Too busy running around, was that it? wondered the detective—she could see him thinking this as he took out his pipe and tobacco pouch, wanting to prolong the interview. He would not see her as she had seen herself in that last war, with hands bound behind her back and the rifles of a German firing squad pointed at her. He would not know that the smell of pipe tobacco would simply reinforce such a terrible memory.
Puffing away at that thing, he motioned affably with it and said, ‘Gardens like these, they are the oases to which the soul must come to drink even as the Cross calls us to prayer.’
In times of strife—she knew this was what he meant and that he had noted her solitary presence in the garden and would seek his answers even in the house and school of God. A scraper of mould, then, from the bread of life, searching for the truth, horrible as it must so often be.
The Kaiser’s men had not executed her on that day. Their captain had only wanted to frighten her into revealing where the latest French positions were, a thing she had adamantly refused to reveal. He had taken off his cap and had bowed in apology, the pipe of meerschaum then, the smell of the tobacco the same.
‘Inspector, little Andrée secretly left us well before dawn yesterday while we were all at Matins and thought her sleeping peacefully. Sister Edith went to check on her at eight a.m. the new time. I telephoned the Vernets only to find Madame fast asleep and the monsieur not yet returned from the previous evening, an engagement of some sort. The housekeeper told me Nénette was walking the dog in the Bois, a task I knew only too well the child detested. Ah! many times I have cautioned patience and said it was but a small duty in return for all her dear aunt and uncle had done for her, but Nénette hated that dog with a passion. Could the two girls have met in the Bois? They must have, mustn’t they?’
Had Vernet been dallying with Liline Chambert on Saturday night? he wondered, but asked, ‘Did you send the sisters out to look for the child?’
‘Two by two. Nearly all of us went.’
‘Sister Céline?’
‘With Sister Dominique.’
He considered this and she could see him carefully filing the information away. Again he motioned with the pipe. ‘Andrée’s overcoat, Reverend Mother. The child wore her school uniform, yes, but …’
‘But not its overcoat. On Sundays, and at other special times, the girls may wear another if it pleases them and they possess one. Andrée’s was dark red with a matching beret. The scarf will have been a soft grey mohair, the gloves of brown leather. Why, please, do you ask, since you must already have seen it?’
He did not answer, this detective. Her cigarette was all but done, and she realized sadly that he had noted how necessary it had been.
‘The war,’ she said, excusing herself and not really caring if he understood how terrified she had been back then. ‘Why ask about the coat?’ she demanded.
Irritably, cigarette ash was flicked aside and then the thing extinguished between her fingers as if old habits could never die.
They had reached a bench in the farthest corner of the garden. ‘It’s too cold to sit and I must go in,’ she said. ‘These shoes of mine, the soles are now so thin even God cannot stop their total destruction, nor has He yet answered my prayers to replace them.’
‘Had Andrée a change purse with her, Reverend Mother?’
‘You’ve not seen her coat, then, have you?’ she said, dismayed that he would not take her fully into his confidence.
‘The girls switched coats. Both wore their school uniforms. They were, we believe, being followed but knew of this well beforehand and had planned for it.’
‘Being followed …? But … but by whom? This Sandman?’
‘Everything suggests it, Reverend Mother. Well, perhaps not everything.’
‘Then the switch was made to save the one and not the other? Is that how it was? Tell me!’
She was quivering.
St-Cyr found the note and handed it to her. ‘Je t’aime …?’ she said with tears welling up.
‘Both believed the switch would save Nénette, who must have been the target.’
‘The target …? Then the Sandman, he … he has killed the wrong child and those silly, foolish girls believed if the switch was made, he would realize his mistake and let Andrée go? Is that how it was? And if so, why, please, would he do such a thing when he chooses his victims at random?’
She had put her finger right on it. ‘That is precisely what I am asking myself, Reverend Mother. The girl’s beret is missing. Did he remove it to see the colour of her hair or to take it away with him as proof of why such a tragic mistake had been made, or both?’
