Kaleidoscope (45 page)

Suddenly furious with him, Guillemette angrily stuffed the lighter and cigarette away. Much taller and bigger, a
flic
all his adult life and proud of it, he leaned on the railing, blocking St-Cyr's faint view of the Croix Rousse. ‘Herr Barbie could not help but notice that little exchange you chose to have at the restaurant with Monsieur Artel and his associates, Louis, but that one, he did not ask me about it, you understand. The Obersturmführer acted as though completely unaware of the furore.'

‘He didn't want to spoil his dinner.'

‘
Cochon!
Did you not think when Herr Kohler borrowed his
fiacre?
'

His carriage. ‘Don't call me a pig, Gérard. Please, let us try to work together, eh? The city demands it.'

‘
My
city, Louis.
Mine
!'

Ah
nom de Dieu
, was there no common ground? At sixty-two years of age, Guillemette had been Préfet of Lyon for the past twelve years. A hard-fought post. One had had to oil the way there but he was shrewd and clever, a force to be reckoned. An enemy that was definitely not needed. ‘Robichaud has had a hard time of it.'

Guillemette faced him bluntly. ‘Then start by asking the right questions. How is it he escaped to send in the alarm? Surely he should have stayed to direct people out of that building?'

When no answer came, the préfet clenched a ham-hard fist and raised it defiantly. ‘He panicked, Louis. He
ran
to save himself. That is why the tears, my friend. That is why he is so upset.'

Guillemette blew out his cheeks in exasperation. ‘Robichaud's every action is being called into question, Louis. There are several who are saying he should be dismissed.'

‘Herr Weidling?'

‘Yes. Most certainly.'

It would be best to get it over with. ‘Where was Robichaud sitting, who was he with in that cinema …?'

The préfet snorted lustily. It was always refreshing to get the better of Paris! ‘One of my crows tells me he was in the back row, off the left aisle with his mistress, Madame Élaine Gauthier.'

The crows … the informers. Without them the police could not survive for long or advance up the ladder of command. Clearly Guillemette had been having the fire marshal followed. ‘I should like to meet this crow. Did he stay for the flames?'

‘You listen, Louis. Listen hard! Now I apply the gristle before the muscle. Robichaud does not remember with whom he was sitting or where, exactly. He claims the shock was too much and this has caused a loss of memory. Let us hope that it is temporary, eh? It would be a great calamity to us if we had to confine our fire marshal to the mental hospital at Bron!'

‘And this Madame Gauthier?'

Good! ‘Sizzled to bacon, my friend.
Bacon!
Pah! He was with his little bit of cunt and has abandoned her because he does not—I repeat not—want his wife to know about the affair!'

Ah
nom de Dieu
, Lyon and its politics! The couple would have met inside the cinema. ‘Are you certain she was killed in the fire?'

‘
Positive!
I make it my business to find out such things. There is another matter. Letters are starting to pour in. Anonymous, it's true. Always we get them now. One says that Madame Robichaud must have set the fire to get even—hey, it's been done before, eh? A lover lost. How many women go crazy after such a thing? But me, I'm not holding that one up like the gospel, though it's an interesting idea, is it not?'

One would have to keep the voice calm. ‘Were there any other letters of interest?'

‘Two. One points the finger directly at Monsieur Artel—that is only to be expected. A girl, I think. One who perhaps was interfered with and wishes to get even.'

‘And the other?' It was coming now. Everything had been building up to this moment.
merde
!

‘Don't pretend to be so disinterested, Louis. This one claims Father Beaumont was breaking his vows with Mademoiselle Aurelle in that flat above the cinema and that God became angry with him. As a measure of my good will, you may keep the letters for study but must return them when this is over, so that we will have a record of them in case they are needed.'

First the threats and now the warning, but the damaging evidence too! Clearly Guillemette expected him to inform the bishop of the allegations. This could only mean that they were true. ‘And what about Herr Weidling?' asked St-Cyr cautiously. Talking with the préfet was like walking on broken glass in bare feet!

‘What about his wife, Louis? Herr Weidling, like most men with young and very beautiful wives, must constantly keep up appearances and advance himself in her eyes so as to secure his position between her legs.'

