And a girl with a bicycle. One whose earnest brown eyes had looked searchingly across place Terreaux towards the ruins of the cinema.
A girl with short, light brown hair, no lipstick and no rouge. A grey plaid skirt and dark grey woollen argyle kneesocks. Flat-heeled brown leather walking shoes—was she English? Had she once visited England and adopted that style of dress? Had she been so agitated and distracted she had forgotten to wear her winter boots?
Not beautiful, not plain either. About twenty-five or -six years of age. A schoolteacher perhaps and therefore formerly a student.
A priest who took advantage of lonely women. A jewelled cross and a wealthy benefactor who could well have been in the priest’s debt: Monsieur Henri Masson.
La Belle Époque.
The girl had returned to the scene of the fire. She had been worried, had been struggling valiantly with her conscience. Why else the yellow work card of Mademoiselle Claudine Bertrand? Why else the one thing that would most easily lead them to the brothel and then to the prostitute’s body?
Kohler warily let his eyes sift slowly over a pair of women’s shoes that would come well above the ankles and were of black leather with lacing up the front and pointed toes. The shoes were on the floor at the back of the closet in which he had hidden for so long. But shoes they were and he knew that if presented with them, Suzie, the usherette who was still downstairs in the bar of the Hotel Bristol, would recognize them instantly as the ‘boots’ she had seen on one of those two women.
Frau Weidling and Claudine Bertrand must have sat side by side in that cinema. But two women had come in late, and he was almost certain Frau Weilding had come in alone.
Three women, then, had there been three of them? Frau Weidling first and sitting elsewhere, then the two who had come in late. Ah merde.
At last the chambermaids he had followed into the Prince Albert Suite departed and he was able to step out of the closet and take a look at the place. Room upon room opened before him, with ornately carved and gilded mirrors and Louis XVI furniture. There would be nothing like this back home at the Fire Protection Officers’ School in Eberswald.
The bedroom was huge and with a canopied bed fit for a queen; another for Leiter Weidling elsewhere, of course, through a connecting door that was locked. Ah yes.
Kohler strode over to a magnificent commode. Opening drawer after drawer, he settled on the one with the lingerie. Pinks and blues and white and lace like he’d never seen before. Airy and as soft as a summer’s breeze beneath the moon, black and gold, silver and cinnamon—all colours. Silk … nothing but the finest silk.
Frau Weidling liked it next to her skin and quite obviously wore nothing else in those parts no matter the climate.
There were six of each, with washdays on Sunday? he wondered acidly. Had she tried them all on before that husband of hers? He shook his head. She’d have shown them to him and let Leiter Weidling see what he had to earn.
The box was of ebony, about twenty centimetres wide by fifteen in depth and perhaps eight in thickness. There was much scrollwork at the inlaid corners and around the lock … the lock, ah damn!
The box was heavy but when he shook it, there was no sound. She hadn’t been wearing the key around her neck—he was certain of this.
It was hanging from one of the taps in the bathtub by a simple ribbon of cream silk.
Frau Weidling pleasured herself. Three ebony godemiches lay nestled in black velvet, one longer and much thicker than the others. Rings of silver formed little ridges to give that extra bit of shudder, the heads so penis-like he had to lift one out. Beautiful workmanship; polished as smooth as glass.
The French word for dildo came from the Latin gaude mihi, rejoice me. Lost in thought, he fingered them. To each her own, he said. By themselves they didn’t mean a damn. Coupled with the presence of the boots, one had to wonder.
Closing the case, he put it back under the lingerie and swept the drawer for anything else. Was greatly troubled when he found a coil of sash cord and a pearl-handled pocket-knife. Ah merde, what now? he asked.
There were photographic prints, some twenty centimetres square, and they were not pleasant. When naked and very dead, the female form gave him no joy. Breasts that once might have been pleasing, sagged. Pubic hair that once might have drawn the eye, looked small and sordid, a clutch of nothing much. Wounds gaped but no longer bled.
The photos were all of sex crimes from the files of some criminal investigation branch—Lübeck, Heidelberg or Köln, which had it been and how had she come by them?
There was nothing on the plain brown envelope, not a stamp or signature, not a mention of any kind on the backs of any of the photographs.
