2

THE BISTRO ALBERT BRÛLÉ WAS ON THE QUAI DE la Pêcherie, overlooking the Saône and Fourvière Hill, if one could see them through the darkness. There was only a tiny blue light above the entrance to signal anything out of the ordinary behind the black-out curtains, yet three vélo-taxis and two horse-drawn cabs were waiting in the freezing cold. The foyer held a bar and coatcheck. The restaurant was jammed, the talk earnest and everywhere. A businessman’s place but several women were about, all well-dressed, gay and vivacious. Excited.

Mistresses? grinned Kohler, inwardly nodding as Louis hushed the head waiter and negotiated Sûreté business. The men would be showing the girls off to their competitors and associates. Not a whiff of tobacco smoke in the place—a real chef then. A fanatic in these hard times. If you want to smoke, go elsewhere. Don’t ruin the taste of my cooking! And wasn’t it marvellous what a person could do on the black market?

The clientele obeyed the no-smoking rule. Perhaps fifty customers were seated. There were two long rows of marble-topped tables placed end to end. Knees touched. A hand was on a woman’s silk-stockinged knee. Ah yes, she was good for a little feel. Island tables elsewhere had electric lights turned down to give atmosphere, not to save on power as per the regulations. Panelled mahogany walls held oil paintings of nearly naked girls running through moonlight, and of others bathing in the buff while eating grapes and thinking of more tasty things, perhaps.

There wasn’t a word of the recent catastrophe, not a mention of little girls in flames. Why spoil dinner?

‘Remember to let me make the overtures, eh?’ cautioned the Sûreté, gruffly putting his badge away and removing his fedora. ‘There is absolutely no sense in throwing your weight around in here, Hermann. These people will all have well-placed friends in the SS, the Gestapo or the Wehrmacht. Indeed, several of those types are here tonight, so, please, do not make a disturbance! We’ve been in enough trouble and must get this over with.’

‘Just remember I’m older than you and still the boss.’

‘Then perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what it was you found so disturbing in the toilets of that cinema?’

‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing, Louis. You know how my stomach is. So many bodies, the smell of roasted fle—’

‘Hermann!’ St-Cyr grabbed him by the arm. ‘A cognac,’ he hissed at the barman. ‘Hurry, idiot! Before he vomits all over the place!’

Visions of braised human ribs came to Kohler, of a woman’s shapely buttocks, the skin now crisp and brown, the juices running through the cracks. He smelled the sweetness of death, the putrefaction. He saw a set of white, white teeth, red lips parting in laughter and wanted to choke that laughter off!

The Prunier was downed in a gulp—aged thirty years! The ragged cheeks, with that terrible scar from the left eye to chin and memory of a rawhide whip, slowly began to lose their pallor. St-Cyr gripped his partner a moment more before releasing him. ‘Is the news that bad?’ he asked. ‘Ah, nom de Jésus-Christ! Résistants, Hermann? Come, come, mon ami, out with it, eh? We’ve been condemned to work together. It’s best I know everything.’

The Bavarian’s eyes were smarting. He swallowed another brandy with difficulty. ‘Then you tell me what you didn’t, and I’ll tell you what I didn’t.’

That was fair enough. Always there was this hedging on both sides of the partnership. ‘Later, then. Let’s see what our Monsieur Artel has to say about his cinema.’

The woman who had laughed followed Kohler with her bright eyes, doubt growing in them. He knew she would swiftly lose spirit but had to tell her something.

Leaning closely, he whispered into the sweet shell of her scented ear, ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you, mademoiselle, or is it madame and your husband off somewhere else? A POW camp in the Reich, eh? Hey, more than a million and a half Frenchmen still languish behind barbed wire in spite of all the promises to let them go home. The poor buggers dream of girls like you but have to masturbate.’

Devastated, she dropped her fork and seized her napkin, so, good! ‘Bon appétit, madame,’ he said and tossed the rest of the party a nonchalant wave.

