Insurance, banking and the law. ‘They are all members, Inspector,’ she said tightly, ‘but why must you ask? None of them could have had anything to do with that fire.’
‘But with Mademoiselle Claudine?’ he demanded. ‘Come, come, madame, let us not play at this any longer.’
She must have clenched her fists and stamped a foot, for the girl said, ‘Madame, hold still, please!’
‘Claudine, she is … Ah, how should I say it, Inspector? In this world of such varied taste, Claudine is different. Very special.’
‘In what way?’ he hazarded. Ah nom de Dieu, what was it with her? The coldness of a face cream, the detachment of a douche-this room, that girl, that child of a maid. The perfume … the scent of it now. Had the girl, unused to such luxury, drenched herself? A gift … had it been a little gift to open at the reveillon or had she been drenched on purpose?
Again he said, ‘In what way, madame?’ He waited. Perhaps she smiled wanly in triumph, perhaps not at all.
‘For that I think it best to let her tell you herself, Inspector. I’m sure there is a very adequate reason for her work card disappearing in some restaurant or cafe. Perhaps Claudine simply took her gloves from a pocket and inadvertently the card slipped out.’
‘And someone else picked it up only to drop it in the place Terreaux?’ he demanded sharply.
‘Yes. Yes, of course. That is how it must have been.’
A corset-bodice came free at last and was flung over the top of the screen to hang there as if shot dead and rotted bare like some strange sort of archaeopteryx skeleton. Then came a plain white cotton shift, black silk stockings and white, knee-length drawers.
It was warm in the house-too warm. In a land where coal had become so scarce one received only enough to heat one small room once a month for a few miserable hours, this place had plenty for the furnace and boiler.
She was bathing behind the screen, and they spoke quietly those two. Eventually the girl came demurely out to find Madame a suitable night-gown and took from an armoire, a grey-blue silk robe.
The game was almost over and clearly Madame Rachline had been the winner, for he still could not tell what she was thinking and he desperately needed to know this.
She sat at her dressing table while the girl unpinned the up-swept hair and then began to comb it out before brushing it. Only then did she realize that he had positioned himself so as to meet her eyes in the mirrors.
He struck a match-struck another. ‘These lousy matches our government makes,’ he said. And taking two, struck both together.
The flame burst. It was so sudden, so bright-flared up. Was sucked down into the bowl of his pipe, he gazing steadily at her through the smoke … the smoke, watching her … She mustn’t look at the flame. She mustn’t! she told herself. But had she for an instant? Had she? she wondered in despair.
St-Cyr nodded curtly at her reflection and said he’d show himself out.
Ah damn, he saw me looking at it, she said silently, and hesitantly touched a cheek.
It was only after he had left the room that she discovered he had taken the vial of perfume.
Downstairs, a heavy door closed. Slippered steps hurried along a parquet hall, their sound vanishing on the carpeted stairs. One flight, then two, then three … yes, yes, Madame Rachline, come to Hermann Kohler. It had to be her. He’d seen Louis come out of that same room.
The woman didn’t pause but went straight to the end of the hall and had trouble unlocking its oak door. Was frantic. Dropped the key, threw a glance over a shoulder, tugged the sleeve of her robe up to get it out of the way.
The lock finally yielded and she closed the door behind herself. He waited. He followed and, nudging the door open a little, listened for her.
She was at the far end of the passage, trying to unlock yet another door. It was too dark for her. The key would not fit-was it the same key or a different one, he wondered? In her panic, had she confused them?
Again he drew in that scent, thought, Etranger, madame? and had very nearly reached her when she slipped away.
He heard her lock the door behind her, said, Verdammt, what have you been up to?
A light came on-he could see it clearly from one of the windows in the passage. She was now on the floor below him, but all too soon she had drawn the black-out curtains.
Snuffed out, the wall now appeared dark. Kohler held his breath. Once again every part of him was alert and tingling.
Slowly he picked out the degrees of darkness, distinguishing one from another.
The house, once the home of a wealthy Renaissance merchant perhaps, had been built in two quite distinct parts. Below this interconnecting passage there was a courtyard that had once been used for carriages. Stables, long since made over into rooms, would have given on to it. There could be spiral sets of outside stairs on either side leading to the floors above.
Two houses then, the one for La Belle Epoque and the other perhaps a residence of some sort.
Louis was waiting in the foyer. Madame Morel, the sous-maitresse, gave them the once-over as she let them out on to the street before bolting the door behind them as if for ever.
‘Now what?’ asked Kohler.
‘The rue du Boeuf, Number Six,’ said St-Cyr grimly. ‘Let us hurry, mon ami. Madame Rachline was at the midnight Mass and says she walked home.’
‘She couldn’t have! She was at the reveillon.’
‘Then she went outside just before we got here.’
‘To see a prostitute, eh, Louis? To see Claudine Bertrand?’
Ah merde, were they too late?
At 5.00 a.m. the city had awakened to end the curfew. At 5.47 those who had to get to work were on the street, Christmas Day or not. Some pushed bicycles over the hard-frozen slush; others trod warily. There were few glimmers of light, no curses, little coughing and no talking. It was as if a throng of zombies had suddenly chosen to get up without their breakfast.
Lyon, like Paris and the rest of France, still could not get used to living on Berlin time. Two hours back in summer; one in winter, 5.47 becoming 4.47! There were no croissants, no butter! There was no real coffee except on the black market.
The rue du Boeuf was only two streets away and past the place de la Baleine. There were a few cafes, some of those little hole-in-the-wall places Lyon had been so famous for in pre-war days. Three or four tables at most. No lights showing. Hot muddy water and cold grey bread. A line-up at one place, a few stragglers at another. Tobacco smoke scenting the twenty degrees of frost but also those rude accents of the burning rubbish people tried to smoke these days. Corn silk, camomile and oak leaves or kitchen herbs! Sometimes a little peppermint would be added; sometimes they’d try dried lettuce, sometimes beet leaves. A nation of experimenters!
One woman was urinating in the gutter-caught short and no doubt uncaring since it was still pitch dark, or perhaps that did not matter to her. Only a sliver of light from a delinquent bicycle lamp caught her out. A tram-car clanged.
The concierge of Number Six sent one of his daughters to open the door, then came himself since the pounding was incessant.
The man’s grizzled moon-face tightened. The flat is on the third floor, messieurs. The old woman … Mademoiselle Bertrand’s mother,’ he managed, glancing anxiously at Hermann’s Gestapo shield. ‘We have not heard that one’s constant complaining or moaning in the night. Not since this past day and night.’
He’d been worried. ‘And before that?’ asked Kohler, leaning on the half-opened door.
The man looked up and drew in a breath, said to himself, Ah such a slash on the face, the wound on the forehead … ‘The coughing of Mademoiselle Bertrand. The cold in the chest.’ He patted his own flannel-shirted chest.