When he found the rest of the cards in a drawer, he found the little booklet of instructions that went with them and saw where the child had marked those meanings he himself and Oona had used.
‘We think alike in this matter,’ he said and sighed, but then laid out the death’s-head cap badge, the wound badges and medals, the tin pencil case and empty tube of paint.
The SS-Attack Leader Gerhardt Hasse was an enigma, and it made one decidedly uncomfortable to finger these objects while looking at the photographs Hasse had taken of soup kitchens and schoolgirls. But what, really, did all these things tell him? The fob from an ear-ring, a condom. Pseudo-schoolgirls being ‘violated’ by soldiers in a brothel, all in the name of pleasure.
That tiepin …
He shut his eyes and willed himself to find answers before it was too late. Madame Vernet must have sat here just as he was doing. She must have gone through the child’s desk and her coat pockets, even to finding the key to the pencil drawer and opening it, but had Nénette been aware of this? Had that child trapped her aunt by deliberately placing things before her?
Beefsteaks over an open fire … a coat whose lining was stuffed with leaves, a crucifix and a knitting needle …
A note: I am alive and I will haunt you. Another: Je t’aime. She had found something. The tiepin. The Sandman would strike so close the chef would feel his breath.
But had she really known who the Sandman was, and if not, would she now seek refuge with him?
The housekeeper’s wavy dark auburn hair had recently been brushed; her cheeks were still pale but made more so by the lack of lipstick.
‘Nénette would not have wanted to see that dog killed, Inspector,’ she said to Kohler, her blue eyes earnest. ‘Oh, for sure she hated Pompon. We all did. The thing was always yapping, always peeing where it shouldn’t. But for her to have had a dog of her own in the house with that creature was impossible. We gave her the charm bracelet to help. She loved animals, especially horses. That is why she and Andrée so often went to the riding stables to watch the dressage or simply to see them being groomed.’
Ah now, what was this? Was it too much to hope for? ‘Did she ever mention a stablehand, Julien Rébé?’
The chef deferred to the housekeeper. Subdued and silent, the maid, a girl of eighteen, sat at the table opposite the housekeeper. The chauffeur had still not returned with Vernet.
Hesitantly Madame Therrien tapped cigarette ash into her saucer. She would have to tell him. ‘Though it wasn’t allowed, that one, he would sometimes let them help him. Nénette said, “I always present him with two five-franc pieces. One is for drink, the other for his amusement, since his mother refuses to give him a sou and he is not paid very much.” She said he and the others used the manure piles in late summer and fall to cure the leaves for tobacco and tea. The heat from the decomposition does it.’
‘The red beech …’ said Kohler.
‘Yes,’ enthused the chef. ‘It’s really very good-there’s absolutely no taste, so it remains neutral when mixed with tobacco. Nénette managed to get me a little. A small present.’
‘The leaves of the currant bushes and mint also, Inspector. Leaves for the teas his mother would then serve to her clients as a “courtesy”,’ said Madame Therrien, causing him to wonder just how much she really knew of her mistress’s affair.
‘Then all three of you knew Julien Rébé’s mother was Madame Vernet’s clairvoyant?’ he asked.
How polite of him, thought Kalfou, but said, ‘Madame always spoke very highly of the woman, Inspector. Who were we to question so many extended visits?’
‘Okay, so did those two girls consider Julien Rébé a friend?’
Madame Therrien had a very positive but attractive way of shaking her head. ‘Not a friend, but friendly. A curiosity perhaps. Please don’t forget they had been sheltered. They were both very privileged, yes, but coming into their own and desirous of experiencing the world.’
Amen, was that it, eh? he wondered.
‘He let them watch a mare being bred, Inspector,’ she confided. ‘That was months and months ago. They peered through cracks in the walls and no one caught them. Nénette paid him fifty francs for the “privilege”.’
Ah, Gott im Himmel, Louis should be here. ‘And did the girls tell you this?’ he hazarded.
‘Oh, mon Dieu, are you serious?’ she asked and flashed a rare smile that changed quickly to seriousness at memory. ‘Liline told me. Nénette confided most things in her.’
‘But not the identity of the Sandman?’
‘No, not that. That she kept to herself.’
They fell silent. The fire in the stove hissed. The electric clock on the wall ground its way to 11.20 a.m. The maid had still not said a thing or looked up.
‘Could Julien Rébé have been following Nénette?’ he asked and saw Madame Therrien and the chef exchange hurried glances. Each began to tell him, only to stop for the other and then to clam up until pressed.
‘I … I went to see him,’ she confessed, reaching for the reassurance of her cigarette. ‘It was on Monday morning. Nénette had not come back from walking the dog. I suspected she might have paid the riding stables a visit.’
‘And had she?’
Herr Kohler would not always be so gentle, but it was appreciated. ‘Julien Rébé was not there, nor was Nénette, Inspector. His employer was in a rage and said that of late the boy had been increasingly absent. “I give him a job,” he shouted, “and this is how he repays me? Now he’s here and I can count on him for the half-measure of sweat perhaps, but turn my back and voilà! he’s gone. A magician, eh?” He thought the boy must be having an affair with one of the girls in the children’s restaurant, in the … the tearoom.’
‘But he was watching for Nénette and was following her, was that it?’ he asked and saw all three of them duck their eyes away and swallow tightly.
‘If he has killed Andrée, Inspector,’ said Madame Therrien softly, ‘I shall never forgive myself.’
‘Nor I myself,’ said the chef, all choked up. ‘Nénette did say she was being followed-yes, yes, I admit it. But I did not discover who it was or think that it might have been that one.’
At last the maid found her voice, but barely. ‘Madame is pregnant, I think, but … but it cannot have been the monsieur because I … I have overheard her saying on the telephone, “I have to get rid of it. You’ve got to help me.”’
Again he wished Louis was with them. ‘And to whom was she speaking?’ he asked so gently the girl realized he would not tell the monsieur she had been listening in.
‘To … to a woman named Violette. Madame Vernet has insisted on a meeting. This they … they have arranged for last Tuesday at noon. Apparently no other time was suitable.’
‘In the Café of the Turning Hour?’
They would all hate her now, Kalfou and Madame Isabelle … all of them for not having spoken up earlier and given warning. ‘The Brasserie de Tout Bonheur. It … it is on the rue Vivienne near the Bibliothèque Nationale. I made a point of going there, just to see it from the street, you understand.’
She saw him nod, saw him pass round more cigarettes, and when her fingers touched his, he telegraphed an urgency that frightened.
‘Did Nénette ask you to do that for her?’
‘Liline … Liline did so. She … she said she wanted to know for sure that … that things were being taken care of. She knew of the meeting but … but was afraid to go herself.’
Shit! ‘What things?’
‘She … she did not say, monsieur! Please, you must believe mé!’