Sandman (18 page)

‘We do not yet know, Madame …?'

‘Therrien. Isabelle.'

‘Madame, please take us back to yesterday morning. Nénette went out early to walk the dog.'

‘It was something I told her she had to do since the Reverend Mother had recommended it, but the child was
not
to leave the garden.
That
was forbidden, not that she paid such orders any mind. Not any more.'

‘But did she meet Andrée Noireau, and did Andrée then spend the morning hiding in the garden folly waiting until the two of them could visit the Jardin d'Acclimatation alone?'

Alone and without Liline who was to have accompanied Nénette …

The woman glanced at the chef, for support, perhaps, and forgiveness. She wouldn't be reporting any insubordination, was really very worried and had spoken angrily out of concern.

‘Nénette took the longest time, and when she came back, it was without the dog. I asked her where it was, and she said it had run off. “There are females in heat. You can't stop him when he gets a whiff of that. Don't you know anything?” she said and pouted. Ah! so much had been going on. The murders, the claims of knowing who had done them, I … I let the matter pass. I didn't give a damn about that silly dog. None of us did.'

‘She had tied it to a tree in the Bois, hoping it would be stolen and eaten, Inspector,' confessed Leon Kalfou. ‘I know—at least, I think I do—because she had often asked me for recipes. “How would one cook a dog, Kalfou?” she would say. “By roasting it on a spit? By boiling until tender or by braising?” I … I think even then, and it's a long time ago, she had planned to trap and eat dogs in the wild if necessary.'

But was it that she wanted to make sure the dog would not follow them and that if they did make their getaway, food would be at hand? A dog. The dog, Pompon.

He would have to go carefully. ‘When, exactly, did these questions of sustenance begin?'

Again they exchanged glances, the housekeeper urging caution with a slight lift of her left hand.

The chef shrugged. ‘Three weeks, a month ago perhaps. Yes, yes, now I remember. She asked if dogmeat would do for a Christmas feast. Roasted and basted with a sauce of apples, pears and ground chestnuts for sweetening. That child has a vivid imagination, Inspector. I would not, if I were you, place too much emphasis on whatever you have found in her coat pockets.'

‘I won't. Now I want the precise time, monsieur. Was it not early last November perhaps that the question of eating dog-meat began?'

Again a cautionary hand was raised slightly but he was ready for it and stood up abruptly. ‘Now,' he said, ‘your answer, madame.'

‘In … in the first week of November. Liline … Liline had been ill. I …'

‘The girl was pregnant, madame. Nénette must have realized it or at least have felt that something terrible had happened to Liline. She may have heard the girl crying in her room and gone in to her. It was then that the questions of dogmeat and other things began.'

Madame Therrien quickly crossed herself. ‘How did you know?'

Was it time to tell them about the death of Liline? he wondered and decided that it would have to wait a little longer. ‘I guessed, that is all. With crime one so often depends on intuition. Monsieur Vernet has been carrying on an affair with Mademoiselle Chambert and has confessed to this. For myself, I am surprised a man of his intelligence and position would not at least have taken precautions, but then …'

‘Then
what?
' snapped the housekeeper irritably.

The chef swallowed his tears.

‘Ah, it's nothing,' said the Sûreté, shrugging the matter off. ‘I was only wondering why that child is afraid to come home.'

And there it is, thought Isabelle Therrien sadly. A child whose dear friend is made pregnant by her father's brother, and whose other dear friend had been all but totally rejected by parents who had preferred to ski alone, and is now dead.

‘There was a tiepin,' she said. ‘It was bent and had been scraped or damaged. Nénette was convinced it was important, but I don't know where she found it, nor do I think she really knew who had stepped on it or why. She was too secretive, Inspector. She really has told us very little.'

‘Because she was afraid?' he asked, and saw them both exchange glances of alarm.

‘Afraid?' managed the woman. ‘But of what, please?'

‘Of the Sandman. This I know, confessed the chef, ‘because last Friday before supper she told me he would strike again. “And very close,” she said. “So close, Kalfou, you will feel the breath of him, but he will make a mistake and will have to let that one go.”'

