J. Janes - Sandman

‘She said only that the Sandman could not have done it.’

‘And she did not cry? She did not burst into tears at the mention of her friend? You did not enquire further? Well? ’

There was no need to answer any of their questions, but he would do so. ‘Why should I have asked? I was just glad to have her safely with me. I didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was.’

He’s lying, said St-Cyr to himself. The woman felt it, too, and nervously pressed her hand flat on the dossier as Hasse spoke. ‘And where, please, did you pick her up?’

Monique Reynard dreaded the answer that was to come and averted her eyes from Hermann and himself.

‘On the allée de Longchamp,’ said Hasse with all the dignity he could muster. ‘I admit I had been searching for her. That was why the sketch map was in my studio.’

‘But you didn’t take it with you,’ said Kohler sadly.

‘I forgot. In … in my anxiety to … to find her, it completely went … went out of my head. Can’t you see I was-’

‘Gerhardt, please! It’s all right. Just tell them how it was.’

Ah Gott im Himmel , they were a pair, the two of them. How often had she tried to sleep with him and failed? wondered Kohler. Far more times than five lost weekends in the countryside.

‘I wanted to help,’ confessed Hasse, silently cursing the two of them for doubting him. ‘Then there she was, running out of the woods to flag me down and scramble into the car. She … she said she was being followed and … and had no other choice. “Quickly,” she said, “before she sees you’ve got me.”’

‘ She? ’

‘Yes.’

St-Cyr took the two of them in at a glance before letting his gaze settle on the woman. ‘Whom did she mean?’ he asked Hasse.

‘She didn’t say.’

‘And you did not ask?’ demanded Kohler fiercely.

‘I knew she was distressed-I feared for her. She was safe. I thought perhaps it had been one of the sisters. I knew that all things would be revealed in due course.’

All things … A solid citizen, then, simply doing his duty, was that it, eh? thought St-Cyr. A woman … A woman … ‘Exactly where along the allée de Longchamp did you come across the child?’

‘Near the Carrefour de Longchamp and the Grande Cascade.’

Kohler heard Louis suck in an impatient breath. ‘Almost at the Hippodrome, Hermann, and quite some distance from the Jardin d’Acclimatation. A good two kilometres to the southwest of the stables. From there, a kilometre farther to the children’s restaurant and salon de thé . Why, please, do you think you found her so far from the Jardin?’

Again Mademoiselle Reynard betrayed how much she dreaded the answer.

‘I’ve already told you,’ snapped Hasse. ‘She was being followed.’

‘By whom? Come, come, monsieur, you know all about who was following her. You’d done so yourself many times before-isn’t that correct? Well, isn’t it? You had secretly taken photographs of her and Andrée Noireau. You knew she was being followed by others, yet you did nothing about it. Nothing . I want to know why!’

‘Inspector, please! You don’t know what you’re doing to him. All I’ve worked so hard for may well be lost. Lost , do you understand?’

She was finally in tears, not sitting now but standing in front of Hasse, prepared to keep them from taking him.

Several seconds passed. The detectives wanted to find the Sandman before another young girl was raped-yes, raped-and then killed. ‘He’s … he’s incapable,’ she said. ‘I … I’ve tried. He … he simply cannot do it.’

‘Do what?’ breathed Kohler.

‘ Idiot! Have sex, damn you! Sex in any way, shape or form. There, now are you satisfied? Are you?’

It was Louis who did the sighing. ‘Then please inform him that he was seen following the child this afternoon in the Jardin d’Acclimatation and that it was there, not near the Hippodrome, that Nénette Vernet got into his car.’

‘ Seen by whom? ’ she cried.

‘That is not for you to know. For now, it’s confidential.’

‘Ah, damn you, damn you. Flics , that’s all you are. Lousy flics! ’

Louis reached for the telephone. Sadly he watched the two of them. Was he convinced? wondered Kohler. Was he now prepared to call Old Shatter Hand and request that an arrest be made? Sometimes it was so hard to tell with Louis. There’d be a thousand questions in his mind and he’d have to go over every one of them before deciding on the truth, nothing but the truth. He hadn’t been wrong yet, well once perhaps and not really. Not in the nearly two and a half years they’d been working together.

‘Inspector,’ she pleaded, hastily wiping her eyes and cursing her tears. ‘We knew of his association with Mademoiselle Chambert and thought it a good thing. We encouraged it, yes. If he could get those two young girls to accept him as he was, we felt it would make such a difference.’

‘There were others he paid to go up to that flat of his,’ said Kohler harshly.

‘Others?’ She was sickened by the news and turned quickly away.

St-Cyr got through to the convent instead of the Kommandantur. It took several rings before a harried voice, just awakened, asked who it was and told him Nénette Vernet was asleep. ‘I’ve only just left her, Inspector. The poor child is safe at last.’ A yawn was heard. ‘You need have no more fears. She had a bowl of warm milk with bread dipped in it. A few drops of laudanum were felt best.’

A tincture of opium … Ah merde, merde! ‘Are the doors secured between the convent and the church?’ he asked and heard her say, ‘Of course.’

‘Then please have three sisters watching over the child at all times. Please do not let her out of your sight.’

They ran. They tried to make it to the convent before it was too late. Banging on the heavy oak door did no good. Pulling on the bell chain produced only an utter refusal to answer.

Against the loneliness of distant stars, the frozen sickle of a new moon stood as if grinning in judgment.

‘ Debauve and Violette! ’ cursed Louis. ‘Madame Vernet figured it all out from the trash in that child’s coat pockets. She knew who the Sandman was.’

‘A crucifix and a Number Four knitting needle in the child’s desk,’ swore Hermann. ‘A map of the Sandman’s murders. “ This one is next” .’

‘A used condom in her change purse.’

‘From the coffee can of a whore.’

Kohler gave the door a last kick. They’d have to get the army to batter the thing in. ‘ Idiot! You would warn them. Now they’re so darned scared they won’t let even us in!’

The nuns weren’t just scared, they were desperately afraid, and when at last, after much deliberation within, entry was allowed, nearly all were on their knees crowded into the infirmary, gathered around the child’s bed. Nearly all were in tears and praying.

The bed was empty, the child was gone.

‘She left us, Inspectors,’ seethed the Reverend Mother, yanking the pillows away to reveal the soggy stains of milk and mush of uneaten bread. ‘She dumped the laudanum into the sisters’ mugs of tea. Look at the two of them. Just look! ’

Sister Dominique, her mouth wide open, slept the sleep of dreams in a nearby chair; Sister Edith, under whose care the infirmary lay, that of nightmares perhaps.

‘And Sister Céline?’ he asked hesitating. ‘Was she the one I spoke to on the telephone?’

Anxiety, pain and grief-ah, so many things filled the deep blue eyes of the Reverend Mother. ‘Céline, Inspector? You see, she, too, has left us.’