Beekeeper

by J. Robert Janes

  But the wrong victim.

  ‘Then they hadn’t wanted to kill Pétain in his bedroom for fear of awakening Captain Bonhomme, or someone else,’ he sighed, longing for a cigarette and for time to think it all through with Louis.

  She’d got away from the one who’d brought her here. He would have called out to the killer, would have told her what had happened and that they had no choice but to silence Céline …

  ‘Madame Dupuis. I’ve got to think of her only that way,’ he said.

  ‘Inspector …’ came a voice.

  It was the ‘iron man’, the police photographer and fingerprint artist – nothing ever upset these guys. Tough … Mein Gott, they could photograph anything and then patiently dust all round for prints. Old men who’d had their brains blown out, horizontales who’d been carved up, kids, housewives, it didn’t matter.

  ‘Marcel Barbault, Inspector.’

  Merde alors, the son of a bitch looked like a defrocked priest! The body was round, the face round, the precisely clipped and black-dyed Hitlerian moustache perfect, the cheeks smooth, the throat no doubt dry and regretting the sour red it had consumed last night.

  ‘Ah bon,’ said Kohler, offering fresh nourishment and a light, for it took all types to make this world. ‘Give us shots of her and the buvette from all angles, Marcel, then one or two of the Buvette de la Grande Grille and another two of the Buvette Lucas, just for local atmosphere.’

  Barbault grinned. ‘The corpse?’ he asked, eyebrows arching beneath a fastidiously blocked black homburg, the overcoat collar of carefully brushed velour.

  ‘Oh, sorry. She’s behind the bar. I’ll leave you to it, then, shall I?’

  ‘A clean killing?’

  ‘Tidy, I think.’

  ‘You going to stick around in case there’s anything else you want?’

  ‘Of course. Prints on that dripping tap above her feet when you get to them.’

  Barbault moved the lanterns so that they wouldn’t cast his shadow on the corpse. Popping flashbulbs, he went to work. Merde, how could he be so calm? He didn’t whistle like some, didn’t sing or mutter things to himself like others. ‘A good fuck,’ he said, his voice gruff and echoing. ‘A nice cunt for the old sausage to ram, eh, Inspector? They say he never wears a rubber, that he simply tells them to wash it out!’

  ‘I’m going to get a breath of air.’

  ‘Don’t catch your death.’

  Jésus, merde alors!

  The skies were clear but dark. Always before dawn it got like this, and which cities and towns at home would be in ruins? Jurgen and Hans had been killed at Stalingrad – just kids, really, his sons, and why hadn’t they gone to Argentina like he’d begged them to? Gerda, the ex-wife, was at home on her father’s farm near Wasserburg but was now married to an indentured French farm labourer …

  Giselle and Oona were at the flat on the rue Suger in Paris, just around the corner from the house of Madame Chabot and Giselle’s old friends in the profession. Thank God Oona was there to keep an eye on her.

  ‘I really do have to get them out of France before it’s too late. Louis, too, and Gabrielle, his new love, though that definitely hasn’t been consummated.’ A chanteuse, a war-widow with a ten-year-old son, a beautiful lay who was keeping it only for Louis.

  The Résistance would shoot that patriot simply because he worked with one of the Occupier and in their need for vengeance they’d make lots of similar mistakes.

  ‘Vichy can’t last,’ he muttered as, remembering the matter to hand, he hurried back inside the Hall. ‘Marcel, make sure you get close-ups of those cigar ashes on her front and on the counter, those also at the Buvettes de la Grande Grille and Lucas. I’ll show them to you when you’re ready.’

  ‘Cigars …?’ gasped a female voice. ‘Ah Sainte Mère, I have brought some for the Maréchal, Inspector.’

  ‘Just who the hell are you and what do you think you’re doing in here?’

  Here … Here … came the echoes on the damp, cold air.

  ‘Inès Charpentier … Sculptress and patcher-up of injured detectives. Is it really true that there is a sadist who rapes and then murders only virgins? I ask simply because … because I may have to work late and return to my boarding house after dark and alone.’

  Had there been a catch in her throat? ‘Your information’s a little off. She wasn’t raped and wasn’t a virgin.’

