Sandman (32 page)

9

T
O DRIVE THROUGH THE CITY DURING THE
blackout was to have its map in mind at all times. One ticked off the major intersections, counted the streets, computed speed, distance and compass bearing, searching the memory always for landmarks, the darkness for their silhouettes. A blue-washed lamp whose bluing needed replenishment, another which had been done too much, the outline of a
métro
entrance, a roof, a sculpture, a mothballed fountain.

On the boulevard Raspail the
vélo-taxis
, those ridiculous bicycle contraptions, were like gulls migrating along a river of black ice and snow. In the faint pinpricks of the headlamps, and those of the
autobus au gazogène
and lorries, they showed up suddenly, their drivers frantically trying to get out of the way and not hit one another. Breath steamed in the fifteen degrees of frost. Their eyes were harried, desperate, their passengers laughing, making a great joke of it all or simply not caring as they kissed their girlfriends and tried to do other things beneath the heaps of throw rugs, old scraps of carpet, or blankets.

Hermann turned on to the boulevard Saint-Germain. They were making for the quais and the pont de l'Alma. Then it was straight north up the avenue George-V to the Lido, the Champs-Élysées and Number 78.

Hasse had been under psychiatric care for some time. There had been repeated visits to the escort service, weekends with a Mademoiselle Monique Reynard at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. A qualified psychotherapist, or so they had been told. Everything had been laid on by Oberg of the avenue Foch, the Butcher of Poland. ‘One has to learn to live again,' Hasse had said, ‘that's what they tell people like myself. Personally, I think it's a waste of time.' Of time …

No matter how hard St-Cyr tried not to think of it, the sketch of Nénette they had found in the Grande-Chaumière was seen in memory against those of Herr Hasse's storeroom, sketches of naked schoolgirls whose screams the Attack Leader had once heard and still did.

It has to be him, he said to himself, dreading the thought, but then … then why
did
that child get into his car today, as Rébé has claimed?

Had she been that desperate? Had she
not
thought him the Sandman? And why, please, had Liline Chambert agreed to let those girls pose for him? Why? Why?

Hasse had told them the girl had found it hard to reconcile him as an artist with his killing of children, but by then he had known Liline was dead and could simply have said it to protect himself.

He had felt it necessary to be forthright. He had admitted the killings in Poland, the clandestine taking of photographs in Paris, the Lycée Fénelon. A soup kitchen in its cellars. Bare knees, bare thighs, skirts flying as they skipped and played hopscotch and other games. Soup kitchens elsewhere …

‘The artist seeks only the absolute truth of each moment,' he had said.

In snapshot after snapshot he had captured young schoolgirls of the same age as Nénette and her little friend. ‘I want you to find the person responsible for the killings, especially those of Liline and Andrée.'

Had he a death wish, then, a need to be found out? He had paid Liline a total of one thousand francs in return for convincing the girls to pose for him. She had not seen his sketches from Poland, the nightmares. She couldn't have.

But had Nénette found her way to that storeroom unnoticed? Was that not why she had taken the badges, the pencil case, the crumpled empty tube of paint? Then why, please, had she got into his car today? He had drawn a map of the Bois … a map!

‘Louis, we're here. His car's parked just ahead of us.'

So it was, and when they shone their unblinkered torches in on the front seat, they saw the dust of crumbled oak leaves where the child had sat. Her sealskin hat was on the floor. There were breadcrumbs, even a curled shred of ham. A half-eaten biscuit lay there, too, a forgotten stick of chewing gum. ‘Banana,' breathed Hermann sadly. ‘Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ
, Louis, I had hoped and even prayed it wouldn't be him.'

‘We can't touch him if it is.'

‘We're going to have to.'

Hasse was waiting for them. He had run to his psychotherapist and now stood behind Monique Reynard, who sat at the desk in the foyer, all business, all seriousness. A woman of thirty-four, thought St-Cyr, the cinematographer in him recording detail after detail, her manner, her straight back, hands folded on the bulging dossier of her patient, the nails beautifully manicured and clear-lacquered, the eyes so blue, the hair so blonde, a wave of it successfully hid from all but the most careful scrutiny the birthmark on her brow she must have hated as a child and probably still did.

