Salamander (10 page)

‘Was the girl with the bike leading us, eh?'

‘Perhaps, but …' began Kohler like a parrot only to shut up.

The
sous-maîtresse
had come back. In defiance, her corset had not been yanked into place or used to draw in the fleshy waist and make it the stem of the hour-glass figure the fashionable women and
demi-mondes
of that era had so desired.

‘Messieurs, if you will come this way, I will take you to Madame.'

‘Louis, you handle it. I'll wait here.'

Madame Morel knew enough not to argue but even so the plump cheeks tightened and the dark eyes narrowed in warning. ‘All our doors are locked, monsieur. Absolute discretion is our policy. To each in his own taste, the extended hour of privacy since all have paid for the night.'

There were butterfly palms and rhododendrons, fiddleleaf figs with deep green, papery leaves—did they wear them sometimes? thought Kohler as he waited. There were orange and lemon trees in fruit—none of the Occupation's horrible ‘approximate' jam or marmalade for this place. Ah no. They grew their own fruit and would have plenty of sugar.

Two ornately carved, high-backed ebony armchairs with Gobelin tapestry coverings flanked the open doorway to which Louis and the woman headed. Beyond this doorway, beneath the raindrop cascades of another chandelier, a huge, dark green and flowered jar stood on bent golden legs holding the establishment's Christmas tree: a gorgeous kentia palm that had been simply and tastefully decorated with but a few small handfuls of golden pear-shaped ornaments.

‘Wait here, please,' the woman said. Louis reached out to touch one of the pears. They were so light, so exquisite. Gilded Venetian glass and worth a small fortune because they were so old.

Ivy trailed over the lip of the pot. The carpet was an Aubusson. Crimson and mauve. Ah
mon Dieu
, the money in this place. The need, perhaps, to constantly replace things, thought St-Cyr.

‘Monsieur, please state your business.'

The madam of the house was dark-eyed and dark-haired but here the similarity to the
sous-maîtresse
abruptly ended. The long, tight-bodiced dress of black silk that positively glowed was matched by swept-up hair, diamond pins and dangling ear-rings that glittered. Black silk gloves extended to her elbows. There was a choker of black velvet around her slender neck. Her skin was perfect and of a satiny lustre, the cheeks not rouged but red as if from frost. Had she only just come in from outside? Her perfume … it was so fresh. She was taller than himself—almost as tall as Gabrielle and slim, would have the figure of a goddess too, just like her.

‘Madame,' he began. ‘Please forgive the intrusion. One of your girls …'

The dark eyes in that finely boned, aristocratic face remained impassive.

‘Mademoiselle Bertrand,' he said.

‘Yes?'

‘We would like a few words with her. Please, it is urgent.'

‘She's not here, Inspector. She has a bad chest, a little crisis of the lungs—it's nothing. A cold, that's all. I told her not to come in until she was over it.'

Merde
, why could God not have given them a break? ‘Tell me about her, please.'

‘There's nothing to tell. Claudine has been with me now for the past ten years. There has never been any trouble, Inspector. There never is with any of my girls.'

‘Your name, madame?'

‘Ange-Marie Céleste Rachline.'

Was he talking to a block of wood? Her lips were naturally red and beautiful but also cold, he thought. Yes, cold. Were they always that way, or is it because she really has only just come in from being outside? ‘Age?' he asked sharply, not liking things one bit.

‘Thirty-four. Inspector, what is it? Please, the house … these times. You do understand?'

‘Husband?' he demanded.

‘Am I under suspicion?'

‘No. Not at present.'

‘Then let us keep my husband out of this. We don't see each other, Inspector. He goes his way and I go mine as we have now for the past ten years.'

‘Then Mademoiselle Bertrand has been with you from the start?' he asked. Yet there is nothing to tell?'

‘Claudine cares for her bedridden mother who knows nothing of this place and thinks, in her confused state of mind, that her husband, who died in the invasion of 1914, still provides for her. They live alone here in Vieux Lyon, on the rue du Boeuf at Number Six.'

Not far away. ‘She has no pimp?'

Madame Rachline shook her head slightly. ‘None of my girls has one, Inspector. It's not permitted. It's a rule of the house that ensures each gets fair recompense for her services and there is no trouble.'

‘And the doctor?' he asked. What was it about her that alarmed him in addition to the colour of her cheeks and lips?

‘Dr Sévigny comes three times a week for their sake, Inspector, more than for that of the clients, though of course I am concerned on their behalf as well. My girls are good and I give them all the protection I can. It's a profession, isn't it? Therefore, let us put a little dignity into it. Each has money in a safe place but can draw on future earnings if necessary up to one-quarter of her annual take which is split fifty per cent for them, thirty for the owners, five for myself, and fifteen for the house.'

