‘Perhaps our Salamander ran out of gasoline?’
‘Perhaps it wanted Claudine to die in bed, Hermann, and could not bring itself to have her burnt to death.’
‘Then it knew Claudine well, Louis, and had some feeling for her as a person.’
Hermann hunted for a fag and, finding none in any of his pockets, looked desperate. Their coffee came but he shoved it aside, planning no doubt to dump everything on the floor as they left. ‘So why share the perfume, Louis, and give Frau Weidling a sample?’
‘Because it was Claudine who insisted Madame Rachline distribute the perfume yet not give its source, and because she may well have been told to do so by our third “woman”.’
‘Who was not Madame Rachline?’
‘Perhaps, but then we are dealing with a Salamander, Hermann. One so slippery it can murder with confidence and present us with all sorts of hints. An expert, Hermann. One who is so sure of itself, it relishes the dare and thrives on the meal.’
‘Was it Frau Weidling who came back with Claudine to the flat at Number Six, or was it Madame Rachline as the concierge maintains?’
‘That concierge was absent from his cage, Hermann. A matter of some plumbing in the courtyard lavatory. It is possible Claudine’s murderer could have gained entry while Madame Rachline, if it really was her, was still upstairs with her friend.’
‘Our third woman, then.’
‘Or man.’
‘And our girl with the bicycle, Louis?’
‘Ah yes, Mademoiselle Martine Charlebois. I must pay her a little visit while you occupy yourself with Madame Philomena Cadieux, I think, the caretakeress of the Basilica.’
‘Those shoes … Ah merde.’
‘Yes, Hermann, those shoes and a little more perhaps about the gasoline and Father Adrian.’
‘And the bishop, Louis. The bishop.’
6
From the place Terreaux to the Pont Morand it was not far to the Parc de la Tete d’Or and the allee des Villas which overlooked it.
St-Cyr paid off the velo-taxi, wondering if he oughtn’t to tell the man to wait, since the streets had been so difficult. He searched the identical grey-stone facades whose precise elegance of tall French windows and Louis XVI iron railings was matched only by the view across the park.
The wind had died, the snow had stopped and in the soft blue blush of the closing day, the solitary trees, long walks, distant woods, lake and iron-and-glass dome of the arboretum were sharply defined.
There were a few cross-country skiers, a few walkers, some with their dogs, one throwing a stick. Children, of course. Children always loved the magic of a park like this.
There were a few Germans, two black Mercedes, a general in one with a motor-cycle escort, but these were both too distant to matter and no one seemed to pay them any mind.
He searched the changing light, sought out each tonal variation and what it delineated, breathed in deeply, thought of the Loire, of Gabrielle and her son, then returned to duty with regret.
There were only two apartments on each floor at Number Twelve, and the central staircase, with the warm, dark amber of its polished banisters, made a rectangular spiral above him. Tall mahogany doors-good, solid things-led into each apartment. The concierge, if there was one, was not about and probably lived in a couple of rooms at the back, looking out on to the central courtyard. That’s where the girl would have left her bicycle, but had she been the one to leave the lock off the outer door?
Unbuttoning his overcoat and loosening the scarf his mother had knitted for him thirty years ago, he rang the bell.
The bolt was undone, the door yanked open, the girl’s, ‘Henri … Oh, pardon,’ was caught in the air and held until it was too late for the shock to be hidden.
‘Monsieur …?’ Ah no. It was him!-and he could see this written in the anguish of her expression. ‘My brother,’ she said, running a worried hand through her light brown hair. ‘I … I was expecting him, monsieur.’
Her brother. She was every bit the school mistress he had settled on. Affably St-Cyr motioned with his trilby. ‘Permit me to introduce myself, Mademoiselle …?’
‘Charlebois.’
‘Mademoiselle, I am Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale from Paris Central, but please do not be alarmed.’
‘My brother … You have found his body among the deceased. Ah no. No!’
She buried her face in her hands and broke into tears. He tried to comfort her but she turned her back on him, making him feel terrible. Always there was this time bomb of the Surete introduction. One used it often but one never quite knew how it would be taken. ‘Mademoiselle, I did not come to tell you your brother was among the dead but merely to return this.’
‘What?’ She would blow her nose and wipe her eyes-yes, yes, that would be best so as to distract him-and she would pray to God and the Blessed Virgin for assistance in this moment of crisis. ‘What?’ she asked, her back still turned to him, her head bowed, the shoulders thin.
St-Cyr closed the door behind him. ‘The yellow work card of a woman who is now dead, Mademoiselle Charlebois. Dead!’
‘Ah no! No! Dead? But … but how can this be?’
He tried to be kind as he spoke to her back. ‘A few small questions, mademoiselle. Nothing troublesome, I assure you. Please, why not sit down? It … it would be better, would it not? You’re worried. You’ve had a terrible shock. Come, come, let us go into the salon. Ah! I will remove the shoes and you will forgive the holes that have developed in my socks since I last washed them.’
She wasn’t having any of it. ‘Why have you come? I hardly knew Mademoiselle Claudine. She was not a friend of mine, not even an acquaintance.’
Her eyes were smarting. Tears glistened in them making greener still their greeny-brown. There were freckles over the bridge of her nose and on the pale cheeks and chin but these served only to heighten a gentle handsomeness that was really quite attractive were she not so distressed and wary, and touching her pearls as though grasping for a lifeline.
St-Cyr indicated his overcoat and hat, and reluctantly she allowed him to put them on a chair. ‘This way, then, Inspector. My brother and I live alone. He’s away a lot and I … Well, I have thought a fire like that … We’re both great lovers of the cinema. It’s our only form of relaxation these days. I have thought … well, you know … The worst, of course.’
‘And the work card of Mademoiselle Bertrand?’
It was no use. ‘She came to see me on the day of the fire, in the afternoon. I … I said that … that I didn’t think my brother could help her any more, but that when he returned I would ask.’
‘And the card?’ he asked again. ‘How did you come by it?’ Her back was still to him.
‘It … it must have fallen from her purse. I … I have found it on the sofa between the cushions.’
For now that was enough and he would not push the matter yet for fear of upsetting her too much. ‘Your brother, mademoiselle, what does he do?’
‘Henri …? Henri runs the shop of our grandfather, Inspector. The Henri Masson of Lyon. Fine antiques and estate sales. Jewellery, rare and old books, porcelains, crystal and paintings. Silver too, of course. It’s … it’s on the rue Auguste Comte near place Bellecour. Henri was always there with our grandfather and when the old monsieur died, why he left the shop to my brother. And … and the one in Dijon, of course, though Henri, he has a manager for that-well, two of them. One for the Lyon shop and one for Dijon.’
Through the awkward silence that developed between them came the sound of a finch and then that of a canary. ‘Excuse me, please, a moment,’ she said, giving a brief, shy smile while wiping her eyes. ‘My family, Inspector. My little friends. I have been so worried about the tragedy, I have forgotten to give them seed and water.’