Salamander (39 page)

She did not look away but into the past so deeply he could hear the sound of the waves on the beach of memory. ‘Claudine was the youngest, Henri the oldest. She was anxious to be friends, so submitted to things she might not otherwise have done. We … we discovered that fire sexually aroused her and that Henri liked to watch her. He would … would bring the flame up to her skin again and again as he … he brought her to orgasm. It became a compulsion with him—she was only nine when it started, twelve when it ended and it … it was a sickness in which I shared in the desperation of my own loneliness, but … but I could not stand to be burned. For me, the nearness of the flame only made me scream.'

‘But when brought close to another, madame, did it sexually excite you also?'

Vehemently she shook her head—could not help but look toward the alcove of the stone busts. ‘It
fascinated
me to watch them both!
That's
why I let him do it to her!'

‘When … when, exactly, was it that Henri Masson, Senior, discovered his grandson playing with matches?'

The children would have to be told. They'd hear things—the girls at La Belle Époque would be bound to say something. ‘After … after several fires had been mysteriously lit. A pavilion, a boatshed, a trawler, a barn, a house in the country in which five people perished. Monsieur Henri, Senior, found us among the dunes. They were not big dunes. They were just little hills and we ought to have known better. Claudine was lying on the ground and I was letting her hold me by the hands while Henri … Henri caressed her naked body with the flame.'

‘And then, madame?' he asked so quietly she blinked.

‘He beat us savagely. Claudine most of all but myself also, over his knee with my … my underpants around my ankles and my dress pushed up over my head. After this, we stopped going to Concarneau for the summers. Later … later she became his mistress but Monsieur Henri, Senior, was never satisfied, Inspector, and took me as well.'

So much for the quiet undercurrents beneath the veneer of Lyonnaise respectability. ‘Was Martine Charlebois the one to tell him about the three of you?'

Again his voice … ah, it was so gentle. ‘Yes. She was only six at the time and did not understand what was going on. Much later, and just before the old man died, he made Father Adrian swear to watch over Henri. No one could have foreseen that Father Adrian would take advantage of Martine and others, Inspector, but Henri found out about it and now … now so many have died, I must blame myself for not having stopped him.'

‘She knew her brother had caused the fires that eventually killed her fiancé.'

‘Yes. Claudine went to Lübeck first, but I did not even think Henri had also done so. He's away so much of the time.'

‘Did you kill Robichaud with those?'

The shears. ‘Robichaud … ah no. No, of course not. Nor did Martine. Henri saw his little sister with them when we went to the shop. He … he must have …'

‘And now, madame? What will he do?'

She shrugged. She tried not to meet his eyes and failed. ‘He will kill himself and perhaps others. He's lost her—don't you see? For him, Martine was everything I could no longer be, and the irony of it is, Inspector, that Henri Charlebois is my half-brother.'

‘Pardon?'

‘Look, I wouldn't have known as a child, would I? Oh for sure I saw the similarities—you've only to look at my son and me. But my mother, whom I adored, never gave me so much as a hint.'

‘And your father?' he asked.

Must he push until he had all the answers? ‘Was never happy with me and always suspected me of something I could not possibly have known anything about.'

‘Louis …' The Bavarian had come to join them. The two detectives looked at each other. Grimly the one called Kohler nodded. So, the job was done and the body covered. ‘We'd best get going, Louis. We haven't much time.'

They would have to be told. ‘You'll never stop him, Inspectors. Henri knows the theatre too well. He'll play games with you and you'll never know which game he intends to use until it is too late.'

‘And if he finds you there, madame?' asked Chief Inspector St-Cyr. Quite obviously he hated himself for having asked, yet had known he must.

She would give him the shy half-smile of the child she had once been before the fires had ever started. ‘Then Henri will kill me, Inspector, and the
ménage à trois
of Concarneau will be complete. Claudine, myself also, and Henri, your Salamander.'

They were running now, and the sound of the orchestra was coming to them through the closed doors of the upper balcony. A Strauss waltz … yes, yes, thought Madame Rachline. The German fire chief had met them in the foyer below. No sign of Henri. No way he could possibly have got through security. Everything safe … safe … His wife … The German did not yet know about her and still wondered where she was.

