Beekeeper (15 page)

‘And the number of hives?' she heard him ask and dug her fingernails into her palms to more firmly awaken herself to the threat of him before answering, ‘Usually about twenty here. Sometimes a few less or more. It depended.'

‘On the need to service an orchard or vineyard.'

‘The out-apiaries also. He …
papa
has – well, he had … Well, we have; I have, fifty-seven to … to look after.'

‘Then twenty-seven of them are still out on rooftops and in gardens?'

‘
Papa … Papa
and I were still bringing them into the apiary. He … he felt it necessary due to … to the threat he perceived. The disaster he said would happen.'

‘Acarine mites.'

‘Yes! But …' She clamped her eyes shut and turned away, burst into tears and tried to stop herself. ‘Forgive me,' she blurted. ‘He … he would not tell me
why
he felt so certain there would be such a terrible infestation, only that … that we must guard against it for the good of France.'

And has he believed me, this Chief Inspector of the Sûreté? she silently asked herself and heard that one gently saying, ‘Would you like to sit down?'

‘In his chair, at his desk? No. No, I … I will stand over here. Yes, here.'

And next to the microscope under which a Russian bee had been opened.

Her back remained ramrod stiff, her hands gripping the edge of the workbench, but when she realized that he would notice this, the girl relaxed her hold and turned to face him. She hadn't yet dried her eyes or wiped her nose – did she want him to see her like this so as to engender sympathy? he wondered.
Merde
, what was she attempting to hide?

Everyone hides things these days, he cautioned himself. And please don't forget grief takes many forms and she is in great distress.

As in the honey-house, he'd have to be kind, but was she hoping to block him from further viewing what was under that microscope? She'd admitted to the presence of acarine, but not to its source in Russian bees. ‘Mademoiselle, it's good of you to have come downstairs. You must still be exhausted and are understandably in shock.'

‘I want to help, Inspector. There is only myself who can. She …
Maman
won't be of any use.
Papa
didn't … didn't tell her anything about his work or …'

‘Or even about his private life?'

That brothel? That filthy place and those two bitches – was this what he was implying? ‘Yes. Yes, that is how it was with my parents. Mother didn't do it, Inspector. I made her tell me. I said we had to talk, that the time for insulating herself from me must end.'

‘And her response?'

Instinctively the girl touched her left cheek, disturbing a camouflage of last-minute powder whose pale chalkiness had hidden the welt.

‘Mother slapped me hard. I … I forgave her immediately, of course.'

‘Would you prefer we didn't talk here?'

‘No. No, here is fine. I … I will just have to get used to it, won't I?'

The girl waited for him to say yes, but he would simply take out his pipe and tobacco, thought St-Cyr.

‘Inspector, I don't know who could have poisoned him. That bottle of liqueur was not in the study when I left here early on Thursday morning. My father was already at work at five when I came in to kiss him goodbye. He was happy – earnest, that is, about his work.
Our
work.'

‘And did you know the contents of the address he was revising?'

‘I knew only that he was working on an important paper, but … but not the subject of it.
Papa
refused to tell me. “It's too controversial,” he said. It … it had to be about his bees, of course. They are our dedicated and loyal little friends, isn't that so? Tireless and always bringing beauty and the gold of their honey, the light from their wax, while at the same time pollinating the very plants without which we could not survive.'

Quickly Danielle wiped her nose and eyes with a hand and tried to smile, and when she heard him ask, ‘Was he to have given the address that evening?' vehemently shook her head.

‘Tomorrow at two p.m. The Jardin du Luxembourg. A … a room in the Palais is still not possible so, again, as since the Defeat, the Society must meet in one of the greenhouses, but it … it is really quite pleasant and perhaps far more in keeping with the subject. I, myself, though forced always to sit at the back, have never objected to our holding the meetings there. The bees love it, and one can watch them going about their tiny lives as if in total peace.'

Her voice had strengthened but was she now on firm ground? he wondered. She was also, in a way, striking a blow for equality and the injustice many women and young girls felt at the hands of men who often knew far less than they.

