7

‘MADAME RACHLINE, IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you accompany me to the central morgue. I regret the necessity but …’

‘But business is business, Inspector St-Cyr. Is that it?’

Ah nom de Dieu, had he struck a sensitive chord at last? ‘Madame, a childhood friend and employee is dead. Please, I must insist. I’ve a car waiting.’

A car … ‘Did she die in peace?’

What was the woman thinking? ‘Yes. She would not have known.’

‘Then what is the concern? For years Claudine has wanted release, Inspector. If she died in her sleep, then her soul is at rest.’

He would have to be firmer. ‘Madame, murder is suspected. A positive identification is necessary of both Mademoiselle Bertrand and her mother. The law requires that you accompany me. If you refuse, then I will ask the magistrate to issue you with a summons and the préfet to provide you with the necessary escort!’

Murder … ‘The préfet, of course. Shall I ring for him?’

The bitch!

‘Or shall I come peacefully, Inspector, without further discussion?’

‘Peacefully, I think. Bring an extra wrap and boots for it is very cold and will be equally so in the morgue.’

‘These will have to do.’ The shoes were from that other time, from the belle époque, of black patent leather, laced up the front and well above the ankles. Once again her jet-black hair was swept up and pinned with diamonds to match those that dangled from her ears and fastened the black velvet choker about her slender neck. A tall and splendidly elegant woman in a tight-bodiced dress of black silk crêpe that shimmered.

A girl, a maid he had never seen before, brought a hat with a bit of black veil and a ribbon. A lace scarf went over the hat and was tied beneath the chin. Then the black overcoat with its Persian lamb collar, scarf and gloves were added until she looked exactly like a painting of Tissot’s.

They went out to the car and he held the front door open for her saying, ‘I believe you know our driver, madame.’

There was no light with which to see her reaction, only the silhouettes of two people who had spent their summers on the beach at Concarneau with Claudine Bertrand.

St-Cyr left her to close the door while he got into the back seat. That way at least he would catch their first words.

‘Ange-Marie …’ began Charlebois. ‘Forgive me. I had no other choice.’

‘Nor I, Henri.’

What was it between the two of them? wondered St-Cyr. Would they drive in total silence, cold to each other, frozen to the heart?

They came to the quai Roman Rolland and the Saône. Scant blue-washed lamps, staggered at irregular intervals in the frosty darkness, revealed the pont Alphonse Juin. Once across it, Charlebois headed upriver along the quai Saint Antoine.

St-Cyr studied their silhouettes, trying to fathom what was going through their minds. They both sat so stiffly, the bad back of the one perhaps, the rigid control of the other. Had they once been lovers, had they come to hate each other, or were they united in this, a Salamander? There was a terrible strain between them that could not help but permeate the car just as the faint scent of her perfume did, although the perfume was not Étranger, not tonight.

‘Madame Rachline, the concierge at Number Six rue du Boeuf claims he saw you return with Claudine at about ten on the night your friend died.’

Ah merde … ‘Is he positive, monsieur?’ she asked, not turning to look at him.

‘As positive as a concierge can be. You were apparently an infrequent visitor. He has said that you—’

‘She was ill. I had told her to take a few nights off, Inspector, but then there she was at my door. I … I took her home and put her to bed. What harm is there in that?’

Then Claudine had gone to her house and not to La Belle Époque … ‘None.’

‘Inspector, surely Madame Rachline is not under any suspicion?’

Was it a crack in their collective armour at last? ‘Everyone who had any connection with her is under suspicion, monsieur, until the deaths of Mademoiselle Claudine and her mother are cleared up and the arsonist is apprehended.’

‘But … but surely there is no connection?’ said Charlebois. ‘Surely Claudine had nothing to do with that fire—how could she have, if she had gone to La Belle Époque to see Madame Rachline?’

‘Of course. It is a question that plagues me, monsieur. So, madame, you took her home and put her to bed. How was her mother?’

Only pinpricks from the headlamps gave light to the road ahead. There was ice everywhere, and everywhere it was bumpy and cut by ruts. ‘Her mother, like all old ladies who suffer from dementia and do not know why they are where they are or why God has put them there, was asleep.’

‘Would Madame Bertrand have welcomed release, do you think?’

How carefully he had chosen his words and lowered his voice. ‘From dementia, yes, Inspector. From life, no. Madame Bertrand … you would have to have known her from before her husband was killed in the last war. Even though I was very young, I can still remember her smile and the graceful way in which she moved. There … there was always a quiet dignity to her, Inspector, a … a …’

‘A radiance that encompassed everyone who came within her presence.’

‘Yes. Yes, Henri is correct, monsieur. A radiance. Thank you for saying it, Henri.’

Saying it at last—was that it? Frost clouded the windscreen and iced up the side windows. Though there was a heater in the Ford sedan, it was not of much use. Charlebois was forced to lean forward over the steering wheel, gripping it tightly. This allowed her to study him without turning her head.

Again St-Cyr found himself trying to fathom what was going through their minds. Had she stretched out a foot to warn Charlebois of the danger—Be careful what you say, Henri. The detective may know more than he is letting on—or to signal something else, something far more direct?

‘Madame, the friar’s balsam … Did your friend find it gave relief?’

They were on the quai Saint Vincent now, right at the foot of Croix Rousse, whose steep beehive of tenements, narrow streets and traboules the inspector would know well enough to realize their potential for escape. The road was treacherous. One simple mistake and Henri would skid off to the left and go through the railing and down over the bank into the river. An accident … an accident … They’d be at the morgue soon. Would she be able to keep control of her emotions? she wondered.

The detective asked again about the balsam, ah merde! ‘Yes. Yes, a minor relief, Inspector. Claudine’s chest was very bad. If it didn’t improve I was going to have to get her into hospital. There was the problem of her mother but someone could be hired to sit with Madame Bertrand during the days. I … I had worked it all out in my mind, and of course, I should have seen it coming.’