But he hadn't. He had killed her friend, though that killing had not been entirely like all the others.

Kohler floored the Citroën. He cried out, ‘Giselle, I'm coming. Hang on, kid,' and shot across the avenue de l'Opéra, the beam of unblinkered headlamps piercing the darkness to dance illegally over the pavement, lighting up the startled faces of pedestrians. All gawking, all caught, trapped—
pinned
in the centre of the road—a
vélo-taxi
… another … an
autobus au gazogène
, a lorry … ‘
Ah shit!
' he cried, and slammed on the brakes.

The car slewed sideways. A gendarme blew his whistle and the beam from the headlamps made the man choke as the car slid towards him. Then the Citroën's
traction avant
grabbed paving blocks and tore down the rue des Pyramides to slew sideways again on the rue Saint-Honoré and come to a sliding stop.

‘
Verdammt!
' he cursed and, leaving the headlamps on, bolted out and up the steps to the Church of Saint-Roch.

Its massive doors were unyielding. Though he pounded on them, it made no difference. ‘Giselle,' he said, biting back her name and all the good things he had planned for her, the escape from Paris before it was too late and everything about this lousy Occupation came to an end. The false papers he still had to get for her and Oona and himself, the race still to plan, the crossing over into Spain.

And Louis? he asked, sucking in a breath as he ran up the passage Saint-Roch searching for another door … another door.

Louis would have to come with them. Louis wouldn't be allowed to stay in France, not with his name still wrongly embedded in the hit lists of certain Resistance cells. A mistake that Talbotte, the rotten son of a bitch, would be sure to use. ‘Ah
merde
, Louis … Louis, I need you.'

He pounded on a door that must be near the altar. He heaved on it and threw his shoulder against it, wiped tears from his face. ‘Giselle …' He coughed. ‘Ah, Christ, little one, what have I done to you?'

Things Louis had said about the Saint-Roch came rushing back, a tour nearly two and a half years ago, a lecture on the architecture of the world's ‘finest city'. ‘It is the paintings, the frescoes and the sculptures inside that are important, not the look of this place. It's a monolith of stone, a city block deep and, yes, not so pretty.'

The Assumption, the Nativity, the Purification of the Virgin and Return of the Prodigal Son
…

He pounded on the door and kicked at it. He cried out, ‘Debauville, I'll kill you if you harm her.'

Was she on her knees with that bastard saying prayers over her? Was she naked and freezing, a crucifix dangling between her splendid breasts, the black iron of it against the softness of her skin, her hands clasped, eyes closed, the dark lashes long and gently curving upwards a little? She was devout, had much to say about sin, her sins, was really not suited to the profession she had chosen. An innocent, though she did not like to think so. She had the nicest eyes, the clearest, most all-encompassing shade of violet. Jet-black hair and
Ave Maria, gratia plena; Dominus tecum
…

She could pray for hours when she felt the need to be absolved from her sins. Her knees would be red, the scourge giving her the innocence of a child until temptation again led her to stray.

When the torch beams of a Wehrmacht patrol, accompanied by several of Talbotte's men, caught up with him, his knuckles were bleeding and all he could manage was ‘Kohler, Gestapo Paris-Central, the Sandman, I think he's … he's in there with …'

He couldn't say it. He saw her in the Red Room at Madame Chabot's over on the rue Danton that first time, she innocently looking up at this giant from Bavaria who had said, ‘Kid, what the hell are you doing in a place like this?'

He had fallen for her and Louis hadn't liked the thought of it at all—still felt the affair suspect, saying under his breath, ‘You wait, you watch,
mon vieux
, and see if she doesn't return to it.'

The rain of rifle butts on all doors resounded within and when, at last, a terrified custodian reluctantly opened one of them, they poured inside and lit the place up until the high vault of the roof, the pillars, the paintings, sculptures and altar glowed. The Cross, the Virgin—Jesus nailed up there and
Suffer the little children to come unto me
…

‘A glove. A leather glove,' said a
flic
from Talbotte's nest, a viper. ‘The brown leather glove of a child, Monsieur the Inspector. Is it this for which you are searching while emptying the oceans of your eyes?'

