Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘ Héloïse, that business of his sister happened a long time ago.’

  ‘And yet … and yet he can continue to blackmail you even now. It’s curious, n’est-ce pas? “The corpses of officers,” he said to me. “Their gold pocket-watches, wedding rings and fountain pens – especially their cigarette lighters and money.” Apparently you burned the photographs they carried of their loved ones, their last letters from home also.’

  ‘What else did that salaud tell you? Well, what, damn you?’

  She didn’t back away.

  ‘That you tried to desert and that he and a comrade caught up with you and forced you to return to the lines. That this other man was then found dead of a bayonet attack in the dark of night when no others were harmed or heard a thing, and that ever since then he felt he had had to watch out for himself.’

  ‘And you … What hold did he have over you, Héloïse? A husband who was a drunkard and often beat the shit out of you?’

  She stiffened. She glared back at him.

  ‘I lost my babies one after another and now … now have no one. When my Raoul went away like that never to return, Alexandre came to tell me he was going to look into the matter. He said that I’d get the …’

  ‘Wait! Please wait. Maybe I did hear something. I’ll check.’

  ‘Don’t leave me in the dark. Please don’t! My candle … I put it out and set it on the floor. These old bones … I hate them.’

  ‘As I have had to, eh?’ he shrilled only to calm himself and say, ‘Ah! forget that. I will only be a few minutes. Stay where you are. Don’t move. You did lock the door behind you, didn’t you?’

  ‘Lock …? Ah merde, I’m sorry. I … I must have forgotten.’

  Smoke rose from the kerosene lantern Leroux had set on the floor at the foot of the stone staircase. ‘Raoul …’ he muttered to himself. ‘Raoul Debré was murdered by her and now Héloïse is afraid the cops will discover this, so asks for my help. Well let her ask, the bitch!’ he said vehemently. ‘Now that Alexandre is dead, only she knows what I did in the war.’

  He began to climb the stairs, his shadow seeming to reach up the circular well ahead of him. Exhaling, he said, ‘But I know the hold Alexandre had over her.’

  When he reached the top of the staircase, he held the lantern up and let its light shine about the offices of the Quarries Inspection Service which, with the one small room that served as ticket counter and reception desk to the necropolis below, occupied the pavilion.

  ‘No one,’ he grunted. ‘I should have checked the door right away. She has slid the bolt home as I told her to. HÉLOÏSE,’ he shouted. ‘HÉLOÏSE, IT’S OKAY. YOU CAN RELAX.

  ‘Relax? How can I when she knows so much about me and when detectives from the Sûreté are breathing down our necks and the Boches have sent one of their own to add gasoline to the fire?’

  Going into the reception office, he found a steel letter opener and, examining it for a moment, decided it would do. Hermann would have said, Stop him, Louis, said St-Cyr to himself, but Hermann wasn’t here, and one must wait to hear everything these two had to say to each other.

  The custodian’s steps grew distant. At one point he paused, perhaps to listen, but no, it was to take a leak.

  ‘No one will notice,’ muttered Leroux softly to himself. ‘The Boches are always doing it and thinking it funny. Mine will simply add to the stench for when I fetch the Kommandant to witness what those bastards of his have been doing. Fungus … There is fungus growing on the bones. It’s serious. So many visitors not only warm the caves but increase the humidity and bring it on. The ossuary will have to be closed or else the bones will go quickly to dust. In either case I’ll lose my job.’

  ‘Jean-Claude, is that you talking?’

  Sounds carried.

  ‘Oui. To myself. Don’t worry. We’re alone.’

  ‘Bon. We’ll make a night of it, the two of us. You won’t leave me again, will you? Not until after the curfew.’

  Relief had filled her voice. Sitting on the steps of the spring, she dipped a hand into the water, looked so like that woman from the Biblical past, Leroux told her so.

  ‘Then let me give you a real drink, mon vieux.’

  The bottle had been in the pocket of her overcoat. ‘It’s an eau de vie de poire from one of the little orchards Alexandre’s bees serviced. In a rare moment of concern for what he had just done to me, he left it on my kitchen table. Or perhaps he simply forgot it. But,’ she shrugged. ‘I never touched it until now.’