  ‘Oh. The … the men who are clearing the snow have it wrong then. Are these really cigar ashes, Inspector? You see, the Maréchal detests cigarette smoke but apparently enjoys an occasional cigar, and my director, he … he has sent him a little gift of some Havanas, from Cuba by submarine, I think.’

  Had the kid been crying? She was standing behind the bar, with her left hand wrapped tightly around that dripping tap and the other one flat on the counter, smudging the ashes. She couldn’t stop herself from staring at the corpse, was sickened, no doubt, and likely to throw up.

  ‘Come on,’ said Kohler gently. ‘You need what I need.’

  ‘And the ashes?’ asked Barbault, not turning from his work.

  ‘Find the rest of them yourself and then have her moved to the morgue.’

  The broom kept going. The man, the boy under torchlight, didn’t look up but down at the snow he was clearing from the covered walk. The jacket of his bleus de travail was open, the coveralls well padded by two bulky pullovers, two flannel shirts and at least one pair of long johns.

  A tricolour – a blue-, red- and white-banded scarf – trailed from its tight knotting about the all but absent throat. The face was wide and flat, the dark brown eyes closely spaced under a knitted woollen cap and inwardly grooved by fleshy folds of skin beneath frowning black, bushy brows.

  ‘Albert,’ said the father gently. ‘The Chief Inspector St-Cyr has come all the way from Paris to speak to you. Surely you could spare him a moment?’

  ‘I went round as I always do,’ retorted the son. ‘All the doors were locked except for that one!’

  The broom flew up to fiercely point at the distant Hall des Sources, indistinct in the darkness.

  ‘Albert, I know you did. Haven’t I trusted you all these years we’ve worked together here? Inspector, my son is very intelligent, very diligent. No task is too big or too small. Each morning before I and the others arrive, Albert checks round the park to see if there is anything amiss. He found the padlock and chain in the snow beside the entrance to the Hall. The key was still in its lock, the door open.’

  ‘She was asleep, father! asleep!’

  ‘Now, now, let’s not have tears in public, eh, Albert? God gave you too much heart, but I know you can be tough on yourself when necessary.’

  The nose was wiped, the broom lowered, the sweeping petulantly taken up again.

  ‘Ah, it’s a little early for our mid-morning snack but when it’s cold like this, a person needs something extra. Would you care to join us, Inspector?’

  ‘Coffee …’ said Albert slyly. ‘He thinks I’ll be fooled by temptation. Bread … is there any left, Father?’

  The elder Grenier patted his jacket pocket but said only, ‘Show the Chief Inspector where our nest is. I’ll just let the others know we’ve gone below.’

  The broom was carefully leaned against one of the wrought-iron uprights, the booted feet were stamped to remove their snow. Deep in the cellars beneath the Hotel du Parc, the younger Grenier led him to the furnace room, to straight-backed wooden chairs, a warming pot of real coffee, a small glass jar of honey and one of milk … Simple things most of the nation hadn’t seen or tasted in years.

  ‘We’re lucky,’ said Albert shyly. ‘This is our very own place. Warm in winter, cool in summer.’

  There were newspapers, well-read by others no doubt, before being gathered and smuggled down here. The Völkischer Beobachter – the People’s Observer, in Deutsch that probably none of the caretakers could understand. Die Woche, too, the Nazis’ weekly magazine with lots of pictures, and Signal – Hitler’s own
magazine. Paris-Soir, Le Matin and other Paris dailies were with them – all collaborationist, all thin and heavily censored, but among these, and more significantly, were copies of L’Oeuvre Rassemblement National Populaire, the paper of Marcel Déat’s violently fanatical collaborationist and fascist party, and Le Cri du Peuple, that of Jacques Doriot and his PPF, the Parti Populaire Français, equally pro-fascist and violently collaborationist. The extreme far right of Paris, who reviled and ridiculed everything Vichy did and constantly plotted to take over.

  ‘Those were the doctor’s,’ spat Albert, indicating L’Oeuvre and Le Cri. ‘He doesn’t like me and I don’t like him either, but I prefer to read these.’

  Stabs had been made at filling in the pictures of the colouring book but crayons were in such short supply only a few colours had been used.