Quickly she crossed herself and turned to clasp her hands in silent prayer. Calmed a little, she said, ‘Je t’aime … It’s so like them, Inspector. Two very lonely girls who wished they had had the same mother and father—Nénette’s. She had lost her parents, and Andrée, why, may God forgive me for saying so, the poor child might just as well have lost hers for all they cared about her.’
‘And the change purse, Reverend Mother? Please, it will have been in Andrées coat pocket. Nénette will now have it.’
‘Five hundred francs in twenties and fifties. Two hundred more in coins and ration tickets sufficient for the week she was to be away. No lipstick—I had removed that ages ago. No chewing gum either, I think—oh, I cannot say. I really can’t!’
‘Reverend Mother, forgive me for distressing you so much.’
‘It’s all right. The matter needs to be settled. The … the miniature prayer book Andrée always carried. The print is really far too small for her to read even with her glasses—ah, her glasses? Did she have them with her when … when found? Andrée couldn’t see very well without them.’ She held her breath so as to get a grip on herself. ‘The rosary they all must carry and the small vial of perfume Nénette presented to her on Christmas Eve. That I … I could not remove. It would not have been right of me. A gift the child treasured so much she slept with it under her pillow.’
‘The glasses?’ he asked gently.
‘You miss nothing.’
‘It’s a habit one has had to acquire.’
‘Sister Céline had confiscated them, but I made certain Andrée had them beside her bed in the infirmary. The illness by then was so obviously emotional, Inspector, I … I had to let Nénette visit her. The girl came twice. Late on Friday afternoon and then again on Saturday, staying each time for about a half-hour.’
Her shoulders slumped in defeat, for she knew now that the visits had been to plan ahead, yet the girls had given no hint of it.
‘And why were the eyeglasses confiscated?’ he asked.
Would he leave no stone unturned? ‘As … as a punishment for Andrée’s writing in her diary when she should have been asleep. Sister Céline discovered the misdemeanour and blamed the illness on the late-night practice.’
‘And this diary?’ he asked.
Must his voice remain so calm when all around them their world was falling apart? ‘Cast into the stove to offer its flames up to God and heat the infirmary a moment.’
The detective refolded the note and carefully tucked it away in a wallet that had seen far better days and had been mended several times with fishing line. He didn’t say Andrée had had her glasses with her, but she must have, otherwise how could she possibly have read the note or seen what … what was happening to her?
When he dug into his overcoat pockets, she realized the things he dragged out had come from Nénette’s coat.
‘Ah! I have it at last,’ he breathed, but held on to the toy giraffe and would not let her take it from him.
There was no way of avoiding the matter. He would only pursue it until successful. ‘That is from the crèche Sister Céline had in her classroom. She used the crèche to give spiritual guidance, to help teach the girls Latin, and to lend a little interest to geography lessons that are often too barren of anything but words that must be memorized.’
‘Was it stolen?’
‘Stolen?’
‘Taken, Reverend Mother, so as to upset the good sister?’
‘Or taken on a dare, Inspector? The girls do things like that from time to time. One day it is the paintings of Pompeii Sister Céline brought back from Rome—they will all be hanging crookedly. The next, there will be no chalk; the next, her little display of volcanic rocks will be disturbed but very slightly so that only she will notice. The girls don’t mean to hurt her feelings, nor did Andrée and Nénette, but … but children are so often insensitive to the feelings of others. How did you come by it?’
‘Please just tell me when the Sister Céline noticed the giraffe was missing?’
Andrée must have had it with her. ‘Why, weeks ago. Since well before Christmas. The lesson on God’s wrath through vulcanism and catastrophe, I suppose. Pompeii and the sins of the flesh. The … the girls, they drove our dear Céline to tears over its absence, but the whole class denied any knowledge of its whereabouts and now you have made me see that my judgement of Nénette’s character has been sadly flawed, and you have made me feel quite cheated. We will, of course, pray for her well-being, but when, God willing, she is safely returned to us, she will confess before us all and do penance. The floors, I think, and the toilets, but with plenty of prayer between and at all times.’