  ‘Is it poisoned? Well, is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘Would I be drinking it? A pact – you and me both dead in this place – is that what you think I want it to look like?’

  He took the bottle from her. ‘Merci,’ he said. ‘Salut!’

  Momentarily her hand touched his as he returned the bottle. ‘To the past, Jean-Claude. To the present, of course – one must drink to it, n’est-ce pas? And to the future. You poisoned him, didn’t you? You couldn’t stand being blackmailed any more than I could. So, what, please, did he confide to you about me and that husband of mine? Was it what the neighbours all thought in any case?’

  Leroux set the lantern on the steps at her feet and took the bottle from her, but remained standing.

  ‘First, you tell me what you wanted to warn me of.’

  So it was to be like this, was it? thought Héloïse. ‘The one from the Sûreté will be watching that house of Madame Thibodeau’s for you, Jean-Claude. If I were you I would give Charlotte up and find another somewhere else. Of course, there will not be the cemetery room, but I’m sure you know it well enough to imagine it.’

  The slut! thought Leroux. Always that tongue of hers couldn’t resist having the razor’s edge. ‘I didn’t poison him, Héloïse. I wanted to—yes, yes, of course and many times considered how best to do it. Down here there are iron grilles that close off countless passages and galleries. Some have locks and I have access to their keys. Any of those would have done and no one … Believe me, no one would have been the wiser. The draught … I had even calculated that the constant draught we have would carry the stench of his rotting corpse well away from the ossuary.’

  The look she gave him hardened. ‘Are you threatening me, mon pauvre, because if you are, please try to think of whom I might have told where I was going tonight.’

  He didn’t laugh at her or even smile.

  ‘No one, Héloïse. You would not have told a soul.’

  ‘Then you’re forgetting the second of the letters I sent you. Today’s … well, yesterday’s, I guess. It’s now Sunday.’

  ‘I burned them both in my room and enjoyed the momentary warmth they gave.’

  Was he going to kill her? wondered the woman, or so it seemed, thought St-Cyr, still waiting and watching, still holding back when perhaps he ought to step in and put an end to their little discussion.

  ‘Blackmail,’ said Leroux and seemed to relish taunting her. ‘I was not the only one to suffer, was I?’

  ‘I didn’t poison him.’

  ‘You could so easily have done so. Please don’t deny it.’

  She tossed a hand. ‘All right, all right, I used to help him with his bees, but that doesn’t make me a murderess.’

  ‘Which you already were.’

  Ah Sainte Mère, these two, thought St-Cyr. She took a long pull at the bottle and then offered it.

  ‘Drink with me, then. Two killers, you and I, eh? Yourself during the war; myself some fifteen years after his sister was raped.’

  ‘On the night of 14 July 1927. Bastille Day.’

  ‘He told you?’ she asked, and looking up at him, pleaded for compassion with haggard eyes whose tears began to streak their mascara and shadow.

  ‘First you got that husband of yours drunk, Héloïse – a state Raoul welcomed and was used to. Then … and this is the fortunate part for you, as a part-time bargee’s assistant, he was alone and on duty during the celebrations.’

  Emptily she looked down at t
he lantern. ‘And headless corpses, even if weighted down with coal and dredged from the Canal Saint-Martin, are hard to identify. The body was never found – at least I never heard or read about its being found and I searched the newspapers. Believe me, but I did,’ she said, suddenly looking up at him and not bothering to wipe her eyes. ‘Every day for months and months, Jean-Claude. Years, damn you. Years!’

  ‘Not found,’ breathed Leroux and, taking the bottle from her, let a little of its contents piddle on to the top of her head.

  ‘You cut that out!’ she shrieked and flung herself aside.

  OUT … OUT … the caves echoed.

  ‘A small baptism, just in case,’ he said. ‘Oh by the way, ma chère, Alexandre made certain I knew exactly how he got you to tell him what you’d done and that you had buried Raoul’s head on that little farm of your Uncle Marcel’s. Near Soissons, isn’t it, where old bones are always cropping up in the orchards and fields? An abandoned well the Boches had all but filled in during their final retreat in 1918. What could have been better? A few shovels of fresh earth and a few more stones.’

