Sandman (22 page)

The child had confided to the chef that the Sandman would strike again. ‘And very close,' she had said. ‘So close you will feel the breath of him, but he will make a mistake and will have to let that one go.'

Had she been lying about its being the Sandman? he wondered. Had the murderer of Andrée been even closer?

She was the sole owner of the Vernet interests. Her uncle and guardian was having an affair with Liline, a student and dear friend, the daughter of an employee who would be dependent on Vernet—Mademoiselle Chambert would have worried terribly about this, ah yes.

The girl lived with them in that house. The child looked up to her.

‘Madame Vernet knew of the flat in the rue d'Assas and of the boy, the homosexual Liline supposedly visited. She must have also known of Nénette's plans to run away, and certainly she knew of the map that child had put up in her room, the notation of where Nénette believed the next killing would take place and when.'

He thought to take out his pipe and tobacco pouch but had his hands deeply in his overcoat pockets, and did not want to relinquish touching the child's little mementos.

‘Nénette was aware of the house on the rue Chabanais. There was a condom in her change purse. There were coins from right across Occupied Europe. Had she been inside that brothel to visit with Violette Belanger? Is that where the coins came from, and the condom?'

‘From one of the coffee cans,' he said and sighed. ‘Debauve told Giselle he had found Nénette's glove in the street, but is he the Sandman? Does Violette know the child is on to him? Was the fob from that ear-ring a part of her schoolgirl costume?'

And then, fingering the giraffe, ‘Nénette knew she would be followed on Sunday. The nuns went out two by two to search for Andrée, and this Nénette and her little friend would have anticipated. Sister Céline was accompanied by Sister Dominique, but were they in the Bois from three-ten to three-twenty and near the stables? Had those two nuns become separated?'

And then, heaving an impatient sigh, ‘Hurt and angry Sister Céline may well be with her students, but to follow Nénette Vernet so often the child becomes acutely aware of this does not make sense, and certainly that nun could not have sexually violated the other victims.'

Five murders, all of girls of about the same age, four done with a sharpened Number 4.5 knitting needle, the last with an unsharpened Number 4. Each of those needles would have been about thirty centimetres long. The nuns knitted sweaters and scarves, et cetera, for the prisoners of war, and Violette would have been aware of this.

When Hermann finally returned, St-Cyr said, ‘Debauville must have realized Madame Morelle and her husband would betray him. He anticipated the husband's telling you he would take Giselle to the Saint-Roch and that Madame Morelle would give you the address of the escort service, but did he then betray them both, Hermann, by claiming he had found that child's glove in the street outside the brothel?'

‘Tit for tat, eh?' Kohler switched on the ignition and let the car idle a moment. ‘Madame Morelle uses a clairvoyant. Madame Vernet uses one, too—you told me this yourself, eh? Perhaps it's the same one, but guess whose son is a stablehand and was supposed to be here on Sunday afternoon but turned up late and hasn't shown up since?'

Louis waited. Kohler told him. ‘Madame Rébé's son, Julien, age twenty-six and nigh on useless except for one thing, unless you count the hours he puts in playing mannequin to the life-drawing classes at the Grande-Chaumière over in Montpar-nasse and one hell of a lot closer to home. Hey, I'll leave all that to your imagination until we get him out of bed unless that mother of his has gazed into her crystal ball and told him to bugger off before it's too late.'

In the pitch darkness of the rue de l'Eperon, the rolling clang of opening steel shutters mingled with the sounds of shop doors coming unstuck as their owners coughed. Pedestrians, their heads shrouded by scarves, coat collars, toques and fedoras, hurried along, the sounds of their boots and wooden heels timidly sliding and clacking on ice that threatened to dump each squeaking-wheeled
vélo-taxi
or cyclist.

Faint pinpricks of blue light and of pre-dawn cigarettes appeared. The Seine was near, the dampness even more bone-chilling, the house at Number 10, a former mansion from the reign of Louis XVI now long since gutted, hollowed out and made over several times.

Like the rest of the
quartier
Saint-André-des-Arts, it was worn, not of the present, but the past and unwilling to relinquish its lingering passion for a more tranquil life.