Death, but not of the two of them, was that it? ‘When you took her home from La Belle Époque, madame, did you stop anywhere along the way?’

Had the detective not realized Claudine had come to see her at the house, and not at La Belle? Was it too much to hope for?

‘A pharmacy?’ asked Henri, suddenly straightening to ease his back and causing her to look sharply at him.

‘A pharmacy,’ muttered St-Cyr, angered by the intrusion for it had warned her of the trap.

‘Yes. We went along to the pharmacy just before it closed. Monsieur Roy will remember. A bottle of the balsam and … and two aspirins—I begged him for more, but he insisted on the ration tickets and a doctor’s certificate of illness, and I … I had no wish to take Claudine back to La Belle for the aspirins I had in my … my room. She was coughing terribly and had lost a shoe.’

There was no sign of Louis at the city’s central morgue. Verdammt! Where the hell was he?

Kohler yanked open the door of the bishop’s black Citroën sedan, and, fuming, got in behind the wheel again. He’d been positive Louis would show up here. Louis would want to know what had caused the deaths of Claudine and her mother. Louis wouldn’t leave a thing like that alone. Perhaps he had telephoned Vasseur and already had the news.

There was no comfort in the thought! ‘I know you, Louis. Gott im Himmel, imbecile! You were on your way here to find out but something’s happened to you!’

merde! What was he to do? Go to Barbie for help and confess to setting that little fire, or go to the temporary morgue again or back to La Belle Époque?

Lighting yet another of the bishop’s cigarettes, he leaned on the steering wheel and stared through the half-moon of frostless glass. Claudine Bertrand had been gutted and stitched. Blood caught in her crotch though she’d been hosed down. Clots of it under her arms among the thick black hairs. Cigarette burns all over her body, some old, some new and others far too recent for comfort. She’d had a child, at least one, had had her appendix out, an old scar.

The shoes from the belfry could not possibly have fitted her. God, he hated having to look at corpses, especially those of young women. The shoes had been far too expensive in any case.

Impatiently he glanced at his wrist-watch. Christmas Night and now nearly a quarter to nine Berlin time and still no Louis and no supper. He’d call the Hotel Bristol and find out if Louis was there. Maybe Leiter Weidling would know something, maybe that wife of his if she wasn’t too busy pleasuring herself.

He’d call the Prefecture and the temporary morgue. He’d call around but had the feeling it wasn’t going to be of any use.

Leiter Weidling had ‘not returned since this morning early. What are we to do with all the people he ordered to stay in the bar?’

‘Feed and water them—drinks on the house, understand? Then send them home in a taxi or else.’

‘Frau Weidling went out several hours ago—about 4 p.m. perhaps and has not returned.’

Four p.m. … ‘Don’t tell her I called. Just say it was Klaus. She’ll know who you mean.’

Louis wasn’t at the temporary morgue and ‘hasn’t been seen here since this afternoon.’

Kohler got back into the bishop’s car. Nine damned o’clock and no sign of the Frog! Gott im Himmel, what had happened to him?

Spinning the tyres, he pivoted the car and shot out to the quai Joseph Gillet, skidding as he turned downstream. Then he paused to rip the black-out tape from the headlamps. There, that was better. No sand on the roads—a skating rink! but no traffic either, so that was okay.

When he reached the quai Saint Vincent, he slowed to a crawl, then brought the car to a gently skidding stop at a bend in the river just below the Fort Saint-Jean Barracks. There were four work-horses on the road ahead and each of them pulled at a black and ugly length of logging chain. A car had almost reached the top of the embankment. A four-door, dark blue Ford sedan.

‘Louis …?’

There was no one inside.

The place Terreaux was dark and all but deserted but some snow fell and there was contrast. Beyond Bartholdi’s fountain, the gaping roof of the cinema cried out to the ghostly pallor of the sky, and the stench of wet plaster, ashes and death was everywhere.

Kohler stood alone beside the bishop’s car. There were scavengers rooting among the ruins, now that all the bodies had been removed. In anger, he drew his gun but at a shout, turned suddenly away.

Again the shout came, and then again from near the Hotel de Ville. People were gathering. Someone was pointing. Distant-far distant on the cold, hard air came the wild clanging of pumper trucks. He began to run toward the crowd. He slipped and fell and nearly lost his gun, got up and carried on. The sky glowed. In a pillar of fire somewhere on the hillside of Croix Rousse, flames leapt. Shit!

‘The passage Mermet!’ cried someone, pointing madly. “The rue Pouteau … No, no, the montée de la Grande Côte!’

‘The montée du Perron,’ shouted another. ‘The Théâtre des Clochards Célestes.’ The Theatre of the Celestial Beggars.

A pumper truck raced by, heading for the quais. Another and another followed. All points were converging on the fire but the hill was steep, the roads sheet ice and narrow—some merely sets of stairs or worse still, tunnels, passageways …

Again he ran. Again he fell and, when he got to the bishop’s car, he thought he’d never reach the fire in time. Louis … had Louis been caught in the flames? Louis trapped. Louis roasted. Louis crying out, H … E … R … M … A … NN! Why have you not covered for me?

When he left the car at the foot of the rue Pouteau, Kohler left it against an iron light standard, leaking antifreeze all over the place and hissing steam.

Everything was bathed in a warm glow and he felt it against his face long before he reached the flames. ‘Louis …?’ he gasped. ‘Louis …’

St-Cyr distrustfully watched his two charges as they gazed at the uncovered corpse of Claudine Bertrand in the cold, damp silence of the Institut Medico-Légal where all sounds echoed. Ange-Marie Rachline was impassive, the blush of frost deep against the natural pallor, for he had forced them both to walk through the night from the scene of the accident—had it really been an accident? He was all but certain one or both of them had put the car into the railing and over the embankment but not before, may God be thanked, they had managed to scramble out.