  When she said nothing, the custodian drank deeply from the bottle, then told her to finish it. ‘Go on. You’re going to need it.’

  ‘Why? Because you will kill me?’

  ‘Now listen, Héloïse. Take it easy. We’re in this together.’

  ‘I couldn’t move – did Alexandre tell you that, too? I couldn’t scream. Always there’d be those damned bees of his, always one of his hives on that roof of mine and no record of it in his little book or with that daughter of his. “The perfect excuse to visit you,” he’d say and then … then would let them crawl all over me. I was terrified. He’d laugh at me and I can still hear him, and … and only after I’d passed water in my bed, would he condescend to patiently scrape them off and return them to their hive. He was a monster, Jean-Claude. Of course I wanted him dead! Dead, do you understand?’

  ‘You were naked.’

  ‘Completely! That … that’s the sort of hold he had over me. Honey … he always used honey. The bees then gathered it from my skin.’

  ‘And you poisoned him, didn’t you? Confess. There is only me to listen.’

  She was in despair and wrung her hands.

  ‘I wish I had. God forgive me, but I do, Jean-Claude. He wanted that sister of his to come home – you knew of this?’

  ‘What if I did?’

  Leroux was going to kill her now, thought St-Cyr. Now …

  ‘Alexandre confided this to you. Well, he did, didn’t he?’ she asked of the sister.

  ‘Several times. He was worried the Germans would snuff out her life.’

  The woman looked away towards the entrance corridor. St-Cyr stepped back and held his breath. ‘Some life, poor thing,’ she said tearfully. ‘I’ve begged God to forgive me. Father Michel has heard my confession many times, so please don’t think he and that God of his are unaware of what happened in Père Lachaise and who was responsible.’

  ‘Idiot! Did you confess also to murdering Raoul?’

  ‘I had to. I was distraught and couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop myself. Father Michel made me tell God everything.’

  Father Michel! swore St-Cyr. The bottle was forgotten.

  ‘And yet … and yet,’ said Héloïse, ‘the good father did nothing to stop Alexandre from torturing me like that, and nothing … nothing at all to prevent that husband of mine from beating the shit out of me and causing me to lose my babies.’

  ‘And would he have wanted Angèle-Marie to return to the house of her childhood?’ hazarded Leroux.

  How very cautious of Jean-Claude, thought Héloïse. ‘No. No, I’m certain of it. That old priest has much to answer for and no one but his God to confess to.’

  The kid on stage at the Club Mirage wore little and was distracting. Momentarily torn between watching her and searching the crowd for Louis, Kohler hesitated, for when she gyrated the silver hoop about her waist, she juggled ersatz oranges to which white feathers had been glued.

  Locked in for the night, eight hundred of the Occupier, most in uniform, some with their girlfriends, others entertaining collabos and big shots from the black market, whistled and applauded. Now the torso moved as well and the sky-blue propellers that hid her nipples began to spin in opposite directions as her head was tilted back.

  The oranges went higher and higher; the hoop raced the propellers. One knee came up. A falling orange was hit and lifted into the tobacco-fogged air only to be caught with others on its descent as she turned away and … mein Gott, bounced orange after orange into the crowd with the most beautiful backside on earth.

  ‘Jésus, merde alors, her timing’s perfect!’ he swore.

  The piano player flew over the keys, the drummer gave a parade roll and one by one, as they were dutifully returned, the kid caught the oranges.

  She was radiant. ‘As she should be!’ roared Kohler, shoving his way through to the bar. ‘Has Louis been in yet?’ he called out to Remi Rivard, the one with the open leather jerkin, red plaid workshirt and gut of an iron barrel. The brother of the Corsican with the face and hands of ground meat.

  ‘Not yet. You been rolling around in a beehive or something?’ Remi pointed to the greatcoat.

  ‘Oh this. It’s just a bit of wax and honey and a few dead bees. I’ve been robbing hives.’

  Two beers were set before him, the froth overflowing.

  ‘Bees or no bees, I’d get that coat cleaned in a hurry.’

  Remi, whose face was that of a mountain, all crags and clefts and shadows, with hard dark, empty eyes, gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the balcony. ‘Table four over from the clock, front row. You’ve company.’

