Beekeeper (22 page)

It would have to be convincing. He couldn't let her go after Madame Jouvand and Mariette. ‘Kripo, Section Five, Frau Schlacht. We've files on everyone. The Reichsführer Himmler insists on it.'

‘Files on my Oskar?' she hazarded and for a moment found she could no longer look at him, but sought solace in the chequered, rough linen beneath the steak knife.

‘My partner and I believe he's been making candles and selling them on the black market. That's contrary to Article sixty-seven, subsection eighty-two. Look, he could well have told you nothing – we understand this. Some men are like that with their wives, but …'

‘But he is under suspicion for making
candles
?'

‘Yes.'

Switzerland. They must want more about the trips she took! ‘I know nothing of these candles. My Oskar is a very private man who has always believed emphatically that his business dealings were not for the tender ears of his wife. And as for this black market of which you speak, does such a thing really exist?'

Jésus, merde alors
, Louis should have heard her! ‘I'm really more concerned with getting some background on the victim, Frau Schlacht. What sort of “treatments”?'

‘Are we now to forget the matter of the candles?'

Verdammt
! ‘Yes.'

‘Then I must tell you that the knuckles of my left hand have been troubling me for some time. A little arthritis. A girl does not like to admit to such things, but …'

Herr Kohler tried to grin. ‘My grandmother had the same,' he said earnestly. ‘Two stings a week and do you know, it worked like a charm. After three months, just three, she could go back to weaving skeps like she once had. The best in our region.'

‘Skeps?'

‘Beehives.'

‘Hot waxing is good, too, and pollen. I take a spoonful a day, with milk.'

And never mind the scarcity of the latter or that the kids in Paris hardly ever saw a drop! ‘Royal jelly … have you tried that?'

He was all business now, this
Detektiv
from the Kripo. A little black notebook was flipped open; he'd a pencil in hand.

‘It's said to improve the body's Résistance to colds and other infections,' she acknowledged. ‘I, myself, take it once a month.'

‘It's collected by killing queen larvae and robbing the contents of their cells with a little spoon.'

If she thought anything of this she didn't let on.

‘Some say it prevents ageing, but Herr de Bonnevies had no patience with such thoughts. I shall miss him. He was good, for a Frenchman. Very professional.'

‘And discreet but …' It would be best to shrug and lie again. ‘But do you know, in spite of this, he wrote down a lot in that little book of his.'

‘Such as?' she asked, and finding her purse, decided to skip the dessert and coffee.

‘Such as, that you've told me almost nothing when I need toknow everything if I'm to make life easy for you and that husband of yours.'

There, he'd said it, thought Kohler, and God help Louis and him now.

‘Then you had best give me a lift home and we can discuss things in private. You do. have a car, don't you?'

Like an idiot, he'd left it in front of her building and now she'd know for sure he had talked to her concierge and maid. Now the steak knife was missing from the table!

‘The car's just around the corner,' Uma heard him say, and there was a coldness to his voice she well understood.

‘Then I will wait here until you bring it round, yes? That way I will not get snow on my shoes.'

And not see where the car's parked, thought Kohler grimly, since she'd already figured that out. She'd grill the two, was as swift as a fox and would make damned sure of it!

With the falling snow there was a little more light, a little less darkness, and this light was suffused and it magnified the hush of the city.

St-Cyr stood a moment in the centre of the place Mazas. Above the entrance to the morgue, a faint, blue-painted electric bulb glowed forlornly, but clear against the eastern sky, the dome of the Gare de Lyon raised its dark silhouette, reminding him of the restaurant and of the years gone by. The years … but there was no time to dwell on them.

Had de Bonnevies gone to the restaurant-cum-warehouse at the Gare de Lyon and discovered the squashed honeycomb and mangled bees from Peyrane? Had he then informed the Kommandant von Gross-Paris of what was happening?

Then why, having found a sympathetic ear, had he taken the suicidal step of planning to give an address that could only have raised the hackles of Old Shatter Hand and the rest of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, to say nothing of der Führer and all others of the Occupier? Their friends as well.

