Sandman (11 page)

‘
Optavisse, optatus esse
,' announced Sister Céline from behind the Iectem, tall and straight and determined to drill the students even though most were in tears and ashen at the brutal loss of one or perhaps even
two
of their classmates.

‘To have desired, to have been desired.'

‘
Optaturus esse, optatum iri
.'

‘To be going to desire, to be going to be desired.'

‘
Optat!
' said the sister sharply, causing them all to lower their eyes and voices in modesty.

‘He desires, he is desiring.'

‘
Optabit!
'

‘He … he … he
will
desire, Sister. He … he will be desiring.'

There were more tears, more burying of the faces in the arms and gnashing of teeth. Ah
Gott im Himmel
, stormed Kohler inwardly, how could she do it to them? Were they all little sluts to her?

‘Easy,
mon vieux
,' cautioned St-Cyr, and softly closing the door of the classroom, left them both with a lasting image of Sister Céline, one that was haunted by tragedy, gaunt and raw and full of anger, the woman not unhandsome but street-wise, they thought, and ever watchful. A woman in her mid-thirties whose every look and gesture reeked of punishment to be meted out for sins imagined and otherwise.

The firm round chin and not unsensuous lips had only added to the fierceness of a straight and defiant nose, high and prominent cheekbones and wide-set deep brown eyes under brows that in another would have been an asset.

Kohler could imagine her blowing cigarette smoke through both nostrils as she had read the signs while still going on with her class and had sized the two of them up as if they were sailors in place Pigalle: five francs in exchange for ten minutes, or a couple of cigarettes, such was the scarcity of tobacco.

Not a sound was heard from beyond the door that had opened to put them so close to the sister she could not have avoided looking sideways at them in stark assessment.

‘Inspectors,
please
,' whispered the little nun who had met them at the gate and had let them into God's sanctuary, she too upset and unsettled to object when they had asked to be conducted here without permission.

‘Now you may take us to the Mother Superior,' said St-Cyr. ‘Please leave this matter for me to explain. There will be no problem and you need say nothing of it, since I doubt very much if Sister Céline will mention it.'

‘
Then you do not know her, Inspector!
' blurted the nun, swiftly crossing herself and begging God's forgiveness under her breath as she hurried away and they were forced to follow.

But once outdoors, and under a colonnaded walkway, she paused and, with eyes downcast, confessed. ‘Sister Céline has not had an easy life, Inspectors. Her younger sister, Violette, is a woman of the streets,
une fille de joie—
a
paillasse
, a mattress, in the brothel of the rue Chabanais. Sister Céline is wise in the ways of sin and is only trying to warn our girls to be wary of it.'

‘And the Mother Superior, Sister, does she agree with the warnings being given?'

‘No. The … the two of them do constant battle over it. Innocence against reality, ethereal love against life's harshest truths.'

From one stone gateway to another, the inner courtyard of the convent school and Church of Our Lady of Divine Humility and Obedience held a world within its walls, a formal garden and
potager
of utter peace and contemplation. Now that the snow had been swept, sparrows fed on thin crumbs at the feet of the statues of the Christ and the Blessed Virgin, and in the hush of the garden, whose every branch and line of stone was defined, their tiny voices were muted.

Alone and with her back to them, the Mother Superior stood out so sharply in black she was set in memory against the grey of sky and spiked-iron walls and the whiteness of the snow.

‘Reverend Mother …' hazarded the sister. ‘Forgive me for disturbing your meditations, but two detectives are here to see you.'

‘Detectives?' she asked without turning.

‘Yes, Mother. I've told them Nénette Vernet did not come to school this morning as she should have.'

‘Then leave us, Sister. Please return to your duties. The brasses is it their turn today?'

‘Yes, Mother.'

