‘It’s nothing, Julien. It does not matter. We’re together. That’s what counts.’
‘To think we could have agreed to meet at any other cinema, that all we ever wanted was to be together.’
‘Yes but … but now we are, cheri, and for me, ah, I no longer care who knows about us. My husband, my children … May God forgive me but I could not stay another moment in that house. When we were together, Julien, those were the best times of my life.’
‘Mine also.’
Good Gott im Himmel, they were trying so hard! They knew the room would be bugged! ‘Look, I’ll do what I can,’ grumbled Kohler. ‘Barbie must want something from me. Otherwise it doesn’t make a damned bit of sense my being here!’
They looked at each other and said nothing-after all, he was Gestapo too, and he couldn’t expect much else from them. Elaine Gauthier had spent the night in the cellars; Robichaud had, of course, been at the tenement fire and had not known she’d been picked up. Nor would he know what she’d said during the hours of interrogation that had left her gaunt and haggard.
Kohler remembered their meeting in the lobby of the Hotel Bristol and feeling that she had had more to say. Was the truth now to be forced out of her, and himself to be witness to it? A lesson for him perhaps?
She would not look at the bathtub. Robichaud could not help but do so or look up at the meat-hooks that hung above her. ‘I love you, Elaine,’ he said, and then again, ‘Forgive me.’
‘For involving her?’ shouted Kohler angrily. ‘Ah nom de Jesus-Christ, dummkopf, come clean and they’ll go easy on her. You were at that cinema to meet with Resistance people among the railway workers. You bastards want to unite throughout France. Every fire-fighting unit in every city and town; every railway worker on every train and in every marshalling yard and repair shop. That’s what Obersturmfuhrer Barbie believes and nothing you or I say to the contrary will ever change this. Can’t you see what he’ll do to her? He’ll have her stripped naked in front of us. Then he’ll question her, and if she doesn’t speak up, they’ll shove her head under in that thing and hold her down until her lungs all but burst!’ He dragged in a breath and clenched his fists. ‘Then they’ll do it all over again,’ he added sadly, ‘and they’ll keep on doing it.’
The couple said nothing. They gazed steadily at each other. Kohler pleaded with them even though he knew Barbie would be listening in and that everything he said would be written down and used against him if not today, then later on.
In desperation, he said, ‘Leiter Weidling doesn’t stand a fart’s chance in a windstorm of stopping the next fire with you out of the way, Robichaud, but the blame for it is going to rest solidly on the Obersturmfuhrer’s shoulders. Right about now my partner will be filing our interim report with Sturmbannfuhrer Boemelburg in Paris, who will then call Gestapo Mueller in Berlin. Hey, they’re old friends. They’re in this together, right? That report will place full responsibility for this fiasco on Hen-Barbie but the sap just doesn’t know his balls are for the skillet!’
‘And myself?’ asked Robichaud steadily.
The fire chief had realized there could be no escape for him. ‘You have no other choice but to tell them what they want to hear. Look, I’m sorry but that’s the way of it. No matter how hard you both deny it, this will only reinforce what he wants to believe. But what he doesn’t see is that he could accomplish everything he wants and earn himself an Iron Cross First-Class into the bargain. All he needs is to keep Madame Gauthier in custody. She’s insurance enough you won’t try to escape. Gestapo Mueller wants the Salamander stopped and to do so, my partner and I need you.’
It was Madame Gauthier who said distantly, ‘The Salamander knows the city so well. Without Julien’s help, the Theatre des Celestins will be child’s play.’
‘Phosphorus?’ asked Kohler sharply so that the boys in the next room could hear.
‘Perhaps,’ said Robichaud gravely. ‘Only a little is needed and, of course, one can hide it in several places. That theatre … beautiful and ornate as it is, why … Ah, I’ve been telling them for years that something must be done to improve the fire exits and the extinguisher syst-’
The door opened and Barbie’s two German shepherds came in to get acquainted. Shit! Excited by the prospects ahead, Frau Weidling darted her eyes from the woman to the bathtub, then to the larger of the dogs and back again to Madame Gauthier who could now no longer look at any of them.
The dogs … Kohler could hear her saying. The dogs …
Not a month after he’d arrived in Lyon, Barbie had earned himself a reputation for the baseness of his cruelty towards the women he interrogated, never mind the men. Though he knew he mustn’t shout, Kohler raged at Frau Weidling and tried to stall them. ‘What’d you do to get those photographs, eh? Prostitute yourself to some zero-brained detective in Lubeck? Hey, my sweet little bit from Schwerin, is Lubeck where they came from? Throats slit, breasts cut open, vaginas … Ja, ja, Frau Fire Chief, the Lubeck cop-shop and you with your bare ass on some bastard’s desk even though you didn’t want him to dip his wick into you. He knew you were responsible for those fires. He knew you would try it again and again and … Ah Gott im Himmel, I’m an idiot! It was that husband of yours. He’d followed you from fire to fire. That’s why you married him. The bastard found you out and forced you to-’
There was no denying she was beautiful when angry. She fingered his scrotum and said quietly, You should not have touched a thing in my room, Herr Kohler.’
‘It’s Inspector to you.’ Barbie was smirking. Shit!
‘I was nowhere near Lubeck or Heidelberg or Koln at the time of those other fires. I was in Paris.’
She had the whitest teeth. ‘You’re lying. That husband of yours knows all about you. Hey, I think you and Claudine Bertrand were once lovers-a casual little affair that was remembered, eh? So, here we have a chance to come to Lyon and by God, love again. But Claudine promised to bring along a friend, someone really special, another woman. Did you want to hold a lighted cigarette between that one’s toes, or were you more interested in the other parts? Flames when you masturbate. A grandfather who-’
Her features sharpened. Excruciating pain shot through him, stiffening every muscle as she squeezed his scrotum until he could not help but scream in anguish and gasp.
Then she hit him until there was blood in his eyes, and in a blind, numb way he understood this was her only means of convincing Barbie of her usefulness.
Boemelburg had a filthy cold. ‘The line is scratchy, Walter. No … ah no, there is no need to shout!’ pleaded St-Cyr.
The Head of SIPO-SD Section IV, the Gestapo in France, had no patience for an old acquaintance from before the war. ‘Louis, what has Kohler been up to this time? Come, come, you know very well that dummkopf should have telephoned me himself. Another fire, eh? Yes, yes, Gestapo Mueller has just been on the line demanding … demanding! … to know what is going on.’
Hermann’s Chief hawked up lumpy custard and let it erupt into a handkerchief perhaps. St-Cyr anxiously wiped the receiver on a sleeve just in case the lines carried more than words. ‘Walter, we are almost positive we know who the Salamander is but I absolutely must have Hermann’s help. Klaus Barbie has him.’
A difficult gob was swallowed. ‘The Obersturmfuhrer … but … but why is this?’
They were speaking deutsch, though Boemelburg was fluent in French. ‘A small misunderstanding,’ confessed St-Cyr.
‘Has he been arrested?’
‘Yes, Herr Sturmbann-’
‘Gott im Himmel, Louis, why was he arrested?’ Kohler … Kohler … oh mein Gott, not again!