J. Janes - Sandman

‘We can discuss it later.’

She backed away, held out her hands to fend him off. Tears streamed from her. That defiance, that fierceness of prominent cheekbones and wide-set dark eyes said, Ah, no, monsieur. No! I am finished.

‘Please, Sister. Later, yes?’

‘ I did it! I fed them first and then I took them to the stairwells. Dirty … they all have dirty little minds. Filthy , do you understand?’

He would have to distract her. He would have to rush her, grab her and fall. Together they would roll down the roof. Bones would be broken …

He saw the knitting needle gripped fiercely in her right hand. It had been hidden in the sleeve of her cloak.

‘ Now do you believe me? ’ A tile popped near her left foot. ‘I could not kill my girls, but I could kill others, those we fed.’

‘You did not feed them all.’

‘I hunted others. That little bitch I killed in les Halles had eaten at the soup kitchen of the Germans. Her underwear was dirty. When I turned her over on to her stomach, she screamed and tried to get away, but I gave her what she so desired. I made her feel the shame of it!’

Ah no …

‘The one in the Notre-Dame had lost a part of an ear-ring and was in tears. I helped her look for it and I killed her in a corner of the south belfry.’

She waited. He did not say a thing, this detective who had risked his life to come after her. ‘I opened her blouse. I tried to feed things to her, things she would not let me stuff into her mouth. Things that sister of mine had crammed into my pockets. Filthy things. Rubber things. I squeezed and turned their contents out. Out! do you understand? Then … then I wiped my hands on her seat, her mons, her breasts and face and I … I left her.’

Dear Jesus, save him. The needle was gripped like a stiletto of the streets and all around them the tiles were popping and sloughing, but he could not hear them sliding down the roof and wondered at this. The noise was too great. It was far too hot … too hot. Light danced over her face, sharpening the hatred in her eyes. Shadows … there were shadows.

He wet his lips in fear. He really did not know what to do.

‘ Louis … Louis, catch hold of the ladder .’

‘Hermann … Hermann … Sister, please, if you love God, drop that thing and come with me! ’

She lunged. He leapt back, slipped, went down hard on to his knees, looked up in pain and defeat, tried to see her through his tears. Smoke was billowing. Glowing bits of ash were funnelling between them. He ducked. He tried to shield himself, but the wind was blowing too hard, the snow was blinding. Meltwater and sweat stung his eyes and clung to his face.

Out of the blizzard she came at him. He grabbed the hand that held the knitting needle. He tried to stop it but seemed to have no strength. Ah, nom de Jésus-Christ! her wrist … he must grab her by the wrist and bend it back … back.

There was a snap, a shriek as the needle fell. Then he heard her voice, heard the strangeness of it as she cried out in anguish, ‘ Please, God, forgive my Violette! ’

Kohler caught her by an ankle. For a moment he had a glimpse of her hatred, haunted by tragedy, gaunt and raw, streetwise and ever-watchful. Then she bent down, took him by the hair and put her lips close to his ear. ‘Violette is innocent. Please allow her to go to Provence, to her little farm, but not with her priest. Never with that one.’

Ah merde … ‘Louis …’ he managed. ‘ L … o … u … i … s!

‘ Don’t let go of her! ’

The wind came. It blew the flames up over the roof in bil lowing smoke and sparks. Tiles fell. Tiles slipped and popped and cracked. A hand gripped him by the wrist. An arm was swiftly wrapped around his own. A last glimpse revealed her perched up there, making her way steadfastly towards the conflagration at one end of the roof. For a moment she was engulfed, a dervish. Her screams, her cries were lost.

Somehow they made it to the ground, somehow they got clear before the roof finally collapsed in a rush of fire. Bathed in that terrible light, they searched but saw only the flames.

‘Louis …’

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘The child. She’s been taken-dragged away. Look, I’m sorry. I … I had no choice but to go after you.’

The birds were everywhere in the aviary and the smells of their feathers and their dung were heavy in the warm air. Madly the things flew about in the darkness, shrieking, chirping, giving their raucous jungle-cries or singing.

Softly Kohler eased the door shut behind him. Violette Belanger had been sitting on the floor near one of the stoves. There were aisles and aisles of cages, and she must have opened every one of them.

Taking out his torch, he shook it and tried to bring it to life. ‘Louis, where’s yours?’ he breathed, a whisper.

‘Incapacitated.’

‘ Verdammt! ’

‘No guns, Hermann. He’ll have the child. Nénette will be his ticket to freedom.’

‘Or the end of him.’

They began to feel their way forward. Cages to the left and to the right. Birds perched up there or swooping down. Birds screaming in fright, colliding in bursts of feathers and broken wings.

One flopped desperately on the floor. St-Cyr felt for it. Poor thing, he said silently. A finch, he thought.

Knowing he could not let it suffer, he twisted its neck, then gently tucked it away in a pocket. Are we to find that the child has also been killed? he asked himself. Is it to be from a cage of doves to this?

Aisles branched. Touching him on a shoulder, Kohler indicated Louis should take the left one, himself the right, and when he neared the stove, the smell of burning human hair came through the bird-stench and he said, Not her … not her. Please don’t let it be her.

The child …

The parrot was dead and, in the soft light seeping from around the firebox door, he could see it lying between Violette’s breasts, the soft mounds on either side of it, her hand still clutching it.

Blood trickled from the right corner of her lips. Scratches marred her breasts.

The hole in the middle of her forehead was clean and round, a nine millimetre, he thought. She had been crying, had killed the little parrot, and had looked up into the eyes of her priest a last time.

Vomit rose into his throat. He couldn’t stand the sight of her. He …

Gently Louis took hold of him. ‘Turn away. Leave this to me.’ And opening the firebox door for a little light, he cast his eyes swiftly over her, the cinematographer within him willing himself to record what he could before he closed her eyes and pulled her away from the stove.

He covered her bare knees by tidying her pleated skirt. He laid her other hand over the parrot. It would have to do for now. Raw … the skin had been pulled from the palm of that hand. Was it years since the death of Madame Morelle and this one’s flight across the roofs?

‘Open the firebox door a little more,’ breathed Kohler.

‘Fire,’ came the whispered warning.

‘ Do it! Stay here. Let me find him.’

‘No guns.’

‘He’s got one, idiot!’

‘Then I will close the door.’

They moved away. They knew Debauve must be in the aviary with the child. Had he killed her, too?

Did he now realize it was too late for him?

The SS of the avenue Foch had allowed Debauve a pistol. Were they hoping he’d put an end to this partnership and wipe the slate clean? wondered St-Cyr.

Kohler went down another aisle. The place was like a maze. Cages upon cages. Birds everywhere …

One flew into his face. He pulled it away, cried out, ‘ Louis! Verdammt! Ah merde , the thing has claws.’