Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  Death to one of the Occupier only brought more of it. ‘But … Ah mais alors, alors, Hermann, there is just one little problem with what you say.’

  ‘Go on, tell me, damn it!’

  ‘There was another visitor to the Salpêtrière that afternoon. A man, since Angèle-Marie, for all the “voices” she hears and the worries she has about being poisoned herself, maintained that it was a “he” who had given her a taste of honey on this little dipper.’

  ‘A man …’ croaked Kohler.

  ‘Someone who knew exactly how she would react to the taste, as she did, but before she’d received the bottle. Someone who didn’t want her coming home and wanted to demonstrate to de Bonnevies and her doctors that she wasn’t capable.’

  Someone from the quartier Charonne, a member of one of the four families … ‘The custodian, Louis?’

  ‘His day off doesn’t coincide with Thursdays but it could have been switched, yet he made no mention of it in the catacombs.’

  ‘He was too busy with other matters!’ snorted Kohler. ‘The son, Louis. Could it have been Étienne?’

  ‘Did Schlacht pay the first half of the one hundred thousand francs at Maxim’s – is this what you’re now saying? Well, is it?’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ sighed Kohler. ‘Schlacht wouldn’t have paid it. He’d simply have used the offer to nail Juliette’s underpants more firmly down around her ankles.’

  ‘Danielle … Could Danielle have made a deal with him to buy her half-brother’s freedom?’

  They were desperate. They were trying to think of every possibility. ‘That priest,’ said Kohler, finally lighting the cigarette. ‘Father Michel …’

  ‘Would have known exactly how Angèle-Marie would react to a taste of honey and may well not have wanted her to return to the fold.’

  ‘Yet he opened the past when he could just as easily have left it closed.’

  ‘He’s hiding something, Hermann. Merde, these village intrigues, these domestic quarrels. Severed heads of wife-beaters, blackmail and rape. A legacy of hatred and a determination for vengeance that reaches back more than thirty years.’

  ‘That bottle, Louis. It must have been left unattended on the beekeeper’s desk for a few hours. From when he came home from the Salpêtrière and until he returned from Le Chat qui cue and his little cemetery.’

  ‘But were the gates unlocked then?’ sighed St-Cyr and said firmly, ‘Not likely. Keys would most probably have been needed. Keys, Hermann.’

  De Bonnevies had seen his sister drink from the bottle and had thought it okay. Later, he’d had a quick shot, only to discover otherwise.

  ‘Several would have known where he kept the nitrobenzene, Louis. Danielle …’

  ‘Yes, yes. How many times must I say I can’t see that girl poisoning her father?’

  ‘The wife did it, then.’

  ‘Or Héloïse Debré? Or Father Michel – we can’t discount him yet!’

  ‘Someone who knew it was there, Louis, and had had enough of our beekeeper who was far from being the saint that daughter of his thought, and far worse than the lousy son of a bitch his wife considered him to be.’

  A torturer, a blackmailer, a hider of serious crimes that had been committed by others. A man so seeking vengeance he would prolong the agony of those responsible for years just for the sweet pleasure of it.

  Yet a dedicated scientist who had truly loved his bees and had had the wellbeing of the nation’s bees and those of others at heart and suicidally so.

  ‘But he didn’t care for Amaretto, Hermann, and there was no guarantee whatsoever that he would drink from that bottle.’

  ‘But would our Bonze have done so, Louis? Our Bonze?’

  * This portion of the rue Dareau is now rue Rémy-Dumoncel.

  7

  Beyond the boxwood there were rose arbours, and in among these the puppet theatre that had been rebuilt in 1931 but whose origin dated back to 1881. Beyond it, there was the Palais where the nobility of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré had been imprisoned twelve to a room, during the Reign of Terror in 1792, and a high hoarding had been wrapped completely around the Jardin du Luxembourg to keep them in until called to the guillotine.

  And now? asked St-Cyr silently, as Hermann leaned on the makeshift crutches the smelter workers had kindly crafted. Now the Palais is home to the Luftwaffe and a swastika flies from it while we, the people, are the prisoners, but without the wall of boards.

