Sandman

by J. Robert Janes

  Anger rose in his gullet. Hasse waited until it had abated. ‘They’re in the room I use for storage. Is this necessary?’

  He could be cold when he wanted, still brutal, too, perhaps, but could he then calm himself, as the Sandman must have done, pausing long enough to remove all traces of pubic hair?

  There was that little nod Kohler knew so well, a sadness to Louis’s voice. ‘As necessary as it is for you to tell us where you were last Sunday between two and four p.m. Several of these photographs are of children at soup kitchens, Herr Hasse. Poor children. Children bundled in rags. Several are also of the Notre-Dame and its belfries. Please, you do understand? We’re only doing our job.’

  Like police the world over, they were unwilling to give respite until satisfied.

  ‘Well?’ asked Louis of that Sunday.

  Again that coldness came. ‘I was not in Paris. I was in Saint-Germain-en-Laye staying with a friend.’

  When Hasse came back with three sketches, Kohler asked if he would allow them to borrow the snapshots. ‘Just for a little. They’ll be returned. No problem.’

  Ah, damn them. ‘I could refuse, but I won’t. You see, I want you to find the person responsible for the killings, especially those of Liline and Andrée.’

  The sketches were good but showed two very subdued and uncertain girls who didn’t really want to pose or be anywhere near the studio or the artist.

  He would have to tell them. ‘I paid Liline to bring the girls. Two hundred francs a sitting. They knew she needed the money and that it was a lot, so suffered through, but I couldn’t change their opinions of me. They dreaded being near. That’s why I have to use the camera.’

  ‘Did they know she was pregnant?’ asked the Sûreté.

  ‘I think they must have, but we never discussed it. I thought, and said so each time, that the money would assist Liline in finding accommodations of her own.’

  ‘But it was for the abortion?’

  ‘Apparently so. A total of a thousand francs. Five visits. Even then the girls could not get used to being here. They thought it a prison, I suppose. Certainly a place of the dead, and they were afraid.’

  Louis set one of the sketches aside and took up another. He preferred now to stand—so did Hasse.

  The cat found its saucer of milk. In a city where there was virtually none to be had, here there was plenty.

  ‘Herr Hasse, something is puzzling me,’ said Louis, setting the thing aside. ‘A girl like Liline Chambert would not have readily known how to find an abortionist. Fellow students might have suggested a name, but …’

  The stork tossed its head. ‘I didn’t, if that is what you are wondering. Indeed, had I but known, I would have seen she at least had proper medical care and …’ Hasse paused to search him out. ‘I would not have sent her to one of the Führer’s baby farms in the Reich.’

  ‘I’m sorry I asked, but one has to.’

  ‘Then I’ll tell you again, I am completely innocent.’

  ‘That is what they all say. Please do not leave the city. We may need to question you further.’

  Ah merde, Louis, go easy. He’s SS, thought Kohler, but then caught a glimpse of the butt of a Mauser pistol jutting out from beneath a pile of rubbish. The cat scooted off, and he watched as it raced down the corridor to enter the room the Attack Leader used to store canvases. The room must be full of them. All of young girls, all of them with happy faces because that was the only way he could stand to see them.

  ‘Saint-Germain-en-Laye,’ mused Louis at the door. ‘Please, the name of the party you were with.’

  Verdammt, the insolence! ‘A Mademoiselle Monique Reynard. She’s from an escort service I use. A bit of company. Two single rooms, dinner and long walks. All very innocent, I assure you. A drive in the countryside she knows well. A short visit to the house of her parents. A failure, if an affair is what you are wondering about, Inspector. We never seemed to get to it. One tries to forget, but one can never do so.’

  ‘And the name of this escort service?’

  ‘Must you?’

  ‘Please, it is necessary.’

  ‘Les Liaisons enchantées. It’s on the Champs-Élysées, at Number 78.’

  ‘Did Liline Chambert know you used this escort service?’

  Liline … Liline … why must they always come back to her? Why could they not concentrate on Andrée? ‘Yes. Yes, we discussed it once or twice. I really can’t remember. She had some notion she might be able to find work with them. On several occasions she offered to show me around Paris if I wished.’

