‘Leiter Weidling is above reproach. He has very good references, the best of security clearances.’
Kohler sighed inwardly at the futility of dealing with Berlin. ‘Was he keeping tabs on that wife of his, Herr Obersturmführer? Was he using her to set it all up, eh? A Salamander who was just a bit too smart for him.’
Boemelburg had said that if anyone could stop the Salamander it would be Kohler and St-Cyr. ‘It was Leiter Weidling who gave us the dossier on his wife.’
‘Like a good Nazi should? Well, listen then, Herr Obersturmführer. If that bastard isn’t bird-dogging his wife at her games then how is it he came to marry a woman like that? Either she knows something about him he doesn’t want anyone else to hear, or he’s in it with her and the two of them are making monkeys out of us all. Hey, you’ve given them exactly the set-up they need, so what’s it to be?’
Kohler would never learn that to swear allegiance to the Führer and the Party was to obey its dictums. ‘Robichaud will be released into your custody. The Gauthier woman stays here until I am satisfied the Salamander is no longer of any use or a threat.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we shall see.’
Gingerly St-Cyr began to walk out on to the floor. There would be ropes for climbing, mats for tumbling, a box-horse and parallel bars … Wax? Had there been a dance? Ah no, of course not. Only in the most progressive of schools perhaps, but not here, he thought.
Ah merde! She was sprinkling wax on the floor behind herself. She was laying down a trail of it in hopes he would run and slip!
He stepped to one side. ‘Was Mademoiselle Bertrand blackmailing your brother, mademoiselle?’ he asked suddenly, his words echoing. ‘She wanted out, didn’t she? And fast! She knew Frau Weidling had suddenly turned up in Lyon and wanted to play—that’s why she needed money to escape. She knew that the cinema fire might happen and when it did, you had to kill Claudine to protect your brother.’
The canister of wax hit the floor and rolled away into a distant corner, and he knew she had thrown it as far as she could to fool him.
He started for her. When he had taken several steps, he stopped suddenly and she shrilled, ‘Henri was in Dijon! Are you mad? Insane? He … he had nothing to do with that fire. How could he have?’
She gave another ragged sob but did not move—at least he did not think she had. Ah merde! ‘Father Adrian had to die, mademoiselle. Did you telephone the Basilica using the name of Mademoiselle Aurelle? Did you get him to come to her flat where he found her naked and tied to her bed? You wrote the anonymous letters denouncing not only him but also Monsieur Artel, the owner of that cinema, and Madame Robichaud. How often did you watch for Robichaud and Mademoiselle Gauthier at that cinema? How often did you watch for Father Adrian and stand in the street outside looking up at Mademoiselle Aurelle’s bedroom window?’
She had moved away from him. He was forced to turn back. When he spoke resignedly it was as if something had gone out of him and a great sadness had entered. ‘How many times did you bare your soul to Father Adrian? You told him everything. How as a child you had secretly watched your brother and his friends, Claudine and Ange-Marie. Father Adrian encouraged you, didn’t he? Well, answer me. Answer!’
‘He … he made me take off my clothes. He said that … that God would not punish me and that … that I would begin to forget myself, my troubles.’
Ah no … ‘Where … where did this happen?’
‘At … at the house. Henri … Henri was always away. Dijon … Paris … out in the countryside some place. I knew it was wrong, that he was a priest and that Henri would find out. But I was so very lonely, Inspector, and so very worried. I … I could not stop myself, I could not stop Father Adrian. When I knelt before him, he … he would put his hands on my head, then pass them slowly down over my shoulders and under my blouse, my sweater, whatever … “Sin,” he would say. “Sin, my child, so that God will see that you are normal.” Normal!’
‘He knew about the fires, didn’t he? The ones in Lübeck, Heidelberg and Köln.’
‘Yes … Yes, he knew of them. He was my confessor, damn you!’
She ran. She slipped and cried out—fell and rolled sideways.
He heard her scramble up and bang into something—the wall perhaps. He heard her frantically searching for the door.
When he gripped her by the arm, she leapt and stiffened. When he let go of her, her back was pressed to the wall and she knew then that he had trapped her, that he would force her to tell him everything. Everything about those days at Concarneau on the beach among the dunes and in the woods. Everything about Henri and Ange-Marie and how Henri had touched Claudine between the legs and brought the flame close … close. A scream and then … then the sound of her crying out in rapture.
