He gestured with the half-eaten chunk of goose. ‘One of the house clients is an associate. He was supposed to put me up but his wife locked the door.’
She would give him a rapid little smile of disbelief and the shyness of a virgin’s eyes. She would take some of the souffle to keep herself busy, and have a sip of champagne. She would study this one from the Gestapo as one would a bull one wishes, perhaps, to castrate, should that be necessary to control him. ‘Are you married?’ she asked, not letting up.
Kohler grinned. ‘How else does a man know best how to keep a woman happy?’
‘And the woman? Does she learn best in the same way or by being with many men?’
He dabbed caviar on to a leftover snipe and handed it to her. ‘Try this. I think you’ll like the combination. It’s interesting.’
She kissed his fingers, then the hand that held the snipe, its tiny head tucked under a wing, but demurely shook her head. ‘I must get back. Monsieur Bertolette makes trucks for the Army of the Germans-lots and lots of them. Perhaps it is his conscience that causes him to be such a light sleeper. When he pays, he demands. I only came down for this.’
Another bottle of the Dom Perignon, the 1908.
‘Tell me about Mademoiselle Bertrand.’
Her eyebrows arched. ‘Did your friend give you her name?’
‘Instead of yours? Yes, he did. She’s older, more …’
‘Experienced?’
Gott im Himmel, she had a lovely accent! Refined, of the aristocracy of Lyon, the cream of the crop!
‘Experienced?’ she asked again, only to see him smile and hear him say, ‘You tell me, Mademoiselle Noirceau. Is Mademoiselle Claudine Number One in this stable or Number Twenty?’
A stable … She would shrug at the insult. ‘Perhaps it is, monsieur, that some women, they are good for many things and others are not. Is it that your tastes, they are …?’
‘Peculiar? No, no, I like my women au naturel and the usual way.’
‘Not sometimes a little different? Over the arm of a chair, perhaps, or up against the wall, the bureau, the armoire with its big mirrors or on the hands and knees like animals?’
Louis should have been with him! ‘Does she go with women?’
The girl’s throat tightened under her hand. Fear touched those lovely eyes only to vanish. ‘Why do you ask such a thing?’
‘Because it’s possible.’
‘Then you must ask Madame Rachline, monsieur. Me, I would not know since I service only those stallions with the proper equipment!’
Hot under the collar, eh, at the mention of lying naked with another woman? Kohler grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back, only to have her rake her nails across the back of his hand and grab a thumb that was already sore from the last investigation! He gripped her arm all the harder.
Ah maudit, he was so stubborn! A giant. Trembling, she let go of the thumb to touch the scar on his left cheek and then the wound on his forehead from which, hours ago perhaps, the bandage had fallen or been torn away.
‘Claudine is special, monsieur, and that is why Madame keeps her on.’
Kohler collected two of the forgotten favours that were scattered about among the candles. The condoms were powder-blue or chartreuse, one took one’s pick. Rolled up and ready with a gumdrop in each.
When he pressed them into her hand, she frowned and heaved a sigh. ‘Monsieur Bertolette, my client for tonight, will not use these. Instead, he looks first to see if there is disease and then rides without the English riding coat. I’m pregnant, and now the sight of all this food is making my stomach turn.’
Bertolette was one of the old-style, union-smashing patrons who’d send his mother to the guillotine if necessary to further business. Trucks-he made them in plenty. His was the largest works in the country.
Kohler chucked her under a chin so soft and gently curved he knew it had been raised on milk and that her family had been well off. ‘Bon Noel, Mademoiselle Renee. Don’t shed tears. Just get rid of his bastard. Don’t try to convince him to keep you.’
‘For me, there are no illusions, monsieur. Madame has arranged everything but I cannot be free of my little burden until the New Year.’
‘Does she go with any of the clients?’
‘Madame? Ah no, of course not. She is our only defence in the times of crisis and must remain neutral.’
‘Was she here for the supper?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Did she leave for a bit?’
‘Ah, I … I would not know, monsieur. Me, I was kept busy.’
‘Who owns this place?’
She had a way of shrugging that both pleased and puzzled. ‘Others,’ she said a little sadly. ‘Oh bien sur, we are the first to wonder, monsieur, and the last to know.’
I’ll bet! ‘This stuff,’ he said. ‘These things … this place and all that’s in it? Hey, me, I’ve never seen a house like this. Who furnished it and keeps it going? Those dresses you all must wear? That robe? None of this stuff is being made any more, so where’s it all coming from?’
‘That I do not know, monsieur.’
The green of her eyes had darkened. Wary now, her eyelids flickered once under scrutiny, then she gripped her stomach, dropped the champagne bottle, and with a hand to her mouth, rushed from the room.
Fortunately the bottle didn’t explode. Gingerly Kohler picked it up and followed her into the kitchen to wait while she emptied her guts, washed her face and tried to steady herself.
The stairwell was carpeted and grand, replete with staggered palms and ferns in porcelain buckets under gorgeous nudes on canvas. Renee Noirceau said nothing but led him up to her room on the first floor at the back.
‘Merci,’ she said demurely as he handed her the bottle.
Kohler let her open the door. Satiated, Bertolette lay face down among the scattered covers on an Empire bed. ‘He snores,’ she said, dismayed. ‘Me, I think that men, they should not snore after they have made love to a woman.’
One stocking hung from the arm of a chair. Her corset, with all its metres of lacing undone, had been tossed aside.
As he watched, she pulled the tie from around her middle and let the robe fall to her feet. ‘Goodbye, my dear detective. Me, I would perhaps prefer you to him, but really it’s all the same once the eyes are closed, or is it?’
Ah nom de Dieu! How could a girl of good breeding become so wicked?
She touched her lips with a fingertip and smiled. ‘Come, come, Inspector. Here on the floor. Let us experience the grand frisson, eh? the great shudder. Please, there is no need for you to shoot the stork in flight since the egg within its little nest has already been fertilized.’
Kohler kissed her on the lips and patted her gorgeous backside. ‘Sleep tight. Good luck. We’ll be back.’
‘We …?’
He touched her lips. ‘My partner and I. He’s downstairs with Madame.’
‘Then it is a cold supper he will have, for that one opens her legs to no one.’
‘Not even another woman?’
‘Not even one of those.’
‘I like your perfume. What’s it called?’
‘Etranger. It’s Madame’s. For tonight she has asked us all to wear it. A little gift.’
He closed the door. He stood there breathing in the last of it, said, Louis … Louis, I think I’m going to be sick.
Every moment in that tower came back, every second in the street. He saw the corpses in the ruins of the cinema, the young, the old, the not so old, and smelled the stench of their flesh.
Hesitantly St-Cyr strained to touch the chandelier in Madame Rachline’s bedroom and heard the rippling, mocking laughter of its crystal lozenges as they brushed against each other only to fade as if in the distance like a far-off, fleeting embrace or whispered confidence. What had she in mind, and should he have let her go so easily?