‘Hermann, go easy, eh?' cautioned St-Cyr. ‘You live just around the corner. The neighbours will know you or know of you. Don't damage your reputation. It's not necessary. A few simple answers, that is all we require.'

‘Piss off.'

The street resounded to his fist on that door, reacting with utter silence. Not a soul moved, not a foot stirred. For one split second fear gripped those nearest and instinctively it spread like wildfire to the rest.

Ah
merde
, it was as if God had struck them all numb, and both ends of the street had been sealed off for a
rafle
, a house-to-house round-up and arrest.

Again and again the door was bashed until, breathlessly, the terrified concierge managed, ‘A moment … a moment,' and began to slide the bolts free and open the locks.

The Gestapo always favoured the small hours of the night or those just before dawn when sleep was at its deepest and one was too befuddled to escape.

‘Messieurs …'

‘Madame Rébé and son.
Vite, vite, imbécile
, we haven't all day,' said the giant.

The black-and-white-chequered tile and wrought-iron stairwell was huge and spiralled up and up, and right in the centre of it, the gilded iron birdcage of an elevator had been added perhaps in 1890.

‘The stairs, Louis.'

‘It's on the fourth floor.'

Hermann snatched the key from the concierge and began the climb. He wouldn't trust the lifts. Having been caught once and left hanging by a thread, he had sweated ever since at the thought of them.

‘Please,' cautioned the Sûreté, a last attempt. ‘Madame Rébé is well liked and respected. She'll sleep until noon.'

‘Not today.'

A brass plate gave details.
Palms read, fortunes divined. Tea leaves, horoscopes, Tarot cards and crystal gazing are specialties. Dreams interpreted. Destiny foretold
.

The hours were given as from 2.00 until 7.00 p.m., six days a week with sittings also from 9.00 until 11.00 p.m., except when séances were held on Thursday evenings.

Enter only those who earnestly desire to learn the truth
.

There were no refunds, and the fees ranged from ten francs for fifteen minutes, to fifty francs for more intense consultations. Those for the extended sessions were ‘negotiable'.

‘Shall I knock?' asked Kohler.

‘Discreetly, I think.'

‘He'll only bolt.'

‘He might not even be here.'

‘Then I'd best use the key, hadn't I?'

‘We haven't a magistrate's warrant, or had you forgotten?'

‘You don't need one. Not when I'm along.'

The flat smelled of scented candles, dust, dried flowers and a coal fire that had been awakened in the kitchen to add the aroma of real coffee to all the rest.

Kohler switched on a lamp. They were in the ante-room where clients waited their turn. Two flaking, gilded, straight-backed chairs with faded red velvet seats stood against a thread-bare tapestry which hung on the wall beneath an arbour of dried flowers. Roses, hydrangeas, carnations, sunflowers, corn-flowers and asters were bunched with sheaves and single stalks of ripened wheat and barley, oak leaves, too, and chestnuts. A squirrel's feast of them. All covered by a fine coating of household dust, impossible to remove in these troubled times when business was so brisk.

A large and similarly coated bouquet, in a raffia-covered jardinière, sat on the floor between the chairs keeping lover from lover, husband from wife, friend from friend, or total stranger from stranger.

‘Messieurs …'

‘Ah!' began St-Cyr, touching Hermann's arm to silence him. ‘Mademoiselle, please do not be alarmed. We are here to see the madame and her son.'

The girl was no more than seventeen, a maid of all work and receptionist also, the uniform changing with the passing of the hours. ‘But … but Madame, she sleeps, and Monsieur Julien, he … he has not returned and has stayed elsewhere overnight because of the curfew.'

‘Where?' demanded Hermann, flashing his badge.

Her large brown eyes began to moisten at the sight of that thing. ‘I … I do not know, monsieur. He … he seldom tells me.'

She looked like death and why not? Gestapo … Gestapo … But there was no sense in stopping. ‘Which one, eh?' he asked and snorted lustily.

She gave a quick, instinctive shrug and blurted tearfully, ‘He has many. They … they all find him hard to resist. These days a young man like that, he can have any woman he wants, and Monsieur Julien, he … he has the appetite.' Dear Jesus save her now, she begged. Madame would be furious. ‘He … he meets them at the … the life-drawing classes where he is a mannequin. There and … and at other places, of course. The Lutétia Pool as well.' Oh God.

