Free Sandman by J. Robert Janes Page B

concierge.
    â€˜Inspector,’ confided Vernet as they took the lift and the night was filled with the sounds of it. ‘Inspector, these things …’ he said of the girl. ‘You do understand.’
    â€˜Of course.’
    Letting himself into the flat, Vernet first closed the curtains before switching on a light. The sitting room was a tasteful jumble from the twenties, the bedroom hadn’t been slept in and there was no sign of anyone.
    â€˜So?’ said the Sûreté, giving him the open-handed gesture of It’s-your-turn again.
    â€˜The boy is usually here,’ said Vernet, not liking it. ‘Liline …’
    He went over to an armoire to search it. He opened another in the narrow hallway and went through to the kitchen to stand in its emptiness and say, ‘They’ve left. They’ve cleared out. The boy is a homosexual she had befriended. He was afraid of the Relève , of what our friends are going to do in February. Turn it into the Service de Travail Obligatoire , the forced labour in the Reich. She must have told him his name was bound to come up, so he buggered off.’
    â€˜And the girl, monsieur?’
    â€˜Liline must have gone with him. His rucksack, it’s missing. Look, he was too timid for his own good. Though she didn’t live here, she was always having to put the muscle into him. They’ll have gone south like so many these days. He’ll try to join the maquis of the Auvergne perhaps. Liline has relatives in Clermont-Ferrand.’
    Ah yes, the maquis was growing and its young and not so young men were living in the wilds as fugitives, supplied by some and hated by others. A Resistance without arms unless stolen from the Occupier. But what about suitable laissez-passer , eh, and was Vernet so desperate he would fabricate? ‘Monsieur, if the boy was in danger of this … this new Service , surely with your contacts you could have found a way of keeping him in Paris?’
    â€˜Don’t be silly. I was fucking Liline. Would you have had me broadcast that little piece of information by placing his name on one of my lists of those who are to remain in France?’
    The SS and the Gestapo would have known of the affair in any case and perhaps that, really, was why he had done nothing.
    â€˜Now we had best find Nénette, Inspector, or is it that you still want more from me about this?’
    â€˜No. For the moment we have sufficient, but I must ask, is Madame Vernet aware Mademoiselle Chambert is your mistress?’
    â€˜Bernadette? Of course not.’
    â€˜And Mademoiselle Chambert, monsieur, what of her? Did she come to you willingly or did you—’
    â€˜How dare you?’
    â€˜I dare because I have at the moment two lives to concern me. That of your mistress and that of your niece.’
    Kohler followed Madame Vernet into the child’s room, which was in a far corner of the house next to the staircase to the servants’ quarters and the kitchens. He noted the amber and gold dragonflies on the stained-glass shade of the lamp she had switched on, the porcelain frog below it with walking stick, orange waistcoat, silk scarf and cream knitted trousers and silver-buckled shoes.
    Above the mantelpiece there was a Meissen clock in white and gilded porcelain with a turbaned potentate riding atop the clock face, which rested on the back of an elephant. The bed was superb, a Louis XV canopied affair whose gold brocade rose to ostrich plumes at all four corners.
    â€˜This was her room. Nénette loved it. She used to say having privacy was next to being with God.’
    There were more tears, more tearing of the hair and tugging at the laces across the chest of her nightdress. It was bad enough her niece being murdered by the Sandman, but to have her husband fooling around right under her nose was too much. Ah yes.
    She broke down completely and he let her weep in a chair, didn’t give her another thought.