‘Exactly how many weeks ago, Reverend Mother?’
Did the detectives suspect Céline of something and, if so, how could that possibly be? ‘Since the first week of November.’
‘A good two months.’
Of hell? Was this what he was thinking of Céline? she wondered. That poor, tragic soul who had been forced to bear so much, the whispers of her girls, the smothered laughs and hurriedly passed notes behind one’s back, the cruelest of gibes from young minds that were far from filthy and simply did not understand what they were writing or whispering to each other.
It was not until they had reached the colonnades that St-Cyr asked who had accompanied Nénette on her visits to the infirmary.
‘Why, no one. She came alone.’ Why had he asked?
‘And were they left to talk in private?’
‘Why, yes. Yes, of course.’
‘Even though Sister Céline had confiscated the diary?’
‘Even then. We’re not ogres, Inspector. We do love our girls, each and every one of them.’
Though a man who would possess a black overcoat, Father Jouvand was far too old to be nimbly plucking a maker of little angels from a flea-bitten tenement after a botched abortion. And come to think of it, that wasn’t right, was it? wondered Kohler. A priest, a man of the cloth, rescuing an abortionist? The Pope would have a thing or two to say about it. Besides, Jouvand had been on duty all day Sunday, well into the evening, and could probably prove it a thousand times over, though the death of Liline Chambert had not even been mentioned.
With a parcel of nuns and schoolgirls to watch over, and a parish flock as well and no help but boys at the altar because of the war, he was a busy man and seventy if a day. But he did like tobacco. Chain-smoking U-boat cigarettes, the windy old bugger lit up again to taste the air of victory and deny the Occupier yet another cigarette.
‘You were asking about Sister Céline, Inspector,’ he said. ‘Ah! pay her no mind. The good sister believes each child has the devil in her body.’ He waved the cigarette perhaps to study its contrail. ‘Given the home she came from, it’s only natural, but she’s not unkind and has the best interests of our girls at heart. The Vernets have always supported us most handsomely. I’d pay particular attention to our need for funds if I were you. Yes. Yes, indeed I would. Go easy, for the sake of the Lord’s work.’
Was the bastard Irish? Had he studied in Ireland perhaps? Kohler heaved a troubled sigh. They’d been all through the grieving and the times of the Masses that would be said for Andrée Noireau. They’d been through countless other things, few of which had been of any use. ‘Father, just tell me where she was on Sunday at about two p.m.’
The grey and unruly thatches of his eyebrows lifted. ‘Is it that you think I set my clock by those nuns?’ A stray shred of tobacco was examined and carefully saved on the blotting paper for another day.
‘No. I’m merely trying to build a framework around the killing.’
‘Then let us ask God’s help. Down on your knees, my son. It’ll take but a moment.’
He heaved another sigh as Jouvand let his dark brown eyes sift over him in condemnation of all non-believers, the rugged countenance of the priest wise to the wages of sin and all too ready to pronounce against it even to a member of the Gestapo who was honest and decent, though Jouvand could not know of this and had assumed the exact opposite.
‘Look, we do need help, and quickly, Father. As you heard yourself while I was on the telephone, Nénette Vernet has still not returned home. Is that child afraid to do so?’
‘Afraid? Now why would she be afraid of her dear aunt and uncle?’
‘I don’t know, damn it.’
‘Please don’t blaspheme in the House of the Lord. The child could well be with the Sandman or already dead. My son, if I were you, I would seek your answers elsewhere.’
Ah nom de Jésus-Christ! they were getting nowhere. Kohler got up to tower over the bastard. He swept up the artillery-shell ashtray, a relic of the Troubles perhaps, and, plucking the cigarette butts from it, tucked them away in his own mégot tin for later use.
