‘All right then, did he go with her? Did he visit her at La Belle Epoque?’
She would have to face him and pray there were no more tears. ‘My … my brother is not like that, monsieur. Henri … Henri knew everything there was to know about Claudine. What she thought, how she would react to … to things. Her moods, her hopes, her little … Well, you know. And so did Ange-Marie.’
He could not let her off the hook. ‘Where is the husband of Madame Rachline?’
‘The father of her children?’ She would shrug-yes, yes! ‘No one knows. They didn’t get on. One day he was there, the next he … he has left her for another, perhaps, and she has found her bed cold and herself as mistress of that place. Henri …’
‘Has kept the house furnished in the decor of the times.’
Must he be so cruel? ‘Is there harm in that, Inspector? Our grandfather …’
‘Owned the house. Am I correct?’
She bit her lower lip and felt her cheeks colouring rapidly. ‘Yes, damn you! Henri sold shares to several Lyonnais. The prefet, the magistrate-oh bien sur my brother is a businessman, Inspector. Very successful, very determined to carry on the name of the shop and “other” things. He thought it best to see that Ange-Marie had as little trouble as possible. It was to be business as usual, right from the day our grandfather died and Henri caught the madam of that place cheating!’
So much for Monsieur Henri Masson’s respectability! ‘Have you ever been there?’
‘Have I ever prostituted myself? No! of course not. I … I was once very much in love but … but my fiance was killed in …’ He was not going to leave it now! ‘In Koln, in … in a fire, a terrible fire.’
Ah merde! He must go easy. ‘Tell me about it, mademoiselle. Tell me everything.’
A coldness came to her. He was not a priest, not Father Adrian. ‘There is nothing to tell. We met in Lubeck, went to Heidelberg and finally to Koln. I was a student on an exchange programme the Nazis … the Boches … ah, please forgive me, the Germans had offered. He was a student also, but German. The … the son of a prominent lawyer.’
‘And your brother knew of this romance?’
He would think the worst, though his voice had softened. ‘Yes. Yes, Henri knew of it.’
She had not been able to hide her bitterness. Had she been sleeping with the boy? Had the brother then found out? ‘And now, mademoiselle? This Monsieur Paul? Did he attend the cinema on the night of the fire?’
Ah good! Yes, good! The detective had overextended himself at last! ‘Monsieur Paul thinks film beneath anyone educated enough to read Moliere and the others, so I did not worry about him in that regard. Only Henri. Always Henri. My brother and I are very close, Inspector. Like two doves that mate for ever, we worry about each other when one is away.’
Two doves that mate for ever … ‘Have you still got the keys?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘This morning I took them to my superior, Madame Calmette.’
He’d be firm with her though he knew she was distraught. ‘Are you certain of this, mademoiselle? We shall have to ask Madame …’
Everything had slipped from her-everything! In defeat, she would have to answer. ‘As it is the holiday, the keys are in my briefcase at home.’
‘Good! Then together we will pay the Lycee du Parc a little visit. Since the custodian is ill, we should have the school to ourselves.’
‘I know my rights, Inspector. I do not have to do this.’
‘It would be best, but if you wish me to get the magistrate’s approval, I will.’
The couple had been selected for ‘special treatment’ using ‘reinforced interrogation’, all of it ‘legalized’ by the SD’s Berlin decree of 12 July 1942.
Poor Louis had thought Boemelburg would put a temporary stop to it. All Barbie had had to say to the chief was that he had good reasons to suspect Robichaud and Elaine Gauthier had connections with the Resistance. Never mind the Salamander, never mind the threat of another fire.
For now, work on the woman and keep the man no matter how much he shouts or rages-that’s what Boemelburg would have said. Unleash the terror. Ensure that the Occupier would be hated as never before and eventually driven out, ah yes. In his heart of hearts, Kohler knew it to be the absolute truth.
On 28 November a Wehrmacht soldier had been shot and wounded by two young men on bicycles in the place Bellecour. It was Barbie’s task to put a stop to it and the son of a bitch would use any method he could.