And who had told von Schaumburg of the Russian beehives in Shed fourteen at the Gare de l'Est.

Irritated by the constant need for haste, he stubbornly turned his back on the morgue and began to walk downriver towards the quai Henry IV. Suddenly he had to hear the river gurgling softly, had to know that it was still there and that the city … this city he loved so much, would survive the war, this terrible war.

Hermann must have been delayed – why else would he not have returned to the Salpêtrière? They'd not eaten yet since Chez Rudi's, hadn't even had an evening's decent apéritif or one of the frightful coloured waters that were so common and made with ersatz flavouring and saccharin.

Frau Schlacht – had the woman proved difficult? he wondered and, suddenly needing the comfort of the river, hurried his steps.

In 1697 the quai Henry IV had been the south bank of the Île Louviers, a small island. In 1790, the Ville de Paris had acquired ownership. In 1806 there had been a market for firewood on the island, but long before this duels had been fought here at dawn. In 1843 the channel between the island and the Right Bank had been filled in to make the quai. The Canal St Martin began here, too. And, yes, the city had its history, every place its past, its intrigue, its matters of state.

‘Monsieur, I will love you for ever tonight.'

‘I will spend a moment with you, the half or the hour,' said another.

‘Or all of us could go somewhere warm with you,
n'est-ce pas
?' said yet another. ‘And you … you could have the pleasure of the three of us, but for the price of one.'

Kids … they were just school kids! Fourteen, if that! ‘Go home. You don't, and I'll have you arrested!'

They said nothing. They simply strolled away, arm in arm, and he could see them clearly enough in their thin coats, no kerchiefs or hats tonight. No stockings either, probably, for stockings could not be had by most and beige paint was used instead.

‘I was desperate,' cried out one from the safety of distance. ‘I begged.'

‘I needed to be warm,' shrilled another.

‘
Grigou
!' Cheapskate! ‘
Trou de cul
! ' Asshole! ‘I hope when we next meet you are stretched out in that place on a slab!'

‘Gripped by your lover, eh? Another bum-fucker like yourself!'

‘
Pédé
!
Salut
, my fine monsieur. We're going to find a
flic
and tell him you're one of those. He'll fix you. He'll run you in and beat the shit out of you!'

Merde
, the young these days. No parental guidance, no soap either, with which to wash out their mouths! Prostitution was now such a problem, bilingual licences had even been issued to more than six thousand of those who regularly plied the streets but did not work in any of the one hundred and forty legalized brothels. At least this way they were forced into regular medical checkups. But syphilis was still rampant, gonorrhoea a plague, illegitimate births too many, though seldom spoken of until that day of retribution came as surely it would, although sadly for them.

They'd have their heads shaved, these ‘submissive girls', so, too, the ‘honest' women who had found another, or others, among the Occupier while their husbands languished behind barbed wire or lay beneath the clay.

The morgue was dimly lit. ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté, to view the corpse of Alexandre de Bonnevies of the Impasse de champ de parc de Charonne.'

‘They said you'd come.'

It would be best to simply raise the eyebrows.

‘Monsieur le préfet, and the sous-préfet of the quartier Charonne,' acknowledged the attendant.

‘Did they ask for Dr Tremblay, or tell you to wait and let me do the asking?'

‘Dr Arnaud has already performed the autopsy. The heart, the lungs, the liver, spleen and all the rest, including the stomach and its contents.'

‘Arnaud is a fool and careless, and is aware that I am fully cognizant of his failings. I want Tremblay. They know it and you will now get him here immediately!'

‘Tremblay. It shall be as you wish. I can only try.'

‘But first,
mon ami
, you will roll out the corpse and put it in a quiet place. I want no noise, no ears but those of the dead and my own, so please don't get any smart-assed ideas, and forget all about what the préfet told you to do.'

This one ‘talked' to the dead. ‘Préfet Talbotte will be disappointed.'

‘Let him be. If he's happy, there will only be trouble for others. Myself, yourself, who knows? So it is always best not to hear. Then … why then you can claim you know nothing and I will be certain you do and not come after you.'