‘Aren't you going to light your pipe?' she asked.

‘Ah! I've forgotten. I often do. Would you like a cigarette?'

Would it help? ‘No. I don't. I haven't ever. I've had no desire to use them.'

And now need no such crutches?
Merde
, what was there about her? The need to constantly be on her guard, the need to hide the fact she must know the mites were from Russia? ‘While away, you stayed, I believe, at the family's country house.'

‘Only at night. My route took me too many kilometres from it otherwise. I arrived after dark on Thursday, crept into bed and was up and away before dawn on Friday. Today also. It's … it's just an old place. Not much to look at and sadly in need of repair.'

And nothing for you to worry about – was this the impression she wanted to impart? ‘You use it only once in a while.'

‘Yes.' And damn
maman
for telling him of it. ‘I must vary my route and so must stay overnight in other places. Sometimes where we have out-apiaries. That way I can check on the hives also.'

And let me give you those locations? Let us talk no more of the country house – was that it, then? ‘Could someone have come here on Thursday evening to see your father?'

‘And bring him such a gift?'

The frown she gave was deep. ‘Well?' he heard himself ask.

‘Perhaps one of the Society might have arranged to visit him, but he didn't tell me this, and I … why I did not ask. I was in too much of a hurry to be on my way. I did not think. I just assumed everything would be the same when I returned –
fine
, do you understand?'

Flinging herself around again, she stood with head bowed and her back to him. Tears spattered the workbench, hitting the hands she pressed flat against it. Splashing between her fingers. Hands that, washed in ice-cold water and without soap, still held dirt and looked chapped and worn.

The Inspector took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘There … there were those in the Society who did not
want
him to give that address,' she said bitterly. ‘They … they were afraid
les Allemands
would close down the Society and arrest everyone.
Cowards, papa
called them.
Cowards
!'

Her hair was very fine and light and when he released her left shoulder, his right hand remained in comfort, deliberately touching it and she knew – yes, knew now – that he would stop at nothing to get his answers, that he had, indeed, the eyes and insidious curiosity of a priest! Of Father Michel, yes!

‘But he was determined to give the address?' she heard him ask and felt herself instinctively nod then blurt, ‘It was his duty to do so. His
duty
, he said!'

The girl
was
thin, and she shook hard when he wrapped comforting arms about her. ‘Please go upstairs, mademoiselle. Go back to bed. There will be time enough for questions.'

But will there? she silently asked, still clinging to him but opening her eyes now to see, through the mist of her tears, the desk, the wall with its collection of bees under glass, the paintings, the whole of it, of life itself and what it had become. The French windows to the garden also.

‘Inspector …'

It was Madame de Bonnevies and the look she gave condemned both himself and her daughter for sharing grief's moment in such an intimate way.

The girl released her hold but remained defiantly standing beside him so that her right arm touched his and now … now that hand found its timid way into his own and he felt her close her fingers about his and tightly. She was still trembling.

‘Mother, what is it? What's happened?'

Had the girl been expecting an absolute disaster? wondered St-Cyr and thought it probable.

The mother's voice grated.

‘That one's partner has arrived and is waiting in the car for him. A matter of some urgency.
This
,' she said acidly, and held out the flattened remains of what must once have been a birdcage!

‘All right, Hermann, enlighten me.'

‘Not here, idiot. Somewhere quiet.'

Was it as bad as that? wondered St-Cyr as the Citroën roared up the
impasse
, crossed over the rue Stendhal, made a hard right on to the rue de Prairies, a right again and then shot down the rue de Bagnolet. Of course there was so little traffic these days, it really didn't matter if one stopped where one was
supposed
to stop.
Mon Dieu
, it took only ten minutes to cross the city from suburb to suburb at peak times, even with the clutter of bicycles, bicycle-taxis and pedestrians, far less to reach Chez Rudi's on the Champs-Élysées, especially with Hermann behind the wheel!

‘This is
not
somewhere quiet!' seethed the Sûreté acidly.