Like her, Charlebois could not take his eyes from their childhood friend, but unlike her, he sought each detail and repeatedly passed uncertain eyes from head to toe and back again. Breathing quietly, thinking what? That it was all over, Claudine? That there would never be a time such as they had had at Concarneau, never another fire? Was he making her that promise as he searched her naked body and did not shrink from it?

Was he the Salamander or was Ange-Marie, or were both of them?

At last Charlebois spoke. ‘May I touch her?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Henri …?’ gasped Ange-Marie in alarm. ‘Leave her in peace. She’s suffered enough.’

‘But …’

Ah mon Dieu, thought St-Cyr, such anguish in the eyes, the hand faltering then dropping uselessly to the side. A former lover? he wondered.

The marble on which she lay was blue and cold and sloped at her feet to an ugly drain. It was all too evident that she bore the scars of innumerable liaisons. She had been touched again and again by fire. The smell of sweat, urine, vaginal secretions and perfume would have mingled with that of male or female tobacco smoke, candlewax and searing flesh. The biting back as fear raced to the exquisiteness of orgasm.

He would ask it softly. ‘What really happened on the beaches at Concarneau? Did one of you hold her down while the other burnt her, or did she beg you both to do it and did you then find pleasure in it?’

‘How dare you? She’s dead!’

A reaction at last, a shattering of Madame Rachline’s impassive emptiness. Colour racing to join that of the frost, her dark eyes blazing fiercely.

‘Inspector, is this really necessary?’ asked Charlebois. ‘It’s Claudine. We’ve identified her and her mother. Now will you kindly let us go on our separate ways?’

‘Please do not be so polite, monsieur. I only want to know which of you killed her. Was it you, Madame Rachline, or was it yourself, Monsieur Charlebois, or the two of you together?’

It was Ange-Marie who smirked and said sarcastically, ‘Or neither of us?’

‘Madame, you were the last to see her alive. The concierge will swear to it!’

‘She died in her sleep, Inspector,’ said the antique dealer. ‘You’ve no proof she was murdered. No proof whatsoever that either of us was involved.’

Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, how could Charlebois remain so aloof and calm? ‘Then tell me, monsieur, exactly how it was at Concarneau and why, please, your grandfather thought it necessary to leave such a valuable thing as this to Father Adrian Beaumont?’

Ah, damn him! The detective dangled the cross of the Family Rouleau above Claudine’s middle. He was deliberately trying to unsettle them, thought Charlebois.

‘She … she was …’ began Ange-Marie.

‘Special?’ asked the detective, tossing his head back a little in agreement. ‘She was your friend, Madame Rachline. Since when does one treat one’s friend in such a fashion?’

‘Ange-Marie, we don’t need to stay here. I was in Dijon, Inspector!’

He would let them think about it. He would take out his pipe and begin to pack it. Yes, yes, that would be … ah merde! No tobacco when most needed!

They watched as he self-consciously tucked pipe and pouch away. They stood at the foot of the slab, at each corner, brother and sister perhaps. The resemblance was uncanny but, had he not seen them like this, doubt would most certainly have crossed his mind. The same dark eyes, the same finely boned features. Both tall and thin, both with essentially the same build and the same jet-black hair.

‘Inspector …?’ began Madame Rachline.

Reluctantly he had to say it. ‘Yes, yes, you may go for now. Please do not leave the city.’

Outside the morgue they could not fail to notice the orange-red glow in the sky above Croix Rousse nor the billowing plumes of smoke and sparks. Both held their breath and let their pulses race. Both were fascinated—mesmerized—yet deeply troubled and uncertain.

It was Charlebois who started off toward the fire though it must be nearly two kilometres away. It was Madame Rachline who said, ‘Now are you satisfied?’

‘Of what?’ demanded St-Cyr hotly.

‘Of his innocence, Inspector. His innocence.’

The building was tall and narrow and sandwiched between others. Five storeys high and a raging inferno. No trucks could get close enough to use their turntable ladders so hand-ladders had had to be used. There were men on the roof-tops, men half-way up the front of the building pouring the water in and trying to contain the fire or climbing higher and higher. Some on the staircase at the back, some inside in the smoke-filled corridors. People being rescued, some still ready to jump. A child was dropped, the little bundle falling … falling … Kohler began to run. He didn’t think, he just ran and slipped and ran and slipped and threw out his arms yelling, ‘Please, God. Please, God,’ in German at the top of his lungs.

The kid hit him in a smothering cloud of flannelette and he went down hard hugging it to himself only to hear it crying.

Stunned, he got up, drenched and cold and tripping over the hoses. A canvas tarpaulin was being stretched but would the parents jump?

Bathed in the terrible light, he held the baby up to them and watched as the woman squeezed out of the attic window to plummet like a stone, her night-dress billowing above her head to leave her naked until she missed the net. Ah damn.

Then the husband leapt. His legs and arms seemed so useless, the hairy scrotum and bare ass almost comic. He took no time at all and he, too, missed the net.

Kohler touched the kid’s forehead. The little tyke seemed only to wonder what all the noise and excitement was about. ‘Monsieur … Monsieur,’ said a young woman, ‘please let me have him. I knew them a little, yes? Both were not from these parts, you understand, but from Belgium, from Brugge, I think.’

He understood and nodded sadly. Ah merde, to have come all this way through the blitzkrieg of 1940 only to die like that. ‘Look after him, eh? Here, wait. No, no, I insist.’

He thrust a roll of bills into her hand and would not take no for an answer. Then he went back to the fire to help with one of the hoses. Louis … There was no sign of Louis.

Later, and with a roar, the roof of the tenement caved in and everyone turned in shocked surprise to back away, for the men up there in the floodlights had disappeared to the muffled gasp of the crowd.

Robichaud coughed blood and vomited. Down on his hands and knees near one of the pumper trucks, he doubled up to drag in a breath. Flashbulbs popped as he pitched over. His mouth opened and closed in agony. He was wallowing on ice, desperately trying to get up, desperately trying to breathe.

