J. Janes - Salamander

Louis would toss in a bit of history! ‘There wasn’t anyone else around but our archer and here there isn’t anyone either!’

Ah yes, it was quite quiet. All the activity was behind them.

Henri Masson had accepted stone busts that could seldom find a buyer. They were of the kings and queens of France and their children, of generals and politicians, great thinkers and great artists, musicians and writers. And he had gathered them on tiers of benches in a separate chamber that was lined with stone beyond the stacks of old furniture, paintings, packing cases and other things. It was cold and there was a smell that was most distinct. Ah no …

Hanging from a string, attached to the lamp high in the arch of the vault, were the collapsed remains of at least three scorched condoms.

‘Louis …’

As yet they could not see much else. Only those stone faces that sat as in final judgement, silent and all staring down at the person on the floor between them.

A bare foot, a cast-off shoe … some scattered female clothing and, in a heap, the sky-blue dress with all its underthings.

Ange-Marie Rachline was huddled in an armchair, off to one side of them. Hermann threw an anxious glance her way. The woman wasn’t moving. She was just staring at them as those busts were staring at someone else.

He stepped away. ‘Ah merde , Louis, look.’

Leiter Weidling’s wife was naked and lying face up-spread-eagled beneath the condoms with her wrists and ankles securely tied to the stone legs of the benches. And the water that had dripped out of the condoms above had fallen on her skin to remind her of the phosphorus, and when this had burned its way through the thin rubber, it, too, had fallen on her.

She’d been gagged and must have arched her back as she stiffened. The burns were horrible. The flesh had been eaten away until the blood had finally put out the flames or the phosphorus had been consumed. There was little left but a cavity between her breasts, nothing but entrails where her navel had been …

‘Cover her, Hermann. There are some rugs. Let me have a moment with Madame Rachline.’

‘That one didn’t get here soon enough, Louis. The shears are still in her hands. He must have done it late last night or early this morning.’

She’d have killed Charlebois if she could have. The childhood friend from the seaside at Concarneau was bitter.

‘Look, Inspector, I really didn’t think he had had anything to do with the fires. That was all past. Martine … ah, that one detested me. I thought she was crazy saying the things she did. Dragging it all up. I … Would I honestly have helped him in the slightest, knowing I had two children to care for?’

‘You knew Frau Weidling had been with Claudine at La Belle Epoque not once but several times since coming to Lyon.’

‘Yes, I knew.’

‘You knew that Henri Charlebois secretly watched them. Come, come, madame, you could not have been unaware of this.’

Vomit rose in her throat, and she turned away suddenly as she swallowed hard. Burning, it made her eyes smart. ‘I swear I didn’t, Inspector. Henri … he has always had his own set of keys. I … I never thought of his doing this. Surely one of the others would have seen him?’

‘A Salamander, madame? A man who could stand over you while you slept?’

Dear Jesus forgive her. Henri in the house, Henri with the children …

‘Madame, what has happened to your husband, please?’

‘Emile? What … what the hell has he to do with this?’

St-Cyr gave her a moment. He would draw up an armchair, a thing with the stuffing sticking out of it. ‘The past always preconditions the present, madame. Your husband left you destitute. Henri Charlebois remembered his childhood friend.’

‘Henri was never my lover, Inspector. He could not possibly be the father of my children.’

He tossed the hand of dismissal. ‘Ah no, of course not, but he knew who the father was, madame, and on the death of his grandfather, he imparted this little bit of knowledge to your husband.’

Ah damn him! ‘Henri … Henri Masson …’

‘Did not just take advantage of Claudine, but yourself also.’

She did not look away but into the past so deeply he could hear the sound of the waves on the beach of memory. ‘Claudine was the youngest, Henri the oldest. She was anxious to be friends, so submitted to things she might not otherwise have done. We … we discovered that fire sexually aroused her and that Henri liked to watch her. He would … would bring the flame up to her skin again and again as he … he brought her to orgasm. It became a compulsion with him-she was only nine when it started, twelve when it ended and it … it was a sickness in which I shared in the desperation of my own loneliness, but … but I could not stand to be burned. For me, the nearness of the flame only made me scream.’

‘But when brought close to another, madame, did it sexually excite you also?’

Vehemently she shook her head-could not help but look toward the alcove of the stone busts. ‘It fascinated me to watch them both! That’s why I let him do it to her!’

‘When … when, exactly, was it that Henri Masson, Senior, discovered his grandson playing with matches?’

The children would have to be told. They’d hear things-the girls at La Belle Epoque would be bound to say something. ‘After … after several fires had been mysteriously lit. A pavilion, a boatshed, a trawler, a barn, a house in the country in which five people perished. Monsieur Henri, Senior, found us among the dunes. They were not big dunes. They were just little hills and we ought to have known better. Claudine was lying on the ground and I was letting her hold me by the hands while Henri … Henri caressed her naked body with the flame.’

‘And then, madame?’ he asked so quietly she blinked.

‘He beat us savagely. Claudine most of all but myself also, over his knee with my … my underpants around my ankles and my dress pushed up over my head. After this, we stopped going to Concarneau for the summers. Later … later she became his mistress but Monsieur Henri, Senior, was never satisfied, Inspector, and took me as well.’

So much for the quiet undercurrents beneath the veneer of Lyonnaise respectability. ‘Was Martine Charlebois the one to tell him about the three of you?’

Again his voice … ah, it was so gentle. ‘Yes. She was only six at the time and did not understand what was going on. Much later, and just before the old man died, he made Father Adrian swear to watch over Henri. No one could have foreseen that Father Adrian would take advantage of Martine and others, Inspector, but Henri found out about it and now … now so many have died, I must blame myself for not having stopped him.’

‘She knew her brother had caused the fires that eventually killed her fiance.’

‘Yes. Claudine went to Lubeck first, but I did not even think Henri had also done so. He’s away so much of the time.’

‘Did you kill Robichaud with those?’

The shears. ‘Robichaud … ah no. No, of course not. Nor did Martine. Henri saw his little sister with them when we went to the shop. He … he must have …’

‘And now, madame? What will he do?’

She shrugged. She tried not to meet his eyes and failed. ‘He will kill himself and perhaps others. He’s lost her-don’t you see? For him, Martine was everything I could no longer be, and the irony of it is, Inspector, that Henri Charlebois is my half-brother.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Look, I wouldn’t have known as a child, would I? Oh for sure I saw the similarities-you’ve only to look at my son and me. But my mother, whom I adored, never gave me so much as a hint.’