‘Madame, she had disobeyed you?’
‘And had slammed the door of that room in my face, Inspector. My face!’
‘You weren’t asleep, were you?’
‘I was, and that is the truth. I was emotionally exhausted.’
‘Her heart, Inspector,’ managed Sister Jane.
‘Later I did hear Caroline struggling for breath but she had done it so often, I. . . All right, I let her search for the cigarettes and matches that I had left out for her.’
‘But not in their usual place?’
‘The room light was finally turned on.’
The screen would have been drawn, but in her panic, the girl might not have realized Madame’s bed could well have been empty, and neither would any of the others. ‘The datura, madame. The others have said that you insisted the girl’s asthma was but a state of mind yet you demanded that Brother Étienne give you not only the dried leaves and stems, which are usually quite sufficient, but far more of the seeds than he felt prudent.’
The little box was found in a pocket and placed on the bed before her.
She would snap her fingers, thought Irène. She would demand what was necessary as was her right. ‘The warrant, Inspector. Even here we are still under French law, and to have searched that suitcase of mine or that of Caroline, you must first consult the magistrate who reviews the evidence and only then decides if such a document is necessary.’
‘Hermann gave me the OK.’
‘The Gestapo?’
‘That is correct. Now, please, the datura.’
‘Perhaps it is that you had best ask the brother, since not only was he treating my Caroline but Jennifer Hamilton, though not for the same condition.’
Were the seeds to have then taken care of that one? he wondered. Not only had there been Caroline’s outright disobedience, there must have been hatred and jealousy.
‘And on the afternoon of Caroline’s death, madame?’
‘The touch of a cold. One has to be careful at my age. The girl wished to take the air and I. . . I foolishly agreed to let her and must blame myself.’
‘Yes, but had she arranged to meet someone?’
‘That Jennifer Hamilton, is this what you have discovered, that my Caroline had been going to meet her to end their affair?’
‘Why would she have done that?’
‘Because on the night the other one died, she and that. . . that Hamilton girl had been arguing. My Caroline had been very upset and in tears.’
‘Yet she had slammed the door in your face?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Only to then come back to Room 3–38 in tears before the mademoiselle Mary-Lynn Allan fell?’
‘Oui.’
‘Jennifer and Caroline having had much more than a simple lover’s tiff?’
‘Oui. Both were. . . were in tears. I’m sure of it. Why else would she have killed my Caroline?’
‘And before your ward left the room on Friday?’
‘I asked, as was my duty. She said, “It’s not what you think,” and I. . . why, I left it at that.’
‘But must have known her coat pockets were full of things to trade.’
‘I needed aspirins. None had come in our latest parcels. My headaches. . . The neuralgia, the migraines. . . Caroline said she would see what she could do. A breath of her former kindness and love for me. I was encouraged. It is a memory that will stay with me.’
Yet Jill Faber was the room’s trader. ‘One of the Senegalese?’
‘Inspector, she would not have gone to one of those, not after what that. . . that Faber woman had said of them. “Une sacrée bonne baise.”’
A damned good fuck.
‘“Une grosse bitte.”’
A big cock.
‘“Endless staying power that lasts until a woman is satisfied”? Is it any wonder I find it degrading to have to share a room with such people?’
‘Forgive me, madame, but I’ve been given to understand that some of the Americans don’t like the Senegalese and consider them “fresh.”’
‘The blacks, that’s what they call them, but men are men and savages all the better, it would seem, for certain things.’
Like cutting firewood. ‘And when, please, did Caroline leave the room to go outside?’
‘Late. At about 1530 hours. She was withdrawn, had been upset and worried for days—terribly hurt, I think, ever since the night of that other one’s having fallen, and when I asked what was wrong, she said I would know soon enough.’
But had the upset been because of what had happened with Jennifer or with Mary-Lynn or both? ‘And did you find out?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Who else was in the room?’