  There was snow everywhere, and often with distance-loving spaces between, there were strolling couples, old, young, the Occupier, too, with his Parisiennes. Choirboys – perhaps sixty of them – were furiously at war with snowballs among the lindens and under the stern-eyed gazes of their respective choirmaster priests. Each ‘soldier’ wore his ‘colours’ in a trailing choir gown. ‘The Saint-Sulpice, Hermann, and Saint Germain-des-Prés. It’s an annual affair, if God provides.’

  The snow! ‘They’re too silent, Louis. Have they all got sore throats?’

  Not a one of them made a sound. All swore or yelled with glee but under their breaths. ‘People respect the rights of others here to peace and quiet,’ said St-Cyr drolly, trying to calm him down. ‘It’s a rule that even lovers must conduct their most amorous activities in absolute silence!’

  Beyond the war of snowballs, beyond the tennis courts, balustraded terraces, with wide promenades, stepped down to the large, octagonal pond where in summer and days gone by, Louis and his little boy had sailed their toy boats. Statues, most of them of the queens of France, looked silently on, and as the steps on the other side rose from terrace to terrace, they eventually led into a wide promenade that was flanked by stately plane trees.

  In the distance, beneath the grey of the skies, sunlight touched the dome of the Panthéon. Breath billowed. Neither of them said a thing. Both simply wanted the moment to last, thought St-Cyr, but all too soon it was gone.

  ‘Herr Schlacht will be waiting for us at the bandstand, Hermann. It’s over there, on the way to the Fontaine des Médicis and before Valois’s Leda and the Swan.’

  ‘Louis, let me talk to him alone. He’ll want that.’

  ‘Can I trust you, Hermann?’

  ‘Not to make a secret deal?’ Always there was this doubt between them; less now as the years together had sped, but still, it was there. ‘I’ll do what I can because I have to. Oona’s suffered far too much already.’

  ‘Then go. I’ll walk about for a bit, and then follow.’

  Hermann reached the upper terrace and stood looking off towards the Panthéon. Framed by the lines of plane trees and closer urns where sprays of golden chrysanthemums from the hothouses were coated with ice, he looked old and defeated. A giant with one foot so bundled in rags, he gave the premonition of captured soldiers marching through the snows and into Siberia.

  As if on cue, the bell of the Bibliothèque Nationale sounded once, to shimmer on the frigid air. But then all motion stopped; no one moved, for that one bell was taken up by the Notre Dame, and after that by the Sacré-Coeur and others – one by one, and throughout the city.

  No wonder the choirboys had fought in silence – they’d known this would happen and now … now stood or crouched, as if statues themselves.

  ‘Stalingrad …’ sighed St-Cyr, a rush of joy and tears of gladness filling him even as he gazed across that frozen expanse towards Hermann, who made a statue, too. ‘Von Paulus has surrendered.’

  It was Sunday, 31 January 1943.

  Behind the bandstand there was a cleared space, a no-man’s-land not easily visible from elsewhere in the Jardin. Along one side of this space rows of stacked iron chairs leaned away towards tall trees like a regiment whose legs were spread as if urinating.

  Having pulled one of the chairs free, Schlacht sat with forearms crossed and resting on the head of a burled walking stick. The beige, herringbone overcoat was tightly buttoned under the double chin; the grey eyes looked out emptily from beneath the pulled-down brim of a freshly blocked trilby.
The gloves were new and of pigskin and all but unheard of these days; Schlacht the well-to-do Berlin Kleinbürger wanting yet to rise above the middle class.

  The voice, when it came, was thick and still of the scrap-metal yards. ‘Well, Kohler, you’ve me to thank for your being alive.’

  ‘And to blame for this.’

  The foot. Kohler still hadn’t come down from the bandstand. ‘If I understood Godonov’s daughter correctly, the burns are small and not serious.’

  ‘The Russians – even the White ones – will say anything these days.’

  ‘And that partner of yours?’

  ‘Louis? He’s probably communing with the beehives the Société Centrale are overwintering under the fruit trees.’

  The Society did keep hives here and regularly held beekeeping demonstrations and gave lectures. ‘These papers, Kohler. This Oona Van der Lynn of yours …’

  ‘She’s not mine. No woman is.’

  ‘No matter. Diese papiere sind nicht gültig, Kohler.’