It was an amazingly fair relationship, almost unheard of. But if Madame Rachline had any further concerns about him, she hid them well. He asked if they might sit down. She did not hesitate but said, ‘Would you prefer my bedroom, the
grand salon
or the dining-room?' He knew she had included the bed-room on purpose and he had to suggest it.

‘Then follow me. It is the only bed that is not yet in use.'

‘Were you outside in the street, madame?'

‘Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact I was. I attended the midnight Mass at the Basilica.'

‘And walked home alone in those clothes?'

‘Yes.'

Ah
merde
.

Kohler helped himself to the
foie gras de canard
, the duck pâté with a mildewed crust that must be a good ten years old. He filled one of the ruby-rimmed, gilded Venetian goblets with Romanée-Conti, 1917—was it really that old?

Then he laid into the truffled veal sausage, had a finger-taste of the glazed fruit and then the Kirsch soufflé—all bits and pieces that still lay about the cluttered dining-room table with its tapestry cloth of deep red, green and white patterns beneath a chandelier of glass lozenges in shades of ruby, emerald, lapis and citrine.

He tried the oysters and then the
Portugaises vertes—
how had they come by them? A half-filled bottle of pepper vodka made him think of his two sons at Stalingrad. Were they saying it would be their last Christmas?

‘
Salut!
' he said, pausing to spoon in the black Russian caviar. ‘
Gott mit uns
, eh, Hans? Shit! Tell Jurgen you both should have listened to your papa and gone to Argentina like I said.'

Ah
merde. Merde!
This lousy war. He took another swill of vodka. Those two bitches in that tower, that one out on the street—had it really been a woman?

He downed a snipe that had been hung until it had dropped from the hook, then roasted on a cushion of toast smothered in a paste of brandy and its rotted innards.

A wealth of bone-white porcelain and old silver covered the table. There was a ceramic crèche as the centrepiece—elephants and tigers led by Nubian slaves with jewelled parasols to keep the sun off their masters as they made their way to Bethlehem. Decanters and bottles—strands of pearls and cut-glass beads, beeswax candles like he hadn't seen in years. Spirals and twists and fluted columns but plump, golden artichokes also,
and
bunches of grapes
and
fleurs-de-lis.

More caviar was swallowed, more vodka, pâté and soufflé. Some of the candles had gone out or had been pinched out by licentious fingers. He could almost hear the gaiety of their laughter. Fifteen couples had sat here, the cream of Lyon industrialists, bankers, lawyers and merchants, no doubt. Money, money and more of it because business was booming for them, ah yes.

The vodka was gone. He refilled his goblet. When alternated with the Romanée-Conti, it wasn't bad. A bit too peppery, but the Russians always had been driven to excess. Too emotional a people.

The braised goose had had all of its bones drawn out through its anus before being rammed with a forcemeat of
foie gras
and truffles. Small mushrooms lay like plump, ripe breasts among stoned ripe olives and small sausages that had first been fried in butter. All were mingled with a dark, rich sauce that had cooled and was now setting into a gel.

He spooned a bit, cut off a slice—tore away a larger piece—hell, there must have been a dozen geese scattered along the table. The potatoes were good. With the snipe and the pâté and the cold purée of leeks, a meal. Dessert too, and another shot of wine. He'd try the Clos de Vougeot this time or perhaps the Beaujolais Blanc.

‘You must be hungry.'

For seven seconds he paused, then hesitated knowing gravy was drooling down his chin.

Her hair was as red as the sunset over Essen with the Krupp furnaces going full blast. Her eyes were a lively green, wide and full of innocence, the lashes long and a shade darker than the loosened mass that fell richly to delicious shoulders.
Nom de Jésus-Christ
, she was absolutely gorgeous. About twenty-three years of age.

Kohler swallowed tightly—he really hadn't realized how much he'd been missing his little Giselle back home in Paris, or Oona, his Dutch housekeeper. ‘
Bonsoir
,' he said. ‘Pull up a chair. Here, let me fill you a glass. The Dom Pérignon, eh? Come on, I'll join you. Some of the pâté? A little of the caviar? Your client …?' He arched his eyebrows. She smiled softly and her lips … Ah
nom de Dieu
, they were perfect! Paris … would she consider coming to Paris when this thing was over?

‘My client, he is relieved of his little burden, monsieur, and will now sleep until it comes upon him again. Were you …?'

‘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.'