Beekeeper (38 page)

Hermann was clearly agitated and didn't look well. ‘And Oona?'

‘To Spain. It's what has to be, Louis. I'm sorry, but I've no other choice. I'm one of them, remember?'

One of the Occupier. ‘We'll discuss it later.'

‘
Verdamtnt
! An order is an order.'

‘And Oona? Oona loves you, Hermann. You and Giselle are her link with sanity in a world gone mad. Take the two of you away from her and what remains?'

‘Ashes.'

‘Then let's pay the morgue a visit. Let's both calm down and do what we have to.'

‘I knew you'd help. I was just worried about asking you.'

‘Then don't be. We're in this together. How are the toes?'

‘Terrible.'

The Citroën was packed. Hoarfrost had quickly formed inside the windscreen and windows, and Hermann, his hands not free, what with the crutches and Danielle sitting on his lap, could do nothing to improve visibility.

Frau Hillebrand sat squeezed between them, with Father Michel, Juliette de Bonnevies, and Honoré de Saussine in the back. The SS followed in two cars; the city was, of course, in darkness. When one lamp, its bluing streaked, signalled that they had finally reached the place Mazas, the forty-watt light bulb that was above the door to the morgue had gone out.

A bad sign? wondered St-Cyr. Hermann would think so. Hermann hated visits to the morgue, but this one was necessary. Even so, he sighed and said, ‘Louis, there are things you need to know; things I can't tell you in present company, or in any other, for that matter.'

‘This won't take long,
mon vieux
, and will, I think, save much time.'

‘And if we refuse to go in there?' shrilled Frau Hillebrand.

‘Then my partner will have the SS drag you in,
meine gute Frau
,' said St-Cyr in
deutsch.
‘If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear.'

Father Michel said in French that it wasn't right and that the deceased deserved to be left in peace. ‘He never did that to me, Father!' countered Juliette. ‘Why not tell the Inspectors everything? Why not confess?'

‘My child, you're overwrought.'

‘You came to the house on Thursday afternoon, Father. You had just been to see Angèle-Marie.'

‘Inspectors, is this really necessary?' asked de Saussine.

‘I guess it is, eh, Louis?' snorted Kohler.

Danielle de Bonnevies said nothing but was so tense, he could feel her pulse racing and, finding an ear, whispered, ‘Don't even think of it. Those boys behind us have two dogs and Schmeissers. We'd only be laying you out on a slab.'

‘I heard no dogs,' she replied.

‘Well, maybe not, but you do understand, eh? Now you first, and easy, then me. Here, hang on a minute, I need to lean my crutches against the door.'

‘Forgive me,' she muttered as the door was opened.

‘Forgive …' echoed Hermann, only to shriek in agony as the girl stamped on his wounded foot and tumbled out of the car. She fell. She dragged herself up and began to run as the guards cried, ‘Halt!' and Juliette shrilled, ‘
Danielle
…'

‘Don't shoot! Please don't!' yelled St-Cyr in German, and then, ‘Ah
merde.
Mademoiselle,
arrêtez-vous
! You cannot escape.'

Cursing, the SS bundled back into their cars, one racing up the avenue Ledru-Rollin with high beams fully uncovered and the fronts of the buildings staring out into the passing light as if suddenly awakened; the other tearing up the boulevard de la Bastille. Simultaneously they must have reached the rue de Lyon, for two sets of tyres screeched, both horns blared. A bicycle taxi had perhaps got in the way.

‘Louis, shouldn't we go after her? Those roots …'

‘What roots?' demanded Frau Hillebrand in perfect French.

‘Hermann, we had best leave her for now. Inside, I think.'

They heard the cars taking the short little side streets that lay between the rue de Lyon and rue de Bercy.

‘
Verdammt
!' swore Kohler still gritting his teeth in pain, and gathering up scattered crutches. ‘Why the hell couldn't she have listened to me, Louis?'

‘The half-brother, I think. Now come on, let me help you.'

‘No. I'm all right. I should have listened to myself. I knew she was going to make a bolt for it.'

They crowded into the entrance, blinking as the electric light hit them. Frau Hillebrand was nervous and withdrawn; Father Michel tense and watchful; Juliette de Bonnevies sickened by what Danielle had just done and by the nearness of what they must now go through.