‘So as to be a witness? That Jill Faber and that Marni Huntington. Nora Arnarson was out somewhere by herself—she’s a loner, that one.’
‘And Becky Torrence?’
Ah, bon, the blonde. ‘She left right behind my Caroline.’
‘Dressed to go outside?’
How eager he was. ‘That is correct.’
‘Then for now, madame, we’ll continue our little discussion at another time.’
She didn’t even pause but said, ‘Sister, I am well enough to return to that room to which I have been assigned. I must pack Caroline’s things and see if they can be returned to her family. They’ll be devastated. We must see that a proper letter is written. No details beyond a case of the flu. Night after night, my tireless attempts to save her. They must understand that I did everything I could to shield the little girl they had entrusted to me.’
Even lying about it. ‘Sister, please see that one of the doctors checks Madame’s blood pressure before she leaves,’ said St-Cyr.
Give me time to go through Caroline Lacy’s things.
Hermann. . . where the hell was Hermann?
The line was long and it stretched from the kitchens of the Vittel-Palace through the unused dining room to the foyer and even up the main staircase, to its left and right. Sleep-fogged, wearing winter coats, housecoats, cardigans, flannel shirts, and nightgowns or pajamas, the feet in heavy woollen socks, the hair still in paper twists on some or under nets that had been mended with parcel string, they coughed, muttered, dinged their canisters and pots, swore at would-be line jumpers and generally were miserable since Berlin Time definitely did not agree with them.
The room representatives of the 990 tenants, two perhaps chosen from each six or so, had been detailed for the day’s firewood, soup, and bread. Some smoked cigarettes they’d managed to save, some kept stepping up and down, wanting to make a run for the toilets yet knowing they would lose their places.
‘It is this way, Kohler,’ said Weber with a grin. ‘A shortcut.’
Barging through the lineup, he headed for a side door and went down a corridor toward the kitchens and the smell of boiled, ripe cabbage with suggestions of blood sausage.
Wehrmacht mobile canteen trolleys were in use, the cooks with ladles in hand, the officers in their greatcoats and ready to hand over the already-sawn slabs of black bread. Unabashedly some of the interred had unbuttoned their coats, et cetera, to give tantalizing glimpses in the hope of getting a little extra.
Others had secreted things to trade, but the cooks had to watch out for the officers and were wary.
‘Let me show you how it’s done,’ confided Weber, all spit and polish in his grey greatcoat, the collar up, the shiny peak of his cap glistening, its white skull and crossbones clear enough. Black leather gloves, too.
First the soup canister was filled, then the measured slab of bread was thrust, by an officer, so hard into waiting hands that the girl, the woman, would gasp, bend forward, slosh the hot soup if still holding it and sometimes be forced to clean up the mess, the others having to step around or over her. But every now and then there would be a smile, a larger slab, a more gentle thrusting as soft brown eyes were lifted and lips that might once have driven some boy crazy, quivered.
A
t thirty years of age, a girl is reduced to this? thought Kohler. Ach, du lieber Gott, she had even brushed her pale cheeks with some of the brother’s rouge and had touched up her lips. A comb had been hastily run through the fair, shoulder-length hair, which was worn parted high on the left and pinned back by a dark blue Bakelite butterfly that let a wisp fall over a furrowed brow as the head was ducked and wounded eyes were lowered. The nose was sharp and fine and turned up a little, and on the left of the dimpled chin there was a childhood scar, maybe two centimetres long, its stitch marks still evident.
‘Danke, Herr Untersturmführer,’ she said as the slab of bread was gently handed to her, the voice so soft it was but in the motion of those lips that it was really heard against the incredible din.
‘Some we treat a little better than others,’ confided Weber, intently watching her departure.
Awkwardly soup and bread were carried away, the girl concentrating on them so as not to spill or lose any.
Out in the foyer, Louis was going up the stairs two and three at a time.
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copyright © 2002 by J. Robert Janes
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