The girl blushed crimson and wiped her eyes. So much for French girls being forward, thought Kohler. Gruffly he told the projectionist to quit fidgeting and asked him, ‘Did this other woman come up to see you?’
The man shook his head. ‘I gave the key to Mademoiselle Bertrand. When she came back upstairs, she said she had given it to one of the usherettes. I thought no more of it, Inspector Kohler.’
‘Too busy doing up your flies, were you?’
The smile was harshly triumphant. ‘Too busy with the film, Inspector. A break had occurred and I had to repair it at once.’
The bastard! Left alone, he’d had long enough to think up an answer! His look said, Prove this was not so.
‘Karl Johann …?’ Kohler swung round at the sound of another voice.
Verdammt! Leiter Weidling’s young wife was stunning: tall, slim and leggy. One of the Master Race but with rich, dark auburn hair and dark grey-blue eyes that left nothing to chance.
She set the fur coat over the back of a chair and dropped her purse on to the seat as if fed up at the delay and expecting her husband to do something about it. Kohler let his eyes drift up over her: dark blue silk stockings, a dark blue skirt, smooth and tidy, nice calves, nice knees probably, and a wrap-around jacket in light beige with no collar and a V-neck that plunged to frame the throat above as if to say, You cannot look further.
‘Karl Johann, have you forgotten we are to dine with Obersturmfuhrer Barbie?’
‘My dear …’ stammered Weidling. ‘This business … You must forgive me. Yes, of course, of course. Lunch.’
Gott im Himmel, she didn’t even bat an eye! The clod had yet to catch on to the difference between dine and lunch!
Her brow was high and smooth, her face more narrow than full, the nose so fine and sharp and of the aristocracy he had to wonder which family she’d come from.
There were no rings, not even a wedding band, just bangles of gold and ebony, quite old, he thought. Ear-rings to match-delicate things, very finely carved and wrought. Nice, nice lips that pouted haughtily in his millisecond of undressing, then gave the quick, bland smile of, Well, Inspector, do you always look at women this way?
Through his interpreter, Weidling told everyone to wait for him. ‘I am not finished with you. Perhaps your manager will turn up, Herr Artel, but until he does, please do not leave this place.’
Therese Moncontre, who sold the tickets, hadn’t moved a hair but now the softness of her throat rippled tightly, and suddenly, in confusion and wanting to disappear, she dropped her deep brown eyes and kept them on the carpet at her feet.
Alarmed, Kohler glanced at Frau Weidling but she seemed not to have noticed. He gave it a moment, could hardly believe their luck. Clearly the girl had sold Frau Weidling a ticket! Ah merde. He could not ask her just yet. She’d deny it out of fear, and Frau Weidling would ask Barbie to get rid of her. He’d have to let the girl think her little secret was safe.
Madame Gauthier had, however, noticed the girl’s reaction to Leiter Weidling’s wife. Kohler met her eyes and he had to ask himself, Were you and Robichaud really holding hands in that back row, or had you come to the cinema for something quite different? A meeting with the Resistance?
Klaus Barbie was afraid the firemen would join forces with the railwaymen. Was Lyon, with its warren of old streets and passageways and its rail connections to everywhere, about to become the centre of active resistance?
He remembered the revolver he’d found among the frozen ashes. He remembered the railway schedules and the maps that had pinpointed the locations of switches and tunnels and flatbed cranes that would be so necessary to clear the tracks of wreckage …
He picked up the grey fox-fur coat that should have been sent to the Russian Front but had somehow missed Frau Weidling’s patriotic duty. Without a word of thanks or acknowledgement, she turned her shapely back on him and let him drape it over her shoulders.
‘That perfume …,’ he began, foolishly caught off guard. She paid no mind, picked up her gloves and purse and departed with her husband chasing after her. Nice ankles … yes, yes … dark blue high heels.
Etranger …
Kohler turned on the others and snapped, ‘Wait here. If any of you leave, I’ll have you dragged before a firing squad without a priest!’
Ah mon Dieu, Louis, what the hell have we got ourselves into this time? he asked himself. A wife who’ll stop at nothing to build her husband’s reputation? But why would a woman like that marry a pair of ancient rubber boots when she could have had something far, far better?
He told himself he’d have to ask the usherette Suzie Boudreau if either of those two women had worn that perfume. He would have to ask Frau Weidling how she had come by it and if she had enjoyed the little she could have seen of that film.
He’d have to ask her about those other fires. Lubeck, Heidelberg and Koln, and just exactly how long she and that husband of hers had been in Lyon to have some fun. Two weeks … had it been two weeks?
A Salamander.
The concierge at Number Six rue du Boeuf was wary. Trapped in his cage, he fussed with a newspaper that was ten days old and shooed the cat out into the corridor. ‘Mademoiselle Bertrand said she had to drop into the pharmacy, Inspector St-Cyr. A cold in her chest, the phlegm like molten tar …’
‘Yes, yes, spare me the medical details, eh? I’ve been with her now for far too long and do not want your words to cause me to catch whatever it was she had.’
‘Then what would you have me say, Inspector?’
Ah merde, why must he be so difficult? ‘She was dressed for an evening out, isn’t that right, eh? Come, come, Monsieur Aubin, surely a woman like that does not wear red high heels on ice in fifteen degrees of frost just to find herself a little friar’s balsam?’
‘Was she murdered in my building? Is that what you’re implying? Come, come yourself, Monsieur the Chief Inspector, let us have the truth of that!’
‘Nom de Jesus-Christ, don’t try my patience!’
The Surete … everybody knew what shits they were. And corrupt! ‘She was a prostitute, a public woman. Maybe she went to visit a client, maybe not, Inspector, but she would not have informed me of this. Ah no, monsieur,’ he wagged a reproving finger. ‘Not a family man such as myself whose daughters are generally visiting with their papa when he is not busy at his duties, or are likely to drop in on him at any time.’
St-Cyr took a deep breath and held it. Exhaling slowly, and more than exasperated, he said harshly, ‘What did you pay her in exchange?’ but did not wait for the answer. ‘You agreed to look in on Madame Bertrand each evening, or one of your children did, or your wife perhaps. In exchange for this little service, Mademoiselle Bertrand was “friendly” towards you, eh? So, all right, there’s no harm in that little arrangement if you can live with it and your wife is not infected. Now tell me when she left the building and when she came back?’
The concierge tried to roll a cigarette from the collected tobacco of several cigarette butts. It was no use. Papers and tobacco showered on to the carpet.
His grizzled moon-face lifted. ‘She left at about seven in the evening-when she usually does. They came back at about nine thirty. Here, it is in the book.’ He got up suddenly to push past and snatch up the ledger. ‘Seven ten and nine fifty-seven. Mademoiselle Bertrand and Madame Rachline.’
‘The two of them at both times?’ blurted the Surete.
The man shook his head. ‘Only when returning. You see, I have put the little tick beside Madame Rachline’s name.’
There was a nod, but only just. ‘And you’re absolutely certain it was Madame Rachline?’