J. Janes - Sandman

He thrust the papers back and turned away to hide his discomposure. ‘Not dead,’ he murmured. ‘ Not dead! ’ And then, loudly, ‘ Bâtards ! You flics …’ He turned, a fist clenched. ‘How dare you do this to me? To me? ’

And now, monsieur, is that the moisture of perplexity and remorse in your eyes, wondered St-Cyr, or that of relief and concern for your niece?

Vernet tossed the hand with the fedora in defeat. ‘I had to put a stop to Nénette’s nonsense. That is why I obtained a laissez-passer for this one to go to Chamonix to join her parents. I could not have my niece making such preposterous claims and saying she knew who the Sandman was and that if I did not summon the préfet to speak to her alone and at once, she would take the matter into her own hands.’

A stubborn child. The préfet no less and at once, and in private. ‘And do you still believe she spoke nonsense?’

‘How dare you ask me that? Would you humiliate me further? She’s dead. Look at her yourself. A child. Innocence left to languish with the sisters while her … her no-good parents partied at Chamonix. Ah, damn that stupid, stupid mother of hers. I shall have to see that the couple are notified. There will have to be a funeral. As few as possible-we can’t have the press getting wind of this. Those vultures would only feast on the carrion.’

‘A funeral-yes, yes, of course, but burial where? In the ancien Cimetière de Neuilly?’

Vernet threw him a startled, questioning look. ‘Burial wherever her parents choose. It’s customary.’

He was still visibly shaken by the mistake in identity, but even as they looked at each other, St-Cyr could see the mask begin to descend.

‘And what about your niece, monsieur? Is there anything you can tell us?’

Caution entered. ‘Only that you had best find her before it is too late. I need not remind you, Inspector, that police bungling cannot possibly sit well with the Kommandant von Gross-Paris.’

‘Then let us pay Mademoiselle Chambert and her lover a little visit. Perhaps it is that she can clear the matter up.’

‘Liline …? Ah! yes. Yes, of course. I had forgotten. The flat is in Montpamasse, on the rue d’Assas. Number eighty-four. The fifth floor, apartment two, facing the street. We will have to awaken the concierge, but fortunately that one is a light sleeper.’

Good, nodded St-Cyr inwardly. Your response is just as I have suspected. It is not only your chauffeur who knows of the address. The death here has rattled you.

A cube of sponge, a tangled white thread, a hope, a prayer, a silk chemise no student with a part-time job could ever have purchased. Not at any time and certainly not on the black market.

Kohler let the dried cube of self-preservation dangle from its braided umbilical cord. He saw himself in the mirrors starkly juxtaposed with the plaster head of the seer and the torso, grey on white and white on gold, the single candle he had lighted in contravention of the black-out regulations fluttering in some sudden draught.

When he found the address, it was on a folded scrap of paper tucked into the toe of a brown leather pump-memorized, since people could not walk around with such things in their pockets for fear of arrest.

‘Forty-seven quai du Président Paul Doumer, room thirteen, Sunday at two p.m.,’ he breathed, and in that one breath was all of a detective’s dismay, a hope, a prayer of its own.

‘Inspector, what is the meaning of this? Surely my husband gave permission for no such thing?’

Madame Vernet stood framed in the doorway and he saw her in the girl’s mirrors, tall and statuesque, her dark brown hair a thick mop of curls, the image of her impinging on and overlapping the others, his own included.

Spaghetti straps held the full-length nightdress up. Laces criss-crossed the chest, leaving gaps between and glimpses of lots of cleavage. The scratches had been treated with iodine. ‘Madame, we have five murders and the disappearance of this one. Was Mademoiselle Chambert pregnant?’

‘Pardon? Surely you’re not …’

‘Look, I’ll put it to you straight. Did she go to see a maker of little angels?’

‘An abortionist …? But … but why? Liline gave us no cause to think such a thing. She was distressed. Yes, of course. She and Nénette were very close about things but we … we just thought it was this … this business of the Sandman and that she was worried about Nénette taking it far too seriously.’

‘Then why an assignation in a room in a flea-bitten tenement across the river in Courbevoie? Why something within easy walking distance of the Jardin d’Acclimatation? She was supposed to be with your niece, having tea. Your chauffeur had dropped them off after their climb up into the belfries of the Notre-Dame.’

‘Exercise … Ah merde , I … Ah no, no, you must be mistaken.’

‘Exercise before an abortion, eh?’

Damn him! ‘Liline is too pure. A virgin. A sculptress-these things are her own. She studies and perfects. But a man, a lover … Please don’t be so foolish. The boy she has been seeing will not have slept with her. This I can assure you.’

‘Good. Then what about your husband?’

‘Antoine …? With Liline …? Oh mon Dieu , you’re serious. He’s like a father to her. No, it’s impossible. He’s far too astute. I would have got wind of it. The girl would have been out on her ear.’

‘Then tell me why she laid out that dress and dropped a curtain ring on it.’

‘What dress?’ She arched, quivering.

Moving swiftly across the room, she came to the foot of the bed. She felt the wool. She dropped it and grated, ‘Antoine, you bastard. I didn’t know. I didn’t! ’

‘He was fucking her, wasn’t he?’ said Kohler harshly. ‘That husband of yours had made her pregnant. A houseguest, eh? A visitor and companion to your niece? A girl in his care.’

She tore her hair and slapped herself in anguish, could not turn to face him but held her mouth to stop herself from vomiting and said, ‘Sweet Jesus, what am I to do?’

It was now nearly 4.30 a.m. and St-Cyr was anxious. Painstakingly the burly Feldwebel with the Schmeisser shone his torch over the permit, billowing fifteen degrees of frost while his men, armed with Mauser rifles, inspected the black-out tape on the headlamps or stood about and coughed.

A pug-nosed, wart-faced Pomeranian dockworker with sad, boozer’s eyes that looked so lifeless in the fringe of the torchlight, the sergeant grunted dispassionately, ‘You are out when you shouldn’t be.’

Ah merde , he couldn’t read French! ‘Mein Herr …’ began St-Cyr, only to feel the touch of Vernet’s hand on his shoulder.

‘Herr Hauptmann, I realize it is late and you and your men have had a long and miserable night. We are on a little business for the Kommandant von Gross-Paris, yes? The matter is discreet, you understand. My permit, you will see, is stamped and signed by the General von Schaumburg himself, a personal friend. We will only be a few minutes and then we will be gone, so you need not make a note of the visit.’

Vernet’s Deutsch hadn’t just been flawless, he had used Low German so as not to distance himself too much.

‘It is highly irregular, mein Herr ,’ grunted the Feldwebel.

‘Yes, yes, I know, but these things, they can be so delicate. Honoré, my good man, is there not a little something we could offer the captain for his trouble?’

As if on cue, Deloitte found a bottle of brandy in the map pocket of the door next to himself.

‘Warm yourselves,’ enthused Vernet. ‘Yours is not an easy but a most essential task.’ Perhaps five thousand francs were handed over. ‘Coffee and croissants for the boys and a little something for yourself.’