The meal at Artel’s far-corner table was being consumed by four Lyonnais businessmen in almost identical, nondescript blue serge suits and subdued ties. They talked of business, were solicitous towards their host while privately holding their own thoughts. They spooned with stolid indifference the potage velouté aux truffes, the boneless fish soup painstakingly made by pressing the steamed fish through a fine wire sieve and blending the result with long-simmered fish stock, a creamed sauce of beaten eggs and flour, and the truffles of course. Ah mon Dieu, it made the digestive juices run to watch them.

Now and then a double chin was hastily wiped with a large, white linen napkin, a glass of red Beaujolais nouveau was reached for or a crusty loaf from which a generous chunk would be ripped by pudgy fingers and perhaps dipped in the soup before being eaten. On one little finger there was a jade signet ring. All the left hands had gold wedding bands …

‘Louis, they haven’t even noticed us.’

‘Don’t feel so put out. You’re not dressed properly. Observe, eh? Tell me which is the notary, which the banker, which the insurance agent?’

‘And which is our man, Monsieur Fabien Artel?’

The owner of the cinema.

‘Monsieur Artel? Monsieur Fabien Artel?’ asked Louis quite pleasantly.

The man hesitated. ‘Yes. Yes, that is me.’ He threw the head waiter a scathing glance. ‘What is it you want of me?’

St-Cyr took the table in, nodding to the others. ‘Messieurs. No, please, continue with the soup. It is very good, is it not?’

Artel tossed a dismissive hand. ‘You’re from the police. This is neither the time nor the place. Please leave.’

Ah well, a stubborn one. ‘We’d rather not, monsieur. It’s Christmas Eve and we’d like to get home.’

‘The préfet—’

‘Fabien, go easy. As your legal adviser—’

‘Don’t interrupt me, Martin. Guillemette is right over there, dining with the Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie. I need only give a nod, and he will see to it.’

Ah nom de Dieu, Klaus Barbie! ‘Monsieur, do not try my patience,’ breathed St-Cyr. ‘One hundred and eighty-three have died in your cinema. A few simple answers are in order if we are to stop the arsonist from committing another, and perhaps even more horrendous crime.’ He let his gaze move to the insurance agent—one could tell them apart at a glance—but continued. ‘Surely it is to your advantage to co-operate?’

‘He’s right, Fabien. Co-operate,’ said the agent.

The banker nodded curtly at the wisdom of this and motioned to the head waiter. ‘Monsieur Jules, some chairs, please, for our guests. An apéritif, messieurs? A little of the Moulin-à-Vent? Yes, yes, that would be most suitable.’ He turned to the sommelier. ‘Étienne, you may bring the Moulin now for Monsieur Artel.’

Kohler was impressed. Louis was doing all right for himself. The banker got up to formally introduce himself. ‘Jacques-Yves Durant, messieurs. Crédit Lyonnais. This is Armand Clouteau of Montagnier-Suisse, one of our principal insurance companies, and this is Martin Lavigné, one of Lyon’s foremost notaries. Gentlemen,’ he indicated the chairs. He sampled the Moulin-à-Vent and, declaring it near-perfect with the upraised forefinger of slight doubt, said, ‘The 1933, eh, Fabien? You do us proud.’

It was by just such little slights that the establishment maintained their positions among themselves. St-Cyr indicated that they should finish their soup but already, at a glance from Artel, the waiter was clearing the plates. A pity.

‘So? Proceed,’ said Artel. ‘My cinema is in ruins and you do not wish such a thing to happen again?’

Implying how could this be possible, eh? ‘It’s a directive from Gestapo Mueller in Berlin,’ said Kohler, leaning forward a little. ‘He doesn’t like Christmas to be spoiled.’

‘Hermann, please. Monsieur Artel knows only too well that if he should invite the préfet and his distinguished guest to join us, others would be certain to hear of it.’

