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.’