Again there was a cough, a ragged drawing in of the chest as he lay among the hoses, two of which had sprung leaks and now pissed streams across him. One of his men pushed through the black leather trench coats and jackboots of the Propaganda Staffel to sit him up. Another tore at his things and got his chest and shoulders free of the heavy garments.

He looked at them once, his eyes drifting numbly up into the flashbulbs before he passed out.

Then the flames began gradually to die as those who were left refused to leave their stations. Sweat sharpened the tension in their faces, etching the streaks of soot, grease, ashes and tears. One man had broken his right hand which was now useless to him, the hose tucked under that arm. Another had received a gash on the forehead. There was blood in his eyes and it kept blinding him. Two were burned by hot coals under their gauntlets and threw these off to seize the nozzles with bare hands. No one had had time to remove the bodies of the child’s parents or to cover them.

Water rushed away and down the street, cascading over stone steps to freeze elsewhere, carrying charred wood and plaster, feathers, too, and straw ticking that had failed to ignite until caught in the updraught and charred to settle slowly among the constant rain of ash.

Mirrored in the water were the flames and the moving shadows. And when he lifted his head to look uphill again, Kohler first saw the drain down the centre of the street, then the stone stairs going up to the next level, the crowd, some in blankets huddled against the walls, then the rest of it, a shell.

His view was momentarily blocked and he saw Frau Weidling staring raptly at the blaze. He knew she loved it, knew it so clearly it angered him and he began to move toward her only to be held back.

It was Louis.

‘A moment, Hermann. Please, mon vieux. It gratifies me to find you alive.’

‘Me? But I thought you were—’

‘Later, eh? For now let us observe.’

Bundled in her fur coat, hands in the pockets, Frau Weidling stood apart, the rich, dark auburn hair free of any hat, the dark grey-blue eyes alive with intense excitement. Quick to follow every detail, she searched the roof-tops where men with hoses clung precariously. She held her breath at a shout as one of them slipped—gasped in awe along with the crowd as he dangled over the edge, hanging by the thread of a slack hose.

As the man was pulled to safety, she gave another gasp, more of a sigh perhaps and hunched her shoulders, hands pressed against her thighs, hugging herself.

Then she made her way through the gap in the crowd until she stood in front of it to watch her husband at work.

Leiter Weidling basked in the flashbulbs of the Propaganda Staffel. They caught him pointing up at an adjacent roof and motioning the men to direct their hoses more steeply downwards. They had him holding brandy to the lips of an exhausted Robichaud who looked like a drunk that had been rolled in the gutter, blood running from his injured hand. They caught him with his beautiful wife and then they dragged Kohler into the limelight and thrust the child back into his arms.

Baffled and looking like a vagrant on the run, Hermann stood stupidly beside the still-collapsed form of Robichaud. Not satisfied, the Propaganda Staffel had him risk life and limb to stand with the kid between the bodies of its parents.

Another and another photograph. ‘Now crouch, please. Ja, ja, that is good, Herr … What’s his name? Make sure you get it down.’

Then one of the hero with Frau Weidling and her husband, and a final shot of the detective with the child he had just ‘adopted’.

‘Is it a boy or a girl, Hermann?’ asked St-Cyr.

‘Piss off or you’re its uncle, eh? The Hotel Bristol, Louis. Weidling insists. An emergency meeting. They’re taking Robichaud with them for the fireworks. Frau Dazzle’s car is at the foot of the street near where I left the bishop’s.’

Hermann thrust the child into the arms of the woman who had wanted it and said he was sorry the flics had roughed her up and stolen the money. ‘Hey, I’ll get it back for you, okay?’ he shouted, but by then she had turned away to vanish into the crowd.

Eighteen had died. Eighteen. At 4.10 a.m., the grand salon of the Prince Albert Suite was in an uproar. Perhaps twenty of the powers that be in Lyon had been called to the meeting. Waiters came and went while she, Frau Kaethe Weidling, stood with her seat pressed against the door between times, stood in a deeply V’d, long-sleeved dress of black silk Charmeuse that was covered with black sequins.

Like bantam cockerels or little boys whose play had erupted into battle, they cursed each other finding blame where there was none. They shook their fists, gesticulated violently, got very red in the face as only middle-aged and older men will do. Spilled drink, dropped half-eaten sausage on the carpet. Squashed olives, bread, oysters, pâté, cake and anchovies underfoot without caring in clouds of tobacco smoke.

And all the time she watched them, one or another would flick a glance doubtfully her way to see her trapped with her hands pressed flatly against the door on either side of her. They’d see the cleavage of her dress open to them. Lust and consternation in their startled glimpses, the bumbling fools. Johann’s wife, yes, yes, my little men. Leiter Weidling’s beautiful young wife!

Johann, in his dark blue uniform with all its ribbons and medals, was right in the midst of them. Johann was not going to back down one millimetre, so good—yes, that is good, my liebling. Fight for what is only right and best for the both of us. The interpreter was to one side of him; Herr Kohler, showered and draped in a blanket, was to the other, looking very sleepy now. A hero of the moment, soon to be forgotten once the newspapers had gone on to other things. Would Berlin want him home on a visit, to cheering crowds and an adoring wife?

Herr Kohler of the Benzedrine tablets whose wall-eyed gaze from too much cognac had demonstrated extreme exhaustion as he had tried to take the tablets from her bedside table where she had shaken them out of the bottle he had had in his jacket pocket. Had had among other things, yes, such as those he had taken from the cinema fire, those the Obersturmführer Barbie would be most certainly interested in. Incriminating papers. Railway schedules, the locations of tunnels … Resistance papers.

Kohler had been naked and hadn’t cared if she saw the long red welt from a rawhide whip, the shrapnel scars and old bullet wounds or the thumb that had recently been bitten and stitched. He’d known she couldn’t have cared less about his nakedness, that for her it had meant nothing.

