‘A glove. A leather glove,’ said a flic from Talbotte’s nest, a viper. ‘The brown leather glove of a child, Monsieur the Inspector. Is it this for which you are searching while emptying the oceans of your eyes?’
The glove was lying on the floor at the foot of the steps that led up to the altar; next to it were a candle on its side and a small pool of now-congealed wax.
Giselle? he begged, and, picking up the glove, stared emptily at it.
‘The child?’ he asked at last. ‘Ah merde … The “priest” must really be the Sandman.’
In the darkness of the child’s bedroom the amber and gold of the dragonflies on the stained-glass lampshade finally glowed, but still Madame Vernet did not see him. Unsettled, she touched the waistcoat of the porcelain frog below the lamp and turned sharply as the Meissen clock on the mantelpiece chimed 9.00 p.m., Berlin Time.
‘Inspector …?’ she said, but still St-Cyr wouldn’t let himself answer, nor had she seen him yet. He wanted only to study her for a few moments, to watch as she searched the map of the city the child had put up on the wall above her desk, the woman following the lines from press clippings to the site of each of the Sandman’s murders as if she could not stop herself until, at last, she had read again perhaps, This one is next.
If anyone had wanted to kill her niece, there it was in black and white: Sunday afternoon, 10 January, the Jardin d’Acclimatation. I am certain of it. Her little friend would be away in Chamonix. Liline Chambert would be busy, a girl in great trouble, a tragedy.
Alone in the Jardin, while she waited for Liline to return, the heiress would be easy prey.
But Andrée Noireau had not gone to Chamonix and the girls had known Nénette would be followed.
As he watched her, Madame Vernet let her gaze drop to the things he had laid out and, seeing the crumpled, empty tube of oil paint, hesitated before picking it up. ‘Liline, Inspector. She’ll be able to tell you where Nénette got this.’
He did not answer and she silently cursed him for distrusting her, but where, please, was he? He had told them downstairs to send her up as soon as she had arrived home. Flustered and embarrassed, she had hardly had time to remove her coat and boots before climbing the stairs to pass by Liline’s room, and reach Nénette’s in this far corner of the house.
‘The pencil tin is from the same source,’ she said and heard her voice falter. ‘It … it was just some man Liline met at one of her drawing classes at the Grande-Chaumière. He gave them to her. A German, a holder of the Iron Cross First-Class with Oak Leaves and other medals. “He … he’s quite good,” she once said, “but in bad shape. He wants only to paint children-schoolgirls.” She … she took Nénette and Andrée to see his atelier in Saint-Germain and sat with them several times while they posed for him.’
A German … The wound and tank battle badges, the Polish Campaign medal, ah merde …
There, he could make what he liked of it, she thought, and perhaps the SS-Attack Leader Gerhardt Hasse had some answering of his own to do, since men, no matter how good as artists, should not just want to sketch schoolgirls.
Afraid of his scrutiny, embarrassed by it, she kept fingering the scratches on her left cheek while unconsciously her right hand touched that thigh as if for comfort. A forgotten woman, neglected by Vernet in favour of one so junior to her: Liline Chambert had been all but half her age.
The thick, wavy brunette hair was tossed in anger at his continued silence. She took a breath and, not turning, touched the base of her throat.
‘Madame,’ he said at last, ‘where have you been?’
How cold his voice was. ‘I won’t stand for this, Inspector,’ she said hotly. ‘You’ve no right to ask in such a manner. I … I had an appointment at my hairdresser’s, if you must know. Another power outage-they’re always having to save electricity these days or cutting it off to punish people. The dryer went off while I was under it. I decided to wait.’
Perhaps, but then … ah then, he said to himself and, pushing in the plunger of the little roulette wheel, let the steel ball bounce round until it had found her number. A zero. The house would take all bets but those placed on that number.
‘Where else did you go?’ he asked.
Her eyes passed furtively over the objects before her. ‘To my clairvoyant. Is that so wrong, please? Madame Rébé is president of the Society of Metaphysical Sciences. I … I went to consult her about my niece.’
‘And?’ he asked, joining her at last. She gave a shrug.
‘I am to bring her a few items. Things that are the child’s and typify her nature. Her tooth-brush, too, and the piece of soap she last touched.’
Uncertain of him, she tried to smile and read his mind in the light from those dragonflies. What could he see of me? she wondered. Are all my secrets so naked before him?
‘Where, please, can we find this Madame Rébé?’
Ah, damn him! ‘Look, she has nothing to do with any of this … this …’ She gestured dismissively at the map and the rubbish on the desk. Her brown eyes glared at him fiercely. Every facial feature was sharpened by the light and the tension in her, the high cheekbones, the lips that were twisted up a little to the right, producing now a timorous and uncertain look.
‘Please, we may need the clairvoyant’s help, madame, isn’t that so?’ he said, not taking his eyes from hers. ‘Ah! I’m not averse to consulting them myself from time to time. My first wife was very committed to the practice and would not undertake any business venture without first the consultation.’
Had he deliberately made reference to that wife so as to make her wonder why the woman had left him? Might she then forget herself, if but for a moment? The bastard.
‘She was a dress designer and had a little shop of her own, madame. My long hours and continued absences, these she simply could no longer take. Women need love. In marriage, it’s expected. Now please, Madame Rébé?’
Cochon! she wanted to scream at him. She wished she could slap his face so hard they would hear it downstairs. ‘Numéro 10, rue de l’Eperon.’
It was in the Sixth, in Hermann’s quartier and but a stone’s throw from the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton and the flat he shared with Giselle and Oona on the rue Suger. A small world.
‘And the atelier of this German artist?’
‘This I … I do not know. Ask Liline. She’ll tell you.’
‘Ah! I wish it were possible, but you see, madame, the girl has left for the south. A hurried trip. Didn’t your husband tell you?’
‘Bâtard, he tells me nothing and you know it! Why distress me so? Are you all the same, you flics?’
‘The same? Ah no, madame. No, there are differences.’
She turned away, she turned back. ‘I don’t know what you want with me. I’ve done nothing.’
‘Then you have nothing to fear, have you?’
Her eyes darted down over the rubbish, and when they momentarily hesitated at the tiepin, he asked, ‘What is it, please? Do you recognize something?’
‘No. No, I … I just can’t understand why that child had to pick up everything she came across. It’s shameful. It’s disgusting and unsanitary.’
But useful.
His mind made up, he took hold of her by the elbow, and when she heard his voice, his words, she shuddered inwardly and did not know what to do or say. ‘Madame, please accompany me to the morgue. There is something I must show you.’