Sandman (35 page)

The barn of the Norman farm was not warm—no, of course not, thought St-Cyr. Hay had been forked out for the two milch cows and the nanny goats, and he could hear them softly chewing and moving about in their stalls. There was a loft above, and from this the sound of wayward chickens, disturbed at their roosting, came to him. Others began to stir down here. He waited. He pressed his back to the wall and rubbed the muzzle of the ancient mare the Germans had not thought fit enough to send to Russia.

The chickens up there didn't want to be disturbed. The rooster objected. When the child hissed, ‘
Shush!
' he began in earnest to seek the ladder that must lead to the loft.

Someone else sought it, too. Unfortunately, the Sûreté did not have the use of his torch anymore. The batteries hadn't liked the cold weather. Having taken them out, he was trying to rejuvenate them with body heat in his trouser pockets.

Ah
merde
, but it was dark! A button or clasp hit a rung of the ladder. After this there were only the sounds of the chickens, the cows, the goats and the wind, which found every chance to enter the building. Paris seldom saw such storms. Hundreds would freeze to death.

‘Nénette … Nénette Vernet, is that you?' asked the nun. ‘Attend to me, child. You are in great danger and should not have left the infirmary. We would not have harmed you.'

Steps sounded above him. Bits of straw filtered down and these were caught by the wind and blown into his eyes …

‘Child, stand up. Don't you dare hide from me. Now, come along. You must be frozen. Here, give me your hand. Why have you taken your mittens off?'

The beam of the sister's torch flitted around up there. He climbed. He tried to reach them unnoticed. He …

‘
You did it. You killed them
.'

Ah no, go carefully, he cried out inwardly to the child, carefully, please, and grasped another rung.

‘I did no such thing. It is despicable of you to think this. Those girls were hungry. I fed them, as did the other sisters. We gave them love. God's love.'

The child must have swallowed or tried to look for a way out, but then he realized she had simply been screwing up her courage. ‘Not in the belfries of the Notre-Dame. Not there, Sister,' she shrilled. ‘After that girl was killed, I … I found some things in the pockets of your cloak on the very same day. I did. I really did. After the murder in les Halles also.'

‘
What?
'

It was almost a scream.

The smell of the stables came to him strongly, the sound of the wind and something else, something down there at the entrance Had someone come into the barn?

‘Lots of those … those rubber things, Sister. All sticky.
Really
sticky.'

Ah
nom de Jésus-Christ!
He reached the loft. He saw them against a far corner. Crossbeams separated him from them. The nun had her back to him and seemed to tower over the child, who was scrunched against the walls. Under the light from the sister's torch, the child's big dark blue eyes gazed up warily from a pinched face. A fringe of jet-black hair protruded from beneath the crocheted pink-and-white tea cosy.

The cloak was of coarse black wool. It was webbed with snow. Now it all but hid the child from him. The hood was thrown back. The sister's hair was as if hacked off with scissors. Closer … he must get closer. Someone … someone else had come into the barn …

The chickens moved about up here, complaining. The child had several eggs clutched in both hands.

‘Don't lie to me, Nénette.'

Somehow the child found her voice. ‘I'm not, Sister,' she quavered. Neither of them realized they were no longer alone or that he was but two metres behind the nun. ‘
You didn't kill Andrée, Sister, but … but you killed all the others and I … I must tell myself not to cry. I must!
'

Something went out of Céline then. Her voice dropped to a weary sadness. ‘Please just trust me, child. There are things you cannot possibly understand, but as God is my witness, I have killed no one. You must believe me. Violette, she … she is not well. It's the devil who makes her do what she does. She must have put those … those filthy things in my pockets when I was last with her. You had no right to touch them.'

‘
Then did she put them there also after les Halles?
'

‘
You're lying! Don't lie! It isn't right! It's shameful!
'

The outburst passed. Again the child somehow found her voice. ‘She gave me the coins the soldiers throw away because they cannot spend them in our country, Sister. She told me all about you. She said you were
E-VIL
and that we were
R-IGHT
about you.'

The beam of the torch wavered but then it came back to shine more fully on the child. ‘Please come to me, Nénette. Let's both ask God to help us. That man Violette calls her priest will kill you to protect her.'

‘And you?' croaked Nénette all but to herself. ‘What, please, will he do to you?'

The child was evil. The child was afraid. She could so easily freeze to death, an accident … ‘He will ask to hear my confession. He will try to be the priest he once was.'

‘He'll kill you, too, won't he?'

‘Céline … Céline, is that you up there?' called out Debauve.

She switched off her torch. She whispered. ‘
Nénette, we must leave here at once!
'

St-Cyr took a step. The child did not throw the eggs. She leapt at the sister and smashed them into Céline's face, smashed them and smashed them. There was a cry, a shriek, another and another. He tried to wrap his arms about the nun and pull her down, down, tried to stop the child … the child.

The girl kicked and bit and scratched and smeared broken eggs fiercely into the sister's face, shrieking, ‘
LET ME GO. LET ME GO. YOU DID IT! YOU DID IT!
'

Ah
merde, merde
, the child had escaped. She ran full tilt into something in the darkness, fell back, scrambled up—dashed across something else, slipped, threw baskets behind her, chickens, anything that came to hand, and when he reached where he thought the ladder had been, it was no longer there.

‘Nénette …' he began. He coughed. He tried to catch a breath. Something touched his back. It sent shock waves through his spine. It made him cry out, ‘
H … e … r … mann!
'

He threw out his hands and tried to grab something … anything. He twisted, he turned, and as he fell, he was reminded briefly of himself as a boy falling from the roof of his Uncle Alexandre's barn. He must never do that again.
Never
.