  Not valid, not good …

  ‘Where is she? What have they done with her?’

  ‘Bitte. Kommen sie hier. Sit awhile. Rest yourself. She’s fine and will not be harmed.’

  ‘Unless …’

  ‘Let’s talk first. Then we’ll see.’

  Tucking Oona’s papers away, Schlacht offered a cigarette from a packet with a black cat on a red background. ‘Craven A’s,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Taken from downed American aircrew that were stopped while on their way to Berlin.’

  ‘The war’s not good, is it?’

  ‘Not good, but then I don’t exactly live at the expense of the Occupied like some.’

  Schlacht nipped off the end of a small cigar. ‘Now listen, be realistic. De Bonnevies got in the road. If that wife of his hadn’t poisoned him, someone else would have.’

  ‘And you’re sure Madame de Bonnevies did it?’

  The cigar was lit. ‘What I’m certain of is that my Uma didn’t, and that, mein lieber Detektiv, is the only reason I’m here talking to you. Leave her out of things.’

  ‘She wanted you dead.’

  The cigar was examined fondly like the little friend it was. ‘She misunderstood things, Kohler, that’s all, and has reconsidered, but wants her maid returned.’

  ‘That girl’s free to do as she pleases and has found a better job.’

  ‘With Gabrielle Arcuri.’

  ‘Who has generals and the OKW at her beck and call, the boys in the front lines, too, and all the others.’

  Kohler had yet to sit down. ‘Then we’ll leave Mariette Durand where she is and hope her new boss stays out of trouble, but I must warn you rumours still persist about that woman’s loyalties.’

  ‘I’ll be certain to let Gabi know.’

  ‘And the war, Kohler? Have you heard how things are at home?’

  Schlacht had been sitting on copies of the Berliner Tageblatt and the Zeitung, and took these from under himself. ‘Bombenlose Nacht, Kohler. Apparently it’s what my fellow Berliners now say to each other when parting company.’

  Bombless night, instead of auf Weidersehen.

  ‘Even apple cider, our favourite non-alcoholic drink, is no longer available. Rhubarb juice has been substituted! And now … now those little Witze, those political jokes my fellow Berliners love to circulate, include several about the Bolsheviks. When Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich announces on Radio Berlin that Bolshevism is dead, people are heard to whisper, “Long live Bolshevism”!’

  As cruel and ruthless as they come, Sepp Dietrich had commanded the Führer’s SS bodyguard during the days of the Blood Purge, and since then had blossomed into a Colonel General in the Waffen SS.

  Everyone’s friend and one to be admired, snorted Kohler silently.

  When still no answer had come from him, Schlacht continued. ‘We’re realists, you and I, Kohler. The American landings in North Africa are only the beginning. We both know time is on the enemy’s side and that the Reich has fewer than thirty thousand men here in France to keep order. Not more than two thousand five hundred of them, yourself included, are Gestapo.’*

  Paris’s police force had damned near half as many flics as that 30,000, to say nothing of the Milice, the Cagoule and all the others but this was heresy coming from someone like Schlacht. ‘And Endsieg seems a far-off dream, is that it?’

  Final victory … ‘The Führer is not always right, so let us agree it’s wisest to take precautions.’

  With the help of Swiss banks! ‘Are you making me an offer?’

  ‘I’m asking you to keep out of my life. Forget about this business of the wax and honey, forget about my candles. Concentrate instead on Madrid or Lisbon and travel papers for the Van der Lynn woman that won’t be questioned.’

  Such a tidy offer could only have been suggested by the SS of the avenue Foch. ‘And?’

  Schlacht didn’t let his gaze waver. ‘Five million francs; two hundred and fifty thousand marks, Kohler, and not the Occupation ones. Gold wafers if you prefer.’

  ‘Ten million, but let me have it in gold.’

  ‘Don’t push. It isn’t wise of you. I really will forget about Mariette Durand, and I’ll get you the papers quietly.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘I’m sure the one you’re looking for is a member of the Society Central. A jealous beekeeper, nothing more.’

  ‘And he poisoned de Bonnevies?’

  ‘He would have known exactly how to do it.’

  ‘But … but it might still have been an accident. We’re not sure yet.’

  ‘Then let it be one. That’s even better.’