His friend, St-Cyr, had removed the pills and had refused to let him take any more of them. It was only as St-Cyr had brushed past her that she had realized he’d been in Johann’s room all along, looking among her husband’s things. And now? she asked. Why now he studied everyone, herself especially, with an intensity that frightened. What was he really thinking? That she had caused the fires, that she could only attain sexual arousal and orgasm through fire?

There was a sudden lull in the uproar. Fragments of talk were broken off and then … ‘You’re dismissed! Dismissed!’ shouted the mayor, furiously wiping his moustache as the translator gave it all loudly to Johann. ‘Incompetent! Another fire and then another, eh? Ah yes, Robichaud, me, I say it to your face. You are out!’

The blanket slipped from Herr Robichaud’s shoulders as he leapt from his chair past Johann to shake a wounded hand in the mayor’s face, and she didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or clap. ‘Always you side with Guillemette, Antoine. Always you are in the pocket of someone. Well, to hell with you both! That fire was not the same. It had too hot a start. How many times must I tell you?’

Too hot a start …

‘Hot or cold,’ shouted the mayor, ‘what is the difference? You have not stopped the Salamander.’ This, too, was translated.

‘Me? Me?’ shouted Robichaud, using both hands to indicate himself as the blanket slipped completely away to reveal the barrel chest, chunky hips and stalwart stance. ‘Hey, my fine collabos, it’s my job to put the fires out!’

‘And to prevent them,’ snorted the préfet, smirking viciously at such a stupid, stupid burst of patriotic idiocy. ‘Collabos, Julien? Come, come, we have invaluable assistance at hand. Let us use it.’

Several grunted agreement. ‘Never!’ shouted Robichaud. ‘Not while I draw breath!’

‘Then stop breathing,’ shouted Charette, a councillor from the Croix Rousse.

‘Yes!’ shouted another. ‘Leave the room and let us get on with things!’

His muscles rippling, Robichaud pushed his way through them and when he reached the man, the buttocks and thighs tightened as the feet were planted. He didn’t hesitate but flattened him with a fist.

Then he turned on them all, a naked savage in a rage, blood running freely down his arm. ‘Bastards!’ he shouted. ‘You want a scapegoat, eh? Then begin by asking why that fire began after the concierge had checked the building for the night? Did the Salamander hide inside and then leave or was a starter planted that would do the job?’

‘Wasn’t there gasoline?’ shouted someone derisively.

Robichaud ignored him. ‘The fire began in the attic, in an unused room that had been let to a young woman the day after the cinema fire.’

A young woman …

‘And the gasoline?’ asked Johann through the interpreter—she could see how determined he was to let Robichaud hang himself just like the ridiculous fruit of a flaccid little penis that dangled between the marble-hard thighs of the Frenchman.

‘There was gasoline, perhaps,’ grunted the savage begrudgingly. ‘Ah, it’s too early to say. When morning comes, we’ll have a look.’

‘I will,’ said Johann. ‘For now, I think you’ve said enough.’

The look was swift and dark as this was translated, the reaction fast ‘Three of my best men have died, monsieur,’ seethed Robichaud, so near to tears she had to smile. ‘Fathers all of them. A dozen mouths that will have to be provided for, now that their dear papas are no longer with us.’

‘They were doing their duty. The Fatherland will take care of them,’ said Johann tersely.

‘And their wives?’ shouted Robichaud. ‘Hey, my friend with the interpreter, me, I have yet to tell their wives they no longer have husbands.’

‘Then get dressed and do so.’

Ah nom de Jésus-Christ! They’d kill each other, thought St-Cyr.

Robichaud clenched his fists in utter frustration but never in defeat. ‘You were right behind the first of my pumper trucks, monsieur. How is this, please?’

Weidling stood right up to him. ‘I was at the Préfecture going through the records of known arsonists when I heard the alarm.’

‘And that wife of yours?’ demanded the savage hotly.

‘Dining with the Obersturmführer Barbie and friends.’

‘And did you find anything among the préfet’s records?’

‘Don’t be so mule-headed, Herr Robichaud. If you had acted properly, the deaths in the cinema fire would have been far less.’

The bastard! thought St-Cyr.

‘And this most recent fire, monsieur?’ demanded Robichaud. ‘Is it that I did not act properly? Well, come, come, monsieur. Answer me, please. You’re the expert.’

‘You acted properly but I must question your methods.’

Ah merde! thought St-Cyr.

Robichaud pointed a forefinger at all of them then stabbed it repeatedly in Weidling’s direction before wagging it bitterly. ‘Then understand this, my friends. That one doesn’t know the city as I do nor does he have the loyalty of the men. Nor can he ask them to risk their lives or be with them when their own language is needed most. Or is it, Herr Weidling, that you intend to take along an interpreter?’

St-Cyr attempted to hand the fire chief the blanket but it was brushed aside.

‘You think that I am with the Resistance,’ said Robichaud to the préfet, ‘that that is why Élaine and I were in the cinema on the night of the fire. You think that, to save the city and pacify the Occupier, a sacrifice should be made. All of you ache for blood. Then let me tell you—no, no, Monsieur Barrault, please do not interrupt. The Théâtre des Célestins is in Presqu’île, in your very own district. Listen carefully, my friend. A hot start means an igniter that burns with a very high temperature. Any rubbish that is nearby also flashes into flame because the heat of the starter raises it well beyond the ignition temperature. Oh for sure, trailers of gasoline may well have been used, and perhaps one ran down the central staircase from the attic, all of which implies, my friends, that the Salamander must have gained entry to the building twice or maybe even three times.’

Someone at the back of the room demanded that Robichaud explain. Johann was going to give Herr Robichaud every opportunity to make a fool of himself. Suicide … would Klaus Barbie really organize such a thing to silence the savage for ever? she wondered.