  How nice. ‘And was this your first weekend in the country-side with this Mademoiselle Reynard?’

  It was all one could do to resist giving the Sûreté the back of a hand. ‘The fifth in the past four months. She’s been assigned to me by the Generalmajor und Höherer-SS Oberg, Inspector. She’s really very good. She’s a qualified psychotherapist. One has to learn to live again, that’s what they tell people like myself. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time.’

  ‘He’ll kill himself, Louis, Let’s hope to God the Butcher of Poland doesn’t blame us!’

  It hadn’t been for nothing that Karl Albrecht Oberg had earned that nickname. ‘Merde, what are we to do?’

  ‘Run for the Swiss border and try to get across it before nightfall, eh? One thing is certain. Our Father Debauve or Debauville must have SS clearance for his escort service and that, my fine Sûreté, means he’s also under their protection and we can’t touch him either, but what has he told the SS about our Attack Leader, eh? That the son of a bitch desires young girls and has to kill them, too? Ah piss!’

  So many criminals had been released from prison to work with impunity for the SS and others. ‘We have to find the child, and quickly, Hermann. Hasse didn’t ask where Nénette was or express any concern for her well-being. He should have.’

  ‘Maybe he has her. Maybe he knows she’s already dead and can’t tell us a thing.’

  A search of the synagogue and cemetery was fruitless. At this hour, the Bois de Boulogne was all but deserted. Julien Rébé had still not shown up for work at the riding stables. The Jardin d’Acclimatation was shuttered, cold and empty, its signs for the puppet theatres, the miniature railway, Norman farm and zoo as bleak as the frozen breath of a solitary camel who peered out at the snow and ice from within the fake desert dune of its unheated stable.

  Telephone calls to the convent school and the Villa Vernet revealed only that the child had not returned. Was she riding the métro endlessly, as some did these days until the curfew stopped it, or was she wandering the streets in search of the glove she had dropped in the rue Chabanais—if she had really dropped it? Where … where the hell was she?

  ‘The Bibliothèque Nationale,’ muttered Louis. ‘The number on the right hind leg of the giraffe. That is what it means. I knew I recognized it, but …’

  The book was one of a collection of several hundred volumes that had been hastily stored in a corridor off the Reading Room and forgotten. Apparently, the American Embassy had donated the books just prior to 11 November 1942, the day the Reich had finally occupied the whole country and had forced the embassy, then in the South, to close its doors in a hurry and leave what had formerly been the Free Zone. The number was a Dewey decimal classification. ‘A history of Arizona.’

  One could not just walk in and take a book from the shelf. Tours were given; subterfuge had been necessary. A distraction perhaps.

  When riffled through, the book yielded a note. It was dated Saturday, 9 January 1943.

  Andrée, we will escape. I promise. We’ll go to this place and never ever have to eat dog. Beefsteaks, Andrée. Real steaks grilled over an open fire of mesquite to whose perfume the coyotes will come at night so that we can shoot them.

  It was signed, Ninette, your dearest friend in despair and now blood sister. We will each have a horse just like Silver but must be careful when shooting the coyotes not to stampede the herd. Otherwise, the owner of the ranch wil
l have to dismiss us.

  As promised, your extra reward for helping me in my time of deepest despair will be the crystal of clear quartz, the polished pebble of amethyst from Brazil, the braided ring of gold wire, the roulette wheel, the tiny Lone Ranger on his Silver and, yes, my charm bracelet of dogs. The perfume I have already presented to you, but as a Christmas gift.

  How utterly French and practical of her even in the face of despair, thought Kohler sadly. The child had written the number of the book on the giraffe and had given the toy to Andrée on the following day, perhaps even as they had hurried from whoever had been following them.

  Andrée Noireau had been the timid one but had given Nénette the little elephant she had stolen from that same crèche.

  Records occupied the whole of the top and fifth floor of the Sûreté’s former headquarters at 11 rue des Saussaies, now that of the Gestapo in France. None of the fingerprints from the tenement room on the quai du Président Paul Doumer had so far matched those of any known abortionist. No match could be made with those of Father Eugène Debauville either, but he had not stayed long in that room—if, indeed, it had been he—and would have kept his gloves on.

