‘Don’t let go of her!’
The wind came. It blew the flames up over the roof in bil lowing smoke and sparks. Tiles fell. Tiles slipped and popped and cracked. A hand gripped him by the wrist. An arm was swiftly wrapped around his own. A last glimpse revealed her perched up there, making her way steadfastly towards the conflagration at one end of the roof. For a moment she was engulfed, a dervish. Her screams, her cries were lost.
Somehow they made it to the ground, somehow they got clear before the roof finally collapsed in a rush of fire. Bathed in that terrible light, they searched but saw only the flames.
‘Louis …’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘The child. She’s been taken-dragged away. Look, I’m sorry. I … I had no choice but to go after you.’
The birds were everywhere in the aviary and the smells of their feathers and their dung were heavy in the warm air. Madly the things flew about in the darkness, shrieking, chirping, giving their raucous jungle-cries or singing.
Softly Kohler eased the door shut behind him. Violette Belanger had been sitting on the floor near one of the stoves. There were aisles and aisles of cages, and she must have opened every one of them.
Taking out his torch, he shook it and tried to bring it to life. ‘Louis, where’s yours?’ he breathed, a whisper.
‘Incapacitated.’
‘Verdammt!’
‘No guns, Hermann. He’ll have the child. Nénette will be his ticket to freedom.’
‘Or the end of him.’
They began to feel their way forward. Cages to the left and to the right. Birds perched up there or swooping down. Birds screaming in fright, colliding in bursts of feathers and broken wings.
One flopped desperately on the floor. St-Cyr felt for it. Poor thing, he said silently. A finch, he thought.
Knowing he could not let it suffer, he twisted its neck, then gently tucked it away in a pocket. Are we to find that the child has also been killed? he asked himself. Is it to be from a cage of doves to this?
Aisles branched. Touching him on a shoulder, Kohler indicated Louis should take the left one, himself the right, and when he neared the stove, the smell of burning human hair came through the bird-stench and he said, Not her … not her. Please don’t let it be her.
The child …
The parrot was dead and, in the soft light seeping from around the firebox door, he could see it lying between Violette’s breasts, the soft mounds on either side of it, her hand still clutching it.
Blood trickled from the right corner of her lips. Scratches marred her breasts.
The hole in the middle of her forehead was clean and round, a nine millimetre, he thought. She had been crying, had killed the little parrot, and had looked up into the eyes of her priest a last time.
Vomit rose into his throat. He couldn’t stand the sight of her. He …
Gently Louis took hold of him. ‘Turn away. Leave this to me.’ And opening the firebox door for a little light, he cast his eyes swiftly over her, the cinematographer within him willing himself to record what he could before he closed her eyes and pulled her away from the stove.
He covered her bare knees by tidying her pleated skirt. He laid her other hand over the parrot. It would have to do for now. Raw … the skin had been pulled from the palm of that hand. Was it years since the death of Madame Morelle and this one’s flight across the roofs?
‘Open the firebox door a little more,’ breathed Kohler.
‘Fire,’ came the whispered warning.
‘Do it! Stay here. Let me find him.’
‘No guns.’
‘He’s got one, idiot!’
‘Then I will close the door.’
They moved away. They knew Debauve must be in the aviary with the child. Had he killed her, too?
Did he now realize it was too late for him?
The SS of the avenue Foch had allowed Debauve a pistol. Were they hoping he’d put an end to this partnership and wipe the slate clean? wondered St-Cyr.
Kohler went down another aisle. The place was like a maze. Cages upon cages. Birds everywhere …
One flew into his face. He pulled it away, cried out, ‘Louis! Verdammt! Ah merde, the thing has claws.’
He wiped his face, felt blood and torn skin. He tried to calm the creature but it was frantic.
‘That’s far enough.’
Ah Gott im Himmel, the bastard had the muzzle of a Luger-was it a Luger? — jammed against the right side of his head.
‘Don’t move,’ said Debauve.
‘Of course not.’
‘Tell the other one to call out to you.’
‘Where’s the child?’
‘Do it!’
The bird didn’t like being held. ‘Louis … Louis, if you’re still here, he’s got me.’
‘Louder!’
‘LOUIS, THE SON OF A BITCH HAS ME!’
Swiftly Kohler pivoted, ducked and thrust the thing into the bastard’s face. There was a flash of fire, a bang so loud his ears rang. Debauve fell back. He fired again and again, screamed once, twice, and fired once more. Ah no …
The birds flew madly about. Their sounds filled the air. On the rush of their wings there was a sigh, a ‘Pater noster qui es in caelis …’
‘Sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum: fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra,’ breathed Louis, releasing Debauve’s gun hand, the priest’s accidental coup de grâce. ‘Are you all right, mon vieux?’
‘Ja … Ja, I’m okay. Ah nom de Jésus-Christ, Louis, tell me the kid is alive.’
They opened every firebox door, and in the soft, soft light, the birds of colour flew about, casting their shadows and emitting their noises.
She was lying between cages, lying just as her little friend had. The padded overcoat had been torn open. Her arms had been flung back. One white woollen kneesock had lost its elastic and was badly in need of mending and a wash. Her seal skin boots were turned in a little at the toes. Her legs were slackly spread.
Debauve had made the killing look as if Céline had done it.
‘Louis …’
‘Leave this. Go outside if you have to.’
‘No!’
It was a cry. Hermann tried to get past him.
She stirred. Her eyelids fluttered.
‘Alive, I think,’ said Louis. And then …
‘Is it over? He … he smothered me. I.… I couldn’t breath.’
‘It is not quite over. There are still one or two small details best kept for another time.’
‘The lion, Louis.’
‘Yes, yes, the lion.’
The Tarot cards were down, the Ace of Swords was last. The hand that laid it on the gilded Louis XIV table paused to smooth it out and touch the upraised sword whose point was encircled by a golden crown.
‘A tragedy,’ sighed St-Cyr. ‘A toy giraffe …’
He put it on the table in front of the Ace of Swords. ‘A murder so different from the others.’
‘I didn’t tell Julien to do it. I didn’t!’ swore Madame Vernet, colouring quickly and clenching her fists only to release them when others noticed.
They were gathered in the grand salon of the villa. The afternoon’s rare sunshine melted yesterday’s rare snow. Soon there would be freezing rain. ‘You did, madame. You saw in your niece’s search for the Sandman a way of getting rid of her. But the girls used those same bits and pieces to trap you.’
‘Bernadette, admit you’re guilty. Be brave. Distinguish yourself.’
‘Antoine, don’t be a fool. I’m pregnant, yes? There isn’t a court in the country that will send me to the guillotine until the child cries and the cord is cut. You have months of me yet. Please think of the scandal.’
Vernet was not happy. General von Schaumburg sat bolt upright on the edge of his chair, a monocle clamped fiercely to his right eye.