Salamander (24 page)

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!'