Salamander

by J. Robert Janes

  Again he ran. Again he fell and, when he got to the bishop’s car, he thought he’d never reach the fire in time. Louis … had Louis been caught in the flames? Louis trapped. Louis roasted. Louis crying out, H … E … R … M … A … NN! Why have you not covered for me?

  When he left the car at the foot of the rue Pouteau, Kohler left it against an iron light standard, leaking antifreeze all over the place and hissing steam.

  Everything was bathed in a warm glow and he felt it against his face long before he reached the flames. ‘Louis …?’ he gasped. ‘Louis …’

  St-Cyr distrustfully watched his two charges as they gazed at the uncovered corpse of Claudine Bertrand in the cold, damp silence of the Institut Medico-Légal where all sounds echoed. Ange-Marie Rachline was impassive, the blush of frost deep against the natural pallor, for he had forced them both to walk through the night from the scene of the accident—had it really been an accident? He was all but certain one or both of them had put the car into the railing and over the embankment but not before, may God be thanked, they had managed to scramble out.

  Like her, Charlebois could not take his eyes from their childhood friend, but unlike her, he sought each detail and repeatedly passed uncertain eyes from head to toe and back again. Breathing quietly, thinking what? That it was all over, Claudine? That there would never be a time such as they had had at Concarneau, never another fire? Was he making her that promise as he searched her naked body and did not shrink from it?

  Was he the Salamander or was Ange-Marie, or were both of them?

  At last Charlebois spoke. ‘May I touch her?’ he asked in a whisper.

  ‘Henri …?’ gasped Ange-Marie in alarm. ‘Leave her in peace. She’s suffered enough.’

  ‘But …’

  Ah mon Dieu, thought St-Cyr, such anguish in the eyes, the hand faltering then dropping uselessly to the side. A former lover? he wondered.

  The marble on which she lay was blue and cold and sloped at her feet to an ugly drain. It was all too evident that she bore the scars of innumerable liaisons. She had been touched again and again by fire. The smell of sweat, urine, vaginal secretions and perfume would have mingled with that of male or female tobacco smoke, candlewax and searing flesh. The biting back as fear raced to the exquisiteness of orgasm.

  He would ask it softly. ‘What really happened on the beaches at Concarneau? Did one of you hold her down while the other burnt her, or did she beg you both to do it and did you then find pleasure in it?’

  ‘How dare you? She’s dead!’

  A reaction at last, a shattering of Madame Rachline’s impassive emptiness. Colour racing to join that of the frost, her dark eyes blazing fiercely.

  ‘Inspector, is this really necessary?’ asked Charlebois. ‘It’s Claudine. We’ve identified her and her mother. Now will you kindly let us go on our separate ways?’

  ‘Please do not be so polite, monsieur. I only want to know which of you killed her. Was it you, Madame Rachline, or was it yourself, Monsieur Charlebois, or the two of you together?’

  It was Ange-Marie who smirked and said sarcastically, ‘Or neither of us?’

  ‘Madame, you were the last to see her alive. The concierge will swear to it!’

  ‘She died in her sleep, Inspector,’ said the antique dealer. ‘You’ve no proof she was murdered. No proof whatsoever that either of us was involved.’

  Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, how could Charlebois remain so aloof and calm? ‘Then tell me, monsieur, exactly how it was at Concarneau and why, please, your grandfather thought it necessary to leave such a valuable thing as this to Father Adrian Beaumont?’

  Ah, damn him! The detective dangled the cross of the Family Rouleau above Claudine’s middle. He was deliberately trying to unsettle them, thought Charlebois.

  ‘She … she was …’ began Ange-Marie.

  ‘Special?’ asked the detective, tossing his head back a little in agreement. ‘She was your friend, Madame Rachline. Since when does one treat one’s friend in such a fashion?’

  ‘Ange-Marie, we don’t need to stay here. I was in Dijon, Inspector!’

  He would let them think about it. He would take out his pipe and begin to pack it. Yes, yes, that would be … ah merde! No tobacco when most needed!

  They watched as he self-consciously tucked pipe and pouch away. They stood at the foot of the slab, at each corner, brother and sister perhaps. The resemblance was uncanny but, had he not seen them like this, doubt would most certainly have crossed his mind. The same dark eyes, the same finely boned features. Both tall and thin, both with essentially the same build and the same jet-black hair.

