Sandman (3 page)

The préset had warned him of these two detectives. He was to ‘cooperate' but to do so while keeping one hand behind his back, fingers crossed. ‘Dead also, but some time ago.'

‘Dead?'

‘Yes. The aunt and uncle are raising her as their own. Monsieur Vernet makes things for the submarines of Herr Dönitz. Other little items also. Tank parts, gun parts, munitions and explosives. Classified things. He is very important, very well connected and not inclined to take no for an answer, but I, ah! I am sure he will find the will to understand your request, though he will most certainly bring the matter up when he confers with the General von Schaumburg at their weekly briefing. It is tomorrow, I believe. Yes … yes, now that I have thought the matter over, I am absolutely certain it is always on a Monday unless something interferes.'

Ah damn …

When the man joined him, Kohler drew him aside into deeper darkness but still, though he wanted to, could not find the stomach to offer a cigarette. It would be too much like bribery in any case, particularly as tobacco was almost always in such short supply.

‘Begin at the beginning. Leave nothing out.'

‘Of course. Part of my beat includes the Jardin d'Acclimatation, particularly the children's zoo, and amusement park. Sunday afternoons are busy, even in winter At fifteen-fifty seven hours I was patrolling near the Norman farm. Monsieur Amirault, the custodian of the doves, he has hurried to summon me. A murder, a child, the Sandman. Together we have run from there to the riding stables, then to the clay-pigeon shoot, and from there to the cage. He … he is also in charge of the clay pigeons. Sometimes one of the Boches, the Germans … Ah, excuse me, Inspector. Sometimes they … they command him to release a few doves so as to … to perfect their target practice.'

Hence the custodian's absence during the murder, was that it, and all carefully thought out so as to have an answer ready? ‘We'll see. We'll have to ask him ourselves.'

‘As you wish, Inspector. We are here to assist you.'

I'll bet, thought Kohler, snorting inwardly and cursing Talbotte for the bastard he was. Police couriers must have been hurtling back and forth. ‘Was anything other than her identity card touched?'

‘Anything else …? But … but … Ah no, of course not. I have simply leaned over her to tease the ID out, then have put it back just as I found it with … with the pocket torn a little.'

‘But to get at it you would have had to dig into each pocket?'

‘I was lucky. The left pocket. I had no need to try the other one.'

‘Good. Then tell me who lifted her change purse?'

Ah
merde
, had it been stolen? ‘But … but there was no purse, Inspector. I swear it.'

‘Yet she comes to the Bois without a sou? An heiress to what?'

‘Billions.'

‘Sweat a little,
mon fin
. Think about it, eh? To say there was no purse is to imply you had a thorough look. Let honesty touch your heart lest we haul you in, and haul we will if we have to. As sure as that God of my partner's made heiresses, He gave them the wits to take along a little change for the pony rides.'

‘I … I will have to ask the others.'

‘You do that. Now lead me to the custodian. Maybe it's his tongue that needs loosening.'

‘Two girls,' said St-Cyr softly to the victim as the doves watched him with such sorrowful eyes he knew they were freezing. ‘School friends who tried to switch identities. Both of you would have worn your school uniforms under your coats, since the hems of the skirts, the lower parts of the socks, the boots and gloves would have been seen. Yes, yes, am I right? The braids perhaps tucked underneath your hats and your coat collars turned up to further hide the difference in your hair—ah! yours is indeed turned up. Everything would have matched, but then what would be the sense of switching coats? A mistake, you say? A restaurant? A cup of that ersatz hot chocolate which tastes like clay and is not made with milk but with saccharine added? Ah no, my little friend.' He sadly shook his head. ‘These days no one—I repeat no one—hangs their coat up in a public place for fear of theft. It's usually far too cold inside anyway. No, you see the switch was deliberate. We have the note you dropped.
Je t'aime
. Presumably, since it was in your hand when attacked, you treasured it and perhaps had received it only moments before. Therefore, unless I am very mistaken, your friend the heiress wore her school coat and uniform on this outing while you wore perhaps a brightly coloured coat and beret or toque—not your school ones. All else was the same so that at a distance, especially from behind, one could not tell the two of you apart except for the coats, the scarves and the hats—yes, yes, that's it, isn't it, but why was the switch made?'

He paused. He looked at her. He silently pleaded for answers, then breathed, ‘You must have known you would be followed, but by whom? You had both planned it all well beforehand, hadn't you, but had not thought either of you would be killed once the mistake was discovered.

‘Then was it the Sandman?' he asked and had to answer sadly, ‘How could it have been?'

It was not good, ah no, it most certainly wasn't. The city was up in arms and demanding they put a stop to the killer. In this, Parisians were united with the Occupier, and God help His two detectives if the assailant turned out to be anything but French. Ah yes. There were perhaps one hundred and fifty or even two hundred thousand of the Occupier in Paris and its environs. Who really knew how many of them there were? The Germans coveted the city and used it for rest and recuperation, so the traffic in and out was constant.
Soldatenheime—
hotels and guesthouses—were scattered throughout to billet the common soldiers. The Ritz was for generals and very special people; the Claridge, at 74 Champs-Élysées, was for still more generals and holders of the Knight's Cross. Of the one hundred and twenty licenced brothels, forty were for the troops, four for their immediate officers, one for their generals, two for the SS and no less than
five
for the Gestapo, to say nothing of the countless ‘trade' commissioners and buyers, et cetera.

Even some of the cinemas were reserved for their soldiers, while all the clubs, bars, restaurants and cafés were wide open and could not shut them out, though, by some tacit, unwritten rule, they did not go to certain places.