‘Ah
merde
, a young wife, an old fire chief and a need to always impress her,' muttered Louis. ‘And Robichaud had a mistress who was lost in the fire!' It was a plea to that God of his for help.

Kohler grinned hugely as he joined them bearing the bishop's bottle of Calvados. Tapping the préfet solidly on the chest, he snorted and said, ‘Madame Gauthier escaped the fire,
mon fin.
One of your crows has just died. Might I suggest you pick the buckshot out and attempt to sell the carcass on the black market? Try seven francs. That's the going rate in Paris. At least it was, the last time I was there.'

With barely controlled fury, Guillemette said, ‘In Lyon we eat much better,
mein Kamerad.
What else did he confide in his alcoholic stupor?'

‘Plenty but we'll leave it for now. Just see that he isn't bothered again. He's got enough on his plate without worrying about his back.'

‘And yourselves?' asked the Préfet. Kohler … Kohler of the Kripo, the most ignored and insignificant of the Gestapo's subsections. Common crime.

“Right now we could use a place to eat and spend what's left of the night,' said Kohler blithely.

Without another word the préfet walked away into the deepest shadows of the basilica.

‘It's all right, Hermann. Really it is. I think I have exactly the place. The address on this card our girl with the bicycle dropped in the place Terreaux.'

‘What card?'

‘A little yellow card.'

‘You're full of surprises. Gabi won't like it but you can trust me, Louis. I won't breathe a word of it.'

‘If you do, Giselle and Oona will be bound to hear of it. Me, I would not like to cause disruption in your little
ménage à trois
, especially when you're being sued for divorce!'

They shared the Calvados in crystal glasses Kohler had borrowed from the bishop's study. They wished each other a Happy Christmas, then asked, How can it be?

‘The Salamander is out there, Hermann. Having given us the scare of our lives, he or she or they, for some reason, failed to strike the match.'

‘Perhaps I scared them off?'

‘Perhaps, but then … ah, I do not know, Hermann. The cross leads us to the bishop and what do we find but everything in place for another major fire, a priest who messed about with spinsters, and a storeroom full of valuable paintings. It is a puzzle when puzzles are not needed.'

Louis always liked to take his time. The bugger
enjoyed
nothing better than a damned good case, murder especially!

‘Three fires in the Reich, Louis. A pattern. Same method, same reason, eh?'

Good for Hermann. ‘Yes, yes, and now that same reason again—is that so? The trigger for madness, the willingness to sacrifice so many perhaps all because of only one person.'

‘Our priest?'

‘Did the Salamander know him, Hermann, or better still, know of him?'

‘Of that woman who was tied to her bed? The priest wouldn't have worn that cross if he was only going to fuck about with Mademoiselle Aurelle, Louis.'

‘The priest received a telephone call of some urgency.'

‘And that, then, caused him to wear the cross.'

‘And attend the film.'

‘Then he knew the Salamander, Louis, and was aware of what might well happen.'

‘He had been warned but not by Mademoiselle Aurelle, by someone else.'

‘But could not stop the fire and chose to die instead.'

Silently they toasted each other. Kohler refilled their glasses, draining the bottle and then tossing it over the edge to smash and tinkle and make its music somewhere below them.

‘Our fire chie's no collaborator, Louis. The préfet's been having Robichaud tailed ever since friend Barbie came to town. Our Klaus suspects the
pompiers
of being in league with the
cheminots
, but Robichaud swears it isn't true. Not yet anyway.'

‘Fireman and railwaymen, Communists and Resistants … That's a bad combination for the Occupier, Hermann.'

Kohler quietly confessed to everything he had found in the toilets at the cinema. He felt he had to do that. Things had become too rough as it was. ‘I've got all the schedules and papers on me, Louis. I couldn't bring myself to burn them, and want to hang on to them for a bit. Okay? There's another thing. Klaus Barbie is a fanatic when it comes to hunting down Jews and terrorists. The bastard has a mistress, one of the locals, but visits the best houses as well. That's where he must have been heading after dinner, otherwise he'd have been here with the préfet.'

