‘It’s expensive, Hermann. Not common and probably hasn’t been on the market for a good fifty years.’
‘From la belle epoque? Bought at auction, then, Louis?’
‘And unless I am mistaken, shared with the others at the reveillon but worn by someone in that belfry at the Basilica and deliberately left for us to find.’
‘Claudine Bertrand couldn’t have been there, Louis. She’d have been dead by then.’
Hermann fell into such a silence St-Cyr had to ask him what was the matter. ‘The shoes in that belfry, Louis. I … I forgot to take a look at them.’
‘And so did I. Later, eh? Later. Hermann, Madame Rachline is fascinated by fire or very afraid of it. When I struck two matches, she tried to stop herself from looking at the flame and failed.’
‘Ah merde, is that their fetish? As sure as that God of yours made little green apples, Louis, Claudine Bertrand catered to some particular perversion and unless I’ve completely lost my touch, she went with women as well as men.’
‘The girl with the bicycle …’ began St-Cyr, only to let the thought trail off into silence.
‘Those paintings in that storeroom at the Basilica, Louis?’
‘Yes, yes, the paintings, Hermann, and a whorehouse full of things of exceptional quality and expense. Things not easily come by.’
‘Unless one has the ausweis to come and go, and the car also.’
At last they were getting some place. ‘Auction houses, Hermann. Estate sales.’
‘And classy whores whose madam runs from you to find someone in the other part of the house.’
‘Pardon?’ gasped the Surete, jerked from his bedside thoughts.
Kohler told him of the enclosed passage above the lane. ‘She wasn’t happy, Louis. Madame Rachline was damned scared and on the run.’
‘And has known this one for at least the last ten years but can tell us virtually nothing about her.’
‘A stranger, Louis. A Salamander and a visiting fire chief.’
‘A pattern, Hermann. Three fires in the Reich in 1938 and now Lyon.’
‘Why now? Why Lyon?’
‘Why not, if for some reason there is a connection with the visit of Herr Weidling?’
Kohler glanced at his wrist-watch and swore. ‘That bastard’s going to get bitchy, Louis. We’re late.’
‘Then perhaps you should go and have a little talk with him, Hermann. Perhaps our visiting fire marshal’s wife would be good enough to offer coffee and rolls?’
Instead of sausages and eggs courtesy of the concierge of this place. ‘You certain you’ll be okay?’
‘Positive. Please cancel my breakfast on the way out. I need to concentrate and do not wish to be disturbed.’
Louis always liked to have his little tete-a-tete with the victim. In spite of knowing they were on the run, Kohler grinned. ‘Enjoy yourself, eh? Look for burns in those tenderest of places and ask her who caused them.’
4
In the silence of mademoiselle Claudine’s bedroom all sounds were magnified. Each time someone came or went in the building, St-Cyr would hold his breath. The door to one of the other flats would open and then close. There would be steps on the stairs, a brief, muffled exchange with the concierge, eyes cast upwards to indicate the Surete’s continued presence, then more steps and the outer door would open.
Sometimes people came in off the street to buy whatever the concierge had to offer, but these visits lasted so briefly, the caller hardly bothered to close the outer door. There were never any complaints. One took what one was offered and did not complain for to do so was to get nothing else. One didn’t haggle and, as often as not, cigarettes were the floating currency. France had become a nation of beggars on the scrounge ruled by tobacco, collaborators and, still, that oligarchy of the wealthy and the well-to-do who had always taken care of themselves.
Claudine Bertrand had been a victim of that oligarchy, of this he was now certain. In photo after photo he had seen her as a child in the gardens and rooms of a lovely house in the suburb of Les Brotteaux or on the beach at Concarneau along the Breton Coast, several times with the friend who was now Ange-Marie Celeste Rachline. Again and again the two of them as schoolgirls, then as students at the university here and then … the financial collapse of the Great Depression, this flat and La Belle Epoque.
‘Claudine, she is … Ah, how should I say it, Inspector? In this world of such varied taste, Claudine is different. Very special.’
He remembered the instant he had struck those matches and the look that had come into Madame Rachline’s eyes. Had Claudine been just as fascinated or afraid of fire? Had those two children played with matches and found it a game neither could resist?
There were no photos beyond that point of lost fortune. The year would have been 1932, Claudine then twenty-two, Ange-Marie twenty-four.
He put the album back in the lower drawer of the bureau and covered it with sweaters as it had been. Then he stood up and began to study the perfume bottle. It wasn’t one of Houbigant’s or any of the other great perfumers. Lost to that world, he read the label and muttered, ‘Joulbert. Perfumer to the Imperial Court of Russia.’
Right at the top of the label were the dates: 1785 on the far left, and 1900 on the right. At the bottom, the address was given as 17 rue du Faubourg St-Honore, Paris. Joulbert had been classy, ah yes. Quite obviously the stuff had been very expensive even at the turn of the century.
In the illustration a bare-breasted, winsome girl of perhaps eighteen was seated with a peacock’s rainbow of irises and tulips behind her. Masses of them. All the rest of her, except for the ankles and bare feet, was clothed in some sort of see-through webbed fabric, her look pensive as if assessing the object of her dreams and not in the least concerned about the spiders that might have woven her garment.
Unscrewing the cap, he brought it up to first one and then the other nostril. Yes, the scent was one of the ‘Persian’ types so popular at the turn of the century. Again he felt the musk too strong. Heavy and body-clinging and not at all suitable for the girl on its label. Perhaps some forgotten carton had come to light or perhaps the bottle had simply been from an estate sale. Perhaps the house had been given it by one of the clients and Madame Rachline had shared it out.
Then why, he asked, has Mademoiselle Claudine the dregs, unless it was she who had been given it and she was the sharer? Ah yes. Yes, of course.
There was nothing in the room to indicate it was Christmas. Going over to the bed, St-Cyr drew up a chair and began to study the woman earnestly, willing himself right into her skin. Alive, what were you hoping for? he asked. A return to those former days? Something better for your mother and yourself or release, Mademoiselle Bertrand, from filial duty?
It couldn’t have been pleasant coming home to a place like this from La Belle Epoque. Did you hide everything from that mother of yours? he asked. Were you afraid she’d find out? Or were you sick and tired of having to look after her and wanting only to get on with your life?
Had she had a child she wished to protect? he wondered. Is that why she brought so little of her income home? A child in a convent boarding school, a child who would know nothing of her mother’s profession.
She had gone to the cinema in her red dress and high heels, of this he was now certain. She had not stayed out long, had come back and dressed for bed, then put the kettle on and had …
Swiftly he went into the kitchen and, lighting a match, checked the stove’s draught. ‘Excellent,’ he breathed softly. ‘The flue is not blocked. There can have been no poisonous fumes, no carbon monoxide to silently kill without the victim ever knowing.’
Returning to the chair, he leaned forward to ask those questions he had to ask. ‘Did fire excite you sexually, mademoiselle? Did the men or women you went with like to tie you to the bed and then strike matches or burn candles over and around your naked body? Did you cry out for mercy until they had consummated their lust in an orgy of fire?