And de Saussine, wondered St-Cyr, and answered, is no longer sure of himself.

‘This way,
tnes amis.
Monsieur,' he said to the attendant on the desk, ‘St-Cyr of the Sûreté and Kohler of the Kripo to see the autopsy reports on Alexandre de Bonnevies and to view the corpse.'

‘Louis, must I?' muttered Kohler.

‘Why me, why you, why us, eh?' It was a plea Hermann often made.

‘My son …'

Stung, Kohler swung round. ‘Father, get that butt of yours in there and speak only when spoken to!'

They went into a room so big and cold and white, her shivering would be noticed, thought Juliette and swallowed hard. There were several corpses on table-like slabs, with draining boards and sinks and blood … blood seeping from a cut-open chest and abdomen. Blood pooled around someone's heart and lungs and splashed on a limp penis and marble-white thighs.

Alexandre was hideous. His iron-grey hair was parted in the middle and slicked down hard with pomade – he'd never worn it that way. Not like a gangster or pimp! The nostrils were blackberry blue, the eyelids and lips, the fingernails …

Turning swiftly away, she choked and threw up.

‘And you, Frau Hillebrand?' asked the Chief Inspector St-Cyr, watching her closely, too closely, thought Käthe. ‘You're not sickened, but are fascinated.'

‘In shock!' she said harshly in
deutsch
, and dragging a handkerchief from her purse, clapped it over her nose. Rage moistened her lovely eyes – guilt also? wondered St-Cyr.

Father Michel had kissed the rosary he had dragged from a pocket and was muttering an
Ave.

De Saussine was pale and shaken. Slowly, gradually, his gaze moved from the blue-black lips and gold-filled teeth to the scars of war that had lacerated and punctured the chest and arms, to the varicose veins and putrid, greenish-yellow blotches that were spreading under the pale, blackberry-hued and hairy skin.

‘Ah
bon
!' sighed St-Cyr. ‘He's been opened twice and …'

The Inspector consulted a sheaf of typed pages, pausing when he found what he was after, thought Juliette. ‘A good sixty cubic centimetres were downed in one gulp from that bottle. The “Amaretto” was between thirty and forty per cent mono-nitrobenzene, but its excess, beyond that which had dissolved in the alcohol, would have risen to the top so he did not even look at the drink he took.'

‘Oil of mirbane,' whispered Kohler to Frau Hillebrand who darted a startled and hurtful glance at him.

‘Apparently our victim had eaten little since the early morning, Madame de Bonnevies,' went on Louis. ‘A “coffee” taken without milk, a small piece of the National bread and a teaspoon of pollen.'

‘He always swore it gave him energy,' she said emptily.

‘A little wine during the day. A dried apple, a few chestnuts and one or two of your daughter's vitaminic biscuits.'

The woman shrugged and said, ‘I really wouldn't know what, if anything, he ate during the rest of that day. I took him his breakfast at seven. We didn't even speak. We … we seldom did.'

‘And that afternoon?'

‘Father Michel came to see me after he'd been to the Salpêtrière. He said … I'm sorry, Father, but I have to tell them. He said that it had all been taken care of and I need not worry any longer about Alexandre's bringing Angèle-Marie home.'

‘I gave that poor unfortunate a taste of honey, Inspectors, and freely admit it.'

‘Later,
mon Père.
We'll deal with you later,' grunted St-Cyr. ‘Madame, at what time, please, did your husband return from the hospital?'

‘At … at about ten past four.'

‘And where were you at that time?'

‘In the kitchen. Father Michel hadn't wanted Alexandre to find him there but my husband came through as usual, saying only that he was going out again.'

‘And your answer, madame?'

‘My answer …? Why, the silence of a wife who knows, Inspector, exactly where her husband is going.'

‘To
Le Chat qui crie.
'

‘Yes.'

‘And early that evening?' asked Louis, glancing again at the autopsy reports as if there was information he had deliberately withheld, thought Kohler, and saw the priest warily watching Juliette.

‘At eight thirty Alexandre went out to unlock the gates.'

‘And where were you when you heard this?'

‘In … in Étienne's room.'