Everything about Claudine and Lübeck and how Henri had sent Claudine to find his little sister with her fiance naked in bed, sweating—copulating! Crying out to God in joy. Everything.
‘Is your brother intimate with you in a sexual way, Mademoiselle Charlebois?’
Ah no. No! ‘How dare you say that to me? How could you? Henri … Me? What is it that makes you think such a horrible thing?’
‘Mademoiselle, is it true?’
‘No. No! Of course it is not true!’
‘Then why, please, did your grandfather give Father Adrian that cross? Come, come, Mademoiselle Charlebois, Henri Masson would not have done so had he not exacted a promise from that priest.’
Promise … a promise. Why had the gas not exploded and killed them both? Why had it not burst suddenly into flame to burn the hair and melt the flesh? It would have been best that way. Flames, Henri. Flames. Your little sister, your little ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois’.
Throwing herself at the detective, she pushed him in the face and ran—ran—said, Must get away. Must not let him stop me. Not now. Never now. Run … run … A door … door … the hall … the hall … Hurry, hurry … Stop!
Listen.
He was searching for light switches. She was outside one of the toilets. There were windows high up in the far wall …
Easing the door open, she slipped inside and quickly crossed to the grey light of day that came in through wire-meshed, frosted glass. He must not find her. She must not go home. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. Henri …
Kohler’s spirits sank. Though he had no time for such things, the Theatre des Célestins was magnificent. It offered up its magic in ornate gilding everywhere and in plush, wine-red velvet on rows of seats too many to count.
Up on stage, and lit by floodlights, the outer curtain hung in folds of ruby-red that were held aside as by a woman’s hand to reveal the flame-red of her petticoats through which shafts of yellow shot upwards.
Clearly the wealth of Lyon and the belle époque had been poured into the theatre and just as clearly there were far too many places for the Salamander to hide both starter and trailer—up on the lighting bridges that were so cleverly hidden from the audience, up in the high recesses of ventilation and heating shafts.
Down in one of the many wicker hampers of costumes that would be piled in the storage rooms and closets.
There was a boiler room, somewhere below him. There were dressing rooms, practice rooms, offices, workshops, paint rooms, wig rooms, a millinery and fitting room, dye shop, laundry, unloading bay—fly galleries above the stage and out of sight to drop and lift panels of scenery—a lighting board, sound panel and control room, prompter’s box, stage doorman’s office, call system of speaking tubes from the old days, now updated by an intercom but still keeping the bells and clocks of those former days. La belle époque all right, ah yes. Everywhere he looked there was evidence of that period of refinement when life was supposed to have been at its best and whores were told to bare a breast to the naked embers of a cigarette or cigar. Male or female.
Staircases were lost in the background. At either side of the stage there were private boxes for the wealthy and the establishment. Klaus Barbie and his b
oss, the SS-Obersturmbannführer Werner Knab, General Niehoff who had just arrived as commander-in-chief of the France-Sud military region, i.e. what had formerly been the Free Zone. The bishop of Lyon, too, of course, the préfet and the magistrate, et cetera, et cetera.
Perhaps the theatre would seat a thousand, perhaps twelve hundred. There were fluted columns with globes of light above them, cherubs, maidens and turbanned boys with open arms who offered up the conjured magic of the place. All gilded like some fantastic gâteau d’anniversaire just waiting to be torched!
Robichaud handed him the programme for the concert of 27 December. ‘If it is all right by you, Inspector, I will begin a preliminary reconnaisance just to refresh my mind, since my men did not find anything before.’
‘You sure you don’t want something to eat?’ asked Kohler.
‘Ah no. No, Inspector. I couldn’t. Not after … Not knowing …’ He left it unsaid and soon vanished into the warren behind the stage.
The soup in the aluminium canister was good and when that was done, Kohler had the omelette and then a piece of fish and afterwards the baked vegetables in sauce lyonnaise, then coffee and thick slices of gingerbread, the pavé de sante* of Dijon, the least expensive cut but most delicious.
Exhausted by the morning and the night before it and the days and nights prior to these, he had a cigarette and began to study the programme.
