Beekeeper (27 page)

‘I had to. I was distraught and couldn't sleep, couldn't stop myself. Father Michel made me tell God everything.'

Father Michel! swore St-Cyr. The bottle was forgotten.

‘And yet … and yet,' said Héloïse, ‘the good father did nothing to stop Alexandre from torturing me like that, and nothing … nothing at all to prevent that husband of mine from beating the shit out of me and causing me to lose my babies.'

‘And would he have wanted Angèle-Marie to return to the house of her childhood?' hazarded Leroux.

How very cautious of Jean-Claude, thought Héloïse. ‘No. No, I'm certain of it. That old priest has much to answer for and no one but his God to confess to.'

The kid on stage at the Club Mirage wore little and was distracting. Momentarily torn between watching her and searching the crowd for Louis, Kohler hesitated, for when she gyrated the silver hoop about her waist, she juggled ersatz oranges to which white feathers had been glued.

Locked in for the night, eight hundred of the Occupier, most in uniform, some with their girlfriends, others entertaining collabos and big shots from the black market, whistled and applauded. Now the torso moved as well and the sky-blue propellers that hid her nipples began to spin in opposite directions as her head was tilted back.

The oranges went higher and higher; the hoop raced the propellers. One knee came up. A falling orange was hit and lifted into the tobacco-fogged air only to be caught with others on its descent as she turned away and …
mein Gott
, bounced orange after orange into the crowd with the most beautiful backside on earth.

‘
Jésus, merde alors
, her timing's perfect!' he swore.

The piano player flew over the keys, the drummer gave a parade roll and one by one, as they were dutifully returned, the kid caught the oranges.

She was radiant. ‘As she should be!' roared Kohler, shoving his way through to the bar. ‘Has Louis been in yet?' he called out to Remi Rivard, the one with the open leather jerkin, red plaid workshirt and gut of an iron barrel. The brother of the Corsican with the face and hands of ground meat.

‘Not yet. You been rolling around in a beehive or something?' Remi pointed to the greatcoat.

‘Oh this. It's just a bit of wax and honey and a few dead bees. I've been robbing hives.'

Two beers were set before him, the froth overflowing.

‘Bees or no bees, I'd get that coat cleaned in a hurry.'

Remi, whose face was that of a mountain, all crags and clefts and shadows, with hard dark, empty eyes, gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of the balcony. ‘Table four over from the clock, front row. You've company.'

An SS major from the avenue Foch sat between two
miliciens
, one older, the other younger but stronger, bigger. None of them had the slightest interest in the kid on stage. They were concentrating hard on the bar.

‘Tell Louis I'll meet him at his house.'

A study in perpetual motion, Remi had already surmised as much and had moved away to serve the crush of others. At a run, Kohler headed for the courtyard exit. Crossing the stage, he dragged off his coat and pitched it from him, called out to the kid, ‘Hey,
chérie
, look after that for me, eh? You were terrific!'

The three on the balcony were making for the stairs. Leaving the stage, Kohler fought his way past the chorus line where bared breasts wore glued pasties and the girls grinned or smiled. Red lips, bare arms and feathers … ostrich feathers …

Miliciens
jammed the exit. Others were behind them. All wore black
chasseur alpin
berets, dark blue tunics and trousers, brown shirts and black ties … Brass knuckles, too, and hatred in their eyes. Hatred for what he'd done to two of their own!

Pivoting, Kohler raced back to the stage, was caught, was dragged down, hit and hit hard. Blood blinded him. Boots felt as if caving in his ribs. ‘
MAUDIT SALAUD! VACHE!
' COW! they shrieked, the slang for cop. ‘Dog-fucker!' The pain was killing him. Curled up, he rolled on to his side and tried to clear his eyes. The kid was stricken. Oranges were bouncing all around her. The crowd was in a rage. Thinking him one of their own, the boys in grey-green were clambering on to the stage. The
miliciens
were dragging him up. ‘AN ARREST!' they shrieked at the rescuers but a whistle blew sharply. As one, the men all stopped and stood to attention, or crouched and did not move.