Touché, eh? thought Artel. So, mes amis, a pair of gumshoes from Paris. One from the Gestapo, the other from Belleville perhaps, and what’s it to be? The squeeze in public or the softening up for later? ‘Arson? It’s not possible. What are you people saying?’ He gestured, looked at them both, then hunkered down for the fight. ‘It was a surge in the lines, messieurs. Excess electrical power causes the wiring to heat up and puff! my cinema is in flames and Robichaud cannot get his pompiers there fast enough. Oh bien sûr, it’s the factories these days, their demands for electricity. Those old buildings around the place Terreaux … Lovely, but of course … Ah, what can one say?’

‘That’s interesting,’ breathed Kohler. ‘An accident? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course it was an accident. Arson …’

‘Can take years to settle. Louis, I think he’s going to be sick.’

‘Monsieur, your fire doors were padlocked.’

‘Padlocked? But … but this is impossible! Impossible! Why should my fire doors have been padlocked when the theatre was full to capacity?’

St-Cyr tried the Moulin and found it perfect. Would the next course bring the quenelles de brochet, the dumplings made with a forcemeat of river pike served au gratin in kidney fat and eggs perhaps and a sauce of mushrooms and cream? ‘The doors were pad-locked, monsieur. Perhaps you could explain why this was so.’

Ah merde, the Sûreté! They were always after dirt, always interfering and most of them crooks anyway. ‘I gave explicit instructions to Monsieur Thibault, my manager, that the fire doors were to be unlocked during every—every—performance at my cinema.’

St-Cyr nodded solicitously and sought succour by examining the lifeline of his right hand. Gabrielle had been upset that he had broken his promise to keep Christmas with her and her son at the château on the Loire. A chanteuse, a patriot, much taller and much younger than himself, she had the body of a goddess but would share it only with one man. It was yet to be shared, alas. ‘Your manager has told the fire marshal that you expressly forebade him to do so, monsieur. Were some of the patrons likely to cheat and let their friends in? Messieurs,’ he looked gravely around the table, ‘those doors, they are a problem.’

Artel was swift. ‘Then ask the Préfet and Obersturmführer Barbie to join us, Inspector. Communists, yes? Potential terrorists and saboteurs? I think you will find little sympathy at that table.’

The Sûreté heaved a sigh. The lifeline was not good. Gabi might hold it against him, his being away at such a time. ‘It is not that table which concerns me,’ he said sadly. ‘It is all those lives, monsieur, and perhaps those of others yet to come.’

‘Then find him!’ hissed Artel. ‘Find the man who did it, eh? Come, come, my fine messieurs from Paris. Get on with your work!’

The quenelles were waiting. The côte de boeuf garnie à la lyonnaise would be overdone. Braised beef ribs and stuffed onions in a white sauce with quail-egg-sized potatoes that had been sautéed in butter. Butter!

‘Present yourself at the Hotel Bristol at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, Monsieur Artel. My advice is that you come prepared to answer fully all questions pertaining to the fire, including …’ St-Cyr fingered his wine glass delicately. Ah, he would have liked another taste. Perhaps Hermann could acquire for him a couple of bottles, a little present for Gabi, not that she would let the offer sway her. ‘Including, monsieur, that of murder.’

‘Louis …?’

‘Hermann, it is time for us to leave.’

Outside in the freezing cold and darkness along the quai, the memory of those four men came clearly. ‘Four Burgundian trenchermen, Hermann, with merchant hearts of stone. They would as soon cut each others’ throats if advantageous yet are solicitous of our friend. Now each of the others will begin to think it best to leave our fly alone on the wall and he, in turn, will tell us everything or try to run.’

‘A murder?’ asked Kohler, his breath billowing.

Yes. One of the tenants. We shall want to know exactly where Monsieur Artel was at the time of the fire and perhaps for the hour or two prior to it. Also, of course, the whereabouts of his insurance policy.’

‘There was a priest, Louis.’

‘Yes, yes, I saw you take a cross. Valuable, was it?’