‘And you
heard
your husband from behind closed windows, black-out drapes and closed doors – remember, please, that the study is quite separate from the rest of the house?'

Ah damn him! ‘I had opened my son's bedroom window a little. I … I felt Alexandre must be meeting someone because he … he had been so agitated. Nothing had been right. It never was, but …' She shrugged. ‘I just had to find out who could be coming at such an hour.'

‘Yet you had hardly spoken during the whole of that day?'

Merde alors
, would he not leave things alone? ‘It … it was a feeling I had. Nothing else.'.

‘Then we'll let the matter rest, shall we? Death occurred between eight twenty and nine twenty, give or take a half-hour on either side.'

‘Alexandre hurried back through the garden. I heard him quickly close the outer door to the study. There were a few minutes of silence and then … then …' She gripped her forehead and, covering her eyes in despair, said, ‘I heard him cry out suddenly, heard him shrieking my name and … and gagging. I thought he was just angry. Really I did. Oh
mon Dieu, mon Dieu
, why could I not have gone to help him? I didn't, Inspectors. I waited, and may God forgive me.'

A reasonable performance, thought Kohler, but not quite believable. ‘And then?' asked Louis with that same unruffled patience he always had when a corpse was between himself and a suspect.

‘I heard him vomiting and wondered at this, but … but someone was opening the gate at the back of the garden. It needs to be oiled, you understand, but there is no oil to be had. This person came on and opened the outer door to the study. Light fell briefly on her and I … I saw who it was.'

‘The time, please – as close as you can estimate?'

‘Nine, I think, or … or eight forty-five.'

‘And the name, madame?'

‘Frau Schlacht. She … she didn't stay more than a minute or two and, making certain the lock was on, closed the door and hurriedly left by the way she had come. I ran downstairs and went out the front door to the street and nearly collided with her, but … but she simply hurried away and got into a
vélo-taxi
that was waiting for her. Only then did I hear her voice, in German. She was swearing at her driver and telling him to hurry.'

‘And then?' asked Louis.

‘I went back inside and tried to get my husband to open the door to the study, but … but there was no sound.'

‘No sound … Ah! a moment, madame. I have it here.'

Kohler knew the look Louis gave the woman, that of a Sûreté who hadn't believed for a minute what she'd said.

‘By itself, and simply drinking the nitrobenzene, madame, any reaction would have been delayed for at least an hour, but your husband, as you know, realized what had happened and immediately tried to check the contents of the container, and during this, spilled the oil of mirbane and got it on his hands and clothes. As a result, the reaction was much more rapid and death took place within an hour. An hour, Madame de Bonnevies.'

‘Between eight twenty and nine twenty,' muttered Käthe Hillebrand, ‘or between seven fifty and eight fifty …'

‘Or between eight fifty and nine fifty,' said St-Cyr, ‘which would be suitable, of course, but we want that hour prior to death, don't we, and Madame de Bonnevies has just told us her husband had gone out to open the gates at …?'

‘At eight thirty. My watch, it's … it's not so good any more.'

‘Off by an hour?' asked the Sûreté. ‘Still on the old time perhaps?'

She swallowed hard and admitted that this was possible.

‘Then let's get it straight once and for all, madame. Your husband lay on the floor in agony – vomiting, passing out only to awaken moments later with a ragged gasp. Twitching, getting up – falling – knocking things over and …?'

‘And crying out my name, but … but I did not kill him. I swear it. I … I thought he was drunk.'

Her tears were very real, but still it would have to be asked. ‘Had he ever been drunk before in his study?'

‘No! Father … Father, tell him I didn't do it. Tell him I sat in the kitchen, listening to Alexandre – knowing something must be wrong and that I should go to him, but that the years of bitterness had been too many.'

‘Inspector …'

‘Later, Father. Later. And Frau Schlacht, madame?' asked St-Cyr.

‘She came to the front entrance and I let her into the house. Together we broke a pane of glass in the back door and found my husband on the floor.'

‘Dead?'

‘Of course.'

‘At what time, please?'

‘Time? I … I don't know! How could I? My watch …'

‘Was it at the Hôtel Titania on a night table, madame? Were you nowhere near your house at the time of your husband's death?'