‘Take him,' said the SS major, with a dismissive toss of his hand. ‘He's wanted for questioning.'

The kid, bless her, was in tears and on her knees, and when she reached out to him, Kohler felt the trembling urgency of her hand on his blood-smeared cheek. ‘Gabrielle … Gabi asked me to watch out for you,' she blurted. ‘But I … I had to do my act. Forgive me.'

‘Tell Louis I'm in trouble,' he gurgled. ‘Trouble, eh? Louis …'

With no whistle to blow, what was one to do? wondered St-Cyr, still in the catacombs, in the darkness of the corridor. The lantern was now resting on the lip of the spring between the custodian and the woman, but had Leroux put it there on purpose? The iron bar was uncomfortably close to hand.

If one said,
Sûreté, you're both under arrest
, Leroux would simply tip the lantern into the spring and snatch up the bar. The woman would cry out but not for long.

‘That old priest,' said Leroux. ‘He'll have to be dealt with.'

‘I can't kill a priest, Jean-Claude. I won't.'

‘You told him everything.'

Frantic, her eyebrows arched as she spat, ‘And what of Alexandre, eh? For years now he's known who the four of you were.'

‘You told him, too?'

‘I had to. A woman's most private parts are her tenderest. Each time the bees fed … Need I say more?'

‘Then why the charade of his trying to find out all our names?'

‘Another torture of his. Admit it, yours and the other families, mine too, lived in fear of him, as did the four of you and myself. Would he go to the police; would he not do so? When he came back from the war he had that little cemetery of his built and then … then started to work on all of us.'

‘Never once did he suggest to me that he knew.'

‘Of course not! That would have spoiled his fun. He was both examining magistrate and judge, and
wanted
the torture to last. Look how he despised that wife of his? The son of another – he never let her forget it, not for a moment.'

‘You'll have to poison Father Michel, too, Héloïse. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be. Otherwise …'

Leroux took the letter opener from a pocket and fingered it. ‘Otherwise,
ma chère compagne dans le meurtre
…'

‘You wouldn't!' she hissed and began hesitantly to move away.

‘Agree,' he said. ‘And I'll be generous. Do it within the next two days or …'

‘Monsieur, please put that down. St-Cyr, Sûreté.'

‘
Ah
!'

The lantern went into the drink, the iron bar scraped on the stones as it was dragged up. A skull was smashed. The woman shrieked and began to run – ran into a wall, clawed at the bones, for some fell around her. Cried, wept – begged.

Another skull was smashed. Femurs and tibiae were struck. The bar hit solid stone. The woman shrieked again, and finding the exit corridor at last, ran.

‘
Monsieur, give yourself up this instant
!' managed the Sûreté and from the steps of the spring, thought Leroux. ‘
You're under arrest
!'

Perhaps the custodian shifted the bar to his other hand, perhaps the letter opener. Nothing was said. Water trickled constantly.

In the far distance, the woman stumbled and fell but dragged herself up and went on in terror, screaming for Leroux to spare her. ‘HE POISONED ALEXANDRE, INSPECTOR,' she shrilled. ‘HE WAS ONE OF THOSE WHO RAPED HIS SISTER.'

His sister … His sister …
came the echoes.

‘You killed a comrade, monsieur,' charged the Sûreté, catching a breath. ‘You robbed the corpses of your officers.'

‘And that … that,
mon fin
, was said exactly as one of them would have!'

Leroux began to move forward, feeling always the porous texture of the knuckles in the walls, the skulls also, and recalling every change so as to guide himself.

He'd have to kill this Sûreté. There couldn't be any more than one of them. This one had come alone, and would therefore vanish without trace.

‘Monsieur, I'm warning you,' said St-Cyr.

‘INSPECTOR, PLEASE HELP ME!' cried the woman.

Help me … Help me
… The chambers resounded with her terror.