The glove was lying on the floor at the foot of the steps that led up to the altar; next to it were a candle on its side and a small pool of now-congealed wax.

Giselle? he begged, and, picking up the glove, stared emptily at it.

‘The child?' he asked at last. ‘Ah
merde
… The “priest” must really be the Sandman.'

In the darkness of the child's bedroom the amber and gold of the dragonflies on the stained-glass lampshade finally glowed, but still Madame Vernet did not see him. Unsettled, she touched the waistcoat of the porcelain frog below the lamp and turned sharply as the Meissen clock on the mantelpiece chimed 9.00 p.m., Berlin Time.

‘Inspector …?' she said, but still St-Cyr wouldn't let himself answer, nor had she seen him yet. He wanted only to study her for a few moments, to watch as she searched the map of the city the child had put up on the wall above her desk, the woman following the lines from press clippings to the site of each of the Sandman's murders as if she could not stop herself until, at last, she had read again perhaps,
This one is next
.

If anyone had wanted to kill her niece, there it was in black and white:
Sunday afternoon, 10 January, the Jardin d'Acclimatation. I am certain of it
. Her little friend would be away in Chamonix. Liline Chambert would be busy, a girl in great trouble, a tragedy.

Alone in the Jardin, while she waited for Liline to return, the heiress would be easy prey.

But Andrée Noireau had not gone to Chamonix and the girls had known Nénette would be followed.

As he watched her, Madame Vernet let her gaze drop to the things he had laid out and, seeing the crumpled, empty tube of oil paint, hesitated before picking it up. ‘Liline, Inspector. She'll be able to tell you where Nénette got this.'

He did not answer and she silently cursed him for distrusting her, but where, please, was he? He had told them downstairs to send her up as soon as she had arrived home. Flustered and embarrassed, she had hardly had time to remove her coat and boots before climbing the stairs to pass by Liline's room, and reach Nénette's in this far corner of the house.

‘The pencil tin is from the same source,' she said and heard her voice falter. ‘It … it was just some man Liline met at one of her drawing classes at the Grande-Chaumière. He gave them to her. A German, a holder of the Iron Cross First-Class with Oak Leaves and other medals. “He … he's quite good,” she once said, “but in bad shape. He wants only to paint children—schoolgirls.” She … she took Nénette and Andrée to see his atelier in Saint-Germain and sat with them several times while they posed for him.'

A German … The wound and tank battle badges, the Polish Campaign medal, ah
merde
…

There
, he could make what he liked of it, she thought, and perhaps the SS-Attack Leader Gerhardt Hasse had some answering of his own to do, since men, no matter how good as artists, should not just want to sketch schoolgirls.

Afraid of his scrutiny, embarrassed by it, she kept fingering the scratches on her left cheek while unconsciously her right hand touched that thigh as if for comfort. A forgotten woman, neglected by Vernet in favour of one so junior to her: Liline Chambert had been all but half her age.

The thick, wavy brunette hair was tossed in anger at his continued silence. She took a breath and, not turning, touched the base of her throat.

‘Madame,' he said at last, ‘where have you been?'

How cold his voice was. ‘I won't stand for this, Inspector,' she said hotly. ‘You've no right to ask in such a manner. I … I had an appointment at my hairdresser's, if you must know. Another power outage—they're always having to save electricity these days or cutting it off to punish people. The dryer went off while I was under it. I decided to wait.'

Perhaps, but then … ah then, he said to himself and, pushing in the plunger of the little roulette wheel, let the steel ball bounce round until it had found her number. A zero. The house would take all bets but those placed on that number.

‘Where else did you go?' he asked.

Her eyes passed furtively over the objects before her. ‘To my clairvoyant. Is that so wrong, please? Madame Rébé is president of the Society of Metaphysical Sciences. I … I went to consult her about my niece.'

‘And?' he asked, joining her at last. She gave a shrug.

‘I am to bring her a few items. Things that are the child's and typify her nature. Her tooth-brush, too, and the piece of soap she last touched.'

Uncertain of him, she tried to smile and read his mind in the light from those dragonflies. What could he see of me? she wondered. Are all my secrets so naked before him?