The sheet drawn fully back, St-Cyr let his gaze move slowly over the victim. If anything, the skin's pale blackberry hue had increased. There was still rigor, still the smell of bitter almonds.

De Bonnevies had been wounded three times in the Great War – shrapnel or machine-gun fire had torn a deep gouge across the left thigh. The bullet from a Mauser rifle, a sniper, perhaps, had hit him just below the right shoulder. It would have lifted him off his feet and thrown him back.

Barbed wire and metal splinters had ripped their way across and into his chest, the wire probably whipping about as a result of exploding shells and de Bonnevies lucky not to have lost half his face and sight. Otherwise the corpse was what one would have expected of a fifty-eight-year-old who was tall, of medium build.

Drawing the sheet back up to the chest, he said apologetically, ‘It can't be pleasant for you to lie here like this, but there are things we have to discuss and it is best I get to know you as well as I can.'

According to the wife, death had occurred between 8:30 and 10 p.m. Thursday, 28 January. It was now nearly 8 p.m. Saturday.

‘You were a man who loved his little sister, monsieur. You had made a tragic request of her in the summer of 1912, for which you have suffered ever since and now … why now, for all we yet know, this same request, and your desire to settle accounts at any price, may well have led to your death.

‘Madame de Bonnevies would certainly not have appreciated the news of Angèle-Marie's anticipated visits and your plans to have her again living in the house. But did you tell her of them?'

He would pause to walk back and forth a little, gesturing now and then, thought St-Cyr. ‘Knowing what we do so far of your relationship with your wife, monsieur, I have to doubt you confided in her. But if aware of the planned visits, and in despair, could she really have tried to poison you in the way that you so obviously thought? Would she have known enough about your beekeeping?

‘
Bien sûr
, it's possible, but I have to say no. And if not to her, then to whom? You see, you had shaved. You had unlocked the outer gate and that of the garden. You must have been expecting a visitor, a woman. Frau Uma Schlacht, I believe.'

Bending over the corpse, he examined the cheeks closely, the throat also, ignoring its crudely stitched incision and the stench.

There were two small nicks on the left side of the neck, just under the jaw. ‘A straight razor was used, and you were a man who would not have used a dull one. Were you nervous?' he asked.

Water was dripping somewhere and he turned suddenly at its intrusion. The attendant, in a bloodstained smock, was standing in a far corner, beyond the rows of pallets. ‘Beat it,' said the Sûreté. There was no need to shout. ‘Sounds echo here,' he said apologetically to the corpse, and then again, ‘Were you nervous?'

There was a scrape on the right side of the chin. ‘A lack of lather?' he asked. ‘No hot water?'

De Bonnevies had got dressed as if to go out to a meeting of the Society. ‘You
were
nervous, weren't you,' said St-Cyr, ‘and now I am quite sure of it.'

Frau Schlacht, coming to the house, would most certainly have caused this, but had she really done so and why?

It was an uncomfortable thought, but had he missed anything here?

Pausing, he threaded his way among the Occupation's fresh take of corpses and demanded the beekeeper's clothing from the disgruntled attendant. A vacant pallet was sought, the Chief Inspector taking time out from his conversations with the dead to examine each item thoroughly.

‘I told you to leave me alone with him. I meant it,' he said, not raising his voice.

Sand had been used on the shirt collar during its laundering. Vichy advised its Occupation-weary citizens to do such a thing instead of lamenting the lack of laundry soap. The finer the better, and
voilà
, the sweat stains could be erased with a little patient scrubbing. A market had even developed for the stuff. ‘Clean, washed sand, Monsieur de Bonnevies but, I'm afraid, a shirt that was quickly laundered and not rinsed sufficiently.'

Gently tapping the shirt collar over a slip of notepaper, he collected the sand. Had the daughter picked it up on one of her foraging trips? he wondered. ‘It's not from around here,' he said. ‘The local sand has tiny filings of iron which are rusty, if they've been in the river long enough and there was oxygen available. Grey or black otherwise, and with organic matter even after washing.'