‘Waiting? Ah, sorry. I wish I was but know I haven’t got the strength tonight. Maybe another time, eh? I’m Georges Chartrand from Dijon, here on business, and you?’
‘Mademoiselle Renée Noirceau.’ She pushed her hair back off her brow a little sleepily and pulled the blue silk wrap more tightly about her. ‘Then why are you here, waiting, monsieur, and so hungry for the use of my body, one has hardly to look into your eyes but to see the depth of your lust?’
He gestured with the half-eaten chunk of goose. ‘One of the house clients is an associate. He was supposed to put me up but his wife locked the door.’
She would give him a rapid little smile of disbelief and the shyness of a virgin’s eyes. She would take some of the soufflé to keep herself busy, and have a sip of champagne. She would study this one from the Gestapo as one would a bull one wishes, perhaps, to castrate, should that be necessary to control him. ‘Are you married?’ she asked, not letting up.
Kohler grinned. ‘How else does a man know best how to keep a woman happy?’
‘And the woman? Does she learn best in the same way or by being with many men?’
He dabbed caviar on to a leftover snipe and handed it to her. ‘Try this. I think you’ll like the combination. It’s interesting.’
She kissed his fingers, then the hand that held the snipe, its tiny head tucked under a wing, but demurely shook her head. ‘I must get back. Monsieur Bertolette makes trucks for the Army of the Germans—lots and lots of them. Perhaps it is his conscience that causes him to be such a light sleeper. When he pays, he demands. I only came down for this.’
Another bottle of the Dom Pérignon, the 1908.
‘Tell me about Mademoiselle Bertrand.’
Her eyebrows arched. ‘Did your friend give you her name?’
‘Instead of yours? Yes, he did. She’s older, more …’
‘Experienced?’
Gott im Himmel, she had a lovely accent! Refined, of the aristocracy of Lyon, the cream of the crop!
‘Experienced?’ she asked again, only to see him smile and hear him say, ‘You tell me, Mademoiselle Noirceau. Is Mademoiselle Claudine Number One in this stable or Number Twenty?’
A stable … She would shrug at the insult. ‘Perhaps it is, monsieur, that some women, they are good for many things and others are not. Is it that your tastes, they are …?’
‘Peculiar? No, no, I like my women au naturel and the usual way.’
‘Not sometimes a little different? Over the arm of a chair, perhaps, or up against the wall, the bureau, the armoire with its big mirrors or on the hands and knees like animals?’
Louis should have been with him! ‘Does she go with women?’
The girl’s throat tightened under her hand. Fear touched those lovely eyes only to vanish. ‘Why do you ask such a thing?’
‘Because it’s possible.’
‘Then you must ask Madame Rachline, monsieur. Me, I would not know since I service only those stallions with the proper equipment!’
Hot under the collar, eh, at the mention of lying naked with another woman? Kohler grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, only to have her rake her nails across the back of his hand and grab a thumb that was already sore from the last investigation! He gripped her arm all the harder.
Ah maudit, he was so stubborn! A giant. Trembling, she let go of the thumb to touch the scar on his left cheek and then the wound on his forehead from which, hours ago perhaps, the bandage had fallen or been torn away.
‘Claudine is special, monsieur, and that is why Madame keeps her on.’
Kohler collected two of the forgotten favours that were scattered about among the candles. The condoms were powder-blue or chartreuse, one took one’s pick. Rolled up and ready with a gumdrop in each.
When he pressed them into her hand, she frowned and heaved a sigh. ‘Monsieur Bertolette, my client for tonight, will not use these. Instead, he looks first to see if there is disease and then rides without the English riding coat. I’m pregnant, and now the sight of all this food is making my stomach turn.’
Bertolette was one of the old-style, union-smashing patrons who’d send his mother to the guillotine if necessary to further business. Trucks—he made them in plenty. His was the largest works in the country.
Kohler chucked her under a chin so soft and gently curved he knew it had been raised on milk and that her family had been well off. ‘Bon Noël, Mademoiselle Renée. Don’t shed tears. Just get rid of his bastard. Don’t try to convince him to keep you.’