St-Cyr had said nothing, only hurried on. Kohler had said, ‘Idiot, you're crazy! Charlebois must be inside!' and had run after them.

All along the corridor there was carpeting. Red globes of fire-retardant hung on the walls near gas lights that were so subdued, the laughter and the good times of the past came as if in the present on the soaring strains of the waltz and it was mad … mad … crazy, yes! Henri would be hiding some place. Henri would also hear the waltz, a favourite. Was it that the detectives did not know he had chosen the pieces? Would it make any difference?

‘In here,' hissed the one called Kohler. ‘You first, madame. Louis, you take the far aisle. Search the faces. He'll have timed the release of all those bloody bits of phosphorus!'

‘What about the elevator shafts?'

‘The shafts?'

‘Yes. Wind tunnels, Hermann. The belfry, remember?'

Verdammt!
‘Later. Let's look for him first.'

The theatre was packed. The music soared and with it came the glitter, the sumptuousness of black ties and dinner jackets, silk and satin evening dresses, bare shoulders, plunging necklines, swept-up hair, droplet ear-rings, bracelets and necklaces. Everywhere he looked, Kohler saw that the audience, finding the furnaces on, had shed their overcoats and wraps. And oh
mein Gott
but there must be half the fucking Army of the South in attendance, scattered about among the elite of Lyon. The bishop in his box, the mayor, the préfet, the Obersturmbann-führer Werner Knab and Klaus Barbie with two gorgeous women in another, General Niehoff and his party in yet another.

Over one hundred musicians were onstage, arranged in tiers with kettledrums and bass viols to the back. Trombones and trumpets next, with French horns to one side and violas. Then to the left, the violins in front, woodwinds dead centre, and the first and second cellos to the right … the right …

Maudit!
There was an empty chair among all the sawing, a naked cello leaning against a stand and not lying on the floor waiting to be picked up by its owner. A music stand on which the sheets had been spread … spread … ‘Louis …?' he said, searching desperately along the far aisle for a sight of him as the waltz swirled upwards to fill the hall.

Kohler heard Madame Rachline sharply suck in a breath and say, ‘Martine's cello …'

‘What about the cello?'

‘Henri …' she began, but could not bring herself to continue.

Again he hunted for Louis. Again he found there was no sign of him. Ah
merde
, where had he gone?

Kohler shook her hard and at last she blurted. ‘Henri … he … he must have got past the guards by carrying that in.'

A cello. ‘Dressed as a woman?' demanded Kohler.

Her nod was quick, and she fought to tell him about the stage door. ‘So, the game has begun, Inspector, and now you and your partner must find him among all these people.'

The swirling, soaring richness of Strauss was suddenly all about them. Loud and full and magnificent. Violins gave questions; cellos answered, then trumpets signalled change and flutes and oboes came in to join the violins and violas.

Plucking … there were strings being plucked in a counter-melody. The cellos … yes, yes, he said, anxiously looking down over the crowd below, now here, now there … Barbie using his field glasses to find them … Knab asking what the trouble was … Ah
Gott im Himmel
, Louis, where the hell are you?

Exasperated, St-Cyr breathed in. There'd been a minor altercation with Gestapo Lyon at the door to the balcony. The bastard had insisted on seeing his ID, and unfortunately the Sûreté had broken a Gestapo nose on the
belle époque
ashtray stand. One could not please everyone these days. Such things were hopeless.

From the balcony railing he scanned the faces row by row. Charlebois could be anywhere. Dark black hair—a wig perhaps, if as a woman, but short hair if as a man. Long lashes, short lashes, lipstick, rouge and eye shadow or none.

No, it was impossible. They'd never find him this way. Besides, people were beginning to take notice. Ah
merde.

He turned and he, too, saw the cello alone among the others as the music fell only to lift again and he, too, was tempted to listen, to fill his mind and soul with it, for the
Vienna Blood
was perhaps the most stirring of Strauss's waltzes.