  ‘Read this one, Inspector. It’s special.’

  One had best say something. ‘The pictures are lovely. Perhaps the …’

  ‘They’re the nicest I’ve ever received as a present! That’s what it says.’

  So it did.

  ‘This one is also my book.’

  A fairy tale, an illustrated biography of the Maréchal who was pictured in a two-page spread as a fatherly figure sitting before a group of young children under a giant oak. Vichy flooded the country with its propaganda. Texts and books like this were in every school and at every reading level.

  ‘“And as he spoke,”’ said Albert reverently, ‘“all the rats, the wasps and worms that had done so much damage to la belle France – the termites, too, and spiders – suddenly ran away.” He promised he would make things better and he did, Inspector. He really did! He’s a good man. A great man. He has even signed my book – see, that is his very own writing.’

  A forefinger was stabbed at the inscription.

  Patience … I must have patience, said St-Cyr silently to himself. ‘Dated 4 November 1941 … Did the Maréchal also give you that ring?’

  I’d better shake my head, thought Albert. I’d better not look at him. ‘I found it.’

  ‘In the Hall des Sources?’

  The man, the boy, cringed. There was a nod, a further turning away and yanking off of the knitted cap. ‘It’s pretty. It’s mine. Finders keepers, losers weepers!’

  ‘Of course, but was it near her, Albert?’

  ‘I’m not listening. I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Albert, you’d best tell the Inspector,’ urged the father, pushing past them to warm his hands by clasping the coffee pot.

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Ah mon Dieu, mon vieux, need you ask? Show him that you’re good at cooperating with the police and that you know right from wrong.’

  ‘He’ll only want it for himself.’

  ‘Just tell him, Albert.’ But had the boy found something else? wondered Grenier. Something so dear he would yield the one to keep secret the other?

  ‘It … it was lying on the bar of the Buvette du Parc when my torch discovered it as if by magic. Real magic!’

  ‘And then?’ prompted the father.

  ‘I … I found her in the Buvette du Chomel. Chomel!’

  ‘Now have your coffee, Albert. Serve the Inspector first. Put a little honey in his and some milk. Inspector, let my son keep the ring. It can’t be of any value.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous. Believe me, the fewer who know of it, the better.’

  ‘But … but surely Albert is no threat to this … this assassin?’

  ‘But the ring is, Monsieur Grenier. That band is from an El Rey del Mundo – the King of the World – cigar. A Choix Supreme or Corona Deluxe.’

  ‘A Choix Supreme, but it could just as easily have been a Romeo y Julieta Corona or a Davidoff Grand Cru. The Maréchal occasionally enjoys a cigar and that band is not the first of such rings my son has worn until they are so torn they can’t be mended. There are gold coins on it, and a gold coat of arms, but it’s mainly because, with him, by wearing it he feels just a little bit closer to his hero.’

  ‘Then tell him that if he values the Maréchal’s life he’ll let me have a piece of evidence that could well lead us to the killer.’

  There is something else, thought Grenier. Albert is giving the ring up too easily. That sly and rapid glance he has just tossed the Inspector only confirms it. Sacré nom de nom, what am I to do? Stop him now, or wait to find out for myself?

  I’d best wait. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. The boy’s upset enough as it is, and we can’t have that. Not with les Allemands and their Gestapo now here in force, not with the way they are known to treat such people.

  Black coffee, hot, freshly baked croissants, real blackberry jam and a glass of brandy sat before the girl. Timidly Inés Charpentier reached for the napkin-draped wicker basket and brought it close.

  ‘It’s like a dream,’ she said, exhaling softly. ‘White sugar on the table. These,’ she said, indicating the croissants. ‘They’ve been banned in Paris and the rest of the zone occupée since the fall of 1940. And this? Oh for sure it’s an eau-de-vie de marc from the Auvergne and exactly what is needed to settle me down, but on a no-alcohol day? It is a Thursday. Aren’t Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the pas-d’alcools days even here in Vichy? I wouldn’t want to be arrested and you are, after all, a …’ She wouldn’t say Gestapo, said Inés to herself. ‘A detective.’

  The kid had really been shaken up by the murder, still was for that matter. ‘Relax. Forget about the war and the Occupation. Tell me about yourself.’