‘Quite.’

‘Then find us a taxi, Hermann, and we will pay the Bishop of Lyon a little visit. Use your Gestapo shield if necessary but do not tempt fate.’

‘Not Barbie’s then?’

‘Ah no, that would be most unwise. One of the vélos perhaps, if its driver has legs strong enough for Fourvière Hill. We must attend the late-evening Mass.’

‘You really do want to have the last word. Hey, me I’m going to let you have it!’

‘Good!’

‘Then tell me how you knew beforehand who each of those bastards was at that table?’

The Sûreté’s sigh betrayed impatience. One had to do that now and then with Hermann. ‘It was more in their posture than in anything else. The banker carries himself well and has his corset and breeding to thank for this. When he sits, his back is stiff and his food taken with precise movements. He is more vain than the others. A man who knows women and manipulates them. Shrewd, calculating, determined and believing success is his right due to birth. His nursemaid introduced him to sex and ever since then he has favoured the employer-employee relationship. Were I a woman, I should not wish to work for him. Were I his wife, I would employ a straight razor!’

‘And the notary?’ snorted Kohler. It was good for Louis to get it out of his system. The Frog needed that every once in a while.

‘Secretive—oh they all are—but this one the more so. He’s used to property deeds, to wills, to marriage contracts in which each packet of linen or towels or cutlery, no matter how old or worn, is recorded in the most meticulous detail. His is a safe of secrets, Hermann, and he could well know things about the others they themselves do not know or have forgotten. He strained his soup through his teeth in case of a misplaced fish-bone. His wife is miserable. They rarely if ever refresh their marriage vows because he is too tired. She dreams of taking a lover but knows he will discover the expense, no matter how trifling.’

Kohler longed for a cigarette. ‘You’re cruel. You’re enjoying this.’

‘But of course! And why not, since you have asked? The insurance agent was nervous but tried well to hide this, though the others were all aware of it. Several million francs are riding on this policy he was fool enough to have written for his friend. How could he have listened to such a one? The director will be certain to rake him over the coals. A demotion at the least, Hermann, an outright dismissal if he is not fortunate. He alone does not have a mistress—that would be far too risky. Instead, he contents himself with infrequent visits to one or two of the city’s most discreet houses. He insists only on the cleanest girls and slips the doctor who visits them a little something for the inside information. He also has a slight catch between his upper eyetooth and his first premolar. This traps food and he has become so accustomed to sucking at it, he does so even when there is no need.’

Kohler shattered the air with expletives. ‘Come on! You couldn’t have seen all that! How’d you really know which was which?’

‘Experience. When you have had to examine people as much as I have, Hermann, you learn. Have patience. That banker sat and ate like a banker; the insurance agent like one of his kind; so, too, the notary.’

‘And the owner?’

‘Ah yes, Monsieur Fabien Artel. The fleshy lips and closely shaven cheeks blue with shadow. The dimpled chin, eh? and the puffy eyelids whose eyes were hooded beneath arched, dark brows that were not thick. The rapidly receding hairline, the touches of grey that have been patiently hidden. The arrogance of that nose, the corpulence—the wedding ring that should most certainly have been cut off and expanded to prevent loss of circulation were he not so parsimonious and busy. Whereas the banker’s eyes might hold a momentary trace of sympathy for a needy client, untrue of course, this one’s could never hold any. He views the world as a notecase and asks only how much is in it for him?’

‘Suffers from a crisis of the liver, does he?’

‘And the misused prostate!’

Good Gott im Himmel! ‘Don’t hate him, Louis. Don’t let all those bodies get to you. It’s best not to.’

‘Then ask the mother who tried to reach her child, Hermann. Ask the woman who was tied to a bed she had probably slept in every night of her life. Ask your priest who it was that lit the fire. Ask him why he was in the cinema and not about his duties at such a busy time.’

‘Ask the Bishop, Louis. Ask the one who employed him.’