Was it to be a menu for disaster?
The concert began with the Horst-Wessel Lied in chorus with full kettledrum rolls and male voices in German, of course. ‘Raise high the flags! Stand rank on rank together. Storm-troopers march with steady, quiet tread …’ Quiet? Ah Gott im Himmel, the idiots!
Horst Wessel had been a pimp and a pal of Himmler’s in the Berlin of the 1920s. Both of them had lived on the avails of prostitution. Herr Himmler’s girl had been seven years his senior and they’d fought like hell all the time. Early in 1920 he had suddenly disappeared. Her body was discovered. Arrested on 4 July 1920, in Munich, the future Head of the SS and its Gestapo had got off for lack of evidence, the lucky bastard. Then on 23 February 1930, Horst Wessel, who had put his song to the stolen tune of an old naval ballad, was killed by another pimp in a dispute over another prostitute yet the song lived on as the anthem of the Party.
Immediately after it, the orchestra would plunge into bits from Wagner’s Tannhäuser and lift to the Weiner Blut of Johann Strauss Jr., the Vienna Blood Waltz.
Kohler remained unimpressed by the stultifying thunder of Nazi-minded klutzes. Mendelssohn, a good German jew, was next. Fingal’s Cave and a bit from the Fourth Symphony, Opus 90.
And how the hell had the Propaganda Staffel missed it? A Jew?
Bach beat the Jesus out of Herr Mendelssohn’s memory with the Brandenburg Concerto after which came selections from Handel’s Water Music to give prelude to the rush to the bar and the toilets.
Oh mein Gott, what son of a bitch had set this up? A member of the Resistance?
Haydn’s ‘Surprise’ Symphony led off the second half then Liszt with selections from Dante and Beethoven’s Third Symphony in E flat, Opus 55, the second movement done with Marcia funebre—a funeral march, eh?
Mozart, a good Austrian, offered The Magic Flute to brighten things up and suggest that, though the Occupation and the war were long and hard, there was magic on the way. Ah merde!
Wagner came back in for a little more pounding in The Ring of the Nibelung, after which Brahms gave that tasty little morsel, A German Requiem.
For an encore there was Bach’s Fugue in C minor to cheer everyone up and if that didn’t work, there was always that old favourite, Deutschland Über Alles.
From the lycée to the house was not far. Slogging it hard, St-Cyr grimaced constantly at the turn of events. He’d trusted the girl to wait for him in that laboratory. He had been completely taken in by her timidity!
When he reached the concierge’s room off the inner court-yard, he was furious with himself and adamant. ‘Monsieur, I have no other choice but to ask that you allow me access to their flat. Mademoiselle Charlebois is wanted for the attempted murder of a police officer, myself.’
One should ask for the magistrate’s order, one should demand to see it! ‘You’ve no right, Inspector. Monsieur Henri is absent from the premises. Mademoiselle Charlebois—’
‘Has not come back from her walk in the park, monsieur, and will not unless she wishes arrest. Now, please, I know absolutely the duty of every concierge is to protect the sanctity of the tenants, but if there are complications—another tragic fire perhaps …’
‘The fires …? But … but what has Mademoiselle Charlebois to do with them?’
St-Cyr told him. Tears leapt into the old man’s eyes. He used the back of a forefinger to self-consciously tidy a superb handle-bar moustache. ‘She was worried about her brother, Monsieur the Chief Inspector. Mademoiselle Charlebois is a kind and gentle soul. It … Ah no, no, it’s impossible what you say. Oh for sure they might quarrel—what brother and sister don’t, and he’s much older, she’s never married. But for her to have set such fires and caused so many deaths …? No. No, monsieur, it is just not possible. A mouse … she wouldn’t let me kill a mouse but made me release it in the park.’
‘Where is her brother?’
‘Monsieur Henri …? At his shop. Always that one works. Always he comes and goes. There are so many people dying these days, so many of the old estates being broken up. She’s the anchor, the lamp behind the black-out curtain, the one who keeps house for him.’
‘And teaches school.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The concierge, a throwback to the days of yesteryear, hesitated. One could see him struggling with things from the past—little incidents—and things from the present. ‘How long will you be, Inspector?’ he asked, defeated at last by some remembered incident.