  Julien Rébé had had several convictions for petty theft—bicycles, and the chairs from streetside cafés, which he had then sold back to their owners. Both were common enough rackets.

  From among Liline Chambert’s things, apparently only her underpants had been taken from that room. Nothing else.

  ‘Madame Vernet, I think,’ said Louis giving that curt little nod Kohler knew so well. ‘Perhaps she’ll be kind enough to answer a few more questions.’

  The dog was dead. Whoever had slit its throat had held it down until the jerking had stopped. Blood was everywhere on the snow beneath an oak behind the Villa Vernet … Blood and urine. Frozen now, and disembowelled, the poodle was hanging from a branch, not turning at all in the wind because its entrails formed an icy column fast to the ground.

  There were footprints everywhere, some bloodied, some not. Those of the one who had done it—oh, bien sûr, he hadn’t cared. He’d been desperate. Those of the chef and the housekeeper. Neither of them had wanted to cut the dog down. Both had rebelled and refused. Both had felt the Sûreté and the Kripo had best see this, that things had long since gone too far.

  It was the chef who pointed out the lesser footprints—toeprints mostly—and then the crushed remains of the silver poodle-charm Nénette Vernet had removed some time ago from her bracelet but had now chosen to leave.

  Louis thanked him. Kohler told both of them to wait in the kitchens, that Madame might be needing sustenance.

  ‘Julien Rébé,’ he breathed as they watched the two leave. ‘A warning to Madame to keep her mouth shut.’

  ‘Yes, but is the child still free or has Rébé taken her? Is it that the child witnessed the killing of the dog in secret last night, having run from him for hours perhaps, or is it that she came upon it later, at dawn?’

  The leaf-padded overcoat, sealskin mittens and boots were gone from the gallery of the folly, so, too, the hat. On the table below, as at a Last Supper, the soup plate held nothing, not even a stray crumb. It had been smashed.

  There was a note among the shards. I am alive and I will haunt you. Nothing else but the wrought-iron crucifix from her bedroom desk and the knitting needle.

  A housebreaker, too, then. An unlocked door and easy access to her room. The chef no doubt. ‘Does she really know who the Sandman is, Louis?’

  That was the question. ‘Two killers. The one who follows her and intends to kill her but makes a mistake, and the other who strikes at random and pierces the heart but not the brain. Or is it simply the first of these and this whole business really has little to do with the Sandman except that she used those killings to try to trap the one who wanted to kill her?’

  Madame Vernet did not look up or turn from the windows through which she continued to stare out at her dog. Ashen, unmade-up and still in her nightdress, gown, shawl and slippers, she waited for them to come closer. ‘I know nothing, Inspectors. I did nothing.’

  Her voice was so remote.

  It was Louis who said, ‘But you have an enemy out there, madame. Perhaps you should tell us where you were last Sunday afternoon while your niece and her little friend were in the Bois.’

  ‘Antoine is on his way. He telephoned from Mantes. He’ll be here in another hour unless there are delays. Always there are delays. It’s the bombing, the bombing. Honoré is at the Gare Saint-Lazare with the car, waiting to bring him home as soon as he arrives.’

  ‘Sunday afternoon, madame?’ reminded the Sûreté. ‘Please, it is necessary.’

  ‘I was restless. I went for a walk.’

  ‘To where?’ asked the one called Kohler, hauling out a notebook and swinging a chair round so that he could straddle it and rest his arms on its back. He was so close to her she felt the coldness of his overcoat and saw nothing but emptiness in his eyes.

  She shrugged. ‘Antoine wanted me to do something for him. A small errand. An envelope for the Reverend Mother. Don’t ask me what was in it. Ten thousand francs probably. He’s really very generous. Perhaps he feels it’s his duty to help them assist in the feeding of the unfortunate.’

  She glanced doubtfully at each of them and watched as Louis took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and began that ritual Kohler knew so well of silently sizing up a suspect. Not until he was done and had taken those first few puffs and waved out the match did the Sûreté say, ‘But on Sunday, when you met with her, the Reverend Mother must have told you Andrée Noireau had not gone to Chamonix as you believed, madame, but had left the infirmary just before dawn. You did tell us you thought Andrée was in Chamonix.’