  An SS major from the avenue Foch sat between two miliciens, one older, the other younger but stronger, bigger. None of them had the slightest interest in the kid on stage. They were concentrating hard on the bar.

  ‘Tell Louis I’ll meet him at his house.’

  A study in perpetual motion, Remi had already surmised as much and had moved away to serve the crush of others. At a run, Kohler headed for the courtyard exit. Crossing the stage, he dragged off his coat and pitched it from him, called out to the kid, ‘Hey, chérie, look after that for me, eh? You were terrific!’

  The three on the balcony were making for the stairs. Leaving the stage, Kohler fought his way past the chorus line where bared breasts wore glued pasties and the girls grinned or smiled. Red lips, bare arms and feathers … ostrich feathers …

  Miliciens jammed the exit. Others were behind them. All wore black chasseur alpin berets, dark blue tunics and trousers, brown shirts and black ties … Brass knuckles, too, and hatred in their eyes. Hatred for what he’d done to two of their own!

  Pivoting, Kohler raced back to the stage, was caught, was dragged down, hit and hit hard. Blood blinded him. Boots felt as if caving in his ribs. ‘MAUDIT SALAUD! VACHE!’ COW! they shrieked, the slang for cop. ‘Dog-fucker!’ The pain was killing him. Curled up, he rolled on to his side and tried to clear his eyes. The kid was stricken. Oranges were bouncing all around her. The crowd was in a rage. Thinking him one of their own, the boys in grey-green were clambering on to the stage. The miliciens were dragging him up. ‘AN ARREST!’ they shrieked at the rescuers but a whistle blew sharply. As one, the men all stopped and stood to attention, or crouched and did not move.

  ‘Take him,’ said the SS major, with a dismissive toss of his hand. ‘He’s wanted for questioning.’

  The kid, bless her, was in tears and on her knees, and when she reached out to him, Kohler felt the trembling urgency of her hand on his blood-smeared cheek. ‘Gabrielle … Gabi asked me to watch out for you,’ she blurted. ‘But I … I had to do my act. Forgive me.’

  ‘Tell Louis I’m in trouble,’ he gurgled. ‘Trouble, eh? Louis …’

  With no whistle to blow, what was one to do? wondered St-Cyr, still in the catacombs, in the darkness of the corridor. The lantern was now resting on the lip of the
spring between the custodian and the woman, but had Leroux put it there on purpose? The iron bar was uncomfortably close to hand.

  If one said, Sûreté, you’re both under arrest, Leroux would simply tip the lantern into the spring and snatch up the bar. The woman would cry out but not for long.

  ‘That old priest,’ said Leroux. ‘He’ll have to be dealt with.’

  ‘I can’t kill a priest, Jean-Claude. I won’t.’

  ‘You told him everything.’

  Frantic, her eyebrows arched as she spat, ‘And what of Alexandre, eh? For years now he’s known who the four of you were.’

  ‘You told him, too?’

  ‘I had to. A woman’s most private parts are her tenderest. Each time the bees fed … Need I say more?’

  ‘Then why the charade of his trying to find out all our names?’

  ‘Another torture of his. Admit it, yours and the other families, mine too, lived in fear of him, as did the four of you and myself. Would he go to the police; would he not do so? When he came back from the war he had that little cemetery of his built and then … then started to work on all of us.’

  ‘Never once did he suggest to me that he knew.’

  ‘Of course not! That would have spoiled his fun. He was both examining magistrate and judge, and wanted the torture to last. Look how he despised that wife of his? The son of another – he never let her forget it, not for a moment.’

  ‘You’ll have to poison Father Michel, too, Héloïse. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be. Otherwise …’

  Leroux took the letter opener from a pocket and fingered it. ‘Otherwise, ma chère compagne dans le meurtre …’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’ she hissed and began hesitantly to move away.

  ‘Agree,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be generous. Do it within the next two days or …’

  ‘Monsieur, please put that down. St-Cyr, Sûreté.’

  ‘Ah!’

  The lantern went into the drink, the iron bar scraped on the stones as it was dragged up. A skull was smashed. The woman shrieked and began to run – ran into a wall, clawed at the bones, for some fell around her. Cried, wept – begged.