‘First,’ said Robichaud fiercely, ‘a room is rented and the device then put in place, either on that day or subsequently. Another visit, perhaps at nine thirty or ten in the evening, is used to activate the starter and then lay down the trailer. Gasoline was smelled by more than one of the tenants but for myself, I know only too well how confused and terrified victims can be. Our very mention of gasoline during the preliminary questioning could easily have caused them to believe they had smelled it.’

Lost in thought, Johann reached for his glass but decided abruptly not to touch it. ‘Phosphorus?’ he grunted—only that one word. She held a breath.

The interpreter translated but there was no need. Robichaud agreed with hesitation, revealing doubt, but then more strongly, as if now convinced he’d best be firm, he said, ‘Yes, it is my belief that phosphorus was used as the starter. This very quickly burned through the old floorboards and then the fire was able to race along between the joists and up the inside of the walls. It got a good start, my friends, because it was out of sight until it was too late to save the building. For me, though I know you will not listen, this indicates that gasoline was not used.’

Begrudgingly Johann nodded agreement and she couldn’t understand why he would do so and was hurt by this. ‘One places the phosphorus in a small bag of water and hangs it up,’ he said. ‘So long as the phosphorus is under water, the air cannot get at it and there is no problem in storing it safely. The arsonist then punctures the bag with a needle and lets the water drip slowly out while he or she leaves the building and is soon far away before the fire starts.’

This was translated but she could not take her eyes from Johann or stop the tears from forming. Why had he said it? Why had he done this to her?

‘Air then comes in contact with the phosphorus,’ said Robichaud sadly. ‘It flashes to a flame that is so hot, the presence of a little water on the combustibles is of no consequence.’

‘Then what are we to do?’ asked someone in fluent German—Kohler, had it been Kohler? she wondered.

‘Has he such starters in several places?’ asked another, also in German. Had it been St-Cyr?

‘It was not a man who rented that attic room,’ said Robichaud, looking her way. ‘It was a woman.’

‘Only one woman?’ asked someone in German—St-Cyr again?

‘Ah yes, only one and young,’ said Robichaud. ‘Not two as in the cinema fire. A strong German accent also, it is thought, but this must be checked. Now am I to be dismissed or am I to carry on?’

It was the préfet who, making a big show of brotherly love, praised Herr Robichaud for his tireless efforts and then turned things over to the mayor. ‘Take a rest, Julien,’ said that one. ‘You’ve been on your feet for several days and nights, isn’t this so? A long sleep will do you the world of good. We shall see how things go once the Salamander is caught.’

They were leaving it up to Johann.

St-Cyr opened Frau Weidling’s purse and removed the papers she’d taken from Hermann’s jacket. Rummaging, he found a key he could not explain and then three Wehrmacht-issue rubber condoms. Phosphorus was not easy to obtain at any time, never mind in wartime unless one dealt with incendiary explosives and their manufacture, but could she have gotten some?

Wooden matches, cigarettes, elastic bands and two twists of heavy white string followed and then a worn slip of folded paper with the address of La Belle Époque and a name: Claudine Bertrand.

Another and much newer slip of paper yielded the address of an antique shop: M Henri Masson, rue Auguste Comte, not all that far from the hotel.

A silk handkerchief smelled of the perfume Étranger and he had to ask, Why had they all been wearing it, if not to confuse Hermann and himself?

There were two tickets to the concert at the Théâtre des Célestins on Sunday evening. A small bottle held fluid for a cigarette lighter, but he could not find the lighter—had she lost it in the cinema? Now a magnifying glass … ah merde! What had she been planning? The use of the sun’s rays in wintertime? In Lyon of all places?

Lipstick, a compact, rouge and eye shadow followed, then nail clippers and a nail file. Some Occupation marks—about ten thousand, he thought—and about twenty thousand francs. A first-class ticket for the Lyon—Paris express on the morning after the concert, at 6 a.m. Had she taken the Lyon—Dijon express on Tuesday, the twenty-second, to rob a certain shop so as to get Henri Charlebois out of the way or to provide an alibi for him?

There were books of ration tickets just in case she felt hungry and had to eat as the natives did. And four 7.65 millimetre bullets. A Beretta? he wondered.

As he closed the purse, he was momentarily lost in thought and was not conscious of her standing in the doorway to her bedroom. She grabbed the sides of the doorway to stop herself from shouting at him, and when he struck a match, she did not say a thing as he held it to the papers she had taken from Hermann.

Then he turned to look up at her as he held them over an ashtray, coning the flame upwards so as to contain the embers.

At last he said in German that was really very good for a Frenchman, ‘In the morning, Frau Weidling, you will accompany me to the Lycée Ampère, then to Number Six rue du Boeuf, and then to the Croix Rousse to talk to the concierge of that tenement.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then we will go to the Préfecture.’

‘I’ve friends.’

‘That is understood.’

Kohler tried to keep his eyes open long enough to focus on the profiles he had dug out of Leiter Weidling’s briefcase. Louis was still with the woman in the other bedroom.

‘Profile One: male in mid-to-late 30s. Well-educated, sophisticated …’ ja, ja … ‘able to move freely among established society and the leading hierarchy …’ Come on, cut the drivel, get to the meat of the thing … ‘sees fire as a means of purging the evil within himself. Is fascinated by it but does not display the usual pyromaniac …’ Did they have to use such big words in Berlin? And here he’d thought all they understood was Heil Hitler and Raus! Raus! Get out! Get out! Halt or we’ll shoot!

The usual firebug traits of hanging around the scene of the fire, offering help, condolences …’ et cetera, et cetera … ‘Prefers to read about it in the newspapers and to sustain excitement in this manner. Will most probably have kept a record of every fire he has caused.’

Ah merde, a library. His head dropped as he thought about it, and for perhaps ten seconds he slipped away only to awaken with a start.