Had the victims all been burnt in those most tenderest of places? he asked, wishing he’d time to study them—knowing now that time was precious and that the couple could come back at any moment.
The women’s ages varied. Some were old, others young, heavy, thin, long hair, short hair, bound wrists and ankles-burned, yes, yes, that one—strangled, some; knifed, others—at least two had been shot in the forehead. Bullet wounds in corpses don’t look nice.
Kohler slid the photographs away. Inadvertently, he saw himself in the minors, ashen, badly shaken and afraid. She’d be with Klaus Barbie. Louis and he couldn’t withstand another run-in with the SS. Mueller would have them hanged with piano wire.
Sickened, he fled the room—could only spend a few minutes with Weidling’s things. A briefcase tempted him and, in the end, he pulled out the files on the three fires and realized only then that the bastard had had them with him all the time.
Lübeck, Heidelberg and Köln. No need to contact anyone at home.
At the sound of laughter out in the corridor, he stopped breathing.
A light snow made greyer still the place Terreaux. Like a monument to loneliness, a single pumper truck sat near Bartholdi’s fountain. Still in tall rubber boots, coveralls, cape and helmet, his gauntleted gloves thrown aside, Robichaud gripped a wounded right hand from which blood ran. Silently he cursed the twisted metal that must have done that to him. He looked utterly exhausted, like some ancient gladiator upon whom the lions would now feed.
The crowd, kept back behind the barricades, stared mutely at him but now there was definitely a mood of vengeance. They wanted a scapegoat and they had him.
Angrily the fire chief ripped the scarf from around his neck and bound his hand, then stood staring defiantly back at them.
St-Cyr searched the faces. Hats, raised coat collars, earmuffs and scarves made it difficult. The girl might have come and gone or might yet return. He had no other choice but to help the fire chief.
‘There is a bottle in the cab,’ gasped Robichaud when he saw who it was. ‘Would you be so good as to get it for me. Quickly, I think, Inspector. Yes, the sooner the better.’
He didn’t wait for the bottle to be uncorked but snatched it away and used his teeth. Flinging off the scarf, he exposed the eight centimetres of torn flesh to the crowd and poured brandy over the wound. ‘Ahh …!’ he grimaced, clamping his eyes shut and dropping the bottle to grip the arm. ‘Now another,’ he gasped. ‘Another!’ he shouted. In the Name of God, don’t be weak. Just do it!’
St-Cyr got him bandaged and in the course of this, Robichaud saw the stitchmarks across the back of the detective’s left hand. ‘A knife in the night. Another case … two, yes. Yes it was not the case before this one, but the one before that. A carousel.’
They agreed that life was seldom easy, and shared the remainder of the brandy. ‘That gasoline at the Notre Dame came from the depot at the Delfosse Barracks in Perrache,’ grunted Robichaud.
‘So near Gestapo Headquarters?’ blurted St-Cyr.
The broad shoulders lifted. The haggard eyes didn’t waver. ‘The bishop gets an extra allotment at Christmas, so nothing untoward was suspected. The three jerry cans were delivered to the Basilica that afternoon and left outside the caretaker’s door.’
St-Cyr
lit a cigarette for him. ‘Was it usual to leave them there?’
‘Ah no. No, of course not—not in these times, eh? But Auguste and Philomena—old Cadieux and that wife of his, the caretaker, you understand. He’s difficult, so it’s entirely understandable that one would leave the cans outside his door. He and the bishop are always quarrelling. It’s a caretaker’s right to defend his honour at all times, isn’t that so? Those two exist on God’s little piece of real estate only by being constantly at war. They act as though they’ve been married for years!’
He would ignore the allusion to Robichaud’s own marriage. ‘And the person who obtained the gasoline?’
The Sûreté had asked it so softly. Well, my friend from Paris, prepare yourself, thought Robichaud. ‘He said he was the bishop’s secretary, Father Adrian Beaumont. Look, Inspector, the caller knew all the ropes. He knew exactly who to contact and where to have that gasoline deposited.’
Ah merde! ‘A man?’
Robichaud drew deeply on his cigarette then let it cling to his lower lip as he exhaled. Yes, Inspector, a man.’
