J. Janes: Salamander

As was His custom, God did not answer. One of the occupants had leapt to his death. The others had either made it down the stairs or had been taken down the ladders.

Gingerly stepping on to a joist, St-Cyr began to pick his way along the corridor, turning first to the right and then to the left when things got shaky.

The middle flat had not been occupied by the man who had jumped. There was nothing, no furniture, a puzzle until he noticed the charred buckets that had once held paint or glue for wallpaper, the remains of the ladders and bags of patching plaster. Redecoration in these times of shortages? The black market for materials. He heaved an immense sigh of relief at the prospect of finding no more bodies.

When he came to the doorway on the other side of the building, he hesitated, then ran his eyes swiftly over everything, for here the fire had left a few things: toppled, high-backed armchairs that would have had lace antimacassars, the jade-green fabric scorched and then drenched by the hoses; a marble-topped table, now cracked in half, an alabaster vase and bust, both broken and on the floor. In spite of the stench, he imagined he could smell the place as it must once have been, the dust of ages, the closeness of faded linen mother or grandmother had left to an only daughter, the sharpness of camphor, wine, cheese in days past, and once-forbidden cigarette smoke. Dust filtering slowly through the sunlight that would, on those rare days, have streamed in through the windows.

Ornate, three-globed lamps on tall, thick standards of Napoleonic brass had been toppled over and smashed. Family portraits had been flung onto the floor and were now jammed into the corners behind all the rest of the debris.

The brass of a ruby-coloured chandelier had been blown right off its moorings by the pressure of the hoses.

Again that feeling of dread came to him, tightening the stomach muscles and telling him his instinct had been right. Smoke damage was everywhere. Hot … it must have been so hot.

The bed frame was of iron, the coverlet and blankets soaked through and yellowed. Only a sodden curl of dark brown hair showed. Cursing his luck, he eased the covers back and saw at once that the woman was naked. Flat on her stomach, with her arms stretched out above her head and all but hidden beneath the pillows, ah merde.

Her wrists were tied to the ironwork, her ankles too. Her hips, thighs and seat were chunky. A woman of forty-five or fifty, he thought and when he found her purse, found her name and asked, Why did he not free you?

There was a rag in her mouth, the jaws clamped so tightly they would have to be broken to free it. Breath held in outrage, St-Cyr began slowly to examine her back and buttocks for signs of a whipping.

Finding none, he asked, Did the fire interrupt things? And then, gently and aloud, ‘Who was he, Mademoiselle Aurelle? The one who jumped, or someone else? You were lonely, isn’t that right-please, I’m only guessing, of course. But … but you invited him in for a yuletide glass of marc perhaps, and a cup of that lousy acorn water everyone hates but is forced to call coffee. You were thinking of a little romance, even sex perhaps, but had planned to tell him you would have to go to the late-evening Mass.’

Terrified, she would have lain there stiff with fear, begging him not to hurt her until, having heard enough, he had stuffed the rag into her mouth to shut her up. Then had come the cry of Fire, and he had left her.

Ah nom de Dieu , such were the ways of some, but was the murder-he would have to call it that-more directly related to the fire?

There was nothing of importance in the other flat. Downstairs, there were only two flats, one much larger than the other and therefore better furnished. The owner’s? he asked himself, flicking a doubtful glance at the ceiling, still thinking of that woman. Asking again, Who was he, madame? Someone you had only just met by chance or someone you met on the stairs nearly every day?

A copper bathtub rested on a black-and-white tiled floor, the bidet and toilet in another room as usual. A Meissen clock, Louis XV armchairs with tapestry coverings … A settee in plush maroon velvet, a large canvas of a street scene now in shreds. Smoke and water damage everywhere. It was as if the pompiers had taken out their anger on the place, hammering everything in sight with the force of their hoses.

Again he thought of the woman upstairs, of how she must have tried to scream for help and strained at the ropes. She would have been only too aware of what was happening to the building.

The place Terreaux was now deep in darkness, with only the blue-washed glass of occasional streetlamps and pinpoint torches to guide the way. The black-out, of course. On November eleventh, the Wehrmacht had crossed the Demarcation Line thus ending the existence of the Unoccupied Zone and bringing with them the SS, the Gestapo and all the rest of it.

He wondered if the girl with the bicycle had come back. Suddenly the need to find her was overwhelming and he went down the stairs to the street, and quickly out across the square. Stood where she must have stood, asked, Why did you run away?

Though the crowd had thinned, there were still onlookers, their silhouettes dark and muffled in the darkness. He shone his light around. He gasped, ‘Mademoiselle …?’ She threw up a forearm to shield her eyes. For perhaps two seconds panic gripped her, then she ran with the bicycle, hopped on, even as he yelled for her to stop and ran after her.

It was no use. The ice … the ice. Ah merde ! He slipped and fell heavily. Even so, the memory of her face lingered, the fear in her eyes, the tightness of her lips, the dismay at being discovered.

She had dropped something and when he saw it clearly, he said, ‘Not you, mademoiselle. Ah no, not you.’

It was the yellow work card all prostitutes must carry.

They shared a cigarette, just the two of them, in the darkness of the square beyond the fountain. ‘Louis, this student of Weidling’s, this Salamander of Gestapo Mueller-hey, where did Berlin get a code-name like that?’

It was a problem, Berlin’s knowing things they ought rightly to have shared. ‘Salamanders are slippery, Hermann. Some can change the colour of their skins so as to blend in with their surroundings.’

Kohler handed him the cigarette. ‘Stop being so evasive. You found something.’

And so did you, said St-Cyr to himself. ‘A visitor, yes. I am almost certain a woman went up to the projectionist’s booth.’

‘One of our two women?’

The cigarette was returned. ‘Perhaps, but then … Ah,’ he shrugged, ‘nothing is definite, my old one. Nothing. There was another woman, but that is a separate matter and I think the two are unrelated.’

‘What about the girl with the bicycle? Did you find anything?’

‘Me? Ah no, nothing. A student perhaps, but a teacher, I think.’ He would keep the yellow work card private for the moment. ‘And you, my friend? What did you find?’

Kohler knew he would have to say something but he need not reveal everything. ‘A Lebel. The old Model 1873. I dropped it into a sewer over there.’

‘ Merci . I am most grateful, Hermann. The less fuss the better.’

‘Leiter Weidling wasn’t telling us everything, Louis, and neither was Robichaud.’

The cigarette had now burned down to the fingernails and could be passed only with great difficulty. ‘Lubeck, Heidelberg and Koln,’ said St-Cyr as if lost in thought and asking questions of himself. ‘The same technique, Hermann, yet I must ask why gasoline was not splashed so thoroughly on the staircases to the balcony? Was it that the arsonist, this Salamander perhaps, or one of those two women who came in late, wanted to save the other?’