For one who had seen everything, did she still have a tender spot, or was it simply concern for her purse?
Kohler lifted her pudgy, beringed fingers from his arm and dropped them. ‘Is he the Sandman, eh, madame? A black overcoat, a man who gets his kicks out of little girls? You tell me, and while you’re at it, understand that being an accomplice to the murders of six girls puts you in trouble so please don’t attempt to leave town.’
‘Six?’ she croaked. The whores, the customers were watchful.
‘Five victims and Liline Chambert, eh? And now also Giselle and Nénette Vernet. That’s what we’re dealing with until it’s all clear and those responsible await the blade and the basket.’
The morgue was not pleasant, and as she walked out across the concrete floor in her mink coat and boots past drains that conducted fluids to the sewers, Madame Vernet felt the skin tense up over her spine, causing her to shiver.
She clutched the coat more tightly about herself, ‘Inspector; what has happened? There are two shrouds. One is longer than the other. Why is this, please?’
‘Why are there not two of equal length? Is this what you are wondering, madame?’
‘No! I …’
‘Please take a moment to steady yourself,’ cautioned the Sûreté, watching her so closely she cringed and could not understand why he was looking at her in that way.
The smell of the place came to her, that of disinfectant, formaldehyde, rubbing alcohol, old blood, death and dampness. The sewers … ‘I have nothing to say. I don’t know why you have brought me here. I shall have to complain to the Chief Magistrate.’
‘Please do so, but before you do, madame, I would consult your clairvoyant. Madame Rébé, was it?’
Ah, damn him. ‘If … if that is … is Liline, you had better talk to my husband, not to me.’
‘I will, I assure you.’
‘Then remove the shroud, damn you!’
Behind closed doors, between walls of stone and cold storage lockers, there was nowhere for the sound of her voice to travel but back to her.
‘Please,’ she begged, and he saw tears again and he asked, ‘What have you done, madame?’
‘Nothing! I … All right, I knew she was having an affair with my husband. There, is that sufficient for your appetite, Inspector?’
‘It’s Chief Inspector, and let us not just have the hors d’oeuvres but the main courses.’
‘Pompon is mine. I … I don’t know what made me lie about it Fear perhaps. Nénette out there and dead, I thought. Antoine telling me to watch what I said, that I had no right to question him.’
‘A tiepin, madame. Where, please, did you step on it?’
‘I don’t know. How could I? Ah, damn that child. Damn her for picking things up and thinking they were important. Perhaps it … it came from … from the métro. Yes … yes, that’s where it happened. I felt a leak in my boot. I knew I would have to get the puncture mended.’
‘Please remove the boot and let me see if it is wet inside.’
‘How dare you doubt my word?’
‘The hole I fitted that pin into did not go through the sole.’
‘It did!’
He sighea He let sadness register deeply in his eyes. ‘Very well, let us uncover this one and you can confirm its identity so that the parents can be notified.’
He did it slowly, this Sûreté. There was about his every action a deep-felt sincerity and respect for the dead.
Uncovered, the pale and softly bluish face of Liline Chambert in slumber brought a shudder, a gasp, a sudden turning away to place her hands on the other pallet, only to lift them instantly and drop them to her sides. ‘It’s her. Please tell me how it happened. Was she trying to protect Nénette and … and Andrée? Is that how it was?’
She heard him take a step and then another. She thought that perhaps he was coming to comfort her after all, but no, he … he had drawn the shroud back a little more.
‘It was a boy,’ he said, and she saw that … that thing washed and dried and lying all curled up on a clean white towel upon its mother’s breast.
Ashen, Madame Vernet tried to retreat by gazing at the concrete floor. At last she said, ‘I … I didn’t know she was pregnant. Please, you must believe me,’ and when he gave no sign of this, her anger leapt. ‘Where is Nénette, then, idiot?’ she shouted. ‘Nénette can tell you everything.’
‘Then let us hope she does.’ Hermann … where the hell was Hermann?
Gold letters on a brass-framed, frosted glass panel met the eye, the soft image of a smiling, bright-eyed young woman with bouffant-styled dark auburn hair ghosting through from behind Les Liaisons enchantées. Numéro 78, Champs-Élysées, fourth floor, suite seven.
Kohler paused. An escort service, a clandestin, eh? He wanted to shout and pounce. An illegal brothel, but this logo of a member of the petite noblesse gazing at him said only, This is class. Let no others enter.
It was nearly 11.00 p.m. The place should be closed by now but wasn’t.
‘Monsieur, what can we do for you?’
There were two women in their mid-thirties behind the gilded Louis XVI desk, one sitting, the second standing with a hand on the other one’s shoulder. They’d been going over the accounts …
‘Giselle and the child. They’re all I want.’
‘Pardon?’ said the blue-eyed blonde who was standing.
‘Ah! Monique, the monsieur, he means Mademoiselle le Roy. Please,’ said the raven-haired one, indicating that he was to enter another room. ‘She is waiting for you, monsieur. She will explain everything, I think.’
‘It’s a pity he’s not a general,’ confided the blonde to the other one. ‘He has the height and the duelling scar but not the clothes, the uniform, too, of course.’
‘Mademoiselle Irène would be perfect for him, and there are still two tickets to the opera for tomorrow evening.’
Kohler stepped past them to enter a drawing room fit for kings. Shades of gold were nearly everywhere in the swirls and oak-leafed pattern of a black, Savonnerie carpet, in the herring-bone fabric that covered the settees and fauteuils and ran up the walls with darker gold bands between. Row on row of gold blending softly in with the painted ceiling and the portraits-all of men of distinction. The tall french doors were of white enamel with gilded mouldings.
Giselle was dressed as he had never seen her before, the soft crimson cashmere sheath worn off the left shoulder, with a diamond-studded clasp, black velvet choker, bracelet and ring to match. Red leather high heels, too.
‘Kid, what the hell is going on?’
Are you jealous? she wondered. Red is my colour but this … this is something far, far different. Silk stockings, too, and silk elsewhere also. ‘He’s not what you think. He’s good and kind-of course we prayed a little. He’s a priest.’
‘He isn’t.’
‘Oh yes he is. Did you think we would not hear you pounding on the doors of the Saint-Roch? He knew you would not understand why he had taken me there, so he brought me here. It’s all very proper, Hermann. The girls are escorts. Nothing else.’
‘What is the matter with you?’
‘Has he hypnotized me? Is this what you are wondering?’
‘Where’s the child?’
‘The glove … Ah! you thought she was here and he had taken us both prisoner.’
‘Well?’
Hermann was jealous-she was certain of it, so maybe she would take the job and dine with a general or two just to see that he behaved himself in future. ‘The child is not with him. He found the glove in the rue Chabanais this afternoon. She dropped it and ran and he could not catch up with her to return it. That is all.’