Kaleidoscope (44 page)

‘Then why was he not with her? Why was he in the cinema on his knees, holding that cross before him?'

‘I don't know, Inspector.
La Bête humaine
… it's an excellent film. Perhaps, after he had attended to Mademoiselle Aurelle, he …'

‘She was naked, Bishop. She was tied face down to her bed. A rag had been stuffed in her mouth.'

‘
Then why did you not say so at once
?' Angrily Dufour thrust the cross back only to find his hand gripped tightly. Ah damn the Sûreté and their filthy minds! Always against the Church! Always looking for dirt! ‘Had she been violated?' he asked, hating himself for having said it.

St-Cyr savoured the moment, having obtained the answer he most wanted without having to ask for it. Violation had been entirely possible. ‘Could the call have been made or prompted by someone else, someone known to them both?'

‘The arsonist or arsonists?'

It was a plea to God for help. One could not have that woman violated by a priest, particularly not by a bishop's secretary, a saint! Ah no, of course not.

‘The cross, Bishop? He should not have worn it to the cinema or to visit this … this nuisance who had not had the wisdom to spend her little capital much earlier in life.'

‘God ought to guard my tongue, Inspector, particularly as in regards to my humble past. The cross was given to Father Beaumont some years ago. It can have no bearing on the fire.'

‘Then why did he wear it? Come, come, Bishop Dufour. There
has
to be a reason for everything.'

‘Ah, do not be so difficult! You people from Paris … For most things there is often no reason other than impulse.'

‘Then how did he come by it, eh? A wealthy parishioner—a gift like this? Did he save some family from scandal? Did he get the unmarried daughter into a convent so that she could have her child in secret, eh? In each house there is always a closet, Bishop, even in God's house.'

‘Especially so, is that what you're implying, eh?' It was. Ah damn. ‘Monsieur Henri Masson gave that cross to Father Beaumont, Inspector, but he's been dead for several years. Ten, I believe, or is it twelve? Now, please, I must return to my duties. Father Beaumont would not have harmed Mademoiselle Aurelle. It was just not in his nature to harm anyone, least of all myself and the Mother Church.'

Kohler touched his lips in doubt and fear.
Gott im Himmel
, with what were they dealing? The bitches were still playing with him. The wash of gasoline was all around him now in the store-room below the belfry. And God
damn
the Führer and his invincible Reich. The fucking torch in his hand was useless!

He knew the arsonists were close to him—closer than they'd ever been. The place reeked of gasoline. His shoes, leaking at the best of times, had let in the gasoline. The turn-ups of his trousers, would they be wet too?

They were. Ah
nom de Dieu
, Louis, why can't you come and find me? Two women …
Two
, Louis!

Not liking things, he got down on his hands and knees and crept forward. The room, off to one side of the tower, seemed full of paintings in richly carved and probably gilded frames that only brought memories of that last case, of Provence and an antique shop, of a dealer who had complained about the French using such priceless pieces for firewood.
Firewood
,
verdammt!

There were canvases—far too many of them. And he knew then that some of the wealthy, thinking their paintings safer with the bishop, had brought them here rather than let the Occupying Forces steal them.

Cautiously sweeping the floor with wide motions of his hand, Kohler touched excelsior—fine wood shavings, a wren's nest of them. He found the candle stub in its middle, fixed to the floor—no more than one-and-a-half centimentres of that—found seven wooden matches, their heads arranged in a ring, all close to the candle so as to speed the instant of ignition, not that they would have been needed.

Trembling, he dropped the matches and had to pick them up. He put them and the candle stub
and
the excelsior into a pocket and stood up slowly. The message was all too clear: See what we can do to you or to anyone at any time.

Two women … had there been two of them? Had he frightened them off?

Clearly they were dealing with a case of madness.

Shadows flew about or were pinned to the walls. Robichaud, the fire chief, looked up into the belfry timbers and sharply drew in a breath. The beam of his torch faltered, then came back to settle on the jerry cans. Dull brown and pale green with their camouflage, each was still slowly dripping a trickle of gasoline. Stolen … they must have been stolen.