A cello … an empty chair, a tribute to a sister who had died in vain, but did that instrument have some other purpose? Did it?

Hermann nudged his arm with a pair of borrowed opera glasses. ‘You take the left down there, Louis. I'll take the right. He's not up here.'

‘Or is he, eh, my friend? Come, come, how can you be so sure?'

The sound of violins filled the theatre. ‘She'd have recognized him even if he's dressed as a woman.'

‘Who would have?'

‘Madame Rachline, idiot! She's right here with … Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ
, Louis, she's vanished!'

‘So we look for her and we find him, Hermann. Is that the way it is to be?'

‘And we ask, will he also use gasoline?'

The elevator shaft went up to a drum hoist on the roof and down to a well in the cellar. Hermann hated lifts. Old ones, new ones, it did not matter. They seldom worked properly. Life too often hung by a thread when least expected. There was pork grease on the cable, not petroleum grease, a bad sign. Strands of wire had become frayed and some had parted.

The grease was pale whitish grey and glistened in the beam of the torch as they gingerly stood on top of the cage and the fucking thing rocked in its housing.

Which of them saw it first, they'd never know. Gasoline was trickling down the cable in a little river of its own. Already it had formed a puddle in a corner of the roof, and from there, had seeped down the outside of the cage until droplets were released to hit the floor far below them.

Hermann looked questioningly up into the darkness of the shaft above. ‘You know I don't like heights, Louis.'

‘
Time
, Hermann. Is there time? Let us use the stairs and not the ladder.'

‘Leiter Weidling will have checked the drive house. It must be between here and there.'

A different droplet fell and then, after an indeterminate pause, another. ‘Louis …' Again the torch beam probed the darkness but Occupation batteries were subject to failure. ‘Water, Louis,' he muttered. ‘It's dripping on my head.'

‘Water?'

‘Yes.'

The cold and impersonal iron ladder beckoned. It went up one side of the timbered shaft but neither of them had thought to tell anyone the lift must not be used while they were up there.

When the hoist drum began to turn, it filled the shaft with its sound and through this came the muted strains of Mendelssohn's Fourth Symphony, Opus 90, the second movement, ah yes. The whirring soon filled the shaft and then the clunking of the stops as the cage descended to leave them stranded.

Mendelssohn … If one tried, one could almost see the cellos as they carried the countermelody. Lovely … it was lovely. Did Charlebois know his music so well?

Half-way to the hoist there was a cable guide and stop, and it was here that the Salamander had tied a jerry can of gasoline. They could just pick it out in the feeble beam of light.

Again there was dripping water, and again Hermann felt it, this time on an outstretched hand. With almost haunting, terrifying progression, the music reached them. They thought of heating and ventilating ducts, they thought of all the places Charlebois might hide and never be found.

‘A condom,' grunted Louis. ‘It's hanging from a bit of wire, Hermann. It bulges with water like a woman's breast with the milk of my dreams.'

‘Milk? Dreams? Can you get it? Don't drop it.'

‘The cube of phosphorus will be in the centre at the bottom, Hermann, just above the pin-hole of the nipple.'

‘Nipple?'

‘You're taller,' said Louis, straining. ‘Your arms, Hermann, they are longer than mine. Please, I am sorry for the inconvenience but if I were to climb down and you were to climb up …'

The torch fell away, and they listened for it until it was heard.

‘Hang on, Louis! Ah
Gott im Himmel
, idiot! Give me some room.'

‘My foot! You are standing on my foot!'

Hermann paused as the echoes chased their words. ‘Maybe you'd better find us a bucket of water, Louis. Just in case.'

‘Shall I stand on the cage and hope to catch the condom in the dark, eh? Get up there, my friend. That's what they pay you for. Please don't piss on me.'

Hermann unbent the wire in the darkness—he was really very good at such things, having once been a demolitions expert.

Gingerly the bag was passed from hand to hand. ‘Easy, Louis. Easy. You're right. It's like a pregnant woman's tit just before the kid comes.'

‘Is he trying to tell us something, Hermann? Is this nothing but a decoy?'