‘For me, there are no illusions, monsieur. Madame has arranged everything but I cannot be free of my little burden until the New Year.’
‘Does she go with any of the clients?’
‘Madame? Ah no, of course not. She is our only defence in the times of crisis and must remain neutral.’
‘Was she here for the supper?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Did she leave for a bit?’
‘Ah, I … I would not know, monsieur. Me, I was kept busy.’
‘Who owns this place?’
She had a way of shrugging that both pleased and puzzled. ‘Others,’ she said a little sadly. ‘Oh bien sûr, we are the first to wonder, monsieur, and the last to know.’
I’ll bet! ‘This stuff,’ he said. ‘These things … this place and all that’s in it? Hey, me, I’ve never seen a house like this. Who furnished it and keeps it going? Those dresses you all must wear? That robe? None of this stuff is being made any more, so where’s it all coming from?’
‘That I do not know, monsieur.’
The green of her eyes had darkened. Wary now, her eyelids flickered once under scrutiny, then she gripped her stomach, dropped the champagne bottle, and with a hand to her mouth, rushed from the room.
Fortunately the bottle didn’t explode. Gingerly Kohler picked it up and followed her into the kitchen to wait while she emptied her guts, washed her face and tried to steady herself.
The stairwell was carpeted and grand, replete with staggered palms and ferns in porcelain buckets under gorgeous nudes on canvas. Renée Noirceau said nothing but led him up to her room on the first floor at the back.
‘Merci,’ she said demurely as he handed her the bottle.
Kohler let her open the door. Satiated, Bertolette lay face down among the scattered covers on an Empire bed. ‘He snores,’ she said, dismayed. ‘Me, I think that men, they should not snore after they have made love to a woman.’
One stocking hung from the arm of a chair. Her corset, with all its metres of lacing undone, had been tossed aside.
As he watched, she pulled the tie from around her middle and let the robe fall to her feet. ‘Goodbye, my dear detective. Me, I would perhaps prefer you to him, but really it’s all the same once the eyes are closed, or is it?’
Ah nom de Dieu! How could a girl of good breeding become so wicked?
She touched her lips with a fingertip and smiled. ‘Come, come, Inspector. Here on the floor. Let us experience the grand frisson, eh? the great shudder. Please, there is no need for you to shoot the stork in flight since the egg within its little nest has already been fertilized.’
Kohler kissed her on the lips and patted her gorgeous backside. ‘Sleep tight. Good luck. We’ll be back.’
‘We …?’
He touched her lips. ‘My partner and I. He’s downstairs with Madame.’
‘Then it is a cold supper he will have, for that one opens her legs to no one.’
‘Not even another woman?’
‘Not even one of those.’
‘I like your perfume. What’s it called?’
‘Étranger. It’s Madame’s. For tonight she has asked us all to wear it. A little gift.’
He closed the door. He stood there breathing in the last of it, said, Louis … Louis, I think I’m going to be sick.
Every moment in that tower came back, every second in the street. He saw the corpses in the ruins of the cinema, the young, the old, the not so o
ld, and smelled the stench of their flesh.
* * *
Hesitantly St-Cyr strained to touch the chandelier in Madame Rachline’s bedroom and heard the rippling, mocking laughter of its crystal lozenges as they brushed against each other only to fade as if in the distance like a far-off, fleeting embrace or whispered confidence. What had she in mind, and should he have let her go so easily?
Madame Rachline, having conducted him to her room, had left to go in search of one of her maids. Surely she must have known he would realize the room was unused and totally for show?
The walls were papered with pale green linen on which there was a white-rose motif in sprays and single flowers. This was matched by a quilted bedspread and curtained canopy which was draped from the ceiling over the head of an Empire-style four-poster of brass and ebony rods.
There was a brass peacock-fan screen in front of a grey marble fireplace on whose mantelpiece stood two flanking, pale green amphorae filled with white silk roses. One could imagine their scent. The same was true of the luminous poppies in a painting by Henri Fantin-Latour and in the older, and far richer spring flowers of van Dael.
