It would be best to tell him just a little. More rubbish was swallowed. St-Cyr filled him in and then said, ‘Herr Robichaud knows nothing of the Resistance, Walter. The man was simply in the cinema to meet up with his girlfriend, a married woman who has a family, that is all. French-yes, yes, Walter, they’re both French and the Pope will castigate them for their infidelity.’ Ah merde! ‘I swear they had nothing to do with those people who were locked in the toilets. We need Robichaud for a little while. Just until the concert is over.’
‘Concert? What concert is this? Don’t tell me you’re all fucking the dog down there?’
‘Walter, Walter, please! It’s a benefit. Something to gather money and clothing for the Russian Front.’
‘Then that is good. Yes, good. When is it to be held?’
Was he thinking of coming himself? ‘Tomorrow evening. It starts early and ends well before curfew. At least, I think it does. I imagine it does. I …’ Have said too much?
‘Phosphorus, Louis? Oxalic and sulphuric acids? Our arsonist is a chemist, a metallurgist, an engineer, teacher or professor perhaps. Yes, someone with access to such things and the knowledge to use them.’
They talked for a little longer and then that was it. Short of setting fire to the place himself, there was little else he could do. Exhausted by the conversation, St-Cyr put down the telephone which rang immediately. Orders flew. An SS corporal raced for the stairs. Another leaned on the bell-push of the lift.
Impressed, the Feldwebel on the desk gave the Frenchman the once-over.
St-Cyr let him have it. ‘Get these clothes and a pot of coffee up to Inspector Kohler immediately. See that he receives the following message. He is to bring Frau Weidling and the others to the temporary morgue at the Lycee Ampere, and he is to wait there with them until I return.’
The hotel’s frescos were mirrored in its lobby doors as he turned swiftly away. Oozing sentiment, they blissfully portrayed life in the Rhone Valley and in Renaissance times. Joyous faces among the peasants. No rain or snow or twenty degrees of frost and Gestapo torture rooms.
He would not take a velo-taxi. He would catch a tram-car to the place Terreaux and use the ruins of the cinema to cover his tracks before continuing. Yes, yes, that would be best. There was no sense in leading Gestapo Lyon to the quarry. Martine Charlebois might simply have been duped, but she’d lost her keys and someone had found them.
When he got there, the Pare de la Tete d’Or appeared gripped in the fierceness of a polar waste, devoid of all sign of human life, dog, bird or cat. Down by the lake, the iron-and-glass cupola of the bandshell was hung with jagged icicles and at first he didn’t see her.
She was standing alone, gazing out over the ice-covered lake toward the Ile des Tamaris, the nearer of the two islands. Lost in thought, she was totally oblivious to the wind and the cold. Worried … ah so concerned with the turmoil of her thoughts, the brow beneath the knitted, dark brown toque would be well furrowed.
Now and then the gloved fingers of her right hand rubbed the railing as if, though still undecided, she had to agree it must have happened. When, finally, he cleared his throat and stepped up on to the platform, she awoke to him and gasped, then held a hand to her mouth to stop herself from saying anything. Trapped … Oh mon Dieu, she was terrified. Sick and looking away from him, panicking …
‘Mademoiselle Charlebois, it is one thing to have lost your keys and to have had them returned, it is another to still agonize over how you could possibly have lost them and why, of all places, here. Is that not so?’
Dear Jesus help her. There was no one else with him but why had he come? Why? That latest fire, that tenement … did he know the truth of it? ‘I … I was daydreaming, Inspector. Thinking about … about how I loved this old bandshell as a child. Pirates and castaways … oh, it was so many things for me. A ship, an island …’
She threw up suddenly, and he waited for her sickness to pass as she leaned over the railing in tears.
‘Mademoiselle, if you dropped your keys here, why was it that you had them in your hand? Surely you would have kept them in a safe place? Your purse, your briefcase, a drawer at home perhaps … ah, it is a puzzle unless …’
Unless what? she wanted to shriek at him. Unless she was lending them to someone? Was that what he thought? ‘I … I was trying to remember, Inspector, while … while thinking of my childhood. I … I can’t understand why I had them out but I must have, mustn’t I?’
Ten days ago at least! ‘Mademoiselle Charlebois, why, please, did you have the keys at all? Is it not customary for the concierge of the school to open and lock all doors?’
He had not yet mentioned the tenement fire but would he ask her where she was last night? Would he? ‘M … Monsieur Legrange, our custodian, has been quite ill. We all like him so much, we did not wish to seek a replacement so the staff agreed to take turns. I … I had not yet passed my keys on to Madame the Professor Calmette, my superior.’
‘But if the keys were lost and it was your duty to lock up, who did this for you?’
He was trying to unsettle her with all this talk of the keys … the keys! ‘Monsieur the Assistant Professor Paul. He … he has the other set. Usually we alternated. Every other day one of us would do it but he … he said he would cover for me until I … I found my keys.’
He would make her think he was suddenly fed up with her evasiveness. He would grip the railing and stare across the lake. ‘Were you alone when you lost them?’ he asked. ‘Come, come, mademoiselle. Was it your three zazous you met here ten days ago or your Monsieur Paul?’
‘My Monsieur Pa … ul? He … he is too old for me, Inspector. He is … he is fifty-six. I am only twenty-six!’
He’d be gruff about it. ‘Fifty-six is not so old, not these days when most of our young men are away in POW camps or in the grave.’
When she didn’t respond, he said, ‘You were meeting Jean-Pierre. He’s the oldest of your little tribe. Seventeen, is he, or eighteen?’
‘I … I don’t know what you’re implying. Me? Having an affair with Jean-Pierre? One of my students? It … it is just not possible for me to love another, Inspector. I once did but … but soon learned my lesson. Oh yes I did! Jean-Pierre had managed to get me a capon. I … I must have taken the keys out of my pocket when I found the money for him.’
She had once had a lover-a fiance? he wondered. ‘So you set them on the railing here and then … what then, mademoiselle? Did you turn to look back toward your house in fear your brother might have seen you together with that boy? Did your elbow then knock the forgotten keys to the ground where they lay hidden for so long? You were distracted for days prior to their loss-that’s what your three zazous told me. Yes, yes, mademoiselle, you needn’t look so betrayed. What had been troubling you? The thought that your clandestine meetings here had been discovered and misinterpreted by your brother or had he really misinterpreted them?’
Dear Jesus help her to stop quivering. The detective was not going to leave her alone. ‘Henri, he … he understands that Jean-Pierre is … is just a friend, Inspector. A helper-doesn’t one need such helpers these days if one is to survive?’
She was crying again but had not realized it. ‘Then was it worry over your brother’s relationship with Claudine Bertrand, mademoiselle? Please, the time for truth is upon us.’
Her eyes and nose were wiped, her head was bowed. ‘I … I have told you I … I hardly knew her.’
‘Yes, but when she couldn’t get money from your brother, she came straight to you. Therefore, mademoiselle, she knew you well enough!’
Ah no. ‘She … she was a terrible woman, Inspector. Morally bankrupt. I have told Henri many times to have nothing more to do with her, but … but he … he never listens to his little sister.’