Beekeeper (39 page)

‘Louis, when first interviewed she claimed she couldn't possibly have known he was expecting a visitor.'

‘Absolutely a conflict, Hermann.'

‘All right. I … I didn't find him until about three in the morning when Herr Schlacht dropped me off at the corner of the street. Alexandre's bedroom door was open and he wasn't in his bed. That's … that's when I broke the window and found him on the floor.'

‘And Frau Schlacht?' asked Louis.

‘Must have put the lock on the outer door he had left open for her. I … I really don't know but didn't want you to find her name in his little book because … because Oskar had said she was up to something with my husband.'

He would give her the curt little nod of dismissal he usually gave on such occasions, thought St-Cyr, and then would distract her by going after the priest. ‘And now you, Father. Let's get this over with quickly.'

‘I didn't kill him. I would never have done that.'

‘Perhaps, but as his priest and confessor you knew all about what he'd been doing to Héloïse Debré and to Jean-Claude Leroux, the custodian of the catacombs, and you knew he wanted his sister to come home.'

‘Angèle-Marie was a madness of his. I couldn't allow him to destroy Juliette's life any more than he already had.'

‘So you gave the sister a taste of honey.'

‘Things had gone too far. Alexandre could be and was a monster and yet … and yet, he had much good in him.'

‘And after you'd been to see the sister?'

‘I went straight to the house to counsel Juliette, as she has stated.'

‘You knew where the nitrobenzene was kept, Father,' said Kohler, ‘and unless I'm very mistaken, madame confided to you that she had been questioned by Herr Schlacht as to its whereabouts.'

‘The bottle of Amaretto was on the desk,' continued Louis. ‘Monsieur de Bonnevies would pay the brothel his customary visit.'

‘He'd been very vocal, hadn't he?' said Kohler.

‘And had told you, Father, exactly what he'd do if madame's son should return.'

These two would not stop until they had the truth, sighed Father Michel and said sadly, ‘Alexandre was beside himself with rage to which I, poor humble servant that I am, tried only to plead for reason. Étienne had done him no real harm. How could he continue to blame the boy for a love affair the child in its mother's womb could have known nothing of.'

‘Your husband, madame,' said St-Cyr. ‘I believe you knew very well what he intended to do should your efforts to free your son succeed.'

‘And these two were
both
in the house when that bottle sat alone on the desk,' interjected Käthe Hillebrand.

‘No poison in it, eh, Louis, and then more than sufficient, even if he hadn't cooperated by spilling it on himself.'

‘And a million francs,' swore Honoré de Saussine. ‘Herr Schlacht must have offered it to you as well, Madame de Bonnevies.'

‘A million …,' countered Juliette lividly. ‘Neither Father Michel nor I went into that study, Inspectors. The door was locked and I
don't
have a key. I've
never
had one. Not even when Alexandre first brought me to the house of his mother and introduced me to the hatred and resentment he bore me.'

‘But you do have keys to the gates?' asked St-Cyr and heard her saying, ‘Danielle has those for when looking after the hives. Not me, Inspector. Never me.'

‘But she has told us she left them in her room when out of the city?'

‘This … this I wouldn't have been aware of.'

‘Of course you were.'

‘All right, I was, but I didn't touch them.'

‘And could Danielle, knowing only too well what her father would do if Étienne was freed, not have left the city on Thursday as she claimed, but returned to the house late that afternoon?'

‘Danielle … It's … it's possible, but … but Etienne has not been freed. I would have known of this. My son would not have denied his mother the news I've been praying so hard for.'

‘Louis …' Kohler indicated the SS major and two others who had come into the autopsy room. ‘They haven't found her.'

‘Then let us hope the half-brother has come home.'

In total darkness 42 boulevard Maillot faced on to the Bois de Boulogne. Her heart sinking at what she must now go through, Juliette recalled that before the Defeat there had been tall iron gates, such handsome gates, bearing the de Trouvelot coat of arms, but these had been taken by the Occupier and shipped to the Reich as scrap metals. ‘To the Krupp factories at Essen!' Madame de Trouvelot had charged, as if she had caused the loss and was still to blame for … What? she asked herself. For bearing her son's only child and keeping silent the family name.