‘Regulation issue,' he grunted. ‘The fuel depot at Delfosse or one of the others over in Croix Rousse, the Fort Saint-Jean or the Saint Vincent along the quai.'

All fuel was under German control. The two jerry cans had been lashed to timbers that ran above the bells. Each would have weighed a good twenty kilograms. Who could have done such a thing? ‘Ah
mon Dieu
, Bishop, this … this …' He swung his light down to indicate the trail of gasoline that crossed the belfry floor and ran to the empty can Herr Kohler had found at the top of the steps. ‘This is the trailer from the storeroom downstairs. Light the lower one, Bishop, and the flames, they race along this trail and right up to those.'

Stains from the dripping cans high above them had spread down other timbers to the floor. ‘It's a miracle the Salamander didn't set it off,' said Guillemette, the Préfet of Lyon.

‘My pumpers …' began Robichaud. ‘The lines up here on Fourvière Hill—oh for sure, Bishop, my men can fight a normal fire but this … this? Ah no, no. It's impossible.
Impossible!
The mains would collapse, isn't that correct, Guillemette? Well, isn't it? For years I've been trying to tell you all that new and far larger water mains are needed. More pressure. A new station up here, two new crews.
Men!
Where am I to get them, eh?
Where
? They're all off in Germany either in the prison camps or the forced labour brigades.'

‘Easy, Julien, go easy, eh?' snorted the préfet. ‘We all know how much you care but you are not the only one to consider when the budgets come round.'

The light swung, pinning shadows to the walls as Robichaud turned on him swiftly. ‘Then what about you stopping this one, eh? You have yet to visit the temporary morgue we have set up in the Lycée Ampère. Ah, you've not thought it necessary to inform the children who have lost their parents, is that it? How are we to find them, eh? Lists … that bastard Weidling demands
lists
? Let him pull the limbs apart himself. Let him examine the teeth and hope for dental records.'

Bishop Dufour stepped forward. ‘Julien, go down to my study. Have some of the port, then take a glass of the Calvados my sister sent me. Please, I must insist. You're exhausted. There is no need to be ashamed. Your tears are quite understandable.'

‘Are they, Bishop? Are they?' The beam of his light fell to the floor at their feet.

‘Now, now, Julien, control yourself. Please, I beg it of you. Say no more. We have enough trouble as it is.'

Patting him on a shoulder, the bishop led him to the top of the belfry stairs. ‘Auguste and Philomena will wash this down and be most careful.'

‘That old caretaker and his wife? Don't be silly. My men will handle it.'

‘Then do as I say. You need to sleep. Look at you, you're still dressed for a fire. Have you forgotten time? Please, I promise I'll awaken you in a couple of hours. At least do that for me.'

Robichaud started down the stairs then swung his light back over them before settling it on the préfet.

Blinded by it, Guillemette said nothing, only waited.

‘Hermann, go with him,' said St-Cyr quietly. ‘See that he does as he's told. You'll find me on the terrace in front of the church. I'll be looking out over the city trying to figure out what has happened here and where our Salamander could be hiding.'

‘If it was those two women from the cinema, Louis, they know all about how to start a fire.'

‘It's the mark of a
professional
!' hissed Robichaud. ‘Surely our préfet must have the names of all such people. Ask
him
to provide them. Give
that
list to Herr Weidling when you join him for breakfast!'

St-Cyr drew the bishop aside. ‘A small problem,' he said, glad that the edge of light from his torch just touched the bishop's eyes. ‘Three fires in 1938, Bishop, in the Reich, and now this. Was it to have been number two, I wonder, or was Father Adrian the target and our Salamander did not realize he had been killed?'

‘I … I don't know what you mean, Inspector? N … no one would have wanted to kill Adrian. No one.'

‘Good. I just wanted to hear you say it, but it is odd, is it not, that the Salamander should know the workings of the Basilica so well? None of the other towers were touched. Only the one with the paintings.'

‘An insider …? But … but …' Desperation haunted the bishop's eyes until, at last, he said, ‘It's not possible. No. No. Absolutely not.'

