quietly understood.

‘Inspector …' began Mademoiselle Charlebois. ‘It's Christmas Day. Please do not be too hard on them. These are little things, isn't that so? Lyon, it … it is not under your … your … well, you know. The préfer, he …'

‘My jurisdiction, is that what you mean, mademoiselle?'

‘Martine, how could you?'

‘Henri, the coffee was to be for you, the chocolate also.'

‘And the lipstick?' asked the brother sharply. ‘You know how much I hate the sight of your wearing such things. It cheapens you.'

‘And the present?' asked the Sûreté, for it still lay on the table. Clearly the students were working the ‘System D'
*
, making do and taking care of themselves by playing the black market. Every lycée had its System Ds and the
zazous
were a part of it. A chicken for the pot, a roast of veal perhaps or packet of salt—clothes, the leather jackets, the girl's skirt … all were products of the system.

‘The present …?' he said again, seeing them look questioningly at each other while the brother watched them with alarm.

‘Open it, please,' breathed the detective, ‘or would you prefer I did?'

It was the girl who kept her eyes focused on the thing while Monsieur Charlebois stood across the table from her, frantically trying to get her to give him a hint as to what it contained. She refused to raise her lovely blue eyes to meet his gaze but whispered, ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois, our Assistant Professor of Germanic studies, must open it, Monsieur the Detective from Paris. It is just a little something. It is nothing much.'

‘Henri, you open it,' said his sister but the brother refused and went into the other room saying, ‘You should be ashamed. They should not have come here.'

Upset by his words, her pale lips quivered, and her fingers shook as she undid the wrapping and tried not to damage the paper.

There was a small cardboard box and, inside this in tissue, a ring of keys that made her gasp and burst into tears of relief and gratitude. ‘My keys!' she blurted, fondly touching each of her students and hugging them. ‘The keys to the Lycée du Parc, Inspector. I dropped them some place. I never lose a thing—I've never lost anything until … Ah, I was so upset and distracted—the examinations, their grades. My Director, le Docteur Taillander, he … he would have dismissed me, had he known of my carelessness.'

She clutched the keys in her left hand, held them to her lips and, shutting her eyes with relief, bowed her head to steady herself.

The
zazous
reached out to her comfortingly. They were distressed and embarrassed at the depths of her relief. Perhaps they had not known she would have been dismissed. Perhaps one of them had taken the keys and now all three were united in the shame of returning them.

It would be some moments before she recovered. St-Cyr signailed to them to leave and went with them to the front door. ‘Who found the keys and where?' he asked. ‘When were they lost and when was their absence first discovered? Come, come, answer truthfully.'

It was Jean-Pierre who reluctantly confessed. ‘I found the keys last Tuesday, Inspector, beside the lake in the park. There is a pavilion which is used for the band concerts. It …'

‘It is one of our meeting-places, Inspector,' said Lorraine, not looking up. ‘The keys were lying in the snow below the railing.'

Ah
mon Dieu
, what had they been up to? ‘Tuesday the twenty-second and you have let her suffer all this time? When did she lose them and for how long has she had to live in fear their loss would be discovered?'

‘A week prior to that Tuesday,' offered the boy Fernand. ‘We searched everywhere, Inspector.'

A week! The fifteenth … ‘And yet you kept the keys a further three days knowing how distressed she was?'

‘Only to make the present more suitable,' said Jean-Pierre.

‘Pah! If I were your father, I would soon straighten you out! Wearing rubbish like that. Dealing on the black market. Now get out of here. Be home and indoors well before curfew.'

‘It was only a set of keys, Inspector,' said the girl.

He stepped out into the hall after them and closed the door behind him. He knew he was edgy and unreasonable—that he'd defied authority himself as a boy and had paid dearly for it, but this … this was something else, something so deliberate it hurt. ‘One hundred and eighty-three are dead, my little birds. Three others also. Some sixty are still in hospital, some so badly burned they will be horribly disfigured for the rest of their lives. At present, I do not know if the keys have even the slightest importance, but if they have, you had best tell me everything and do so immediately.'

They objected. They said the keys could have nothing to do with the fire, that he must be crazy.

They begged him not to tell their teacher. They said she must have set them on the pavilion's railing and that she'd been upset and distracted for days prior to their being lost.

Days prior to the fifteenth. The Weidlings had arrived on the tenth. Claudine had had to get away …

When he returned to the flat, the sister had excused herself and gone to her room, the brother held his coat, scarf and hat at the ready.

The desire to ask where Charlebois had been on that Tuesday of the lost keys, and from then until the finding of them on the twenty-second was there, but for now had best be left. ‘Monsieur, if it would not be too much trouble, could I ask that you drive me to Number Six, rue du Boeuf? I must take another look at the flat of your childhood friend and link up with my partner, Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo.'

‘Is this necessary?'

Ah
mon Dieu
, the guarded anger. ‘Absolutely, monsieur. Lyon is a city in fear and we must put a stop to it before there is another fire.'

‘Don't the Sûreté and the Gestapo grant their detectives transport?'

‘Not since some gangsters shot my Citroën all to pieces in Montmartre. It's still under repair.'

‘Then I will drive you to Claudine's and answer any further questions you might have of me.' Ah damn, the Sûreté had found out about the car.

‘Just the ride to save time, monsieur. Perhaps if you could wait in the street outside Number Six, then the lift over to the temporary morgue? We can talk on the way. You can fill me in on Mademoiselle Bertrand and the cross of Father Adrian, I think, and then a little more about your sister, the Lycée du Parc and her studies to become an assistant professor. Yes, that would be excellent!'

Questions, there were always questions, thought St-Cyr. The streets were treacherous and the cold could easily cause the car to stall. Left alone inside, the two of them would talk as the windows iced up. Ah yes. Already the cinematographer's cameras were rolling but there would be no floodlights, only darkness in the rue du Boeuf outside the house where a friend had been killed to keep her silent.

‘Oh by the way, Monsieur Charlebois. My compliments to your sister for the tastefully simple way she has decorated the fir tree in your salon. Those gilded glass pears are exquisite and must be very old. Venetian, I believe.'

Bishop Frédéric Dufour was not happy. A busy man on this busiest of days, he threw off his vestments, tossing hat, robe and dangling scarf—was it called a scarf?—into a chair. ‘That vile old woman, Inspector Kohler. May God have mercy on her. Saint Peter will have to cut out her tongue if the Devil doesn't get her.'

He spotted the dregs of Calvados and one dirty glass. The detective still held the other.

Snatching up the scrubwoman's glass, he threw it into the fire. ‘The bitch!' he swore. ‘I'll show her. This is the last time, absolutely, that she violates the sanctity of my study! Vermin … did she tell you my church was full of lice, eh? Well, she's the one who is carrying them!'