‘Profile Two: male’—here the age range was very broad but grouped: ‘18-26; 30-45; 50-70 …’ Seventy? Again there was a lot of psychological drivel …’ uncomfortable in established society who consider themselves his betters. Intelligent, well-educated even if at tradesman level, may speak several foreign languages fluently, a leader …’ ja, ja … ‘Ambitious, conceited, not above destroying others to get ahead, nor using others to gain position. Views himself as a hero and strives always to demonstrate this. Is totally without conscience … very knowledgeable in the ways of arson and clever … Likes to confuse and torment investigators and to demonstrate that he is far superior to them. Sexually very attracted to women who see fire as a means of sexual arousal …’ Arousal …

Kohler nodded off. Flames leapt before him. The papers began to slip away. A woman was coming toward him through the flames. Rich, dark auburn hair and stunningly dark grey-blue eyes. She was … was rubbing her … her … ‘Ah, mon Dieu. Verdammt, idiot! Wake up!’

Arousal … ‘Jealousy may motivate the urge to arson, fire being used as the supreme act of revenge on a partner’s illicit lover or to purge the couple, killing both of them. May often return to the scene of the fire. Plans fires well in advance, often staging them in groups of three at widely diverse points so as to further confuse and elude investigators. Favours gasoline for its shock factor, since everyone understands its explosive nature, but likes to use other means to demonstrate the fullness of his knowledge. May be sexually infatuated with an unobtainable woman or actively engaged in the sexual suppression of another such as a close relative.’

Incest? Ah merde. And no time to close his eyes.

Louis and Frau Weidling must have gone into the salon. Surely Louis wouldn’t leave him here alone?

‘Profile Three: female, age 26 to 34. Uses fire as a fetish to attain sexual gratification and climax. Returns repeatedly to the scenes of her fires. Either has a troubled conscience and is constantly tormented by what she has done, or has no conscience whatsoever and thinks only of orgasm.

‘Enjoys masturbating when in the presence of fire so that she may see flames and feel their heat but never let them touch her naked body. Hence, the flames are seen here to take the place of the male erection which she totally rejects. Has strong lesbian tendencies but avoids any lasting relationship and enjoys arousal through the sight of pain in others. To this end, collects images of female murder victims.’ Shit!

It was really furnace stuff. Naked, as a child, and whipped by her grandfather to cleanse her of unclean thoughts, the file he’d found in Klaus Barbie’s office had indicated. Sodomized by the old bastard because it was safer to shoot the stork up there and female buttocks … Well, at the age of fifteen, what could one say of Prussian sea captains who’d seen it all?

A door closed at a soft word. A light in the hall went out. The blanket slipped from his shoulders as he stuffed the papers back into the briefcase and tried to close the lock … the lock …

‘Johann … Johann, darling, is that you? I … I thought you had gone with the others?’

Kohler switched off the lamp and held his breath. ‘Johann …? Johann, St-Cyr thinks it’s me.’

The door was nudged open and, though he tried to see her, his eyes were not so good. They kept on closing.

‘Johann … Johann …?’

Her perfume enveloped him. He remembered the belfry, remembered a street some place and a whorehouse with palms and lights and ostrich plumes. Corsets too.

‘Johann …?’

She would have a gun, a little pistol. She would find him naked and that would be it. Kohler of the Kripo shot for the attempted rape of a fire chiefs young wife. Ah merde, Louis … Louis, where the fuck are you when needed most?

The saucer of saccharine was filthy. Dead flies from August were one thing, cigarette ashes from then on, another. And the muck they called coffee in the Café de la Gare was about as tasteless as the water from a pugmill in a brickyard.

Zombies, in from the cold, coughed, hawked phlegm and blew out each nostril with a knuckle pressed to the other. They shuffled as if in giant boots, their breath steaming. Like a dunghill just before the frost had crucified its inhabitants, the Gare de Perrache was crawling with people. Trains to here, trains to there with long waits in between and no one seeming to care that pride, self-respect and pie de vivre had once been hallmarks of civilization.

Four German soldiers sought a table in between trains but found none. Their rifles were slung over greatcoat shoulders that no longer bore unit insignia for fear such information might be fed to England via clandestine wireless or courier.

Posters decried waste, USE THE WATER FROM YOUR NOODLES TO MAKE A NOURISHING SOUP. SAVE THREAD. UNRAVEL WORN-OUT SOCKS TO MAKE NEW ONES. OPEN YOUR CURTAINS TO LET IN THE SUNLIGHT. DON’T FORGET THAT IT IS A SOURCE OF HEAT. In winter? In Lyon?

WHEN BOILED, BONES RELEASE MUCH PROTEIN AND NOURISHMENT. NEVER THROW THEM OUT BUT ALWAYS THINK OF REUSING THEM THEN SAVE AS A LAST RESORT FOR MAKING SOAP OR POUNDING INTO FERTILIZER.

Make jam without sugar—oh, he knew it well. Do the washing in cold water. It was like a catechism. Use sand for the difficult stains, never mind the fabric! MAKE SALAD OIL OUT OF WHITE LICHEN, A LITRE OF WATER AND A CRUST OF BREAD—what bread? TO TAKE AWAY THE CHEMICAL ODOUR AND TASTE, PURIFY THROUGH POULTICE MUSLIN—in wartime, with all of it confiscated for wounds on the Russian Front? Ah maudit! CONSUME THE OIL WITHIN 48 HOURS TO PREVENT IT FROM GOING RANCID. Rancid!

TWO HUNDRED GRAMS OF MUSHROOMS ARE EQUIVALENT TO ONE SERVING OF BEEFSTEAK!

Starved for tobacco, St-Cyr searched the saucer of saccharine for a cigarette butt to no avail. Hermann was taking forever. What could have kept him? Surely he hadn’t forgotten they had agreed to meet here?

When a young man in a brand-new suit and open overcoat hesitantly put down a cardboard suitcase to sit opposite him, he wondered apprehensively how long the fellow could possibly remain at large and asked himself if he could not help in some little way.