  ‘And Madame de Bonnevies had nothing to do with it?’

  Always the loose cannon, Kohler would know perfectly well the embarrassment he could cause if he went straight to the Kommandant von Schaumburg with what he already knew. ‘Juliette was merely an amusement my Uma and I have agreed must end.’

  ‘And the Hôtel Titania?’

  ‘I own and whose front desk Juliette helped to manage, so you see, Kohler, where my wife’s misunderstanding lay. Of course …’ Cigar ash was examined. ‘Of course I’ll have to find a replacement, and for this …’ He sighed heavily and looked up again. ‘I’m willing to make a trade.’

  ‘Giselle?’

  ‘Think about it. She’d be perfect.’

  Kohler was sickened by the thought and at a loss for words. ‘A former prostitute, mein Lieber. Young, very beautiful – wise in such ways and everything a businessman such as myself could hope for in a prospective employee. The Durand girl will be left alone and your Oona sent to freedom with the gold. Take it or leave it and don’t, please don’t, ever mess with me again.’

  Giselle … Kohler saw her as she’d been that first time in the waiting room with all the others at Madame Chabot’s. Straight, jet-black hair, good shoulders and of a little more than medium height. He saw her turn to smile at him as her name was called, the négligée falling open, nothing on under it, the girl asking, ‘What, please, is it you desire, monsieur?’

  ‘Fate … it was fate,’ he muttered sadly. Schlacht had left him cold, had flung that cigar of his aside, and was now gone from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the stab marks of his walking stick all too clear in the snow.

  ‘Jésus, merde alors, what the hell am I going to do?’ he demanded angrily. He couldn’t trust the Berliner and the SS to carry through with the papers. He mustn’t even think of it! ‘But I want to,’ he lamented. ‘Mein Gott, to see Oona safely in Spain would make it all worthwhile.’

  But would it?

  ‘She’d only find out what I’d done and would never forgive me; Giselle neither, and certainly not Louis! Yet Oona could buy that little hotel on the Costa del Sol they’d all dreamed of, and not so little now either. She could set herself up really well and be ready and waiting for him and Giselle when …

  The butt of Schlacht’s cigar had gone out. With difficulty, Kohler leaned over – tried to keep his right foot out of the sno
w – and plucked the thing away.

  ‘You bastard,’ he said as he scattered the tobacco in the wind, rather than tuck the butt into his mégot tin. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand marks in gold. Ausweise and papers no one would fool with …’ And hadn’t Giselle helped him and Louis out before? Hadn’t she been plucked from the street and taken to the avenue Foch to Oberg who had made her stand before him as he’d stared up at her through his bottle-thick glasses? Hadn’t she been beaten up by the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston?

  ‘I can’t ask her to help us,’ he said. ‘I mustn’t.’

  Even so, temptation clawed. All the way back to the pond, he thought about it – tried to figure a way out. Let Schlacht get the papers for Oona. Agree to go along with him, and then … then …

  Louis … where the hell was Louis when needed most and not in sight?

  ‘I can’t tell him a thing. If I do, Oona will be killed.’

  Danielle de Bonnevies stood looking down at one of the Society’s hives, some twenty or so of which were wintering among espaliered fruit trees, and when the detective from the Sûreté caught sight of her, she felt herself automatically flinch, but worse than this, knew he had seen her do so.

  The flock of sparrows that had been feeding on the crumbled vitaminic biscuits she had scattered in the snow at her feet fled, leaving the yellowish stain of the biscuits and the two of them starkly alone. He’d know all about where she’d got those biscuits – from the J-threes to whom they’d been distributed at school. He’d know she sold them to others, the very best pigeon bait there was. ‘Inspector …’ she heard herself bleat. ‘Why … why are you here?’

  ‘Me? I was just enjoying the few moments of peace the investigation seems to have allowed.’

  A lie … What he’d said was an absolute lie! ‘I … I’ve come for the meeting but … but am a little early.’

  And not at home in mourning. ‘The Society. Yes, of course. I’d forgotten.’

  Another of his lies. He wouldn’t have missed a thing like that. Not when papa had been about to tell the world what was happening to Russia’s bees. Not when she’d told the Sûreté one of the Society could so easily have been the poisoner.