Even the lead cars of each train in the
métro
and on the railroads were reserved for them, even the first six rows of seats on the city's much reduced fleet of buses.

They had everything, including many of the women, and the trouble was, most of the Occupier believed it their just due.

They also had their garrisoned troops, and those that patrolled the streets, especially after curfew, or manned the checkpoints at each and every entry.

‘So,' he said to her, ‘I silently give a little prayer that we will solve this matter soon but that your killer will indeed be French. Otherwise General von Schaumburg, who despises us far more than he does Bavarian N.C.O.s from that other war, will give his two detectives a very hard time, and so will the SS over on the avenue Foch, the Gestapo of the rue des Saussaies, the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston and others too many to list but including Talbotte, the préfet of Paris, and his men. Ah yes, my dear child, the life of a detective in these troubled times is not easy. Please be at peace. We will do everything we can.'

Gently he took a dove from its perch to warm and stroke it. Suddenly he had to make contact with things he knew and loved in this world of continual crisis. ‘She did a brave but very foolish thing, this child,' he said, indicating the victim. ‘They were being followed, and she deliberately drew the follower away from her friend. The switch in coats must have been made soon after leaving the Villa Vernet, but why switch identity photographs? Why not simply keep their own papers?

‘Perhaps they did not think there would be time to hand them over to each other. Perhaps, then, too, they might have feared being caught up in a
rafle
, a round-up—yes, yes, but they would have known the Occupier seldom does more than glance at the ID photos of children. Still, why not simply keep their own papers, unless, of course, there was a deeper reason.'

He thought a bit. He stroked the dove, his eyes never leaving the girl. ‘Did you know the killer?' he asked her. ‘Did you wish to taunt him with the mistake he had made? Did you intend to show him your new ID as proof positive perhaps, or did you think he would demand it from you, only to realize then what had happened? Would that have been sufficient to have stopped him? Is this not what you, in your schoolgirl wisdom, thought?'

One had to put oneself into the mind of a child to understand the reasoning, flawed though it sometimes was and frightening.

Again he waited but asked at last and more firmly, ‘How is it, please, that you knew you would be followed, and why, please, were you here without supervision if you were spending the holiday with the sisters?'

Questions … there were always so many of them. ‘The time was midafternoon. Did the two of you lead the one who was following you into the Jardin d'Acclimatation? The Villa Vernet, it is not far. The heiress came out of her house with her own papers but with your ID photo on them. You had left the convent school and had done likewise with your own papers. You both knew you would have to exchange coats and hats quickly and continue on so as to allow for no break in being followed.

‘Was the switch made among some fir trees or behind one of the puppet theatres or near the miniature railway where children of all ages congregate? Or was it in the zoo or at the little Norman farm where uncomplaining goats and chickens endure the constant attentions of children? A place was needed where you would be shielded only for a moment. The coats and hats first, and then the note pressed into your hand.'

Setting the dove back on its perch, he shifted the contents of his overcoat pockets and patiently gathered the loot, carefully noting each item as he tucked it away.

Everything in him said to cover her, to ease the knitting needle out, to say, Forgive us for letting such a thing happen to you or to anyone else. We will see that it does not happen again. On this matter, you have my solemn promise.

Four other girls
, he reminded himself. All killed in essentially the same manner, though this they would have to check. But for now there was at least a definite difference. Now it was two girls together, both of whom must have thought they knew what they were doing. You poor thing,' he said. ‘We don't even know your name, do we, or where your parents are. Nor do we know where your little friend is.'

The heiress …

Carved among its oak flowers, the signboard said:
THE GAMEKEEPER'S COTTAGE
. Kohler hit the door with the flat of his shoe. The shock tore the feathers from the dove in the custodian's hands, causing them to flutter before a miserable fire of ill-gotten twigs.

The bird was dropped to join the row of others, all naked of their feathers and lying on the hearth. The hands crept up to throw their shadows on the tiled floor and timbered ceiling.

Stepping into the otherwise darkened room, Kohler used a heel to close the door behind him. Now only the sound of the fire and the gentle hiss of chimney droplets came to him as tears coursed from very worried, wounded eyes behind rimless glasses.

‘So, a few questions,
mon fin. Don't
even think of lowering your hands. Hey, it makes me nervous, eh? Grab warmer air. Stretch for it.'

Gilbert Amirault was half-Italian by the look of him and rounded about the middle from knees to neck. The tattered black leather jerkin was buttoned up so tightly two of the buttons had been lost forever. The plum-dark corduroy trousers had birdshit so ground into the knees they were irretrievably bleached.

‘Getting ready for a banquet, are you?' asked the Gestapo's only honest detective. ‘Tasty, are they?'

More tears were shed. The flabby lips quivered. Sweat—was it really sweat?—was gathering on his forehead beneath the thatch of untidy black hair.

‘I … They …' The man swallowed and, farting harshly, grimaced at the accidental outburst and waited for a rebuke that never came.

Instead, Kohler spoke the sad truth. ‘No potatoes, eh? And those lousy rutabagas again. Cattle feed while the spuds of France go to the Reich and the hospitals here are so overcrowded with bowel complaints and cases of appendicitis they are even parking them in the corridors. Look, tell me who shot the doves and when. This afternoon, eh? At about three o'clock—was it three o'clock and right when that poor kid was being murdered?'

Amirault's left hand dropped so fast Kohler yanked out a pistol and made the bastard wince as he waited for the
coup de grâce
.

It never came. Hurriedly the custodian made the sign of the cross over his barrel chest, then his hand crept upwards. ‘Monsieur …' hazarded Amirault. His neck was so short his chin rested in the slot of his open collar.