Gingerly he caught hold of the bag with both hands. He must not squeeze it. Somehow he must stop it from dripping. He must not let air reach the phosphorus. Air, he said. Air.
Awkwardly he ducked his head under and turned to face upwards. A pin-hole … yes, yes. A droplet hit him in the eye. Another fell on his forehead. A third on his cheek … Stop it. You must stop it from sweating, he shouted at himself and demanded, How …? How?
He closed his lips about the protuberance and put the tip of his tongue against it, but the bag moved and gave a sigh, and when he looked up, it was into a pair of stunning green eyes that silently watched him with animated curiosity. Ah merde! ‘What time is it?’ he asked, his throat dry.
She sat up. ‘Exactly three in the afternoon, Inspector.’
Sunday? Ah no … ‘Where is Hermann?’ he asked. ‘Hermann, mademoiselle? My partner.’
She frowned. She very nearly burst into tears. ‘Well?’ he asked, only to hear her blurt, ‘Next door, monsieur. Next door.’
‘Were we drugged or was it simply exhaustion?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘Come, come mademoiselle, I must have the truth.’
Tears flooded from her, making her shoulders and breasts shake. ‘Madame has gone after the Salamander, monsieur. The Salamander! Your friend, he is-’
‘My clothes. Ah nom de Jesus-Christ, mademoiselle, where the hell are they?’
‘The kitchen. They have been cleaned and … and ironed. You must stop madame, monsieur. You must stop her before it is too late. Already it is hours since she has left the premises. Hours!’
He ran. He stumbled and fell. When he reached the door, he grabbed it to steady himself and catch a breath. ‘The girl that was with us, mademoiselle?’ he managed, tossing a look her way. Ah, he was still so dizzy …
‘Here. Here with me, asleep. Hurry, Inspector. Hurry!’
Hermann was next door in Madame Rachline’s work room. He was with the children, over by the big work table, and he was not happy. ‘Louis, Gestapo Lyon will now be after him. I’ve just filed our report with Boemelburg and the Chief’s definitely worried. Apparently Knab and the other bigwigs really are going to attend the concert. Also, the shears, if they were returned to this room, have now been taken again.’
Maudit! ‘But to where, Hermann. Where?’
Though dressed, Louis was still shaky. The house on the park. That’s what the children say but me, ah, I don’t think so. The dress she was working on is gone, Louis. Did she deliver it to the Hotel Bristol? The kids don’t know why she’d have done a thing like that, given what’s happened, but me, I think it’s possible. There’s also a spill of Cs on the floor over there. A box from next door was ripped open and a few handfuls taken.’
‘Cs?’
‘Riding coats,’ blurted the boy, hastily wiping his eyes only to release more tears. ‘Did you think we would not know what has been going on next door for nearly all our lives? A whorehouse, Paulette! A brothel! Our mother!’
Condoms, ah merde! He got down on his knees before the children and took their hands in his. ‘Now listen, your mother was forced into this. I cannot tell you why because we do not have the time, eh? We must know where your Uncle Henri might have gone. She will know of it. That is why the shears have been taken again.’
The shears … the scissors!
The girl screwed up her face in tears and doubt. ‘The … the Marche aux Puces, then. In Villeurbanne, monsieur. Uncle … Uncle Henri, he … he always goes there on Sunday afternoons to hunt for things.’
‘He … he has a warehouse,’ blurted the boy. ‘It is the one with … with the bust of Nero above the door.’
‘Caesar, Rene. It is the head and shoulders of Caesar Augustus but … but there are many of these and … and all of them, they look much the same.’
St-Cyr’s heart sank at the prospect of what might lie ahead. ‘The flea market, Hermann. It is on the Rhone well to the other side of the Parc de la Tete d’Or.’
They managed to hire a fiacre but it was drawn by a bronchial horse and would not go fast enough. Out on the pont Alphonse Juin, they commandeered a gazogene, a farm lorry laden with produce for black-market restaurants, only to have Hermann leap from behind the wheel to tell the driver of the fiacre to steam his horse and use some friar’s balsam. ‘Here … here, take this bottle my partner had in his pocket. Use a bucket of hot water and a sack over the head, and do it or I’ll come back to give you the full treatment myself.’
‘Me?’ asked the terrified old man. The driver of the lorry was starting to sit up in the road.
‘You, you son of a bitch!’ snarled the Gestapo’s Bavarian protector. That mare of yours has a bad chest. A cold, eh?’ With the ham of his good hand, Hermann shoved the poor bastard’s nose up into the air and slapped him soundly. ‘Gestapo,’ he breathed. ‘Don’t forget it!
‘You French!’ he cursed as he got back behind the wheel. ‘How can you people treat animals like that? It’s no wonder you lose all the wars you drag other people into!’
Ah nom de Dieu, what was one to say? At the height of a crisis, the doctoring of a horse!
The gazogene crawled by the streets, the velos had plenty of time to get out of the way when the horn was honked. The ice lay in treacherous sheets that sometimes helped and sometimes didn’t. And when they got to the park, Hermann didn’t bother with the roads any more but drove straight overland. Ah merde! Merde! ‘Not across the lake, Hermann! The ice, it will not be-’
‘Hang on, Louis. We’ll go round it.’ Bump … bump … bump …
The Marche aux Puces looked like a medieval fairground. Replete with heraldry and bunting, it was at a bend where the Canal de Jonage met the Rhone. There were gazogenes and velo-taxis, fiacres, wagons, sleighs and tram-cars, those vehicles of the Germans too, for several in uniform could be seen. Tents and marquees, kiosks and more permanent structures in rows, and people … people everywhere. Crowds of them. All colours of clothing. All sorb of faces. Perhaps four … maybe five or even six hectares and, rising right in the middle of it, the blue-washed, glass-and-iron cupola of the main building. Verdammt! ‘Let’s stick together, Louis,’ said Hermann, exasperated by what lay before them. ‘We’d better this time. Barbie won’t have had time yet to get the troops out in force. Charlebois …’
‘Will be dressed as a woman?’ asked the Surete.
‘A woman?’
‘Yes. It is what I think must have happened at the cinema on the night of the fire.’
‘And at those other fires in the Reich?’
Only the barest nod was given as the crowd was surveyed. ‘Claudine Bertrand would be bringing a special friend for Frau Weidling to play with.’
‘A Salamander,’ grunted Hermann, checking the Walther P38 that was still miraculously with him in spite of the dunking in the river. ‘Louis, hand me your Lebel.’
‘Is it that your weapon is all gummed up, Hermann, and you have need of mine before the shooting starts?’
‘No, but I’m going to have to strip it down and oil it later on.’
‘Good! My Lebel is in the river. Me, I am sorry for the loss but still have my bracelets.’
‘Then let’s get going. I’ll cover you.’
‘Hours, Hermann. It has been hours since we came so close to the Salamander and last saw Madame Rachline.’
Was it a warning of some kind? ‘And in about another hour this place is going to be swarming with Gestapo and it’ll be dark.’
‘He’ll have friends.’