Again the detective said, ‘Good,' but this time he grunted it as he abruptly turned away in dismissal and went down the stairs before another word could be said. Ah
merde
, the paintings …

The city was in silence but now the skies had cleared. Up from the rivers came an icy ground fog to hug the streets and blocks of flats in silver-grey and hide the infrequent pale blue lamps.

St-Cyr stood alone. Christmas … it was Christmas Day! Ah
maudit
, what were Hermann and he to do? Lyon—old Lyon—was a rat's nest of narrow streets and passageways, the
traboules
that darted from a side entrance down a long and arched tunnel, up a spiralling flight of stairs, through buildings three and four hundred years old to yet other streets and lanes and other passage-ways. Dark and filthy, most of those passages, with doors here and there and iron-grilled windows and cries in the night. No lights. Not now, and not much evident in the past either.

Though old and venerable, its citizens more Swiss-like in their attitudes than French perhaps, Lyon was also very much an industrial city. Its railways linked it to every corner of the country. One could come and go so easily if one knew how—oh for sure there were the controls, the sudden spot checks, the Gestapo or the French Gestapo, the German and the French police too, and the harsh demands to see one's papers.
Papers
,
please.
Your
carte d'identité
, your
laissez-passer—
the
ausweis
, the
pass
! all travellers had to have to go anywhere—anywhere—outside their place of domicile. The work permit too, and ration tickets—books of these each week, the colours constantly being changed so as to confuse Allied agents and foil counterfeiters. The letters of explanation, too, that one had to carry at all times. Those that freed one from ‘voluntary' labour service in the Reich; those that gave the medical history if needed. A valid military discharge for being wounded at the front in 1940. Papers and more papers.

If one hesitated, the suitcase or handbag or both would be ripped from one's hands and dumped out on to the street no matter what the weather, the crowd, the traffic, time or place, or even if one was in a hurry and would miss their bus or tram-car or the Métro.

But forged sets of papers were now becoming much, much better and far more commonplace. Those two women … the Salamander … could have provided themselves with false papers. They could come and go, and could already have left the city, having left their warning here, if such is what it was.

Close … far too close for comfort.

‘Well, Jean-Louis, we have the pleasure of your company again,' said Préfet Guillemette ‘yet in spite of the urgency you do not call at my office? You do not exchange greetings or ask for assistance? A car, the ration tickets, some little thing? Ah no, not you. Well then listen, my friend.
Listen
, eh? Things have changed here. Be careful.'

The tramp of hobnailed boots came up to them from a Wehrmacht patrol somewhere on the side of the hill. ‘Préfet, let us bury the hatchet and not be so territorial. This case demands our every co-operation no matter on which side of the fence we sit.'

St-Cyr would never change.
Never!
‘Fences? You talk of fences? Is it so wrong of me to invite the Obersturmführer Barbie to dine with me, eh?
Especially
, my friend, as he is in charge of countersubversion and I must work with him and show good faith in public.'

‘Don't try to make excuses, Gérard. I know all about your kind. Fence sitters, ah no. You and the others have always been in bed with them.'

‘
Bâtard!
And Kohler, eh? What of him? Isn't he Gestapo? Won't the Resistance still be aware of your association with him? Pah! I'll do as I please and tip them off if necessary.'

‘Don't threaten me, Préfer. Please don't.'

‘Then don't be a fool. Try to understand how it is. No mouse can fart for fear the lion will step on him.'

‘But you're no mouse; you're one of the lions? What did Herr Barbie want, Préfer? Your thoughts on the cinema fire, on this Salamander and Gestapo Mueller's interest, or more Jews for you to herd on to railway trucks to Nowhere? Was the round-up of last August twenty-sixth insufficient? One thousand, I heard. Was it one thousand you contributed to the forty-odd that have so far been taken? You sent them to Vénisseaux, to buildings that had long been abandoned, and then they were deported.'

Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ
! St-Cyr would never listen. ‘Shot or deported, it's all the same with them. Like Robichaud, Louis, your tears are admirable but out of place.'

‘Then please do not light that cigarette, there is gasoline on my sleeve.'