Still he could not believe it. ‘A man … Surely he must have known we’d find out where the gasoline came from?’
Gruffly Robichaud gestured with his good hand and said, ‘Ah, you detectives … Don’t dodge the issue. Ask precisely why he wanted us to discover it was man, eh? Well, if you ask me, Inspector, it’s typical of an arsonist who wants others to know all about it. They offer help, they pose as authorities, they go for the jugular of another and …’
‘Robichaud, what are you saying? That it was Herr Weidling who telephoned that depot and spoke in French?’
Frightened, a flock of pigeons rose into the light dust of snow. For a moment the fire marshal watched them, then admitted defeat. ‘I must apologize, Inspector. How could it have been him but … but this business, it’s got me afraid. Terrified, isn’t that so? Hey, my friend, I know in my guts it’s going to happen again. There is no sand for the roads. There are fifteen or twenty degrees of frost to plug the water mains. A crown fire … If there is a high wind, this will spread the flames from roof to roof and we’ll never stop it.’
Someone had impersonated Father Beaumont who, by the time that telephone call had been made, was already dead.
A last cigarette was found and accepted with a curt nod and, ‘What about yourself, Inspector?’
‘I’ve had enough. The pipe … I prefer it but have, unfortunately, used up the last of my ration.’
‘Then ask the prefet. That one has the right sort of friends. Anything you want. Just ask him.’
Ah merde! ‘Go easy, eh? Watch what you say. Don’t be a fool. I gather the caller spoke fluent French without trace of an accent?’
This was so, but someone could have been hired to make the call, someone who knew the ins and outs of the Basilica. ‘In three days there is to be a concert at the Theatre des Celestins, our most famous theatre, Inspector. The cream of Lyon will be there with their German friends but in addition, all the Wehrmacht’s brass from the Army of the South. Oh for sure, I have tried to tell the mayor and the prefet that the concert must be cancelled but they will not do so. All the tickets have been sold. The money would have to be returned. It’s a charity thing, an example of the good will that is supposed to exist between occupier and occupied. Hospitals, orphans, unwed mothers and warm clothing for the Russian Front. They will ask the Germans to-’
‘Why not say the Boches? There are only the two of us.’
‘Another patriot, is that what you want me to acknowledge, Inspector? Then forget it, my friend. These days each man must stand alone. The Germans, as I was saying. They will ask them for extra patrols in the immediate area of the theatre and they will have so many plain-clothes inside, this … this Salamander will not be able to strike a match. But they are fools. He and she, or those two women will outwit them because …’
Robichaud threw down his cigarette and purposely ground it out beneath a boot. ‘Because, Inspector, it or they are the Salamander and elusive. Elusive!’
‘Three days.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow night and then the one after that.’
‘Sunday evening.’
‘Yes. But since the thing has been so well publicized, I have two of my men quietly searching the premises already. Please do not inform anyone of this.’
‘And if I told you I thought one of your two women had been murdered?’ asked St-Cyr, watching him closely.
Their eyes met. ‘Then I would say to you that she had been silenced so as to make our task all the more difficult.’
Frau Weidling and Klaus Barbie were in the main sitting-room of the Prince Albert Suite. From where he stood hidden behind a door, Kohler could see the woman quite clearly but only a portion of Barbie.
She was sitting on the edge of a sofa, her long, shapely legs tightly together. Hands in her lap. No more teasing laughter now, no more thoughts of false flirtation. Only fear that perhaps Barbie had seen right through her and would refuse her request.
Barbie was standing not a metre from her. Hands in his jacket pockets with the thumbs out, no doubt. ‘My husband is the best, Herr Obersturmfuhrer. If Johann is given half a chance, he’ll find this Salamander and put a stop to the fires.’
He must have smirked, for she blanched and her fingertips tightened their grip on the dark blue fabric of her skirt. ‘And if I do not want the fires to be stopped?’ he asked quietly.
Verdammt!
‘But … but Please, I do not understand, Herr Obersturmfuhrer? Is it that you wish the fires to continue when Berlin and Herr Mueller have demanded they be stopped?’
Kohler counted the seconds. Barbie must be stripping her naked with his eyes, telling her not in so many words that he knew all about her loves and hates, her private, private little pleasures-hell, he’d have had the suite searched. He’d have found everything.
Klaus Barbie: age twenty-nine, a bastard by birth, with an abusive father who drank too much and died of a neck rumour the very year Barbie graduated from grammar school. Latin and Greek, 1933. A younger brother had died that same year.
Grandpapa had refused the bastard any of his rightful inheritance even though the Barbies had married after the birth of son Klaus.
Once a bastard, always a bastard under Germanic law, snorted Kohler inwardly-he still couldn’t see more than a lower leg and an occasional hand. Barbie had wanted to go into law or archaeology. Instead, the SS got him. Six months work detail in the Arbeitsdienst to toughen the muscles and the spirit. Then the Hitler Youth as a patrol leader, a Fahnenfuhrer, to prove he had leadership qualities and determination among other things, ah yes. Then the SS in September 1935 and the training school at Bernau near Berlin to put the polish on him.
An Iron Cross second-class from Holland, 1940, for bashing a Jewish boy over the head with an ashtray and having him and his partner shot dead for breaking the rules and selling ice-cream. Of course it hadn’t helped that those same boys had resisted the attempts of Nazi-minded thugs to smash their little shop and beat them up …
A hand reached out to cup Frau Weidling’s chin. Moisture must have collected in her lovely eyes for she blinked in apprehension and swallowed tightly.
‘Of course, Gestapo Mueller wishes this Salamander to be stopped,’ said Barbie. ‘But at the time he sent your husband that telex, he had not received my report on the fire.’
She gave a half-smile and tilted back her head a little, causing her hair to fall loosely away from her neck and shoulders. ‘All those railway workers …’ she said. ‘You are certain they were using that cinema as a meeting-place for the Resistance?’
Still there was that quietness to Barbie’s voice. ‘Not certain. Call it an educated guess, Frau Weidling. If we’re wrong, nothing is lost. If we’re right, then a great deal has been gained.’
‘Yet Herr Robichaud still goes free?’
God, how sweet they were to each other! thought Kohler.
Barbie’s hand fell. Her fingers having gripped her dress, lessened their hold, then gave it up and tensely smoothed the fabric over shapely thighs. She would be only too well aware of the Obersturmfuhrer’s reputation as a notorious womanizer. Was she wondering if he’d ask her to take off her clothes or was she hoping he wouldn’t?
Infuriatingly, Barbie’s leg with its regulation black shoe, and his hand disappeared from Kohler’s view. ‘Perhaps, Frau Weidling, we will let your husband destroy Herr Robichaud’s credibility. Lyon’s fire chief could then commit suicide.’
Her hands had come to a stop again, this time with the fingertips at the hem of her skirt and touching the meshed silk stockings of dark Prussian blue. ‘And Robichaud’s mistress?’ she asked so quietly one had to strain to hear the coyness in her voice.