  ‘Inspector …?’ began Madame Rachline.

  Reluctantly he had to say it. ‘Yes, yes, you may go for now. Please do not leave the city.’

  Outside the morgue they could not fail to notice the orange-red glow in the sky above Croix Rousse nor the billowing plumes of smoke and sparks. Both held their breath and let their pulses race. Both were fascinated—mesmerized—yet deeply troubled and uncertain.

  It was Charlebois who started off toward the fire though it must be nearly two kilometres away. It was Madame Rachline who said, ‘Now are you satisfied?’

  ‘Of what?’ demanded St-Cyr hotly.

  ‘Of his innocence, Inspector. His innocence.’

  The building was tall and narrow and sandwiched between others. Five storeys high and a raging inferno. No trucks could get close enough to use their turntable ladders so hand-ladders had had to be used. There were men on the roof-tops, men half-way up the front of the building pouring the water in and trying to contain the fire or climbing higher and higher. Some on the staircase at the back, some inside in the smoke-filled corridors. People being rescued, some still ready to jump. A child was dropped, the little bundle falling … falling … Kohler began to run. He didn’t think, he just ran and slipped and ran and slipped and threw out his arms yelling, ‘Please, God. Please, God,’ in German at the top of his lungs.

  The kid hit him in a smothering cloud of flannelette and he went down hard hugging it to himself only to hear it crying.

  Stunned, he got up, drenched and cold and tripping over the hoses. A canvas tarpaulin was being stretched but would the parents jump?

  Bathed in the terrible light, he held the baby up to them and watched as the woman squeezed out of the attic window to plummet like a stone, her night-dress billowing above her head to leave her naked until she missed the net. Ah damn.

  Then the husband leapt. His legs and arms seemed so useless, the hairy scrotum and bare ass almost comic. He took no time at all and he, too, missed the net.

  Kohler touched the kid’s forehead. The little tyke seemed only to wonder what all the noise and excitement was about. ‘Monsieur … Monsieur,’ said a young woman, ‘please let me have him. I knew them a little, yes? Both were not from these parts, you understand, but from Belgium, from Brugge, I think.’

  He understood and nodded sadly. Ah merde, to have come all this way through the blitzkrieg of 1940 only to die like that. ‘Look after him, eh? Here, wait. No, no, I insist.’

  He thrust a roll of bills into her hand and would not take no for an answer. Then he went back to the fire to help with one of the hoses. Louis … There was no sign of Louis.

  Later, and with a roar, the roof of the tenement caved in and everyone turned in shocked surprise to back away, for the men up there in the floodlights had disappeared to the muffled gasp of the crowd.

  Robichaud coughed blood and vomited. Down on his hands and knees near one of the pumper trucks, he doubled up to drag in a breath. Flashbulbs popped as he pitched over. His mouth opened and closed in agony. He was wallowing on ice, desperately trying to get up, desperately trying to breathe.

  Again there was a cough, a ragged drawing in of the chest as he lay among the hoses, two of which had sprung leaks and now pissed streams across him. One of his men pushed through the black leather trench coats and jackboots of the Propaganda Staffel to sit him up. Another
tore at his things and got his chest and shoulders free of the heavy garments.

  He looked at them once, his eyes drifting numbly up into the flashbulbs before he passed out.

  Then the flames began gradually to die as those who were left refused to leave their stations. Sweat sharpened the tension in their faces, etching the streaks of soot, grease, ashes and tears. One man had broken his right hand which was now useless to him, the hose tucked under that arm. Another had received a gash on the forehead. There was blood in his eyes and it kept blinding him. Two were burned by hot coals under their gauntlets and threw these off to seize the nozzles with bare hands. No one had had time to remove the bodies of the child’s parents or to cover them.

  Water rushed away and down the street, cascading over stone steps to freeze elsewhere, carrying charred wood and plaster, feathers, too, and straw ticking that had failed to ignite until caught in the updraught and charred to settle slowly among the constant rain of ash.

  Mirrored in the water were the flames and the moving shadows. And when he lifted his head to look uphill again, Kohler first saw the drain down the centre of the street, then the stone stairs going up to the next level, the crowd, some in blankets huddled against the walls, then the rest of it, a shell.