‘That is exactly what I intend to do when he gives me the wafer, Hermann. You’re learning, eh? A few more months with me and I will consider you polished enough to go home.’

Normally Hermann would have risen to such bait and loudly proclaimed the Thousand Year Reich was in France for ever. Instead, he walked away into the night and when he commandeered a carnage, he asked first if it was waiting for the Préfet of Police and the Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie. ‘Then we have need of it, my friend,’ he said. ‘Gestapo Central, Paris. Don’t argue or you will face the wrong end of my pistol.’

The carriage was only of limited use and that was probably just as well. Dropped at the foot of the montée des Chazeaux, St-Cyr made excuses—the terrain, the height and steepness of Fourvière Hill, the narrow, medieval streets of Vieux Lyon, the impassibility to carriages beyond certain points, the Roman origins of Lugdunum and prior need to defend the city from them by fortifying the heights. ‘Ah, so many reasons, Hermann. Please, it is but a little climb up to the Basilica.’

‘Little? I see nothing but a steady stream of penitents bundled in black on a pitch-black night and mumbling over their beads with regret.’

‘The funicular is closed. A power failure of Germanic origins—i.e., punishment for some slight. Probably graffiti splashed on some wall in stolen white paint that ran Vive le Général de Gaulle, Vive la France libre, or some such thing.’

‘If you French had guts you would have levelled this hill! I can’t understand why the Romans didn’t. Christ, it’s cold!’

They started up the 242 steps of the montée, no sand on the pavement as a special treat in these frozen times. Shuffling old ladies, old men grinding their false teeth and carefully budgeting their cigarettes, coughing, spitting, hawking up their guts, boys, girls, babes in arms, single mothers, grass widows, war widows and older men with younger wives, one of whom was painfully pregnant and could no longer button her overcoat. Triplets? wondered Kohler anxiously. The rope around her belly was frayed. She’d worn three aprons beneath it to help keep the cold at bay. Piety shone in her eyes and the flic on duty hadn’t the heart to warn her to extinguish her candle.

‘Gott im Himmel, you French are stupid!’ seethed Kohler. ‘If it isn’t ten thousand steps up to some rathole of a fucking flat in Montmartre or Saint-Denis, it’s an elevator with a two-strand cable that ought to have been replaced ten thousand years ago!’

‘We are going up to the Basilica, Hermann. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think they had elevators then, though I am positive they came into use about 1850.’

‘Another lecture, eh? Then let me tell you, you French have been using the same goddamned elevators ever since!’

Hermann hated using the elevators in Paris or anywhere else. He had been caught once, left hanging by a hair, and the memory of that near-catastrophe was always fresh. Always! Now he would use the stairs but, as he hated them too, there was no solution short of parachuting him in. And he hated heights more than anything.

As if ashamed of his behaviour, Kohler mumbled, ‘Madame, permit me, please, to offer you and your husband a little assistance. The steps are steep and I gather there are far too many of them.’

In alarm she dropped her candle, let out a shriek, gasped, ‘Georges!’ and fainted. Christ!

It took fifteen minutes to bring her round and get her back on her feet. In all this time the shuffling stream never stopped, but only pinched down as it passed them, then opened up again. Shoulders rubbing shoulders. Coughs chasing coughs. Step after step. Christmas Eve, 1942.

‘Your face, Hermann. She saw your face. The mark of that whip, eh? The scar, it is still too fresh. The frost must have made it glisten.’

‘She knew I was Gestapo, Louis. She was so damned scared, she practically dropped her babies right there. Could we have delivered them?’

‘Of course. Under the Third Reich all things are possible.’

‘I did once. Did you know that? She’d been knifed and was dying, Louis, and I held her little boy up for her even as she closed her eyes and smiled. Berlin, 13 June 1939, right after one of the rallies. Always there were the rallies. Thinking he’d be safe in the crowd, some son of a bitch had to let her have it for no other reason than that she looked a trifle Jewish, I guess. We never knew the reason and we never caught him.’

