Becky was vulnerable; Becky had to be sheltered, felt Kohler. ‘What gang?’
Shit! ‘Mary-Lynn and everyone else from Room 3-54, and us with Caroline and Nora,’ said Jill. ‘Bamba Duclos is known for it, Inspector. A thing like that can’t be hidden for long, not in a place like this where gossip is nine-tenths of everything.’
She had better add something, thought Becky. She couldn’t just sit here and say nothing. Herr Kohler would only become more and more suspicious of her. ‘He. . he has a little wicker basket from home. It isn’t any bigger than a soup plate and just as deep. There. . there are all kinds of strange things in it.’
And wouldn’t you know it, she’d been rubbing shoulders with those boys. ‘He shakes the basket, does he?’
Why was it that Herr Kohler now looked at her in the way he did? wondered Becky. Emptying the light completely from his eyes as if he knew the truth about her and was only waiting for her to confess?
She felt herself falling, felt absolutely, totally out of control, heard the breath rush from her and had to shut her eyes.
‘He shakes it, doesn’t he?’ came the reminder, startling her.
‘Oui, and then he. . he let’s everything settle and. . and reads the way the things have fallen.’
A juju man in a land of juju ladies.
‘I got a parcel from home that very day,’ said Marni quickly. ‘He had said I would. New underwear. A slip, a pair of nylons I sold within seconds. Six packs of cigs.’
A fortune, but Duclos had probably lugged that mail sack into the camp office and set the parcel out for Weber and the censors to examine.
‘Bamba said Jennifer’s maid would come late that very afternoon and she did, Inspector,’ interjected Jill. ‘He said that Becky wouldn’t have to see Weber for three whole weeks and she didn’t. The Untersturmführer laid off pressing her to cooperate and she. . she was a lot better for it, weren’t you, Becky?’
They touched hands, the girl blinking away the tears, only to blurt, ‘Then he started pulling me in again, Inspector. I can’t stand it anymore, Jill. I know he’s trying to break me.’
‘Easy,’ said Kohler. ‘Easy.’
‘Sorry. Please forgive me.’
She touched her chest and blanched, looking as if totally ashamed of herself.
Herr Kohler was a big man with very strong hands and Becky would be concentrating on those, poor thing, thought Marni. ‘Nora brought the hooch, Inspector,’ she said, forcing herself to fiddle with the top button of her shirt blouse while giving him a look even Brother Étienne himself couldn’t have mistaken.
‘It was just good fun,’ offered Jill, leaning forward again. ‘We laughed for days. Bamba’s got the biggest dark brown eyes and when he rolled them up to the ceiling of that shed, we thought the worst until he flashed us that great big grin of his, knowing he’d caught us out. Then he’d tell whoever’s fortune it was that everything was going to be OK.’
‘Sometimes,’ muttered Becky.
‘And Jennifer Hamilton was with you?’
‘Jen wanted to know if everything in her flat was still there and if it would be safe.’
‘That’s when Bamba told her Thérèse, her maid, was coming for a visit,’ said Marni quickly. ‘He took the longest time with that basket of his and had to shake and shake it before poring over the way the pieces had fallen.’
‘He was worried,’ said Becky. ‘He said things could be difficult for Jennifer and that. . that she should leave offerings of food in scattered places outside our hotel. We would have to come back again because the little piece of ivory with the holes in it that looked like a miniature game board indicated the trouble needed all of us to work together to conquer it.’
‘The crystal of quartz was upside down,’ Marni went on. ‘Jennifer tried to get him to tell her what that must mean, but he wouldn’t.’
‘It was really weird,’ said Jill. ‘It was almost curfew.’
‘We were still in a huddle on our hands and knees. . ’ began Becky.
‘The firewood was piled all around us,’ interjected Marni, quickly giving Jill a nudge and silently telling her to let him know she wanted him-anything to keep him from getting at Becky.
Kohler held up a hand to stop them.
‘They were watching us,’ said Becky, gripping the edge of the brother’s cloak. ‘One of those blacks was touching me.’
‘And Jennifer Hamilton, how did she feel?’
She must look steadily at him now, thought Becky. She must square her shoulders and show Jill and Marni that she could. ‘Jen had gripped Caroline’s hand.’
‘Had the ballet dancer already asked what had happened to Madame de Vernon’s husband?’
She wouldn’t shake her head. She would just let him look at her in that way of his as she tried to shut everything else out. ‘Caroline was thinking about it but. . but wanted to wait. It. . it was the first time for all of us.’
‘When?’
‘Just after the Christmas party the British threw for us.’
‘And have there been other attempts to get Bamba to read your fortunes?’
Had he no feelings? ‘Jill took me once more, and once I. . I went alone, all by myself.’
‘Becky, you didn’t?’ said the others, both caught off guard.
‘Why?’ asked Herr Kohler.
It would have to be said plainly. ‘Because I thought Herr Weber was going to have me deported.’
To a concentration camp.
The ax had stopped, the log that had been split, falling on either side of the chopping block.
Sergeant Matthieu Senghor gave it a moment for he could see that this sûreté was determined.
‘The blond, blue-eyed young American, Chief Inspector. The one called Becky, from Mademoiselle Jill’s room. The timid one. She was nearer to the Chalet des Ânes than the one who traps. Brother Étienne looked towards her once and then again while talking to Mademoiselle Lacy. Perhaps he thought she was following the ballet dancer, perhaps only watching from among the trees nearby to see where she went, but we didn’t see her go into that place, nor did we see Mademoiselle Lacy enter it either. We didn’t go in there ourselves, I swear it.’
‘I wheeled the brother’s bike away,’ said Bamba Duclos, carefully choosing his words. ‘Always the punctures, always the need for a patch. That thing has to have new inner tubes but those are impossible to get unless God answers the brother’s prayers.’
Hermann would somehow have produced a cigarette to share with them. ‘And no one had asked any of you to meet with that girl?’
‘No one, Inspector,’ said Senghor. ‘The timid one came here three times, though, to see what the basket held. First with several of the others. A dozen maybe, then with only the one, Mademoiselle Faber, and then once and alone. I tried to discourage her. Bien sûr, Mademoiselle Torrence was terrified of being alone with us, but also of something far worse, though she refused to say of what and begged the corporal here to look into her future. Bamba’s grandfather and father were both known for their skill in divination, so the talent and responsibility fell naturally to him.’
The shorter of the two, but bigger across the shoulders, Duclos’s gaze was wary but then, at a sudden thought, he flashed a grin. ‘She paid me well, Inspector. Two cans of Libby’s pork and beans, one packet of Oxo beef-tea cubes, one of raisins, two packs of Lucky Strikes, two bars of chocolate, and some of the chewing gum those people eat. . but me, ah, mon Dieu, I knew I shouldn’t have touched that stuff. I pulled a filling and the sergeant here had to yank the tooth. The pain. . the blood. . ’
‘Yes, yes, please continue.’
‘Some may think they want to see what the sun will bring them in the morning or in a few days, a week, or even a year or the years, but when they find out they go all to pieces if it’s bad. She was like that. A twist of hair.’