‘Monsieur,’ said the traveller, indicating the chair. ‘May I?’

The schoolboy French was not too bad. ‘Ah, but of course, of course. Going far?’ he asked pleasantly.

The boy shook his head and took to studying a grimy pre-war railway schedule that had somehow remained stuck to the wall. ‘Paris,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve friends.’

‘Tobacco?’ hissed St-Cyr.

‘What?’ yelped the boy in English. His face fell. ‘What?’ he asked lamely in French.

St-Cyr told him. ‘I must do some thinking while there is still time, monsieur, but unfortunately with the rationing, I seem to have run out.’

Was he Gestapo? wondered the boy. He looked like a cop …

‘I am a cop, a detective, monsieur. A chief inspector.’

The pouch contained a coarse-grained mixture of Vichy-blended pipe tobacco that, given the circumstances, was quite acceptable. ‘Merci. Have your coffee … no, no, please do not worry. For the moment, the three Gestapo who were watching this place have gone after other fish. Try to stay close to those soldiers—strike up a conversation in broken French. Be quite loose about it, not rigid, so that they can grasp a little. And when you get to the barrier, they will walk on ahead but you will shout auf Wiedersehen to them as you hand your papers over. The Swiss border is a good day’s journey and it will be closely watched. Have you a friend, a contact—no, please don’t give me a name or password. Just nod.’

‘Is it that easy to spot me?’

‘Try to relax a little, eh? Ditch the suitcase and steal another that is not nearly so new. Keep the overcoat buttoned up. Everyone despises suits like that, even the Nazis and especially their Gestapo. Use common sense. It’s always best.’

‘The … the woman I stayed with thought it would be best if I were dressed properly.’

‘Forget you ever saw her. Just concentrate on looking like one of the crowd. Don’t hesitate when you come into a place like this. Walk right up to the counter as if you know it well and are only intent on going some place else that is equally known to you.’

‘I—’

St-Cyr held up a cautioning finger and shook his head. ‘Enough. I’m a perfect stranger and such people seldom talk to others. We’ve discussed the weather and now will brood over our coffee in silence. You’re a gunner or a pilot that has been shot down, monsieur, but I know nothing of such things or would, of course, most certainly have to turn you in for the reward.’

The detective took forever to pack his pipe and when he lit it, he gazed off into space with moisture in his eyes, and one knew that he was saying thanks for having come over, that this war could not last forever.

One by one pieces kept coming from his pockets with a disgruntledness that said he was angry with himself for having been such a fool as to have even said a thing. The spiked iron shank of a woman’s high-heeled shoe troubled him. A bent and twisted compact and charred cigarette case were then firmly laid beside it as if he knew to whom they had belonged. A little slip of paper with a name …

The boy left the tobacco pouch on the table and his coffee only half drunk. In the fashion of the times, and to cover himself in case anyone was watching, St-Cyr swept up the tobacco and emptied the coffee into his own no matter what germs it might contain. He’d damned well drink it in a toast to freedom!

Three women had gone into that cinema. Claudine and another had arrived late, and she had then left her seat to find the washroom key and spend her time with the projectionist. Frau Weidling had also been in the audience—she’d been recognized by the ticket-booth operator. And while Claudine was upstairs, her companion left the rush bag on the seat and went in search of someone else perhaps, and/or to lock the door to the toilets in anger, perhaps, at not finding her there but finding several others. Everything pointed to Frau Weidling being the person to be met, but had they both returned to those seats to start the fire?

Madame Rachline had said she and Claudine had been to the pharmacy, but Mademoiselle Martine Charlebois said she herself had given Claudine a bottle of friar’s balsam that very afternoon.

He drew on his pipe in earnest contemplation. The trip to the pharmacy could simply have been cover for the cinema they had left in such haste, but had it really been Ange-Marie who had returned to the flat with her friend as the concierge maintained, or had it been Frau Weidling or someone else? The other woman? The later absence of the concierge must also be considered as a factor in getting into and leaving the flat.

Oxalic and sulphuric acids release carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide in equal volumes when mixed and warmed a little. Both gases will kill, but the carbon monoxide was, of course, much faster and far deadlier. Depending on its concentration, the sulphuric acid might fume when poured out, and such fumes would have had to be cleared away lest they warn the victim. The balsam would give a strong enough and pleasantly sweet aroma. The residue could then be disposed of without a trace by simply washing it down the drain. Death by natural causes then. Pneumonia in wartime under the Occupation and who would care? She had been a prostitute anyway.

But how had the Salamander come by such things, and the phosphorus, if indeed it had been used to start the tenement fire?

Henri Charlebois would not have used oxalic acid to clean metal antiques. Ange-Marie Rachline could not have had such a working knowledge of chemistry.

Leiter Weidling would know only too well the reputation of the silent killer and perhaps, too, the making of those gases in the laboratory. His wife had had Claudine’s name in her purse and that of La Belle Époque, but would she have understood the intricacies of mixing the two acids and of warming them? Had he taught her how to do it? Were the two of them working together?

Henri Charlebois had been in Dijon. His sister had lost her keys …

For a woman to understand chemistry so well, and to have access to such things, she would have had to be a chemist, a metallurgist—ah, there were so few females trained in the sciences—a teacher …

Ah merde, a teacher of course. A chemistry laboratory …

Sweeping everything into his pockets, he grabbed his hat and made for the front desk of the Hotel Bristol.

‘The Inspector Kohler has left the hotel, monsieur, with Frau Weidling and the Gestapo agents she asked me to summon. I believe the five of them went straight to the Hotel Terminus but I cannot be certain of this.’

‘The five of them …?’

‘Yes. Herr Kohler was under arrest.’

‘Arrest?’

‘Naked and struggling, monsieur.’

Maudit! It had happened again. The Gestapo had taken one of their own. Hermann!