‘Remind me to buy you a drink and a bit of supper, eh?’

‘Those ration tickets Marianne left for you are now at least a good four weeks out of date, idiot! I’ll find us a place. I’m not hungry anyway.’

‘That priest just knelt and let it happen, Hermann. He didn’t try to save himself like all the others.’

‘Did he tie the woman to her bed? Is that what you’re wondering?’

‘Or did he know the Salamander would strike and is that why he was in the cinema?’

There were so many questions, so little time in which to get things done. At the top of the montée they began yet another steep climb, the switchbacks of the Sacré Coeur snaking through scant woods where the nubby branches of the trees reminded Kohler of battlefields long passed and of sanctuary woods after weeks of constant shelling.

The French always pruned their trees too much. They liked them wounded into stumps and fingerless fists.

‘That priest was going to sodomize the woman, Louis. Guilt stopped him and he went downstairs into the cinema only to find the flames of hell had descended upon him.’

‘We’ll ask the bishop. We’ll tell him the Church’s secret is safe with us.’

For some time now the litany of the Mass had had a lulling effect. There was far less coughing and clearing of the throat or blowing of the nose. More rhythm to the responses, more unity of intonation and automatic signing of the Cross.

Prayers were offered for the victims of the fire, pleas for the arsonist or arsonists to give up and come forth to receive God’s forgiveness. Prayers for those who had been badly burned and disfigured—somehow they must find it in their hearts to forgive. So, too, all those who had lost their loved ones.

Yet had it been wise to hold the Mass? If ever an opportunity for disaster presented itself, it was in this packed congregation. Each person’s shoulders touched at least one other’s. It was now so hot and stuffy in the unheated church, overcoats had been unbuttoned, mittens, gloves and scarves removed to cushion bended knees. A simple cry of Fire would cause untold panic and the Salamander, if he or she or they were bent on another disaster, would know this.

St-Cyr sat nearest the right aisle, about a quarter of the way from the altar and beside one of the blue-grey marble columns that rose to the vaulted ceiling high above where gorgeous frescos were sumptuously gilded. Consecrated in 1896, the Basilica exemplified the very soul of the merchants and bankers who had built it. Gold was everywhere, so, too, polished semiprecious stones. Its altar was immense and resplendent with silk and silver and gold. There were paintings and mosaics, beautiful stained-glass windows. Everywhere there was candlelight or the warm glow of scented oil lamps.

Clearly the Bishop of Lyon had spared nothing on this eve of eves. In defiance of the black-out, the Basilica must glow like a beacon. Not content, he had insisted on holding the Mass at midnight as had been the Church’s custom for centuries.

With the curfew at midnight, and all tram-cars and autobuses stopped at 11 p.m., he had forced each and every person before him to break the law, which would drive the German authorities half crazy trying to arrest them all should they so choose.

Resplendent in his finery, Bishop Frédéric Dufour was a man to be reckoned with. His wrists were strong and bony, the hands big, shoulders wide and square, the feet always braced as if God were up there some place on the mountain and he but a humble shepherd. The short, wavy hair was iron-grey, his brow and face wide as if cut from granite, but he was still a man who could enjoy a good time among simple people, a man much accustomed to circulating in the world of salons but one who always remembered his roots. No fool, he must have gauged the metal of the Nazi High Command and gambled they’d say nothing beyond a mild rebuke to himself.

But, again, one had to wonder if it had been wise to hold the Mass? All eyes would be closed in prayer or on the hymnal or the Bishop and his assistants, the altar boys, the swinging censers, the choir that sat among stupendous columns of rose-red marble, the Cross above the altar, the Virgin to one side.

All but Hermann’s. Hermann would be busy in the wings looking for possible arson or scanning the crowd for a chance sight of that girl they had seen on the bicycle.

Two women … Had she been one of them and why, please, had she dropped the yellow work card of a prostitute?

