‘Madame,’ he began. ‘Please forgive the intrusion. One of your girls …’
The dark eyes in that finely boned, aristocratic face remained impassive.
‘Mademoiselle Bertrand,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘We would like a few words with her. Please, it is urgent.’
‘She’s not here, Inspector. She has a bad chest, a little crisis of the lungs-it’s nothing. A cold, that’s all. I told her not to come in until she was over it.’
Merde, why could God not have given them a break? ‘Tell me about her, please.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. Claudine has been with me now for the past ten years. There has never been any trouble, Inspector. There never is with any of my girls.’
‘Your name, madame?’
‘Ange-Marie Celeste Rachline.’
Was he talking to a block of wood? Her lips were naturally red and beautiful but also cold, he thought. Yes, cold. Were they always that way, or is it because she really has only just come in from being outside? ‘Age?’ he asked sharply, not liking things one bit.
‘Thirty-four. Inspector, what is it? Please, the house … these times. You do understand?’
‘Husband?’ he demanded.
‘Am I under suspicion?’
‘No. Not at present.’
‘Then let us keep my husband out of this. We don’t see each other, Inspector. He goes his way and I go mine as we have now for the past ten years.’
‘Then Mademoiselle Bertrand has been with you from the start?’ he asked. Yet there is nothing to tell?’
‘Claudine cares for her bedridden mother who knows nothing of this place and thinks, in her confused state of mind, that her husband, who died in the invasion of 1914, still provides for her. They live alone here in Vieux Lyon, on the rue du Boeuf at Number Six.’
Not far away. ‘She has no pimp?’
Madame Rachline shook her head slightly. ‘None of my girls has one, Inspector. It’s not permitted. It’s a rule of the house that ensures each gets fair recompense for her services and there is no trouble.’
‘And the doctor?’ he asked. What was it about her that alarmed him in addition to the colour of her cheeks and lips?
‘Dr Sevigny comes three times a week for their sake, Inspector, more than for that of the clients, though of course I am concerned on their behalf as well. My girls are good and I give them all the protection I can. It’s a profession, isn’t it? Therefore, let us put a little dignity into it. Each has money in a safe place but can draw on future earnings if necessary up to one-quarter of her annual take which is split fifty per cent for them, thirty for the owners, five for myself, and fifteen for the house.’
It was an amazingly fair relationship, almost unheard of. But if Madame Rachline had any further concerns about him, she hid them well. He asked if they might sit down. She did not hesitate but said, ‘Would you prefer my bedroom, the grand salon or the dining-room?’ He knew she had included the bed-room on purpose and he had to suggest it.
‘Then follow me. It is the only bed that is not yet in use.’
‘Were you outside in the street, madame?’
‘Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact I was. I attended the midnight Mass at the Basilica.’
‘And walked home alone in those clothes?’
‘Yes.’
Ah merde.
Kohler helped himself to the foie gras de canard, the duck pate with a mildewed crust that must be a good ten years old. He filled one of the ruby-rimmed, gilded Venetian goblets with Romanee-Conti, 1917-was it really that old?
Then he laid into the truffled veal sausage, had a finger-taste of the glazed fruit and then the Kirsch souffle-all bits and pieces that still lay about the cluttered dining-room table with its tapestry cloth of deep red, green and white patterns beneath a chandelier of glass lozenges in shades of ruby, emerald, lapis and citrine.
He tried the oysters and then the Portugaises vertes-how had they come by them? A half-filled bottle of pepper vodka made him think of his two sons at Stalingrad. Were they saying it would be their last Christmas?
‘Salut!’ he said, pausing to spoon in the black Russian caviar. ‘Gott mit uns, eh, Hans? Shit! Tell Jurgen you both should have listened to your papa and gone to Argentina like I said.’
Ah merde. Merde! This lousy war. He took another swill of vodka. Those two bitches in that tower, that one out on the street-had it really been a woman?
He downed a snipe that had been hung until it had dropped from the hook, then roasted on a cushion of toast smothered in a paste of brandy and its rotted innards.
A wealth of bone-white porcelain and old silver covered the table. There was a ceramic creche as the centrepiece-elephants and tigers led by Nubian slaves with jewelled parasols to keep the sun off their masters as they made their way to Bethlehem. Decanters and bottles-strands of pearls and cut-glass beads, beeswax candles like he hadn’t seen in years. Spirals and twists and fluted columns but plump, golden artichokes also, and bunches of grapes and fleurs-de-lis.
More caviar was swallowed, more vodka, pate and souffle. Some of the candles had gone out or had been pinched out by licentious fingers. He could almost hear the gaiety of their laughter. Fifteen couples had sat here, the cream of Lyon industrialists, bankers, lawyers and merchants, no doubt. Money, money and more of it because business was booming for them, ah yes.
The vodka was gone. He refilled his goblet. When alternated with the Romanee-Conti, it wasn’t bad. A bit too peppery, but the Russians always had been driven to excess. Too emotional a people.
The braised goose had had all of its bones drawn out through its anus before being rammed with a forcemeat of foie gras and truffles. Small mushrooms lay like plump, ripe breasts among stoned ripe olives and small sausages that had first been fried in butter. All were mingled with a dark, rich sauce that had cooled and was now setting into a gel.
He spooned a bit, cut off a slice-tore away a larger piece-hell, there must have been a dozen geese scattered along the table. The potatoes were good. With the snipe and the pate and the cold puree of leeks, a meal. Dessert too, and another shot of wine. He’d try the Clos de Vougeot this time or perhaps the Beaujolais Blanc.
‘You must be hungry.’
For seven seconds he paused, then hesitated knowing gravy was drooling down his chin.
Her hair was as red as the sunset over Essen with the Krupp furnaces going full blast. Her eyes were a lively green, wide and full of innocence, the lashes long and a shade darker than the loosened mass that fell richly to delicious shoulders. Nom de Jesus-Christ, she was absolutely gorgeous. About twenty-three years of age.
Kohler swallowed tightly-he really hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing his little Giselle back home in Paris, or Oona, his Dutch housekeeper. ‘Bonsoir,’ he said. ‘Pull up a chair. Here, let me fill you a glass. The Dom Perignon, eh? Come on, I’ll join you. Some of the pate? A little of the caviar? Your client …?’ He arched his eyebrows. She smiled softly and her lips … Ah nom de Dieu, they were perfect! Paris … would she consider coming to Paris when this thing was over?
‘My client, he is relieved of his little burden, monsieur, and will now sleep until it comes upon him again. Were you …?’
‘Waiting? Ah, sorry. I wish I was but know I haven’t got the strength tonight. Maybe another time, eh? I’m Georges Chartrand from Dijon, here on business, and you?’
‘Mademoiselle Renee Noirceau.’ She pushed her hair back off her brow a little sleepily and pulled the blue silk wrap more tightly about her. ‘Then why are you here, waiting, monsieur, and so hungry for the use of my body, one has hardly to look into your eyes but to see the depth of your lust?’