  His view was momentarily blocked and he saw Frau Weidling staring raptly at the blaze. He knew she loved it, knew it so clearly it angered him and he began to move toward her only to be held back.

  It was Louis.

  ‘A moment, Hermann. Please, mon vieux. It gratifies me to find you alive.’

  ‘Me? But I thought you were—’

  ‘Later, eh? For now let us observe.’

  Bundled in her fur coat, hands in the pockets, Frau Weidling stood apart, the rich, dark auburn hair free of any hat, the dark grey-blue eyes alive with intense excitement. Quick to follow every detail, she searched the roof-tops where men with hoses clung precariously. She held her breath at a shout as one of them slipped—gasped in awe along with the crowd as he dangled over the edge, hanging by the thread of a slack hose.

  As the man was pulled to safety, she gave another gasp, more of a sigh perhaps and hunched her shoulders, hands pressed against her thighs, hugging herself.

  Then she made her way through the gap in the crowd until she stood in front of it to watch her husband at work.

  Leiter Weidling basked in the flashbulbs of the Propaganda Staffel. They caught him pointing up at an adjacent roof and motioning the men to direct their hoses more steeply downwards. They had him holding brandy to the lips of an exhausted Robichaud who looked like a drunk that had been rolled in the gutter, blood running from his injured hand. They caught him with his beautiful wife and then they dragged Kohler into the limelight and thrust the child back into his arms.

  Baffled and looking like a vagrant on the run, Hermann stood stupidly beside the still-collapsed form of Robichaud. Not satisfied, the Propaganda Staffel had him risk life and limb to stand with the kid between the bodies of its parents.

  Another and another photograph. ‘Now crouch, please. Ja, ja, that is good, Herr … What’s his name? Make sure you get it down.’

  Then one of the hero with Frau Weidling and her husband, and a final shot of the detective with the child he had just ‘adopted’.

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl, Hermann?’ asked St-Cyr.

  ‘Piss off or you’re its uncle, eh? The Hotel Bristol, Louis. Weidling insists. An emergency meeting. They’re taking Robichaud with them for the fireworks. Frau Dazzle’s car is at the foot of the street near where I left the bishop’s.’

  Hermann thrust the child into the arms of the woman who had wanted it and said he was sorry the flics had roughed her up and stolen the money. ‘Hey, I’ll get it back for you, okay?’ he shouted, but by then she had turned away to vanish into the crowd.

  Eighteen had died. Eighteen. At 4.10 a.m., the grand salon of the Prince Albert Suite was in an uproar. Perhaps twenty of the powers that be in Lyon had been called to the meeting. Waiters came and went while she, Frau Kaethe Weidling, stood with her seat pressed against the door between times, stood in a deeply V’d, long-sleeved dress of black silk Charmeuse that was covered with black sequins.

  Like bantam cockerels or little boys whose play had erupted into battle, they cursed each other finding blame where there was none. They shook their fists, gesticulated violently, got very red in the face as only middle-aged and older men will do. Spilled drink, dropped half-eaten sausage on the carpet. Squashed olives, bread, oysters, pâté, cake and anchovies underfoot without caring in clouds of tobacco smoke.

  And all the time she watched them, one or another would flick a glance doubtfully her way to see her trapped with her hands pressed flatly against the door on either side of her. They’d see the cleavage of her dress open to them. Lust and consternation in their startled glimpses, the bumbling fools. Johann’s wife, yes, yes, my little men. Leiter Weidling’s beautiful young wife!

  Johann, in his dark blue uniform with all its ribbons and medals, was right in the midst of them. Johann was not going to back down one millimetre, so good—yes, that is good, my liebling. Fight for what is only right and best for the both of us. The interpreter was to one side of him; Herr Kohler, showered and draped in a blanket, was to the other, looking very sleepy now. A hero of the moment, soon to be forgotten once the newspapers had gone on to other things. Would Berlin want him home on a visit, to cheering crowds and an adoring wife?