The room was a museum. It felt like it—just as cold, just as remote and silent. All that was needed was a glass display case over the tall vase of pink silk lilies. Exquisite—yes, yes, and untouched. Yet now … why now she would try to suggest that it’ was used.
Even as he unstoppered a pale green bottle with entwining, swimming nudes, graceful, gorgeous things, he wondered if she had left him alone on a dare just to see how far he would go.
The scent was troubling. Bergamot and jasmine, rose absolute and petitgrain of lemon-tree. Orange flower, Clary sage and musk. Though it took him back to the belfry at the Basilica, it also took him back to his boyhood, for it called up with a suddenness that shocked, the faint-hearted trembling steps of a boy of ten who had found himself slipping guiltily away from his parents to search out and walk through the forbidden exhibits in the Palais des Fils, Tissus et Vétements—thread, fabric and clothing—at the great Universal Exhibition in Paris, the year 1900.
There had been sweeping skirts and tiny, bejewelled or richly embroidered bolero jackets, smallish hats trimmed and veiled; frock coats, toppers and silk cravats for the men of substance. But deeper, deeper into the maze and to one side as if forbidden, there had been the lace and muslin over silk petticoats that had always rustled when maman or Aunt Sophie or any of his other aunts and older cousins had been angry or simply in a hurry and all too willing to box his ears.
Les Toilettes de la Collectivitée de la Couture it had been called, the first really public exhibit of haute couture. The chemises and corset-bodices—the whalebone and steel-shanked armour the women of those days had strapped themselves into. The camisoles, the white drawers that continued right down to their knees. The silk night-gowns that were so soft and sensual, all hand-sewn and monogrammed and edged with Cluny lace or Flounce of Argentan or any of the other antique laces and with pink or blue ‘baby’ ribbons inserted as if one would have to untie each of those tiny bows to get at what was within.
Black silk stockings of knee length and black shoes that were high and laced up the front, and more like boots with sharply pointed toes. Openwork muslin blouses of broderie anglaise that were deemed immodest yet allowed only the sight of a stiff white bodice that hid all cleavage beneath an armour of white lawn if one were decent and not up to mischief or really dressing up.
They’d shaken him savagely, both his mother and father. For days afterwards he had sweltered. His mother had refused to speak or acknowledge a delinquent son. The maid had accused him of secretly going through the laundry to find out things no boy should even think about!
And now? he asked a little sadly. Why now that boy knows far more of evil than that mother or father could ever have imagined.
He stared at the perfume bottle in his hand. The scent was earthy, not common and most certainly from forty to fifty years ago. It contained far too much musk for his liking—at least he thought so now, for it suddenly embarrassed him.
Madame Rachline had returned—she had caught him at her dressing table.
‘Inspector, this is Michèle-Louise, one of my housemaids. Unfortunately one cannot retire without assistance. Please, we can talk while I …’ She indicated the dressing screen, said nothing about the perfume vial that was still in his hand. Not even a hint of surprise or question. Clever … had she been clever?
The girl was sleepy-eyed, in plain white muslin that rose right up under her chin and was tied round the wrists, all but hiding her completely. About seventeen, he thought, with deep brown eyes, pale lips and thick brown hair that protruded in wisps and curls from beneath the night-cap. ‘Good evening, monsieur,’ she said, a shy whisper, the girl ducking briefly as if genuflecting.
The game began, Madame Rachline talking to him from behind the screen as the girl hung Madame’s clothes over the top of it.
‘La Belle Époque is a well-established house, Inspector, with an excellent clientele who pay in advance of each visit, in addition to a yearly membership. This ensures that they try to get the most out of each visit.’
‘Is the préfet a client?’ he asked, realizing she’d done this deliberately to avoid scrutiny.
A white cotton petticoat followed the dress. ‘Am I forced to answer?’
‘It would help.’ Would she tell the préfet everything, or would she feel it best to say nothing of the visit?
Another shift or petticoat followed. More flounce to the skirts. ‘La Belle can have no connection with that terrible fire, monsieur. How could it have?’
So much for the préfet being a member and having filled her in. ‘Of course,’ he said drily, ‘but the fact is madame, this work card was dropped in the place Terreaux.’
