‘You and you, into that stall, inspectors,’ said Reinecke, motioning at them with the Schmeisser. ‘The girl to stay where she is.’
And that ax? wondered St-Cyr.
Nora felt herself being pulled and thrown to the floor. Flame flashed through the pitch-darkness, shots filling the chalet, the Oberfeldwebel turning to fire burst after burst at the Senegalese; Herr Weber firing once, twice, and then again; the sound of each weapon harsh and very different from each of the others until silence intruded.
‘Hermann, are you all right?’
‘And you and Nora?’
For ages, it seemed, they waited. The boy whimpered for his mother. Someone gave a sigh. Something metallic slid to the floor as the smell of cordite came to her.
Finally the flashlight came on briefly. Nora blinked, and as she did, the chief inspector gently brushed the back of a hand against her cheek, then got to his feet and helped her up.
The boy was slumped against the upright under the ax, the Untersturmführer had been hit twice, once in the forehead, once in the chest-horrible messes where the slugs had exited.
Cut to pieces, Duclos and Senghor lay in the stall from which they had fired the revolvers they had found in those boxes.
Oberfeldwebel Reinecke had been hit in the chest but only once.
Sickened, Nora waited.
Picking their way through the dead, the two collected their own weapons, St-Cyr the satchel of Duclos, leaving everything else for others to find, others who would be there all too soon.
‘Hermann, find Jennifer and bring her to Madame Chevreul. I’ll take this one to the Grand. We’ll pick up the brother on the way.’
‘Angèle, inspectors. You can’t leave her out in this weather.’
‘The stable, then. The two of us. We can’t let this girl escape, Hermann. I wish that we could, but it’s just not possible.’
Louis had the bracelets out and had already clamped one on her and the other around his sûreté wrist.
Outside, on the cold night air, the sound of aircraft was even louder and then, from the Hôtel Grand and the Vittel-Palace, their voices rising first in a cheer, and then in song, ‘Bless ’em all, the long and the short and the tall. . ’
The revelry on hearing the RAF continued in the Vittel-Palace, the corridors crowded with every type of sleeping garb: scarves, toques, overcoats and fingerless gloves, nightgowns or pajamas but with heavy woollen work socks pulled all but to the knees, hair in paper twists or nets, hair with all the pins and ribbons out. Brother Étienne’s face creams were on some, their eyes like saucers in the dim light, their lips unmade as they faced the grim countenance of Mrs. Parker, who pushed her way through them.
She climbed the stairs. Kohler was right behind her, and as they went up, the hush they left behind followed.
Obviously anxious and very troubled, Jill Faber, who had urgently summoned the woman, met them outside Room 3-38. ‘We’re holding her, Inspector. She isn’t going anywhere.’
Irène de Vernon, her hair in curlers, sat propped up in bed with her own and Caroline Lacy’s pillows behind her and a cigarette she was obviously enjoying.
Marni Huntington stood guard with Nora Arnarson’s lacrosse stick.
‘OK, so what the hell has happened?’ he asked of Madame de Vernon, not liking the look of things.
The grey eyes behind their wire-gold frames coldly took him in. Ash was flicked. ‘They accuse, but you will find that it wasn’t me.’
‘Jennifer. . ’ began Marni. ‘She’s been poisoned by that one.’
‘Pah! A plague on you! I did no such thing, Inspector. Bien sûr, I might have suggested it, but me, a killer? Cher Jésus, forgive them. Mon Dieu, such bitches. Look closely.’ She tossed the hand with the cigarette. ‘It could have been any of them.’
They all began to talk at once.
‘The caramel pie with the Del Bey raisins,’ blurted Marni, so close to tears and sickened by what had happened, she wanted to bash the woman.
‘The stew,’ said Becky, shattered by the thought.
‘We were all in here having such a good time talking about home,’ said Jill, ‘we didn’t even notice that that bitch had hurried past the door.’
‘Garce, is it?’ shouted the woman.
‘Later, after that one had come back, Jen ducked in to say she’d be with us just as soon as she’d had her supper,’ said Marni, threatening her with the stick. ‘The. . the others had left it in their room for her. That’s how Madame was able to poison it.’
‘A stew that Dorothy had made with potatoes scavenged from this morning’s soup ration and two cans of pork and beans,’ said Jill, knowing it must have been the stew.
‘And SPAM,’ said Marni. ‘Diced and fried first to give it a bit more taste.’
‘Candice made the pie,’ said Becky, as if in the telling there was reassurance. ‘You burn the sugar first, Inspector, then add the gently cooked raisins and stir like mad before gradually thickening with powdered cracker crumbs. The pie crust is made from those as well, with marg’ and Klim and water. Packed down firmly and baked just a bit beforehand. Warmed, really.’
‘Barb Caldwell made the tea,’ said Jill, having calmed herself a little. ‘Dried, roasted carrot greens we stole from the vegetable plots of the Brits last autumn. Nora made us all snow ice cream, but Jen hadn’t had hers. That’s why Nora went for more. Where is she?’
‘Busy,’ said Herr Kohler.
‘Snow and condensed milk with sugar and chocolate,’ said Becky. ‘It’s a real treat.’
‘And the datura?’ he asked.
They glanced at one another.
‘I think you had best come this way, Inspector,’ said Eleanor Parker, adjusting her glasses. ‘First there was a terrible thirst water wouldn’t cure, if I understand things correctly. Then an excruciating migraine and pronounced feelings of faintness-the onset of vertigo, I suspect. The pupils dilating.’
‘She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, or even stand,’ said Marni. ‘It was pitiful.’
‘Her pulse was racing,’ said Becky. ‘She was quivering like a leaf and kept trying to tell me how worried she was about her flat in Paris.’
‘But couldn’t quite find all the words or string them together,’ said Marni. ‘You bitch!’ she shouted, turning on the woman.
‘Don’t!’ yelled Kohler.
‘Girls, please! Try to remain calm,’ said Eleanor Parker. ‘Apparently she muttered to herself as much as to anyone, Inspector, but was terribly disoriented, poor thing, and couldn’t seem to find her sense of balance.’
‘Was seeing things,’ said Becky, greatly distressed by it all. ‘Her face was flushed. She kept trying to grab something that simply wasn’t there.’
‘Kept falling asleep,’ said Jill. ‘Had pulled off all her clothes when we found her. Why didn’t she come to our room right away after having eaten?’
Had emptied herself. Barbara Caldwell was holding her upright while Candice Peters and Dorothy Stevens were trying to keep her feet in basins of water as they washed her off.
Asleep, right out of it, the girl constantly twitched and jerked her head while muttering things to herself in terror and opening and closing her hands as if still trying to grasp something illusive.
‘She said bats were crawling all over her,’ wept Becky, ‘and that her guts had spewed out and they were feeding on them. Bright orange and green lights were flashing, red ones were burning her eyes.’
‘Spiders were crawling inside her,’ said Barb. ‘I heard her saying that.’
‘Monsters,’ said Dorothy.
‘How long since she ate?’ asked Herr Kohler.
‘Two hours, maybe a little more,’ said Jill. ‘Ten minutes, fifteen. . How long does it take before that stuff begins to hit someone? She ate and then she stayed here for maybe a half hour or more until Barb came to find her like this. Naked as a banshee and shitting herself.’