  Somehow she must try to keep her mind on things and try not to panic, thought Inés. ‘There’s not much to tell,’ she said, but did Herr Kohler find wariness in such a modest reply? ‘I sculpt and have done so since a child. Garden clay first, then plasticine – sketching things too. When one is driven by loneliness to such an urge one does not question it at first but only later sees that behind the desire there must have been escape. I’m happiest still when working and need little else.’

  A simple soul, Louis would have said, that Sûreté head of his full of doubt simply because the kid, on viewing the corpse, had inadvertently destroyed whatever fingerprints had been on that dripping tap and had left her own in their place and elsewhere. Or had it been inadvertent? Ach, why must he always be expected to suspect the worst? Why must Louis constantly demand answers to everything? The kid was clean, no problem, but … ‘Do you live at home?’ he asked.

  ‘Ah, no. I’ve a studio in Paris.’

  Offer little, Louis would have said and impatiently clucked that tongue of his as he nodded, but everyone tried to offer little these days. ‘That’s a pretty big city, isn’t it? My partner and I are seldom there.’

  And you don’t know it well – is this what you’re trying to tell me, monsieur? wondered Inés, pleased that her resolve had stiffened. ‘It’s on the rue du Douanier* at … at number 5. One of several, and unheated these days or in the past, for that matter.’

  ‘Rent?’

  ‘Two sixty-five a month.’ Did he know Paris and its struggling artists well enough to see the truth of this reply?

  ‘Salary?’

  ‘Twelve hundred from the Musée and whatever else I can earn through part-time teaching and private commissions. It’s not even that of a ticket-taker on the métro, but don’t people always say that artists are doing what they like?’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘That’s too brief an answer, mademoiselle. Surely you’ve a past?’

  And with croissants waiting! ‘My father is buried near Verdun, my mother in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. Father’s brother and sister-in-law took me in when I was two years old, Inspector. Both of them were much older than my parents and childless, and both have since sadly passed away.’

  ‘But they let you sculpt?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Their names, then?’

  She was becoming flustered, must remain calm! ‘Inspector, I thought I was to relax? Charpentier – what else? André-Émile, ac
countant for Le Printemps, one of the big department stores, and Odette née Marteau. I’ve some photos – a few even of the father and mother I never knew, but these, they are in a cardboard box in my studio.’ Would he check this out? Would he? demanded Inès silently.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said and grinned boyishly – a nice grin, bien sûr, but … ‘Sometimes I hate myself,’ he said. ‘You have to understand that my partner is always on about my letting the prettiest of girls take advantage of me. He’ll ask what I’ve learned and I’ll have to have something to tell him. You’ve no idea what he’s like. A real pain in the ass!’

  Was that definitely all there was to the inquisition? wondered Inés. ‘You are forgiven and … and the compliment is much appreciated though I fear I am far too thin these days.’

  And can’t get much to eat even on the black market, since about 600 francs a day was needed! ‘Salut,’ said Kohler, raising his glass to her. ‘À votre santé.’

  ‘Et à vous, monsieur.’

  It was only in passing that he mentioned the quartier Petit-Montrouge, the Parc de Montsouris, and the École de Dressage, which was at the end of the street, thus letting her know that he knew Paris well enough but that she didn’t have to worry.

  But I will, said Inés to herself. There were deep circles around her eyes and he had noticed them, no doubt concluding that they weren’t just from hunger but from too many late nights – particularly the one that had brought her here on the same train as he and that partner of his. The same! Would he check its passenger list? Would he?

  More coffee came. The girl sat back with hands in her lap as the waiter poured.

  ‘Merci,’ whispered Inés, and then … then tried to smile across the table at this giant from the Kripo with the terrible scar down the left side of his face. ‘The Chante Clair Restaurant of the Hotel Majestic is lovely, isn’t it?’ she heard herself saying. ‘Very fin de siècle – turn of the century. Very of another time. Ferns and fishtail palms, Kentias and rubber plants – the smell of the orange and lemon trees in their glazed jardinieres – tulip shades of soft amber glass on goose-necked lamps and, above the widows, stained-glass panels of ladies bathing or drinking the waters and taking the cure.’