She remembered begging the woman to free Étienne before he died in the camps. ‘On 5 November of last year I went down on my knees to her, Inspectors,' she confessed, her voice breaking. ‘Tears that should never have fallen in front of one such as her, wet my cheeks and I could not stop them just as now. I told her the name of the waiter at Maxim's that Oskar had said could help me. Fifty thousand francs … a hundred thousand – they were nothing to her. Oh
bien sûr
, the Occupier has requisitioned her beautiful house but pays her a healthy rent, and yes, she now lives in one room – the library. Henri-Christophe loved that room and, when forced to move, she chose it above all others, but the Generalmajor who lives here and commands the Luftwaffe in Paris and the Île de France is an understanding man. Her meals deny her nothing. She has the use of the garden and is free to come and go as she pleases. Sometimes even the car is available, but you'll get nothing from her. She hated me and hated the thought of her son marrying me. To her I was a tramp and nothing Henri-Christophe could do or say could ever change her opinion. My father was a shopkeeper. I had lured her son into illicit sexual encounters to elevate my own status, disregarding entirely that I would bring down that of his family.'

‘Louis, let me stay here with madame and the others,' sighed Kohler. ‘Don't bugger about looking for answers we might or might not need. Just ask the woman if she paid up and if the boy was freed.'

‘She didn't!' wept Juliette. ‘She laughed at my attempts to beg and told me that now I must really pay for my sins.
My sins
, when Henri-Christophe and I were so in love our hearts ached to be with one another and we could hardly wait to go to a hotel. A hotel … Ah! I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Ours was a secret, an
amour fou
, and I can still feel the first time he kissed me, the first brush of his hands on my breasts, the tenderness of his caresses, the first time he entered me, the rush of it, the joy, the eagerness of us both.'

‘My child …'

‘Father, don't you dare patronize me! You knew the agony I was living. You, who married me to that bastard!'

‘It was for the best.'

‘
Sacré nom de nom
, how can you say such a thing? You who knew him far better than anyone else!'

Pocketing the keys, Louis got out and came round to the other side of the car. Kohler saw him look up to that God of his to ask for help. Danielle de Bonnevies was terrified and on the run and probably trying to reach her brother before it was too late for him, but if no brother, then what? he asked himself and answered, A quiet place where the roots of
Helleborus niger
can be ground or simply eaten as is.

A sentry challenged Louis as he stepped between the stone gates, and the beam of a blue-blinkered torch swept over him before alighting on the proffered Sûreté badge and identity papers. Madame de Bonnevies gave a ragged sob to which Father Michel impatiently said, ‘If Étienne de Bonnevies has come home, Inspector, then I greatly fear you have no need to look further for your murderer.'

Frau Hillebrand simply smoked a cigarette in silence and stared out her side window while Honoré de Saussine muttered things to himself.

The sofa and armchairs had been in the library since well before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to '71, felt St-Cyr. Their wine-red morocco was crackled and faded but also wore that dark patina of solid comfort and many cigars. Books climbed to the ceiling.

‘Inspector, I'll be frank. I'm a woman who never had any patience for waiters, street beggars, or the police and other civil servants. Please state your reason for this invasion of my privacy.'

Madame de Trouvelot was in her early eighties, a tall, slim, dignified woman in a soft grey prewar suit of immaculate cut. The single strand of pearls was worth a fortune, the rings and brooch, too, but exactly the right amount of jewellery was worn, no more, no less. The face was narrow, the nose bringing together a sharpness whose deep blue eyes perceptively assessed this Sûreté and plumbed for the depths of his little visit. No matter what Hermann had advised, one did not go quickly with a woman such as this because she simply would not allow it. The
bourgeoisie aisée
, the really well off, could often be so difficult.

‘The aristocracy,' she said, having read his thoughts. ‘Oh do sit by the fire. You find me in much reduced circumstances, Inspector, but living in one room saves on my having to employ a lot of ungrateful servants. My cook is considerably happier, since he can now steal far more and his new employer is apparently oblivious to it. The maids smile because they are fed a daily diet of compliments and little presents by the Generalmajor's staff who want, no doubt, to get under their skirts. The chauffeur, however, still considers himself above such plebeianisms, since I've always turned a blind eye to his philandering, even to his disgusting habit, when I am not present, of using the back seat of my automobile for his
liaisons sexuelles.
'

‘Madame, a small matter. A few questions. Nothing difficult, I assure you.'