Well-endowed, is he? snorted Kohler inwardly. ‘Has he an overcoat?'

‘A cape, made out of a horse blanket.'

‘Is it black, as in
coal
black?'

‘Yes … Yes, it is black and coarse.'

‘Good. Switch on the lights and tell Madame we're here for an early-morning reading of her son's future.'

‘
Hermann, must you?
' hissed St-Cyr when the girl had fled.

‘A horse blanket—isn't that enough? Hey, I'll just find the woman's ledger, Chief, and scan it for names, visits and times.'

‘You do that.'

‘Then you look for other things, eh? Hey, that's an order.'

A tall and translucent trifold screen allowed those who waited to see those beyond it but only as blurred shadows, the viewer hearing every word of prophecy except for the whispered confidences and, at the completion of the session, seeing the results as the client then came back around it towards them.

St-Cyr was intrigued by the screen. Two young lovers, dressed in the finery of the late 1800s, embraced in secret on the middle panel before tumultous thunderclouds at dusk, while up in the sky the sun's last rays revealed among those same threatening clouds the shadowy face of the girl in multiple images. Now grave and wondering about her lover, now coy, now lecherous, the mask of old age removed and held away as the young girl laughed at life and fate and mischievously touched the back of her front teeth with her tongue.

Flowers embraced the central panel, cream-coloured roses climbing through gold to branch out and blossom next the cloud-faces that included the girl's skull.

It was magnificent, and he knew the work had been adapted from a painting by the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt.

Behind the screen, draped cream brocade with silk tassels formed a puffed and pleated backdrop to the bouquet of dried hydrangeas and roses that all but dwarfed the lace-covered table Madame Rébé used for the lesser readings. Zodiac signs were scattered throughout the lace, whose centrepiece was a deck of Tarot cards spread to reveal the Queen of Wands, the King of Pentacles and the Fool.

The straight-backed chairs were uncomfortable-looking, and he gave credit where due. Fifteen minutes in one would seem an hour to most, especially as they had already been kept waiting in a similar chair.

From here, more screens channelled the select client into the inner sanctum of a small private sitting room where the more serious readings and the séances were held. Louis XVI settees in pistachio green and gilt, still with their original, now threadbare fabrics, mingled with armchairs covered in the same material. Silk orchids were everywhere—a tall pale, off-white and pink-fringed
cymbidium
, a deep pink
cattleya
and the butterfly gold-to-white and reddish amber of a
paphiopedilum
were reflected in the crystal ball that sat on a three-pronged stand of bronze cobras that were poised to strike the unwary.

‘Louis, take a look at this.' Kohler waved the appointments book. ‘Madame Vernet has been coming at least three times a week for the past four and a half months. Usually at three p.m. and staying until four or later. Five sometimes, even six p.m.'

‘But others have their fortunes told while she waits.'

‘Or does she wait at all?'

‘The tiepin,' breathed Louis. ‘Did she step on it here?'

They moved into the corridor beyond and from there went quickly through to the bedrooms. Madame Rébéls door was closed, but when they found the son's cold unrumpled bed, they found the clutchback of the pin among the clutter of cheap cufflinks, assorted male jewellery and female ear-rings, garters, safety pins, and miscellany in the plain pine box on his commode.

It was enough.

Returning to the anteroom, they dutifully waited for the maid until Madame Rébé was at last ready to receive them in the
grand salon
, which was, of course, off limits to clients and reserved only for those most special, most private of guests.

‘Messieurs, it's so good of you to be patient. One has to dress. One simply cannot snap the fingers or wave the wand.'

She was reclining nonchalantly in a gilded Louis XVI arm-chair whose slim arms and high, rounded back were covered with a flowered tapestry of soft faded gold that matched exactly the gown she wore. The fine silk crepe de Chine was from the twenties, from the designer Fortuny, the sleeves pushed up a little to give the effect of a slight carelessness, the shoulders all but bare.

Her right arm lay along the arm of the chair so that her long slim fingers dangled over its end, while the fingertips of the left hand delicately touched a naked collarbone. Only two rings were worn and they were identical. One on the third finger of each hand, of diamonds.