‘But it
is
the centre of all gossip and gossip is what we need,
mein lieber Französischer Oberdetektiv.
Let me do the talking – that's an order, eh, so
don't
object!'

Hermann was really in a state but one mustn't take crap like that! ‘
Inspektor
, my lips are sealed. After all, you, too, are one of my German masters.'

‘Piss off. This is serious. Act natural.'

‘I am.'

‘Then don't look as if the ground had just fallen out from under you! Try smiling.'

‘You know how much I resent having to come here when most of the city is starving!'

‘But you do get fed, so please don't forget or deny it. And
don't
seal your lips to a damned good feed. I'm going to order for you.'

Nom de Jésus-Christ
, must Hermann be the same as all the others of the Occupier only more authoritarian, more forceful, more blind and insensitive to even the simplest wishes of his partner?

Of course. After all, like Rudi Sturmbacher, he was a Bavarian.

Beerhall big and at the tea-and-coffee stage at 3:47 p.m., the restaurant was in one of its more genteel modes. Couples here, couples there. Uniforms and pretty girls who should have known better than to consort with the enemy in a place so visible.

But none of this caused Hermann to stop on the threshold, to gape in surprise and dart his eyes over the walls and ceiling, then hesitantly grin only to caution himself and finally croak, ‘
Mein Gott
, Louis. Was it done overnight?'

From wainscoting to ceiling, and over that too, huge murals revealed the heart, the mind, the sympathies and loyalties of the restaurant's owner.

‘It's Rudi's little contribution to morale,' whispered St-Cyr. ‘Be sure to praise it. You'll have to and so will I.'

Across the far wall, Arminius, conqueror of
three
Roman legions in AD9, rode a white stallion through the brooding forests of the Teutoburger Wald. Chained centurions and legionaries were among the captives, their former slaves, too, and in front of the pommel of his saddle was bent all but double, a naked maiden, she forced to moon her gorgeous backside to the heavens and to all and sundry, her long, blonde tresses trailing.

There were crowded shields and swords and drinking horns of mead among the barbarians who wore wolfskins and whose women were dressed in blowsy, off-the-shoulder gowns that were belted at the waist. Smiles and grins were on most of the conquerors, outraised arms of welcome from the humble citizens of their forest abode. Babes in arms, babes on shoulders to better see the victorious, and babes voraciously suckling from under bearskin comforters. Kids everywhere.

‘I like the helmet, Louis.'

It was big and it was winged. ‘What about his brassiere?'

‘Did they wear such things – the men, that is? I don't think the women did.' It was of iron – two mounds shaped like tumuli that had been forged by Vulcan himself. A battle-axe in hand, the expression on that thick-bearded, big-boned Teutonic countenance was ever-grim even in conquest. ‘Muscles …
mein Gott
, look at his arms and thighs!'

‘Look at the prize he's brought home. There is something vaguely familiar about her but I can't quite put my finger on it. The hair perhaps.'

‘Her ass,
Dummkopf!
and the women who are looking on.'

Most of the female faces were similar. ‘Rudi's little Yvette and his Julie were models.'

‘Helga, too, idiot!'

Rudi's youngest sister waited on tables and was still hoping for a husband. ‘But they all wear boar-tooth necklaces?' hazarded St-Cyr.

‘That's because they like the feel of teeth!'

There were always a few plain-clothed Gestapo about, a few of the SS too, in uniform, and burly Feldgendarmen, et cetera. Saying hello to some, ignoring others, Hermann found a table right in the middle and, throwing himself into a chair, sat staring up at the ceiling in wonder to where Stukas dived through thunderclouds, Henkel-ms dropped their bombs and Messerschmitts chased Spitfires which exploded into flames.

‘Well, my Hermann. You say nothing?'

It was Helga. The round, milkmaid's eyes were bluer than blue, the blonde braids cut shoulder length, the chunky hips firm under a pale-blue workdress that hugged them.

‘Helga,
meine Schatze.
' My treasure. ‘I can't believe it,' swore Hermann, still taken aback and trying, perhaps, to find a deeper meaning where there was absolutely none.