‘Where’s the cache of petty thefts?’ he asked so suddenly the ball was caught but not thrown. ‘Come, come, out with it, mademoiselle. If you know that, then you are in more than just danger.’
‘Kleptomaniacs don’t kill, Inspector. As far as I know, it’s not in their nature. They’re usually quite gentle and retiring. Look, if I knew where it was, do you think I’d still be wondering who was taking things?’
The ball was again thrown.
‘Whoever it is, Inspector, she’s uncanny about it. No one has ever seen her steal anything, so why should anyone be able to find out where she’s been hiding the loot, such as it is?’
‘And the missing datura seeds, mademoiselle?’
Was he close to the truth? she wondered. ‘All of us in that room of ours knew where that Frenchwoman kept a spare key to that suitcase. Caroline, me, Jill, Marni, and Becky. We’re all terrified, isn’t that so? Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be by myself.’
‘Before you broadcast the Brother’s news bulletin?’
He would ask and she would have to tell him. ‘At first it only goes out to a very few. You’ve been privileged.’
‘Ah, oui, oui, but does Herr Weber suspect this breech of security has been happening?’
‘He might. I really don’t know. Often the Free French broadcasts are jammed, or the weather’s too off and Étienne can’t get a thing.’
Étienne. ‘Yet all must be hungry for the news he brings.’
‘We let it out only in little bits and with days between and as rumours.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of informants?’
‘Always.’
‘Was there anything else in the note he left for you?’
Why had he asked? ‘Nothing. How could there have been?’
‘Let me try the stick. I used to play soccer. Left centre forward.’
‘You’d only lose the ball and I haven’t got another.’
‘Then for now, enjoy your dream. Hermann will be wondering where I’ve got to. I think I’ll tell him I attended a lacrosse game in which so many goals were scored, I completely lost count.’
The furor had died down; the door to Room 3-38 had been closed for maybe five minutes, maybe ten.
Kohler took another look around, wishing Louis were with him. Louis would have picked up on things this Kripo might well have missed.
Jill Faber sat silently on her cot against the wall nearest to the kitchen corner with its stove leaking trails of woodsmoke, for she’d built the fire up too high and the sound of its crackling pine and smell permeated. Marni Huntington, the redhead, was to his left, against the inner wall, the girl sombre too, as if, in having Brother Étienne in the room, demureness was best.
Becky Torrence, the blonde from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, held the slimmest wedge of Port-du-Salut in her lap, the room’s share, a treasure, while the camp’s nothing monk consoled Madame Irène de Vernon on that one’s cot.
Gone was the bonheur, the booming bluster, the open-armed gestures. Instead, this Pied Piper of Hamelin who had climbed the stairs with the whole of the Vittel-Palace following now held that woman’s hands and let her pour out her heart to him.
‘Me, I told Caroline not to go outside so late in the day, mon Frère. I begged her not to. The chest.’
‘Yes, yes, madame, you did as you should have.’
‘She was determined, was still very upset-had been that way for the whole week since that. . that other one had fallen. I asked her who she was going to meet, and she said. . Ah, Sainte Mère, Saint Mère, mon Frère Étienne, she said, “It’s not what you think. You’ll find out soon enough.” Soon, Brother? Soon?’
‘Now, now, Irène, please try to calm yourself.’
‘It was that Jennifer Hamilton. Caroline went to meet her, to tell her their affair was over. Over, you understand. I’m certain of it. Who else would have killed my child? She was always after Caroline and followed her everywhere just as that one over there did.’
Uh-oh, thought Kohler.
‘Becky Torrence?’ asked the brother, startled.
‘Oui. I’ve seen the way she looked at my Caroline when a glimpse of flesh was revealed while having a wash. That one would seek her out, mon Frère, Caroline embarrassed by the look, me quickly closing the gap in the curtain. Lust, I tell you. Lust!’
Louis should have heard it.
‘The child did not understand at first, but that Jill over there who talks so lewdly of the Senegalese is very aware of what that Torrence girl felt for my Caroline. Ask her. She knows. Look how she tries to stare me down now. She once caught that other one trying to kiss my Caroline who was so innocent, the Virgin herself would have been astounded. Caroline pulled away in shock. Instinctively, I tell you. Instinctively, while that one, that garce Jill said. . ’
‘Yes, yes,’ managed the brother, all ears now no doubt, felt Kohler.
‘She said, “Better luck next time, eh, if that’s what you really want.”’
‘I didn’t!’ swore Jill. ‘That’s all a pack of dirty lies.’
‘Lies, is it?’ spat the woman. ‘Then who was it, please, who went after Caroline the night that other one fell?’
‘I. . I felt sorry for her, that’s all,’ said Becky. ‘I was worried, yes, but I definitely wasn’t secretly in love with Caroline, nor did I kill her in a fit of jealousy. It’s horrid of you to suggest such a thing.’
‘Horrid, is it?’
The two were all but shouting now.
‘Caroline lived in hell because of you, Madame, and as for my glimpse of bare flesh, it’s hard to avoid in such cramped quarters.’
‘You wanted to see her nakedness. Her cul. You enjoyed it.’
‘Inspector, I lowered my eyes as quickly as I could, but guess who was telling that girl how to wash herself?’
‘You would have lain with her if she had let you,’ spat Madame de Vernon, ‘and then. . then I would have had to listen to the two of you!’
‘Becky. . Becky, leave it,’ cautioned Jill, getting up to reach out to her. ‘Marni doesn’t think it’s true, and neither do Nora or I.’
‘I didn’t kill her, Jill. I swear I didn’t!’
‘Jésus Christ, Madame, look what you’ve done,’ Jill said shrilly. ‘Destroyed us all!’
‘Mesdemoiselles. . mesdemoiselles,’ urged Brother Étienne, ‘a moment of privacy. Inspector, somehow I must calm Madame. Her pulse, it is racing.’
‘Pull the curtain and tell her to hold her fire or a charge of murder will.’
Jill swiftly closed the curtain, then went back to Becky to brush the backs of calming fingers over a tearstained cheek.
The hand was seized and pressed to those lips. Becky Torrence was a mess, felt Kohler. Nervous as hell, afraid-terrified, but of what? Death-they all were, but was it also of something else, something far worse, like the shame of being discovered having been the thief of things of no consequence except in a place like this?
After Caroline, she was the youngest. Maybe twenty-three and missing home and everything else.
The Port-du-Salut had been splashed by Becky’s tears, Jill setting it aside as Marni Huntington went to join the two.
Now both comforted the room’s littlest one, death having passed that title on. Together they hugged her, putting foreheads against hers as if girls of ten consoling one after some terrible trouble at school.
‘We’re all boiling, Inspector,’ said Jill, drawing away a little. ‘That bitch behind the curtain has made our lives hell.’