Kohler didn’t know what to do. They had stripped Madame Gauthier and had forced her to her knees beside the tub. They had bound her wrists so tightly she could not move them. The dogs were restless and kept going up to her …
Somehow he found his voice. ‘Frau Weidling really was in that cinema on the night of the fire, Herr Obersturmfuhrer. She was absent from her hotel at 4 p.m. and was in Croix Rousse to watch the tenement fire. Why not ask her to tell you about those other fires? Lubeck, eh, Frau Weidling? A Salamander and Claudine Bertrand …’
It was Barbie who unexpectedly said, ‘Perhaps a few answers are in order, Frau Weidling.’
‘I … I don’t know what you mean, Herr Obersturmfuhrer?’
‘I think you do,’ he said, not sparing her.
She stiffened. Then yes-yes, I was at the cinema but not to meet anyone! Johann was busy. I thought to take in a film but soon realized there were no subtitles. Besides, it was a stupid film. I left almost as soon as I got there.’
‘I’ll bet you did,’ breathed Kohler, ‘and in one hell of a hurry.’
Barbie watched her closely. Her fingers shook as she tried to find a cigarette in the package beside his cap. Irritably flicking the lighter several times, she finally got it going.
Exhaling through her nostrils, she tried to steady herself, tried to think. ‘I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t.’
Barbie nodded curtly toward Madame Gauthier but abruptly Frau Weidling set the cigarette aside and reached for her fur coat. ‘I must go now, Herr Obersturmfuhrer. Johann will be wondering where I am.’
‘Do it,’ said Barbie quietly.
She was desperate. ‘I … I can’t. It’s … It’s not the same. Johann would …’
‘Disown you?’ asked Barbie.
Why was he doing this to her? Why? ‘Yes. Yes, that is so.’
Barbie wasn’t about to leave it. ‘But why would he do such a thing?’
She could no longer look at any of them. ‘Because he … he would feel that I had betrayed him.’
‘That’s interesting. Was Leiter Weidling in the audience at that cinema, Frau Weidling?’ asked Barbie.
When she didn’t answer, he shrieked it at her and she said, ‘Johann is … is an extremely jealous man, Herr Obersturmfuhrer. My driver went to tell him where I was. They … they were waiting with the car in the place Terreaux when … when I came out of the cinema. There was no problem, no fire. We started back to the hotel, but when we reached place Bellecour, Johann heard the alarm and … and we returned to find the cinema in flames.’
‘And where were you last night?’
‘At the hotel in my room until … until the fire. I had gone out earlier but … but came back because … because I wanted to be alone.’
‘Then do it,’ said Barbie. ‘You have nothing to be afraid of.’
‘I … I can’t. I mustn’t!’
‘Do it!’ he shrieked. She leapt. The fur coat fell. The cigarette was snatched up and … and …
When the scream came from Madame Gauthier, it filled the room and set the dogs to barking viciously. ‘Tell them,’ wept Kohler. ‘Ah nom de Jesus-Christ, Robichaud, don’t be so stubborn! Do it for her sake.’
‘There is nothing to tell and I have nothing to say.’
They were alone in the Lycee du Parc, just the two of them, the detective and herself. Was it the last time she would ever walk these endless corridors and hear her own steps amid the maze of classrooms? wondered Martine Charlebois. Up some stairs, down others, the skirting boards of darkly stained, vertical tongue-and-groove scuffed and dented by the shoes and boots of boys who so often thought they were prisoners. Elsewhere, in another part entirely, the coveys of jabbering girls rushing along to a destiny they knew not. The smell of them so different from that of the boys. No lipstick, no varnish on her nails, the girls assessing her with the harsh cruelty of their tender years; the boys also but in such a different way and, if a skirt was accidentally raised above the knee when sitting, or a button of a blouse had come undone, or sweat dampened the underarms, they would laugh silently and rut with her in their minds or talk openly about it to the others in whispers. Ah yes, but she did not dislike them doing this or the way they stared at her breasts. Indeed, these incidents brought their little pleasures for at least then she knew she was still attractive.