‘Not long. Now tell me what made you change your mind? Come, come, monsieur, time is something we do not have.’
The chin was gripped and favoured in doubt. Loyalty … the years of service flicked past on the screen of memory. ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois came to ask about her brother, monsieur. The car was not here, you see, and she … she wondered where he had gone so late in the day. His supper … she had yet to get it ready, had not had time. She was frantic and could not understand why he would leave without telling her.’
‘When … when was this?’ breathed the Sûreté.
‘Why … why the day she lost her keys. She thought she might have left them in the car. She had searched everywhere and thought her brother might have taken them by mistake.’
On Tuesday night, 15 December.
‘The car had to go in for repairs and did not return until the following Thursday. Me, I have heard Monsieur Henri drive in in the small hours, but when she came to search the car in her night-gown and slippers, Mademoiselle Charlebois could not find the keys and was most distressed.’
Thursday the twenty-fourth, the day after the cinema fire, the day Hermann and himself had arrived. ‘She did not ask her brother?’
The concierge shook his head. ‘Monsieur Henri did not go up to the flat. He would not have wished to disturb her at such an early hour.’
Had it even been Henri Charlebois? ‘There was a robbery at the Dijon shop, on the night of Tuesday the twenty-second,’ said St-Cyr gruffly. ‘Monsieur Henri left here on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-third, and did not return until Christmas Day in the afternoon.’
‘But the car …? I know it returned here on Thursday, Monsieur the Chief Inspector. Everything is recorded. Everyone hears cars these days because there are so few of them, isn’t that so?’
‘Then perhaps you would let me examine your register,’ breathed St-Cyr.
The car had been clocked in at 3.37 a.m. No Salamander would have been so careless unless desperate or absolutely sure of himself.
‘The flat,’ said St-Cyr.
Concern leapt into the concierge’s eyes. ‘You will touch nothing?’
‘Only what is necessary.’
‘Then come this way. Please remove the shoes. No one will steal them.’
‘All the same, I will take them with me and put them on the mat Monsieur Charlebois keeps just inside his door. Please do not attempt to telephone him, monsieur. It would be best for you if he did not know I was here.’
* the pavement or cobblestone of good health
9
AT THREE THIRTY IN THE AFTERNOON, A LONE Daimler was parked outside the shop of Henri Masson, and the street that ran past it, ran straight from place Bellecour to place Carnot, the Hotel Terminus and the Hotel Bristol.
Frost had built up inside the windscreen of the Daimler and on the side windows. Lots of it, so the wait had been long and the driver frozen.
Kohler stood a moment in the rapidly fading light. Henri Charlebois’s name, and that of the shop, had been among the list of concert patrons, automatically guaranteeing the antique dealer a handful of complimentary seats.
Bundled against the cold and fighting the ice underfoot, people hurried along the narrow street, oblivious to the shop windows, to fine china, crystal, furniture and paintings most could never have afforded even in pre-war days. Jewellery too, and walking-sticks of all things—watches, silks and bits of sculpture.
A few vélos, tragic in the freezing cold and likely to split apart, struggled to master the ice but could only do so with speed.
He crossed the road, pausing in the middle as a girl shouted, ‘Monsieur, a moment, please!’ The grey mouse in the back of the vélo didn’t like the look of him. Plump and stuffed into uniform at the age of forty, the silly bitch had at last realized her true station in life and was proud of it.
He resisted the temptation to grab the vélo and wreak havoc. He wanted to tell her, Watch out, fräulein. One of these days some disgruntled bastard will drop a grenade into your lap and give you something to think about.
Instead, he strode purposefully into the shop, into an Aladdin’s cave of glitter and warmth, the hush of talk over objets d’art, with but momentary glances his way from the clerks. A generaloberst with a monocle browsed, a generalmajor, a hauptmann—a few Frenchmen and their wives, a few very fine-looking Frenchwomen. All talking, all foraging, some pausing to pass fingers over a nice bit of porcelain or a bronze Pegasus or a truncated bit of Roman statuary with testicles just waiting to be fondled to soft, teasing laughter. ‘Don’t squeeze them,’ he warned one pretty thing. ‘It hurts like hell and is still hurting.’
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