J. Janes - Carousel

‘Madame?’ he breathed, and when there was nothing further from her but a concierge’s watchfulness, he said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me your son had made the acquaintance of Antoine Audit?’

‘He’s gone. My Roland is gone. I’ve not seen him in years.’

St-Cyr dragged out the dragonfly. ‘A simple brooch, madame. A thing that was found clutched in the murdered Corporal Schraum’s hand. Roland stole this from the girl’s room.’

Vehemently she shook her head. ‘No … no, it wasn’t like that, Inspector.’

‘Then how was it, eh?’

‘I know nothing.’

‘Don’t be so stubborn. Your son could easily have come here on several occasions, madame. He has a key. He stole from your purse. He went into that girl’s room and took this, then sold it to the Corporal Schraum or simply gave it to him.’

‘When … when could he have done such a thing?’

‘After he had first killed Victor Morande.’

She set the cat down on the carpet at her feet. ‘Roland is not a bad boy, Inspector, only wrongful in some regards. He …’

Yes, yes, come, come, he willed her.

‘Roland worked part-time for this … this Victor Morande, the one who ran the carousel. He helped him out from time to time. Me, I …’

‘When we took you there to see the body you thought it might be that of your son.’

‘Yes … yes, that is so.’ Must she tell him everything? ‘Roland was interested in the girl. The Captain Dupuis has said Roland had been watching her, but I …’ The foothills of her shoulders lifted. ‘I did not believe him.’

‘So you went to the carousel and saw it for yourself.’

‘Yes … yes. Roland was taking the tickets just as she must have done, but only when the other one …’

‘Victor Morande.’

‘Had to leave the premises.’

St-Cyr dragged out his pipe but reluctantly decided against it. ‘Your son had to have a place to live, madame, and Victor Morande had to come and go a little bit more than you have indicated. From time to time your son lived at the carousel just as Victor Morande did. It was nice and warm with all that lovely coal the Corporal Schraum provided.’

‘It’s so cold in here these days,’ she said, staring emptily past him at the wicket.

‘I’m not surprised.’

‘What will you do to him?’

‘Nothing, if he is innocent. Now when did he make the acquaintance of Antoine Audit?’

‘About two months ago. In late October. The Captain Dupuis will tell you more than I, monsieur. My Roland, is he …? He hasn’t been seen in some time, monsieur. Me, I had thought … a job at last, something solid. A future …’

‘Bring your shawl and come upstairs. You must identify Antoine Audit to his face. Please, I am sorry but it is necessary.’

‘He did not do it, monsieur. He could not have done such a thing.’

‘Roland or Antoine Audit?’

‘Roland, of course. Oh for sure a mother’s love is blind, but disregarding this, I do know my son, monsieur. He wouldn’t have killed her. That one liked the girls too much.’

St-Cyr took out his cigarettes and offered one. Lighting it, he waited while she filled her lungs, then watched as she let the smoke trail slowly from her nostrils. ‘Last Tuesday, madame, Monsieur Antoine met the girl here in the afternoon at four o’clock. He left the meeting early, after only a few minutes perhaps? The girl seemed quite agitated about it?’

Again her eyes sought some distant place among the rubbish of her cage. ‘Yes, she did not change her clothes or wash herself. I have thought the affair over, that Roland …’

‘Yes, yes,’ he urged, reaching for her shawl but letting her have all the time she needed.

‘That Roland might have …’ She gave the tired shrug of an old woman in defeat. ‘Might have spoken to him about the girl.’

‘About what Victor Morande and the Corporal Schraum had been up to?’ he asked.

‘Roland would have demanded money of this Monsieur Antoine. Blackmail, I think.’

But never murder. He held the shawl for her and she let him place it over her shoulders as she stood to leave the cage.

‘One last thing, madame, before we go upstairs.’

She’d seen it coming all along but now had no way of averting her eyes.

‘The night before the Defeat your son came back to steal money from you. Did he know the girl Mila Zavitz who was strangled and raped in the courtyard beside the draper’s shop on the Pas-Leon?’

Her eyes had blinked but she’d hold her ground. She’d not admit to anything further.

Pity was unwanted at this time but he felt a wave of it for her anyway. ‘Had he been out looting the shops, madame? A few tins of coffee the Germans wouldn’t miss? A bolt or two of cloth – things that would become scarce in the years to come? Mila Zavitz went there to seek help from her employer, madame. A young girl who was so afraid of being alone in the city, of being a Jew. She’d become separated from her family. The Nazis were at the gates. It was evening … sunset. The shop was closed. They’d all fled. There were two suitcases …’

‘I know nothing of this. Two suitcases? Roland would not have killed her, monsieur. Not my son. Not even if he had demanded and taken from her that which she had refused to yield.’

‘Then let us go upstairs and try to get to the bottom of things before it is too late.’

Lost in thought, Kohler fingered the edge of the pistachio-coloured washstand. The room had been tidied. Attempts at sponging off the blood-spattered sickly green walls had failed. Each finger flick of blood had been rubbed with steel wool as if Madame Minou had had to banish the thought of it from her tormented mind. She’d even dug into the plaster with a knife and now there were shrapnel bursts of pock-marked plaster that could only mean the concierge had been worried sick about her son’s involvement.

He’d handcuffed Audit to the painted iron frame at the foot of the bed so as to give himself more freedom and let the bastard sit right next to where the girl’s body had lain.

Louis hadn’t yet come upstairs. He must still be questioning Madame Minou.

‘I threw up my guts,’ he said, more to himself than to Madame Van der Lynn, who, not liking the room, had crowded close and had put a hand on his shoulder for comfort. ‘I saw that young girl’s throat, her eyes and then her body, and I thought of Giselle.’

‘A timid stomach in a Gestapo detective?’ snorted Audit. ‘Tell me another one!’

‘Ignore him, Herr Kohler. Don’t let him get to you.’

‘I’m not. He killed her, madame. That smug bastard with all his truffles and creams of the walnut, wrapped a wire around that poor kid’s throat and strangled her.’

‘Slowly – was that how it was done, eh?’ snorted Audit. ‘If my memory serves me correctly, monsieur, I was never in this room and there are no witnesses.’

‘You’re forgetting the note he left for her,’ whispered Oona.

Kohler nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ve been thinking about that.’

‘Are you still in love with Giselle?’ she asked, her eyes so very blue and betraying anxiety.

He glanced apprehensively at her, seeing that she needed the truth. ‘Look, madame, we never agreed to anything permanent. I said I’d take good care of you and I will.’

‘How about a cigarette, eh?’ snorted Audit. ‘What about my rights, since I’ve done nothing and could not possibly have killed her?’

‘Where the hell is Louis, Oona? Why hasn’t he come upstairs?’ asked Kohler.

‘The rue Lauriston?’ she replied sadly.

Kohler cursed their luck. ‘Stay here. This one can’t get away. I’ll be right back.’

‘ Hermann , no!’

But he’d left the room, had left her alone with Antoine Audit just as he’d done with that other one on the Ile Saint-Louis. Would the rue Lauriston rush up the stairs? Would they drag her away and demand that she tell them everything? Would they tear her clothes from her and beat her as they had beaten Hermann’s Giselle?