St-Cyr fingered the card the girl had dropped. ‘Not at this house, Hermann. It's not one that is reserved for officers of the Wehrmacht and now the SS. How things have changed, eh? The SS and the Army, who would have thought they would get together as they have? It's not Chez Blanchette or Chez Francine.'

‘Since when was that ever a problem? All I'm saying is don't knock down any doors just in case. He might not like it.'

3

T
HE STREET WAS DAMP, FREEZING AND DAMNED
unfriendly. Worse still, it stank of piss, mould, soot and dead fish. Not a streetlamp showed. Steps sounded behind. Steps stopped. Louis switched off his torch and they stood there listening.

At 3.35 a.m. Berlin time, the rue des Trois Maries sighed and creaked as its thin sheath of ice, made colder and harder by the depth of the night, tightened here and there to crack and split apart elsewhere.

The steps began again—again they hesitated. Two … were there two men following them?

‘The bastards are learning,' breathed Kohler, exasperated that the préfet—it had to be him—was having them tailed. ‘Louis, are you certain we've got the right place? This medieval street of sewers, it seems too … too unfashionable for a whorehouse with a name like La Belle Époque.'

St-Cyr kept silent. They were in one of the oldest parts of Vieux Lyon, right below Fourvière Hill, right next to the quai Romain Rolland, the Saône and the bridge Alphonse Juin.

‘Wait here, then. Let me handle this.
Don't
argue,' hissed Kohler.

‘Of course.'

One seldom heard Hermann when he didn't want to be heard. His ability to tail or find a tail was uncanny.

Somewhere over in Perrache, perhaps, tyres squealed, an engine raced … Gestapo … Gestapo …

Otherwise the city was silent. Unearthly and eerie in the clutch of the Occupier.

Time didn't want to pass. It was so still. Then the scent of stale cigarette smoke came to St-Cyr, that of sweat, warm wool, urine and garlic.

The man was not two metres from him. Somehow he had slipped past Hermann and was now searching the Gothic entrances with their narrow sills.

Even as he watched the silhouette, dark against the deeper darkness of the opposite wall, he saw the man being rushed against the wall—heard the soft, sickening crush of flesh and bone, a smothered cry.

Smelled blood, then heard nothing more. Knew Hermann had dealt with the fellow.

Kohler cursed himself. He had let things get to him and had probably put the bastard in hospital for six months when a light tap would have sufficed! Now the bastard wouldn't talk because he couldn't, and the préfet would be in a rage.

Though he searched—went right back down the cramped and narrow street to stand among the tall stone columns of the austere and forbidding Palais de Justice, he could not find the other man.

He listened to the night. He tried to sort out its myriad odours and hear the heartbeat he knew must be near. The Salamander? he asked himself. Was it possible Préfet Guillemette had only sent one man to tail them, and the other was …

Perfume … was that perfume he was smelling?

La Belle Époque …? he wondered. Mademoiselle Claudine Bertrand, age thirty-two, born 18 November 1910. Occupation: prostitute. Hair: black and long—most wore it short these days. Eyes: dark brown. Face: oval. Nose: normal—
i.e.
, not Jewish. Height: 173 centimetres.

A little taller than the usual Lyonnaise—but why had the one with the bicycle dropped this one's card? Surely the two were not one and the same. A wig? he asked and answered, The one with the bike was too young and far too timid.

Then why had she had the card in her hand?

The house was at the other end of the street. From there, the rue de la Baleine ran the short distance to the quai Romain Rolland and the Saône. There was a bell-pull. There were no lights.

They spoke in muffled tones. ‘Louis, maybe we should come back another time.'

‘Did you kill the other one?'

‘No. No, I couldn't find him. The bitch got away.'

‘The bitch …? But …'

Kohler yanked savagely on the bell-pull. Jarred out of his wits, St-Cyr leapt and only realized then how pissed off Hermann must be.

Still no light showed. He switched on his torch. Instinctively ducking her face away, the woman who had answered the door tried to shield her eyes, then her flesh—her corset had slipped, the flimsy night-gown was open. It was freezing. Her long dark hair was everywhere. About fifty-five, if a day, and flushed … still flushed!