  Herr Kohler of the Benzedrine tablets whose wall-eyed gaze from too much cognac had demonstrated extreme exhaustion as he had tried to take the tablets from her bedside table where she had shaken them out of the bottle he had had in his jacket pocket. Had had among other things, yes, such as those he had taken from the cinema fire, those the Obersturmführer Barbie would be most certainly interested in. Incriminating papers. Railway schedules, the locations of tunnels … Resistance papers.

  Kohler had been naked and hadn’t cared if she saw the long red welt from a rawhide whip, the shrapnel scars and old bullet wounds or the thumb that had recently been bitten and stitched. He’d known she couldn’t have cared less about his nakedness, that for her it had meant nothing.

  His friend, St-Cyr, had removed the pills and had refused to let him take any more of them. It was only as St-Cyr had brushed past her that she had realized he’d been in Johann’s room all along, looking among her husband’s things. And now? she asked. Why now he studied everyone, herself especially, with an intensity that frightened. What was he really thinking? That she had caused the fires, that she could only attain sexual arousal and orgasm through fire?

  There was a sudden lull in the uproar. Fragments of talk were broken off and then … ‘You’re dismissed! Dismissed!’ shouted the mayor, furiously wiping his moustache as the translator gave it all loudly to Johann. ‘Incompetent! Another fire and then another, eh? Ah yes, Robichaud, me, I say it to your face. You are out!’

  The blanket slipped from Herr Robichaud’s shoulders as he leapt from his chair past Johann to shake a wounded hand in the mayor’s face, and she didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or clap. ‘Always you side with Guillemette, Antoine. Always you are in the pocket of someone. Well, to hell with you both! That fire was not the same. It had too hot a start. How many times must I tell you?’

  Too hot a start …

  ‘Hot or cold,’ shouted the mayor, ‘what is the difference? You have not stopped the Salamander.’ This, too, was translated.

  ‘Me? Me?’ shouted Robichaud, using both hands to indicate himself as the blanket slipped completely away to reveal the barrel chest, chunky hips and stalwart stance. ‘Hey, my fine collabos, it’s my job to put the fires out!’

  ‘And to prevent them,’ snorted the préfet, smirking viciously at such a stupid, stupid burst of patriotic idiocy. ‘Collabos, Julien? Come, come, we have invaluable assistance at hand. Let us use it.’

  Several grunted agreement. ‘Never!’ shouted Robichaud. ‘Not while I draw breath!’
/>   ‘Then stop breathing,’ shouted Charette, a councillor from the Croix Rousse.

  ‘Yes!’ shouted another. ‘Leave the room and let us get on with things!’

  His muscles rippling, Robichaud pushed his way through them and when he reached the man, the buttocks and thighs tightened as the feet were planted. He didn’t hesitate but flattened him with a fist.

  Then he turned on them all, a naked savage in a rage, blood running freely down his arm. ‘Bastards!’ he shouted. ‘You want a scapegoat, eh? Then begin by asking why that fire began after the concierge had checked the building for the night? Did the Salamander hide inside and then leave or was a starter planted that would do the job?’

  ‘Wasn’t there gasoline?’ shouted someone derisively.

  Robichaud ignored him. ‘The fire began in the attic, in an unused room that had been let to a young woman the day after the cinema fire.’

  A young woman …

  ‘And the gasoline?’ asked Johann through the interpreter—she could see how determined he was to let Robichaud hang himself just like the ridiculous fruit of a flaccid little penis that dangled between the marble-hard thighs of the Frenchman.

  ‘There was gasoline, perhaps,’ grunted the savage begrudgingly. ‘Ah, it’s too early to say. When morning comes, we’ll have a look.’

  ‘I will,’ said Johann. ‘For now, I think you’ve said enough.’

  The look was swift and dark as this was translated, the reaction fast ‘Three of my best men have died, monsieur,’ seethed Robichaud, so near to tears she had to smile. ‘Fathers all of them. A dozen mouths that will have to be provided for, now that their dear papas are no longer with us.’

  ‘They were doing their duty. The Fatherland will take care of them,’ said Johann tersely.

  ‘And their wives?’ shouted Robichaud. ‘Hey, my friend with the interpreter, me, I have yet to tell their wives they no longer have husbands.’

  ‘Then get dressed and do so.’

  Ah nom de Jésus-Christ! They’d kill each other, thought St-Cyr.