‘Must you be so tiresome?'

‘The library is pleasant.'

‘Am I to understand that you are interested in real estate?'

‘Madame, the watercolours that hang among the Old Masters, the exquisite array of small bronzes on your mantelpiece, that portrait photograph … May I?'

‘Since you have already picked it up, who am I to deny the police their pleasure in these days of trial?'

She would take a cigarette now, thought Marie-Elisabeth. This presumptuous Sûreté would try to offer a light she would coldly refuse.

‘I have sufficient,' she said, flicking the lighter the Generalmajor Krüger had given her. She'd let this Sûreté see that it bore the SS runes and swastika, a piece of cheapness the Generalmajor had not wanted on his person perhaps, but an item also that necessity had forced upon her.

‘Madame, this portrait photograph is of Juliette de Bonnevies née de Goncourt.'

‘Beautiful, wasn't she, at the age of nineteen? Pregnancy always makes a girl radiant in its first month or two. Flushed, warm, soft, tender. A seductress, Inspector. The earrings dangling like that. Cheap seed pearls and rhinestones that fooled no one.'

‘Diamonds, madame. Two strands of magnificent pearls which match in lustre the seeds but are larger and far more expensive. Your son … Did he, perhaps, give them to her?'

‘How dare you?'

The dress, of a white silk crêpe de Chine, was worn well off the shoulder and with double straps. On the right wrist there was the slim, black leather band of a Hermes watch, on the left, some bracelets, no doubt from Cartier's and again of diamonds. The straight jet-black hair was parted in the middle and pulled back tightly, the dark eyes magnificent and full of warmth and happiness, nothing else. A young girl who was sitting sideways, so as to look over her right shoulder at the camera. Not shy, not bold, just herself and totally in love.

‘A girl of few morals and loose ways, Inspector. Oh
bien sûr
, she seduced my son and the boy wanted desperately to marry her, but passion and love are the least of reasons for one to marry and we could not allow it. A position was found in the
Service Diplomatique
for Henri-Christophe and we sent him to Indochina. The girl married and had her child, a son, I believe, and then a daughter.'

‘And you've not seen her since?' He indicated the photo.

‘Not since.'

‘Then why, please, have you the photo out? Why the bronzes, the watercolours, all of which were done by Étienne de Bonnevies?'

The Inspector leaped from his chair to touch the bronzes. ‘Sandpipers,' he said. ‘Swans. A girl of fifteen, Madame de Trouvelot, a mermaid rising from the Seine near …'

‘Do you really think I would let that woman know I had bought them, Inspector? Ah! you police, you're all the same. Of course I had them removed before she came to see me. I had to have my revenge, but one mustn't go too far with such things.'

‘You bought some of the boy's work.'

‘As a way of encouraging him and because Henri-Christophe had genuinely admired his talent. They never met, of course. To have done so would have been for my son to have broken his solemn promise to me.'

‘Then how did he know the boy had talent?'

‘Because that mother of his once stopped my son in the street and gave him some of the boy's sketches.'

The Sûrete put the mermaid back. ‘The boy's sister,' she said, ‘but he does not, I am forced to say, and glad of it too, think of her in the way a man usually thinks of a naked girl.'

She would give this one a moment to digest such a morsel, thought Marie-Élisabeth, and then would leave him to consider it. ‘Inspector, Juliette should have come to me long before she did. To think that the boy has languished in prisoner-of-war camps all these years since the Defeat. I went the very next day, the sixth of November, to Maxim's and made enquiries. Fifty thousand francs was, of course, outrageous, but waiters have never known their proper place and times like these only make them far more arrogant. The boy is never to return to the house of that mother of his, you understand, but has sent me a note that he is safely back in France and staying at the country house where he had, before the war, a studio. He will pay me a visit only when I ask it of him. He has, I gather, started to paint again.'