A priest, but no ordinary cleric. Were the two connected? Could that be possible?

And were they to have another fire so soon? Ah merde, Hermann. Be careful.

The smell of gasoline was strongest here, high above the altar in one of the four octagonal towers that formed the corners of the Basilica and rose to belfries more Gothic than Byzantine. Stealthily Kohler crouched in the pitch darkness and ran anxious fingertips over the cold marble floor. Gingerly he brought them to his nose, each microsecond frozen in time, his mind and body functioning too slowly—he knew this now. The floor was awash.

Stairs … there would be stairs to the belfry but surely they would not have started pouring the gasoline from up there? Surely those two women would be below him among the congregation, waiting … waiting for the right moment?

When he came across a jerry can lying flat at the top of the stone steps, he ran a hesitant finger around inside its open neck, felt the threaded metal, each groove sharp and precise. Saw at once the four towers in flames; saw the panic inside the church, the trampled; heard the terrified screams.

Verdammt! He shut his eyes and tried to calm himself. He thought to ring the bells—knew that this would only warn the arsonist or arsonists.

A door would be opened into the tower, a lighted candle would be dropped on the way out.

When he came to a narrow gallery, he stood in shadow looking down the length of the crowded nave. He searched, he asked, Where are you? He wanted to shout, Rans! Raus! Get out! before it was too late.

Prayers came up to him and he hesitated. Satisfied that all heads would be bowed and he wouldn’t be seen, he stepped quickly through to the railing to look down at the seats nearest the door to the tower. Two women … What would they be wearing? Would they sit side by side? Had they even had anything to do with the cinema fire? Had they really?

It all looked so ordinary. Where …? Where the hell are you? he wanted to shout.

Four belfries … four of them.

Slowly he retraced his steps. Again he looked uncertainly up through the darkness to the belfry, again he felt the gasoline on the floor. Had it only just been dumped? Had they heard him in the tower? Were they still waiting in the darkness at the top of those stairs?

He began to climb, and when he reached the top, eight tall and narrow arches gave out on to the night, the darkness there a little less. Freezing, a breeze came softly. It did not stir the heavy bronze bells. He must go around the bells. He must make no sound, give no sign of himself. They mustn’t know he’d come back. She mustn’t know. She? he asked.

Two women … a strong smell of perfume close, so close and layered over that of the gasoline because of the breeze. He waited. Silently he asked, Well, what’s it to be, eh?

She’d have the matches ready. She wouldn’t care if she or they died in the fire. Perhaps that’s what she wanted. He crouched and ran his fingers lightly over the floor.

When he touched a woman’s high-heeled shoe, he leapt inwardly but found himself asking, How could she wear such things on a night like this?

She didn’t move. She did not even know he was here.

The fucking shoes were empty! She’d left them side by side and had splashed perfume on the stone sill to fool him!

Ah Gott im Himmel, Louis … Louis, where the hell are you when needed most? Down on your knees praying to that God of yours? Asking why He has to mock his little detective, eh?

Waiting … waiting just like everyone else.

*    *    *

The Mass was taking forever. Why had they simply not sent a messenger to the bishop with a note, wondered St-Cyr? Urgent consultations. A cross … an exquisite masterpiece of mid-to-late Renaissance art. Four square, blood-red rubies at its ends, four magnificent square-tabled sapphires at the crossroads and well-faceted, round Jager diamonds, each of at least three carats, the stones all set in raised collets on chased quatrefoils whose four-leafed petals were filigreed in dark blue and gold enamel.

The rope of gold was with rubies and enamelled cushions between the links. The bishop could well have refused to see Hermann and himself. Made excuses, sought to divert the inquiry … ah, so many things might well have happened. There was also Dufour’s reaction to the shock of being confronted so unexpectedly. Ah yes.

At a nudge, St-Cyr awoke from the turmoil of his thoughts to join the shuffling line in the aisle. The bread, the wine, the blessings and genuflections came as each parishioner received the Blessed Sacrament, none now asking why that fire had had to happen, none worrying that it could just as suddenly happen here. Hermann … where was Hermann?