‘Messieurs,' she said, and he noted the Alsatian accent. ‘Messieurs, what you think is so very wrong. Herr Hasse would not have harmed that child, nor has he killed anyone in Paris, in France even. Indeed, he is most distressed and wants only to assist your endeavours.'

A man of conscience, was that it, eh? snorted Kohler inwardly. Rouge and powder hid the scars on her pleasantly plump cheeks—burns there, he thought. Were they cigarette burns? Ah
merde
… Those on her throat were all but hidden by the soft blue scarf that went with the clean-cut, very stylish business suit.

She would choose her words most carefully, she thought. ‘If you persist, it can only destroy all we've accomplished. Is this what you wish?'

‘He must answer some questions, mademoiselle,' said Louis gruffly.

‘It's “Doctor”, please. Dr Reynard. You may examine my certificates if you wish, Inspector.'

‘It's Chief Inspector,' said Kohler. ‘He's the Chief, I'm the Inspector.'

‘My degrees are Swiss and from Berlin. Jung and Freud, with extensive research into the theories and the work of von Krafft-Ebing.'

This was not easy ground, and it must have been hard for her to admit to such tainted learning even though the Nazis had found a use for her. ‘The child was in his car today, Doctor. Where is she now? What has he done with her?'

Hasse took out a cigarette, but his fingers shook so much he had to say, ‘Monique …'

She turned. She tossed her hair back a little as she looked up at him and smiled so softly it had an automatic calming effect. ‘It's all right, Gerhardt,' she said in German. ‘Everything will be fine, you will see.' And taking the cigarette from him, she lit it and blew smoke up at the ceiling before handing the thing back to him. ‘Tell them,
Liebling
. You must,' she said earnestly. ‘Go on. You've nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Not any more.'

The stork took a nervous drag on the cigarette and then another. ‘Nénette complained of her scalp itching. I took her to the convent school—she refused to go to her house and said she mustn't do that. I left her in the care of the Mother Superior. They will have bathed her and put her to sleep in the infirmary.'

‘But … but did the child not also object to being taken to the sisters?' managed Louis.

‘Very much so, but it was for her own good.'

Ah damn, the stork was too wary. ‘Then why, please, did you draw that sketch of her at the Grande-Chaumière?'

The woman stiffened. ‘What sketch, please?' she asked, alarmed.

‘Yes, what sketch?' asked Hasse, forgetting that his cigarette was telegraphing agitation.

‘Oh, come now, Herr Hasse,' enthused the Sûreté as if they were old friends, ‘a sketch of Nénette Vernet in her leaf-padded overcoat but without the sealskin hat we found in your car.'

‘Ah no … What hat?' demanded the woman, sickened perhaps by the thought of what might have happened.

‘The child was terrified,' breathed Kohler. ‘She was screaming her heart out in that sketch.'

‘You've killed her, haven't you?' said Louis sadly.

‘Easy,' cautioned Kohler.

‘Herr Hasse has killed no one. He was only trying to help the child.'

But what had Hasse really done with that child? Disgruntled, St-Cyr tossed his fedora into the empty chair that sat between himself and Hermann. ‘Did you take her to your studio first?' he asked, his voice deliberately harsh and accusing.

They had been there, then, thought Hasse. They had found the sketches of the Lodz affair. Somehow he must try to calm himself, somehow Monique must guide the discussion on to more even ground. ‘Why yes, I did. She was hungry, but I had little to offer. Some chewing gum. She said she needed a tooth-brush and asked had I an extra one.' He would try to smile now, thought Hasse. He would draw on his cigarette and give them a moment. Yes … yes, that would be best. Monique would agree. He was certain she would. ‘I … I found one for her and apologized for its being so used. You see, I'd come across it in Poland. I'd lost mine then and felt the same as she did. The teeth are so important, aren't they?'

Ah
merde
, he really has killed her. ‘The tooth-brush?' hazarded St-Cyr, a reminder the woman noted only too well.

Hasse was bitter, the grin he gave, sardonic. ‘She said it didn't matter that it had been used so much, that anything was better than nothing and that by first melting the snow in her mouth, she would then have the water necessary to clean her teeth. She was very grateful.'

‘I'll bet she was,' seethed Kohler. ‘So grateful she left the thing behind. I have it here.'