There was a crash, a splintering of flying boards, the stench and taste of manure, hard and frozen in the straw.

Dazed and in shock, numb all over and then in pain, much pain, he tried to move, and only when he had rolled over on to his good side, his right side, did he see between the canted iron spokes of a barrow's wheel the first flames being sucked up and teased against a far wall.

‘Hermann …' he managed. ‘
Hermann, where the hell are you?
'

The bears in the bear pit were not friendly. Captured in 1934 perhaps, and now unaccustomed to the cold but intuitively rejoicing in the blizzard, they had heard him climbing the fence to he had known not what, and when he had slid and rocketed down into the pit they called home, they had come to find him.

But now they sniffed the air. Now they stood on their hind legs and even he smelled the smoke.

Polar bears, ah
Gott im Himmel!

Cautiously Kohler pulled himself up to a sitting position. The female—was it the female?—moved away to climb out of the pit and up to the fence. The male still sniffed the air. Then he, too, romped up to the fence.

Driven by the wind, the flames soon filled the snowy air with soot and sparks and glowing bits of debris. Now he saw the fence and the bears, now he didn't. He climbed. He dragged himself up the opposite wall of the pit. There was sheet ice under the snow. He slipped, he went right back down again, all the way.

One of the bears had turned to keep an eye on him, but the pit was large. There was ice beneath the snow on the pond at its bottom. There was a den, a roof over its entrance. That den would lead to a cage door that would be padlocked.

Half-way up the slope, he heard a rush of flame, felt the blast of it and scrambled up to the fence, but the damned thing was too high. There was barbed wire at the top, three strands. He'd been able to cross the wire going in but now … now as he climbed, the top of the fence protruded above him towards the pit. He dangled in space. He pulled himself along, hand over hand, the mittens catching on the barbs, reminding him of the Great War, the war …

When he came to a post, he pulled himself up, bounced uneasily, his boots on the strands, and then was over.

One of his mittens remained behind.

He ran. He tried to reach the farm. He ducked sparks and cried out, ‘
Louis … Louis
…'

The nun was on the roof, the child was nowhere to be seen and neither was Louis.

‘
Burn … let her burn. She did it. I know she did!
'

Hot … it was so hot. Torn by the wind, flames poured from under the eaves at both ends of the barn. The mare tried to free herself. Her screams were mingled with the constant bawling of the cattle and goats. Why had he not taken the time to see to them?

Aching all over, St-Cyr knelt in the driving snow behind the barn, still clutching the child he had caught and dragged down.

‘She did it. She really did.'

‘
Sister
,' he cried out. ‘
Sister, run down the tiles and jump. It is the only way
.'

Her back was to them. Caught in the blizzard, perched standing astride the crown of the roof well above and to one side of the dormer window she had crawled out of, Céline clutched something in the crook of each arm. The heavy black woollen cloak blew about, revealing black skirts and black leather boots.

One after the other, she released the chickens she held and they saw the things fly panic-stricken to be singed, torched and taken by the wind.

‘Sister, don't make me do this.'

‘You can't go up there,' swore Nénette.

‘I must. Don't argue. Behave yourself.'

‘I won't.'

‘You had better. The Petite Roquette, the prison for women, it is not very nice and is at present terribly crowded.'

‘You're cruel.'

‘One has to be.'

‘There are some barrels. If we put them on the wagon, you can climb up there.'

‘Thanks.'

The tiles were cracking with the heat. They popped. They shattered. Smoke seeped from under them. The snow melted instantly. The roof sloped up and up, and
what the hell was he doing this for?

Caught in the chimney funnels of the loft's dormers, flames roared out at him only to be taken by the wind, torn upwards and then pushed away. Sparks, glowing bits of rubbish and dense smoke filled the air. His eyes watered. His nostrils burned. Swallowing tightly, he clung to the tiles and cried out, ‘
Sister, give me your hand
.'

She must have heard him, for she turned, and when he reached her, Céline said bitterly, ‘You fool. Why have you come? I wanted those girls to die.'

‘We can discuss it later.'

She backed away, held out her hands to fend him off. Tears streamed from her. That defiance, that fierceness of prominent cheekbones and wide-set dark eyes said, Ah, no, monsieur.
No!
I am finished.

‘Please, Sister. Later, yes?'

‘
I did it!
I fed them first and then I took them to the stairwells. Dirty … they all have dirty little minds.
Filthy
, do you understand?'

He would have to distract her. He would have to rush her, grab her and fall. Together they would roll down the roof. Bones would be broken …

He saw the knitting needle gripped fiercely in her right hand. It had been hidden in the sleeve of her cloak.

‘
Now do you believe me?
' A tile popped near her left foot. ‘I could not kill my girls, but I could kill others, those we fed.'

‘You did not feed them all.'

‘I
hunted
others. That little bitch I killed in les Halles had eaten at the soup kitchen of the Germans. Her underwear was dirty. When I turned her over on to her stomach, she screamed and tried to get away, but I gave her what she so desired. I made her feel the shame of it!'

Ah no …

‘The one in the Notre-Dame had lost a part of an ear-ring and was in tears. I helped her look for it and I killed her in a corner of the south belfry.'

She waited. He did not say a thing, this detective who had risked his life to come after her. ‘I opened her blouse. I tried to feed things to her, things she would not let me stuff into her mouth. Things that sister of mine had crammed into my pockets. Filthy things. Rubber things. I squeezed and turned their contents out.
Out!
do you understand? Then … then I wiped my hands on her seat, her mons, her breasts and face and I … I left her.'