‘By whom?’
Again there was that coldness, that remoteness of tone. Utter blandness could mask so much. Would honesty be best? ‘That we do not know as yet.’
There was a pause—perhaps she breathed a sigh of relief, perhaps it was only that a lace had been done up too tightly.
The girl gave a sharp cry. ‘Ah, madame, I have broken a nail!’
‘Then you must trim it, isn’t that so?’
As he watched, Michèle-Louise came out from behind the screen and went over to the dressing table to find the clippers but, as the nail was on the right hand, she had difficulty with it. Swore under her breath. Did a bad job and decided to bite off the rest.
Was caught momentarily knowing the inspector was looking at her. Felt those eyes of his. Asked herself anxiously, Is he going to question me, too, about this place? and answered, Ah merde, I think he is!
Another petticoat was flung over the screen, silk this time. Again Madame Rachline spoke. She must have gestured impatiently—a first sign of emotion perhaps—for the screen rocked a little. ‘That card is a forgery, Inspector. Someone’s trying to implicate the house. It’s …’ She must have shrugged near-naked shoulders. ‘It’s the times, the hatred, the popularity of using anonymous letters that are sent to the police and now to the Gestapo at the Hotel Terminus.’
‘Yes, yes, the times,’ he said blandly. Quite obviously the letters had unsettled her and quite obviously the préfet, though he had told her of them, had failed to inform her of the contents.
‘Is Monsieur Artel one of your clients? Please, I must insist on an answer, madame.’
‘Is he under suspicion of burning his own cinema to the ground?’
Was it so impossible? He’d take out his pipe and tobacco pouch. He’d make her wait for a bit.
Angered at the lack of reply, she said, ‘Yes, Monsieur Artel is a member in good standing but that one, he does not choose Claudine, monsieur, since he prefers the youngest of my girls and pays extra for them.’
‘Michèle-Louise, eh, madame? Does he covet your little maid and is that why she shrinks under scrutiny?’ he all but shouted.
‘Michèle, undo my laces this instant!�
��
Grateful for the outburst and her refusal to answer for it said so much about Artel, he decided against the pipe but did not put it away. ‘And his associates, madame, what of them?’
Insurance, banking and the law. ‘They are all members, Inspector,’ she said tightly, ‘but why must you ask? None of them could have had anything to do with that fire.’
‘But with Mademoiselle Claudine?’ he demanded. ‘Come, come, madame, let us not play at this any longer.’
She must have clenched her fists and stamped a foot, for the girl said, ‘Madame, hold still, please!’
‘Claudine, she is … Ah, how should I say it, Inspector? In this world of such varied taste, Claudine is different. Very special.’
‘In what way?’ he hazarded. Ah nom de Dieu, what was it with her? The coldness of a face cream, the detachment of a douche—this room, that girl, that child of a maid. The perfume … the scent of it now. Had the girl, unused to such luxury, drenched herself? A gift … had it been a little gift to open at the réveillon or had she been drenched on purpose?
Again he said, ‘In what way, madame?’ He waited. Perhaps she smiled wanly in triumph, perhaps not at all.
‘For that I think it best to let her tell you herself, Inspector. I’m sure there is a very adequate reason for her work card disappearing in some restaurant or café. Perhaps Claudine simply took her gloves from a pocket and inadvertently the card slipped out.’
‘And someone else picked it up only to drop it in the place Terreaux?’ he demanded sharply.
‘Yes. Yes, of course. That is how it must have been.’
A corset-bodice came free at last and was flung over the top of the screen to hang there as if shot dead and rotted bare like some strange sort of archaeopteryx skeleton. Then came a plain white cotton shift, black silk stockings and white, knee-length drawers.
It was warm in the house—too warm. In a land where coal had become so scarce one received only enough to heat one small room once a month for a few miserable hours, this place had plenty for the furnace and boiler.
She was bathing behind the screen, and they spoke quietly those two. Eventually the girl came demurely out to find Madame a suitable night-gown and took from an armoire, a grey-blue silk robe.
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