‘But … but it was two women at the cinema. We have the proof.’
‘What proof? The word of a terrified usherette? That of a fire marshal who should have stayed inside to help others escape? Come, come, Inspector, we need more proof than that and even I, who was so certain, have been forced to admit I must have been mistaken.’
Still he could not believe it. ‘A man … Surely he must have known we’d find out where the gasoline came from?’
Gruffly Robichaud gestured with his good hand and said, ‘Ah, you detectives … Don’t dodge the issue. Ask precisely why he wanted us to discover it was man, eh? Well, if you ask me, Inspector, it’s typical of an arsonist who wants others to know all about it. They offer help, they pose as authorities, they go for the jugular of another and …’
‘Robichaud, what are you saying? That it was Herr Weidling who telephoned that depot and spoke in French?’
Frightened, a flock of pigeons rose into the light dust of snow. For a moment the fire marshal watched them, then admitted defeat. ‘I must apologize, Inspector. How could it have been him but … but this business, it’s got me afraid. Terrified, isn’t that so? Hey, my friend, I know in my guts it’s going to happen again. There is no sand for the roads. There are fifteen or twenty degrees of frost to plug the water mains. A crown fire … If there is a high wind, this will spread the flames from roof to roof and we’ll never stop it.’
Someone had impersonated Father Beaumont who, by the time that telephone call had been made, was already dead.
A last cigarette was found and accepted with a curt nod and, ‘What about yourself, Inspector?’
‘I’ve had enough. The pipe … I prefer it but have, unfortunately, used up the last of my ration.’
‘Then ask the préfet. That one has the right sort of friends. Anything you want. Just ask him.’
Ah merde! ‘Go easy, eh? Watch what you say. Don’t be a fool. I gather the caller spoke fluent French without trace of an accent?’
This was so, but someone could have been hired to make the call, someone who knew the ins and outs of the Basilica. ‘In three days there is to be a concert at the Théâtre des Célestins, our most famous theatre, Inspector. The cream of Lyon will be there with their German friends but in addition, all the Wehrmacht’s brass from the Army of the South. Oh for sure, I have tried to tell the mayor and the préfet that the concert must be cancelled but they will not do so. All the tickets have been sold. The money would have to be returned. It’s a charity thing, an example of the good will that is supposed to exist between occupier and occupied. Hospitals, orphans, unwed mothers and warm clothing for the Russian Front. They will ask the Germans to—’
‘Why not say the Boches? There are only the two of us.’
‘Another patriot, is that what you want me to acknowledge, Inspector? Then forget it, my friend. These days each man must stand alone. The Germans, as I was saying. They will ask them for extra patrols in the immediate area of the theatre and they will have so many plain-clothes inside, this … this Salamander will not be able to strike a match. But they are fools. He and she, or those two women will outwit them because …’
Robichaud threw down his cigarette and purposely ground it out beneath a boot. ‘Because, Inspector, it or they are the Salamander and elusive. Elusive!’
‘Three days.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow night and then the one after that.’
‘Sunday evening.’
‘Yes. But since the thing has been so well publicized, I have two of my men quietly searching the premises already. Please do not inform anyone of this.’
‘And if I told you I thought one of your two women had been murdered?’ asked St-Cyr, watching him closely.
Their eyes met. ‘Then I would say to you that she had been silenced so as to make our task all the more difficult.’
Frau Weidling and Klaus Barbie were in the main sitting-room of the Prince Albert Suite. From where he stood hidden behind a door, Kohler could see the woman quite clearly but only a portion of Barbie.
She was sitting on the edge of a sofa, her long, shapely legs tightly together. Hands in her lap. No more teasing laughter now, no more thoughts of false flirtation. Only fear that perhaps Barbie had seen right through her and would refuse her request.
Barbie was standing not a metre from her. Hands in his jacket pockets with the thumbs out, no doubt. ‘My husband is the best, Herr Obersturmführer. If Johann is given half a chance, he’ll find this Salamander and put a stop to the fires.’
He must have smirked, for she blanched and her fingertips tightened their grip on the dark blue fabric of her skirt. ‘And if I do not want the fires to be stopped?’ he asked quietly.