The nun retreated swiftly with head demurely bowed, and they waited until the colonnades had swallowed her up. Only then did the Mother Superior turn. ‘Messieurs, this is a terrible hour for us. Our little Andrée taken from us so brutally? Our Nénette … What has become of her? A
voyou
, the Sister Céline would call that one. A delinquent, a guttersnipe, a picker-up of refuse. Never have I seen a child so impulsively committed to collecting the incidental things of life's tiny misfortunes. A button, a badge, a bit of string … Dear blessed Jesus, what did that child
not
pick up?'

They gave her time. They knew she was greatly distressed and had been trying to come to grips with things, since
Paris-Soir
and all the other rags had somehow managed a photograph of the victim and had splashed the news and her true identity across the city to pay the
flics
back for beating them up and denying them access to the murder.

She was not young or old, thought St-Cyr, but of that vintage the last war had left with a lover buried or the self rejected in favour of another after too long an absence.

He had seen so many of them but told himself the vocation itself might well have called her. A former nurse perhaps. That, too, passed through his mind, for she had a very capable look about her. Determined and ready to face things at all costs but cautious, too. A narrow face, sharp nose, pale skin, blonde brows and sincere deep blue eyes that missed little, ah yes.

‘You must forgive me,' she said. ‘Tragedy is so commonplace these days you would think we would be ready for it but'—she shrugged and tried to smile—‘you find us ill prepared. What can I do to help? Please, you have only to ask.'

‘Then let us walk a little in your garden, Reverend Mother,' said St-Cyr. ‘My partner, Herr Kohler, must make a few telephone calls. Would it be all right if he was to return indoors?'

To spy on us, she wondered, to seek answers where … where none could possibly be? ‘Of course. In spite of the shortages, we are blessed or punished with two telephones but only one line out. The first is in my office next to the infirmary, the other in that of Father Jouvand, who seldom uses his but insists it be there so that he can complain about its ringing. Sister Dominique, who brought you to me, will take you to either.' Why had they simply not asked Dominique to allow them to use the telephone first? Was it to be a case of divide and conquer? It must be.

‘Father Jouvand's, I think,' grunted Kohler, fiddling with his fedora and unable to raise his eyes from the crucifix that hung around her neck and was so like the one he had found in Nénette Vernet's desk.

They waited for him to leave and when, at last, he, too, had been swallowed up, they walked a little. To put her at ease, St-Cyr found delight in simply beauty, a branch, a holly berry capped with snow, a single rose hip that had somehow missed the harvest but was still delightfully piquant and beneficial for the health.

He would tell her as little as possible. She knew this now and said, ‘We share a love of the natural world, Inspector, but would you do something for me?'

‘Of course.'

‘A cigarette—have you one? I … I haven't indulged in years but suddenly feel the need.'

‘I'm not making you nervous, am I?' he asked, and knew at once she regretted his asking.

‘A little, yes. It's not often detectives pay us a visit.'

As he lit the cigarette for her, he said, ‘Andrée Noireau was to have taken the train to Chamonix on Thursday, Reverend Mother. Why did she not do so?'

She filled her lungs with smoke, felt the nicotine rushing to her brain and could not help but remember the last war and a moment so terrifying she had never had another cigarette until now. ‘She was ill—well, too ill, I felt, to make the journey. I had her taken to the infirmary—last winter's flu was so terrible I wasn't taking any chances. Her temperature was normal. At first I felt the excitement of seeing her parents after such a long absence might have upset her, but then she began to complain of terrible headaches and pains in her stomach. Sister Edith heard her retching in the toilets. Warmth and rest were called for.'

‘And the Vernets, Reverend Mother? Were they notified? I understand Monsieur Vernet had used his influence to obtain a
laissez-passer
for the child. They thought she had taken the train.'

‘But … but they knew the child was here? I telephoned the house and spoke directly to Nénette. I asked her to tell her aunt and uncle the trip was out of the question.'

‘And when did you telephone?'

