‘Then leave us, Sister. Please return to your duties. The brasses is it their turn today?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
The nun retreated swiftly with head demurely bowed, and they waited until the colonnades had swallowed her up. Only then did the Mother Superior turn. ‘Messieurs, this is a terrible hour for us. Our little Andrée taken from us so brutally? Our Nénette … What has become of her? A voyou, the Sister Céline would call that one. A delinquent, a guttersnipe, a picker-up of refuse. Never have I seen a child so impulsively committed to collecting the incidental things of life’s tiny misfortunes. A button, a badge, a bit of string … Dear blessed Jesus, what did that child not pick up?’
They gave her time. They knew she was greatly distressed and had been trying to come to grips with things, since Paris-Soir and all the other rags had somehow managed a photograph of the victim and had splashed the news and her true identity across the city to pay the flics back for beating them up and denying them access to the murder.
She was not young or old, thought St-Cyr, but of that vintage the last war had left with a lover buried or the self rejected in favour of another after too long an absence.
He had seen so many of them but told himself the vocation itself might well have called her. A former nurse perhaps. That, too, passed through his mind, for she had a very capable look about her. Determined and ready to face things at all costs but cautious, too. A narrow face, sharp nose, pale skin, blonde brows and sincere deep blue eyes that missed little, ah yes.
‘You must forgive me,’ she said. ‘Tragedy is so commonplace these days you would think we would be ready for it but’-she shrugged and tried to smile-‘you find us ill prepared. What can I do to help? Please, you have only to ask.’
‘Then let us walk a little in your garden, Reverend Mother,’ said St-Cyr. ‘My partner, Herr Kohler, must make a few telephone calls. Would it be all right if he was to return indoors?’
To spy on us, she wondered, to seek answers where … where none could possibly be? ‘Of course. In spite of the shortages, we are blessed or punished with two telephones but only one line out. The first is in my office next to the infirmary, the other in that of Father Jouvand, who seldom uses his but insists it be there so that he can complain about its ringing. Sister Dominique, who brought you to me, will take you to either.’ Why had they simply not asked Dominique to allow them to use the telephone first? Was it to be a case of divide and conquer? It must be.
‘Father Jouvand’s, I think,’ grunted Kohler, fiddling with his fedora and unable to raise his eyes from the crucifix that hung around her neck and was so like the one he had found in Nénette Vernet’s desk.
They waited for him to leave and when, at last, he, too, had been swallowed up, they walked a little. To put her at ease, St-Cyr found delight in simply beauty, a branch, a holly berry capped with snow, a single rose hip that had somehow missed the harvest but was still delightfully piquant and beneficial for the health.
He would tell her as little as possible. She knew this now and said, ‘We share a love of the natural world, Inspector, but would you do something for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘A cigarette-have you one? I … I haven’t indulged in years but suddenly feel the need.’
‘I’m not making you nervous, am I?’ he asked, and knew at once she regretted his asking.
‘A little, yes. It’s not often detectives pay us a visit.’
As he lit the cigarette for her, he said, ‘Andrée Noireau was to have taken the train to Chamonix on Thursday, Reverend Mother. Why did she not do so?’
She filled her lungs with smoke, felt the nicotine rushing to her brain and could not help but remember the last war and a moment so terrifying she had never had another cigarette until now. ‘She was ill-well, too ill, I felt, to make the journey. I had her taken to the infirmary-last winter’s flu was so terrible I wasn’t taking any chances. Her temperature was normal. At first I felt the excitement of seeing her parents after such a long absence might have upset her, but then she began to complain of terrible headaches and pains in her stomach. Sister Edith heard her retching in the toilets. Warmth and rest were called for.’
‘And the Vernets, Reverend Mother? Were they notified? I understand Monsieur Vernet had used his influence to obtain a laissez-passer for the child. They thought she had taken the train.’
‘But … but they knew the child was here? I telephoned the house and spoke directly to Nénette. I asked her to tell her aunt and uncle the trip was out of the question.’
‘And when did you telephone?’
‘Why, on Thursday at … at noon. We had had the doctor in. He had thought it might be the child’s appendix. The threat of an operation caused poor Andrée to weep-ah, such weeping! I also asked Nénette to have her uncle notify the parents, since it … it is impossible for most to telephone to the zone interdite [the forbidden zone along the Swiss and Spanish borders, and in the northern and western coastal areas]. Was Madame Vernet too busy to remember? Was she having her hair done or … Forgive me. I speak out of turn. That wasn’t called for. It was wrong of me.’
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?’