He tossed it on to her desk. The woman's eyes flicked anxiously from it to himself and back again. Warily she glanced at Louis. ‘Tooth-brushes …' she began, only to stop herself and bite her lower lip. Louis let a breath escape.

‘The tooth-brush of a raped and murdered Polish schoolgirl. mademoiselle,' he said flatly.

‘It's Doctor.'

‘
Merci
. Doctor, please ask him how he felt in Poland when he used that same tooth-brush?'

‘I didn't mean to upset Nénette,' blurted Hasse. ‘She must have realized where it had come from and that's why she left it behind.'

‘Gerhardt, please don't distress yourself. Please listen to me,' urged the woman, turning to take him by the hands. ‘No, you must look at me, my darling. Forget them. They are nothing. They are mistaken, yes? We both know this. We were in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, isn't that so? My parents, Gerhardt. You visited them. They had moved there in forty-one so as to be close to me.'

‘It's not the death of Andrée Noireau they're interested in,' he said sadly. ‘It's those of all the others.'

‘Did Nénette say anything about the Sandman?' asked Louis. ‘DID SHE?'

‘Please don't shout.
Please
,' urged the woman, trembling.

Hasse straightened. He became in that one brief instant the Attack Leader he had once been. ‘Only that she hoped you would catch the criminal before there was another killing.'

Kohler leaned on the desk and all but shouted, ‘Do you fantasize about little girls, Herr Hasse? Schoolgirls, eh?'

‘
How dare you
,' swore the woman. ‘You cannot ask such things. You will only undo all we have accomplished.'

‘Then ask him where he left her body,' sighed Kohler. ‘Let's make it plain and simple.'

Hasse tried to object, but she silenced him with a touch. ‘He isn't lying. He did deliver the child to the sisters. Please avail yourselves of the telephone. I'm sure the Mother Superior will be only too glad to tell you the child was exhausted and is now soundly asleep.'

‘Who watches over her, then?' managed Louis anxiously.

‘One of the sisters.'

‘Which one?'

‘This the Mother Superior did not say.'

‘Then tell us where Debauve is. Tell us, damn itl' shouted Kohler.

‘Not here,' she said, her gaze unwavering. ‘The good Father seldom visits. Our clients are mainly businessmen and officers from the Reich. Many are veterans of the campaigns in the East, yes, and North Africa. The Freikorps Dönitz also, the submarine service—we get quite a few of those—and lots from the Luftwaffe. They are here for either rest and recuperation or simply business. Relaxation is needed, and this we provide.'

She must have a damned cold heart not to care about that child, thought Kohler bitterly. He wanted to take her aside and breathe a few words into the shell of her ear, just to remind her the end was coming, that the war was going to turn sour someday. ‘Then why is a psychotherapist needed?' he asked, shoving stuff aside to sit on a corner of the desk.

Was it to be just between the two of them now? she wondered, smiling inwardly. ‘A therapist decides what is best for all, but is really only needed for the special cases,' she said, taunting him further.

‘There are others like him?' he asked, nodding at the Attack Leader.

How stupid of him. ‘Of course. Like Herr Hasse, they require sensitivity, understanding and a willingness to listen, to believe and to guide their steps down the path to healing.'

Verdammt
, the bitch! ‘How much does Oberg pay you?' he asked, knowing Violette Belanger had told them they were spying for Oberg, sucking up blackmail details for him to use. Those juicy little things that are whispered, confessed to some defrocked priest or simply revealed in a moment of bravado over a meal, a glass of wine or in bed.

Herr Kohler was trembling ever so slightly. The avenue Foch had said he was on Benzedrine and that he was dangerously close to becoming addicted if not already so. The voice of a robot would only further torment him. ‘Our rates are set. Consultation is voluntary on the part of the patient. The reports and diagnoses are strictly confidential.'

‘
Bananas!
Since when has anything the SS ever had a hand in been confidential if they thought they could use it? Just why, please,
meine gute Frau Doktor
, have you taken this out?'

He thumped the dossier she had in front of her.

‘Because Herr Hasse has asked me to allow you to peruse it, since he has nothing to hide. His is not an easy past to reconcile, but with persistence, determination and hard work, a full recovery is quite possible, though I must say he does not believe this. We have constant debates about it. They are healthy, yes, Herr Hauptmann
Detektif Inspektor
Kohler? He's come a long way, believe me.'