‘Why, on Thursday at … at noon. We had had the doctor in. He had thought it might be the child's appendix. The threat of an operation caused poor Andrée to weep—ah, such weeping! I also asked Nénette to have her uncle notify the parents, since it … it is impossible for most to telephone to the
zone interdite
[the forbidden zone along the Swiss and Spanish borders, and in the northern and western coastal areas]. Was Madame Vernet too busy to remember? Was she having her hair done or … Forgive me. I speak out of turn. That wasn't called for. It was wrong of me.'

Too busy running around, was that it? wondered the detective—she could see him thinking this as he took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, wanting to prolong the interview. He would not see her as she had seen herself in that last war, with hands bound behind her back and the rifles of a German firing squad pointed at her. He would not know that the smell of pipe tobacco would simply reinforce such a terrible memory.

Puffing away at that thing, he motioned affably with it and said, ‘Gardens like these, they are the oases to which the soul must come to drink even as the Cross calls us to prayer.'

In times of strife—she knew this was what he meant and that he had noted her solitary presence in the garden and would seek his answers even in the house and school of God. A scraper of mould, then, from the bread of life, searching for the truth, horrible as it must so often be.

The Kaiser's men had not executed her on that day. Their captain had only wanted to frighten her into revealing where the latest French positions were, a thing she had adamantly refused to reveal. He had taken off his cap and had bowed in apology, the pipe of meerschaum then, the smell of the tobacco the same.

‘Inspector, little Andrée secretly left us well before dawn yesterday while we were all at Matins and thought her sleeping peacefully. Sister Edith went to check on her at eight a.m. the new time. I telephoned the Vernets only to find Madame fast asleep and the monsieur not yet returned from the previous evening, an engagement of some sort. The housekeeper told me Nénette was walking the dog in the Bois, a task I knew only too well the child detested. Ah! many times I have cautioned patience and said it was but a small duty in return for all her dear aunt and uncle had done for her, but Nénette hated that dog with a passion. Could the two girls have met in the Bois? They must have, mustn't they?'

Had Vernet been dallying with Liline Chambert on Saturday night? he wondered, but asked, ‘Did you send the sisters out to look for the child?'

‘Two by two. Nearly all of us went.'

‘Sister Céline?'

‘With Sister Dominique.'

He considered this and she could see him carefully filing the information away. Again he motioned with the pipe. ‘Andrée's overcoat, Reverend Mother. The child wore her school uniform, yes, but …'

‘But not its overcoat. On Sundays, and at other special times, the girls may wear another if it pleases them and they possess one. Andrée's was dark red with a matching beret. The scarf will have been a soft grey mohair, the gloves of brown leather. Why, please, do you ask, since you must already have seen it?'

He did not answer, this detective. Her cigarette was all but done, and she realized sadly that he had noted how necessary it had been.

‘The war,' she said, excusing herself and not really caring if he understood how terrified she had been back then. ‘Why ask about the coat?' she demanded.

Irritably, cigarette ash was flicked aside and then the thing extinguished between her fingers as if old habits could never die.

They had reached a bench in the farthest corner of the garden. ‘It's too cold to sit and I must go in,' she said. ‘These shoes of mine, the soles are now so thin even God cannot stop their total destruction, nor has He yet answered my prayers to replace them.'

‘Had Andrée a change purse with her, Reverend Mother?'

‘You've not seen her coat, then, have you?' she said, dismayed that he would not take her fully into his confidence.

‘The girls switched coats. Both wore their school uniforms. They were, we believe, being followed but knew of this well beforehand and had planned for it.'

‘Being followed …? But … but by whom? This Sandman?'

‘Everything suggests it, Reverend Mother. Well, perhaps not everything.'

‘Then the switch was made to save the one and not the other? Is that how it was?
Tell
me!'

She was quivering.

St-Cyr found the note and handed it to her. ‘
Je t'aime
…?' she said with tears welling up.

‘Both believed the switch would save Nénette, who must have been the target.'

‘The target …? Then the Sandman, he … he has killed the wrong child and those silly, foolish girls believed if the switch was made, he would realize his mistake and let Andrée go? Is that how it was? And if so, why,
please
, would he do such a thing when he chooses his victims at random?'