‘My son, that cross …?’

Doubt and fear, then realization and sadness swiftly entered the dark grey eyes of the shepherd whose cheeks were rugged. ‘Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté Nationale, Bishop. Please forgive the inconvenience, but it is imperative that we talk.’

‘Here? Now? But … but …” Ah damn! ‘Yes, yes of course. One of the confessionals.’ Dufour indicated the ornately carved boxes on the far side of the church and said, ‘Follow, please.’

There was no time. Clearly that was evident; so, too, that the bishop wanted the least possible notice taken of them.

No sooner were they inside and seated, when he hissed, ‘Why have you come here like this with that in your hands? Have you no sense of decency? Father Adrian had nothing to do with that fire. Nothing! How could he have?’

‘Then why was he in that cinema, Bishop? Why was he on his knees facing the worst of the flames?’

‘Facing the flames?’

‘Yes. The others had blocked the only exits. Some had tried to run into the foyer but had collapsed in their panic or from the smoke and flames. The others then fell on top of them.’

‘He must have known he could not escape.’

‘But to exhibit such calmness and strength of will is quite remarkable, is it not? Why was he a martyr?’

Dufour considered this. When he asked to see the cross, St-Cyr handed it to him, and for a moment their fingers touched. He felt the trembling in the bishop and knew Dufour was either frightened of the outcome or deeply grieving over the loss of his priest.

They could not see each other’s expressions. Had he suggested the confessional for this very reason? Had he?

Indeed, the confessional had always seemed to single out the confessor, using that same remoteness to pigeon-hole the sinner’s soul. Uncomfortable … it had always made St-Cyr feel uncomfortable, the mind flitting back to boyhood days and things like cakes and pies best left unstolen.

When the bishop spoke again it was as if to God, humbly begging His forgiveness. ‘This cross was far too ostentatious, Inspector. For quite obvious reasons I forbade Father Beaumont to wear it except on very special occasions. Adrian … Adrian was my personal secretary. We’d been together for years. When that happens, the right hand usually knows what the left hand is about, isn’t that so? He understood he was not to wear this outside the Basilica. I could not have him causing envy among my other priests or with the cardinals and other bishops, could I? Father Beaumont agreed—he was that kind of man. Honest, diligent, absolutely trustworthy, and my humble servant at all times, be it night or day. I kept the cross in the safe in my office, and I know for a fact that he has left it to me in his will.’

Ah nom de Dieu, a will … ‘Why was he there, Bishop? By rights he ought to have been busy. The sick, the wounded, the old, the poor …’

Something would have to be said. Dufour sighed heavily. ‘Our housekeeper will tell you Father Beaumont received an urgent telephone call, Inspector. Mademoiselle Madeleine Aurelle. Yes, yes, I had already anticipated a visit from such as yourself. The Préfet … Ah, of course he has telephoned to warn me of you. News gets around quickly, does it not? So many people, so many deaths … My housekeeper, Mademoiselle Beatrice told me the details of the telephone call. Mademoiselle Aurelle is in her middle years, you understand. Father Beaumont was her confessor—that is to say, Inspector, that one was fond of him. As the men of my village used to say, she had hoarded her little capital for far too long and had not bought any gold with it.’

Her virginity … Her ‘little capital …’ and this from a bishop!

‘The silly woman was always after Adrian, Inspector. She badgered him constantly. The crisis of the heart, the chest, the ear-ache, the back, the rent. He suffered her constant need for attention and quite often … Oh, bien sûr I myself have heard him calming her fears many times over the telephone. Always a kind word, a promise to talk to the owner of that building, to call in at the pharmacy for some little thing, the greengrocer’s, the tea-shop or send someone round to the flat, himself most often. He had the heart and patience of a saint. He understood her and forgave her always.’

‘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.’

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.’