Verdammt!
‘But … but Please, I do not understand, Herr Obersturmführer? Is it that you wish the fires to continue when Berlin and Herr Mueller have demanded they be stopped?’
Kohler counted the seconds. Barbie must be stripping her naked with his eyes, telling her not in so many words that he knew all about her loves and hates, her private, private little pleasures—hell, he’d have had the suite searched. He’d have found everything.
Klaus Barbie: age twenty-nine, a bastard by birth, with an abusive father who drank too much and died of a neck rumour the very year Barbie graduated from grammar school. Latin and Greek, 1933. A younger brother had died that same year.
Grandpapa had refused the bastard any of his rightful inheritance even though the Barbies had married after the birth of son Klaus.
Once a bastard, always a bastard under Germanic law, snorted Kohler inwardly—he still couldn’t see more than a lower leg and an occasional hand. Barbie had wanted to go into law or archaeology. Instead, the SS got him. Six months work detail in the Arbeitsdienst to toughen the muscles and the spirit. Then the Hitler Youth as a patrol leader, a Fahnenführer, to prove he had leadership qualities and determination among other things, ah yes. Then the SS in September 1935 and the training school at Bernau near Berlin to put the polish on him.
An Iron Cross second-class from Holland, 1940, for bashing a Jewish boy over the head with an ashtray and having him and his partner shot dead for breaking the rules and selling ice-cream. Of course it hadn’t helped that those same boys had resisted the attempts of Nazi-minded thugs to smash their little shop and beat them up …
A hand reached out to cup Frau Weidling’s chin. Moisture must have collected in her lovely eyes for she blinked in apprehension and swallowed tightly.
‘Of course, Gestapo Mueller wishes this Salamander to be stopped,’ said Barbie. ‘But at the time he sent your husband that telex, he had not received my report on the fire.’
She gave a half-smile and tilted back her head a little, causing her hair to fall loosely away from her neck and shoulders. ‘All those railway workers …’ she said. ‘You are certain they were using that cinema as a meeting-place for the Resistance?’
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br /> Still there was that quietness to Barbie’s voice. ‘Not certain. Call it an educated guess, Frau Weidling. If we’re wrong, nothing is lost. If we’re right, then a great deal has been gained.’
‘Yet Herr Robichaud still goes free?’
God, how sweet they were to each other! thought Kohler.
Barbie’s hand fell. Her fingers having gripped her dress, lessened their hold, then gave it up and tensely smoothed the fabric over shapely thighs. She would be only too well aware of the Obersturmführer’s reputation as a notorious womanizer. Was she wondering if he’d ask her to take off her clothes or was she hoping he wouldn’t?
Infuriatingly, Barbie’s leg with its regulation black shoe, and his hand disappeared from Kohler’s view. ‘Perhaps, Frau Weidling, we will let your husband destroy Herr Robichaud’s credibility. Lyon’s fire chief could then commit suicide.’
Her hands had come to a stop again, this time with the fingertips at the hem of her skirt and touching the meshed silk stockings of dark Prussian blue. ‘And Robichaud’s mistress?’ she asked so quietly one had to strain to hear the coyness in her voice.
‘A double suicide. Yes, yes, that would be nice.’
‘Good.’
Ah Gott im Himmel, the bitch! What now? wondered Kohler. Barbie was like a banker, a businessman—without the uniform he’d pass totally unnoticed as a middle-class Frenchman in a crowd. No problem. He spoke fluent French with only a faint accent. Ah yes. Son of a bitch.
He wasn’t tall, was really quite diminutive for the head of Section IV of the Lyon KDS, the Einsatzkommando under Lieutenant-Colonel Werner Knab. Repression of political crimes i.e., Jews, Communists, escaped workers, counterespionage and all those carrying false papers of any kind. An archive too, mustn’t forget that. All were under Barbie’s command which was not bad for a guy who really ought to have been allowed to go on to the university if grandpapa had given humanity even the blinking of an eye.
‘You are attending the concert on Sunday evening.’ It wasn’t a question but she answered Yes like a shy schoolgirl ready to yield her honour, her little capital.
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