Salamander (30 page)

Again St-Cyr listened for her, hearing only silence.
Maudit!
‘But you were nervous,' he called out. ‘As you opened the bottle of oxalic acid some of the granules spilled. You swept them up—of course you did. You even took them away or washed them down the drain but you forgot to tap the broom against the floor.'

She had sought refuge in a very large room, an auditorium, he thought. Immediately there were changes: a deeper darkness, a greater coldness, sounds echoing upwards. The smell of beeswax, chalk dust and sweat. A gymnasium.

Kohler tossed off the cognac and held the glass out to Barbie for more. ‘Now that she's left us, Herr Obersturmféhrer, I can tell you Frau Weidling lied. She was nowhere near that hotel of hers last night when the tenement caught fire. Her husband told us she was dining with you.'

‘And the night of the cinema fire?'

‘There wasn't enough time between when she went in and when the fire started. She could have got there earlier and been waiting long enough, but I don't think so. That driver of hers had to find Leiter Weidling, who then had to extricate himself from whatever he was doing. Then they had to drive back to place Terreaux
and
then back to place Bellecour before turning around to find out where the pumper trucks were heading.'

‘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 boss, 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.'