Dismayed, Father Jouvand acknowledged the atrocity with a curt nod and, ‘Now, if that is all, Inspector, I will gladly guide you to our front door and close it behind you.’
‘Just what the hell are you trying to hide? Soup kitchens in Suresnes and Aubervilliers? Sweaters knitted for prisoners of war—hey, mon fin, don’t you know those parcels are intercepted and sent on to Russia?’
‘No, I did not know.’
‘Then perhaps you’d tell me what those charts on the wall behind that thick head of yours mean, and while you’re at it, give me a detail of the soup-kitchen roster the good sisters help out at. That is it, on the wall, is it not?’
Ah merde, merde, had they not had enough trouble for one day? wondered Jouvand. ‘The soup kitchens are run by the Sisters of Charity to whom we give assistance on occasion. The sweaters are knitted by the good ladies of our parish and by some of the sisters. Mittens and scarves, woollen socks … ah! they turn their considerable talents to so many things when given the materials, which are in such short supply God Himself is doubtful of the venture, but no matter. Are you positive our relief parcels never reach their intended destinations?’
‘It’s only rumoured the things are sent to Russia, but sometimes the Wehrmacht’s censors do get lazy with the mail. A month before they were killed at Stalingrad, my two sons wrote to tell my wife—ah, my ex-wife—that they had received Red Cross parcels from France destined for French prisoners of war.’
Ever so slightly Jouvand gave the Gestapo a nod of understanding, indicating that from now on all courtesies such as being invited into the parish office had been cancelled for ever. ‘On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the sisters, two by two, assist with the soup kitchens but not only in Suresnes and Aubervilliers, in other suburbs as well. The matter is decided by the Sisters of Charity, not by ourselves. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays six of them knit sweaters and other things in the parish hall, which is right below our feet and unheated, you understand, except for the closeness of the other parishioners, who are engaged in the same task out of charity. Two hours at a time, I believe. Now, if that will satisfy you, I will take you to the front door.’
So much for knitting needles and crucifixes. Kohler went to dump his mégot tin into the priest’s ashtray but was stopped by the hand of God.
‘Please don’t deny yourself on my account, Inspector. I would only throw them into the fire when we have one.’
‘And here I thought only Bavarians were stubborn? That would be a stupid waste and you know it. So tell me, how is it teaching sisters have time off to do
other things?’
Those deep brown eyes sought him out again and held him fast.
‘Because not all of our nuns are teachers and some of those are spelled from time to time, and because God’s work is never done. Necessity demands our every effort. Would you have the children in those tenements starve when Monsieur Vernet sees that we have sufficient food and a little of it can be spared? Though we do not tell him this, I am certain he is aware of it.’
‘Then let’s make peace, eh, Father? We’re here to help, not to condemn, and we’ve got a very lonely, terrified little girl we have to find and yes, please God, let us find her.’
Two packets of U-boat cigarettes were dragged out and pressed into the priest’s hand, a temptation God Himself could not have resisted in these times of such terrible shortages.
‘Violette Belanger is une belle gamine, Inspector, a good-looking kid, but the ache in the Sister Céline’s heart is so great, God is very troubled. The one tries only to service the Occupier and make her fortune which her maquereau promptly pockets, while the other seeks constantly to change a heart that is granite-hard and content if only for spite’s sake. If it is someone in the guise of a nun that you are looking for, why not try the house on the rue Chabanais, since, much to our continued discomfort and dismay, Violette Belanger makes a mockery there of that same sister under whose very care she was raised.’
Ah nom de Dieu, de Dieu, a convent classroom in a whorehouse and if not a ‘nun’, then a ‘priest’, ah yes, a ‘priest’.
Kohler nodded his thanks, inwardly heaving a huge sigh of relief at finally getting somewhere, though he knew all such sighs could so often be premature.
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