  Ah why must he do this to her, why? ‘I … I didn’t see the Reverend Mother. I … I left the envelope with Sister Céline. Yes, she’s the one. She’ll tell you I did.’

  ‘But that’s just not possible. Please, I am sorry to be so upsetting. Sister Céline and Sister Dominique were out searching for the child.’

  ‘The little vixen should have gone to Chamonix! Why didn’t she?’

  They ignored her outburst. The one called St-Cyr was still standing but turned from her to gaze at Pompon as though he had all day. The one called Kohler scribbled something in his notebook and then waited for more. Did they always go at a person like this?

  ‘Why didn’t Andrée take that train to Chamonix, Inspectors?’ she pleaded. ‘That child was supposed to. Antoine had arranged everything.’

  Those faded, empty blue eyes passed slowly over her. They took in her satin-covered thighs, her knees and slippers, then returned to the shawl she clutched.

  ‘Don’t mind him, madame,’ quipped Kohler gently. ‘Louis just gets huffy when he’s being told lies and half-lies.’

  ‘I want the truth, madame,’ hissed the Sûreté, flinging himself from the windows to place both hands flat on the table beside her chair and rattle its cup and saucer. ‘There’s a child out there alive and waiting for that truth to be revealed so she can return. The Sandman may yet kill her, madame. Kill her, if we can’t convince her it is safe for her to come in. You were carrying on an affair with Julien Rébé—oh, bien sûr, it was perfect. Exquisite!’ He tossed a hand. ‘A lout, a boy with a history of petty theft. A gigolo.’

  ‘A shoveller of horseshit!’ said Kohler.

  ‘A part-time mannequin, madame. What more fitting and excruciating an embarrassment, since, if discovered, the affair would never allow your husband to hold his head up again. Revenge. You wanted revenge! You were going to lose everything.’

  ‘He was going to divorce you, wasn’t he?’ shouted Kohler. ‘He was going to marry Mademoiselle Chambert!’

  Ah no, how had they learned of this?

  ‘But,’ breathed Kohler, seeing her trying to get a grip on herself, ‘the boy had to be stupid and dependent, madame, so as to do your every bidding.’

  Again the Sûreté gestured emphatically. ‘This boy nee
ds protection from the lists that are being prepared for the S.T.O., madame, the conscription into forced labour in the Reich. It’s to begin in February, so there is some urgency.’

  ‘You promised to see that Julien Rébé’s name did not appear on any of those lists,’ said Kohler. ‘Instead, you must have agreed to place it among those your husband had designated as far too important to be taken.’

  ‘Those lists would have been among your husband’s papers—he would never notice. But what, please, did Rébé do for you in exchange?’

  ‘His mother also, Louis. We mustn’t forget the clairvoyant.’

  ‘Nor what Madame Rébé says the stars and Tarot cards are telling her.’

  ‘Two hundred francs a session,’ breathed Kohler, letting his eyes settle on the base of her throat where the blade of the guillotine might pass. ‘Sometimes three hundred if extended. You like your back massaged both before and afterwards, madame. Your seat, too, I gather. That son of hers had to smother your cries of joy lest the grands frissons you so enjoyed disturbed his mother’s clients.’

  The great shudders, the orgasmes … Moisture rushed into her dark brown eyes, anger, too, and she felt these, felt so desperate. ‘How dare you speak to me like that? What affair, please? You’ve no proof of this. No proof at all!’

  The fists in her lap were doubled. ‘Oh, but we have ample proof,’ sighed the Sûreté sadly. ‘If pressed for answers, that clairvoyant of yours will be only too willing to swear to it.’

  Ah damn them! Damn Julien and that mother of his! ‘What if I am pregnant? It’s my body, my life, and since when do the Sûreté and the Kripo go around telling people whom they can have sex with—yes, sex, damn you—and whom they can’t enjoy? He was a far, far better lover than my husband could ever have been and yes! he was good while it lasted, but it’s over.’

  Her chest quickly rose and fell as she waited for them to say something.