Taking out his box of matches, he tried to light three or four of them.

He hasn't moved yet, said Leroux to himself. The spring is to his left …

The matchsticks broke, the Sûreté swore and tried to take others from the box. Silently he stepped away from the spring and soon the sound of it was far behind him, for he had reached the corridor Héloïse had taken. Yes, yes, said Leroux to himself, silently following.

Try as he did, St-Cyr knew it would be impossible to hear the exit door being opened. They were just too far from it. Turning back, he felt the draught on his face – searched the impenetrable darkness, smelt the musty damp air, the fetidness of bone meal, the taint of anise, too. Anise and garlic and onions … Where … where the hell was Leroux? How close now? How close …?

When the iron bar cut the air, it struck the wall, shattering the stone and raising sparks. The woman shrieked as the custodian gave a savage grunt, a stab with the letter opener which flew out of his hand and hit the floor.

‘
Bâtard
!' he rasped. ‘Let me kill you.'

Each man waited for the other to make a move. The one must back towards her, the other must advance, thought Héloïse, hastily wiping tears from her smarting eyes. If she could hold the Sûreté, Jean-Claude could kill him and then … then maybe he would let her go.

You fool! she said. He will only smash your head in, too.

Franctically her fingers fled over the bones – she was in another of the chambers. If only she could find its exit. If only she could make her way from chamber to chamber and then … then climb the stairs back up to the street. This place exits on the rue Dareau
*
, she told herself. Please, God, help me.

God would only damn her. ‘God can't forgive you yet, my child.' Father Michel had said this to her in the afternoon. Today … No, yesterday. Saturday …

‘Candles … I lit a candle for our Lady, Father,' she had said.

‘God is kind. God is generous. God provides,' he'd answered.

Candles … did the Inspector know who left them on the steps of the church? Could she use the information to barter for clemency?

The iron bar was savagely swung. Distant from her, she heard the Sûreté gasp in pain and cry out, ‘ARREST, DAMN YOU!'

The bar clattered at his feet. Perhaps he held Jean-Claude in an arm-lock, perhaps he had thrown him up against a wall and was now fastening the bracelets on him.

Perhaps … perhaps … But
Jésus, merde alors
, what the hell has happened? she wondered. And crawling forward, found the exit, bowed her head into her hands and wept.

At 5 a.m. Berlin Time, the Club Mirage was all but deserted, the air heavy with stale tobacco smoke. Up on stage, in a feather-trimmed pink housecoat that dragged its hem, the wife of one of the brothers pushed a broom but avoided the soiled heap of a Wehrmacht greatcoat. Her slippers didn't match, and the Gauloise Bleue that was glued to her lower lip had a good two centimetres of ash clinging to it.

Silent, the Rivards were giving the zinc a final wipe.

‘Jean-Louis …' said Gabrielle, coming along the corridor from her dressing room to find him staring at the coat. ‘Jean-Louis, what has happened to your arm?'

They kissed on each cheek, first the right and then the left, and then the right again, as was her custom. He drew in the lovely scent of her perfume and momentarily shut his eyes, wishing for a calmer time. ‘Perhaps you'd best tell me,' he said, indicating the coat on the floor. ‘Dead Caucasian bees, bits of willow twigs … Buckwheat honey, unless I'm mistaken. That of lavender, too …'

‘Remi,' she called out softly. ‘A pastis for our friend. Please leave the bottle and a pitcher of clean water, then let us have the place to ourselves. This is private.'

‘
Oui
, madame.' They often called her that out of respect. She brought in the money and took ten per cent of the take, had the voice of an angel, was regularly heard over wireless broadcasts that reached the front lines of both the Reich and the Allies.

‘Arlette, we can do that tonight,' said Léon to his wife who hadn't stopped her sweeping to greet the visitor.

Left alone with Louis, Gabrielle made him remove his own overcoat. ‘There is blood,' she said. ‘Ah
merde
, you've really been hurt. Is it broken?'

He shook his head, suddenly ached to be at peace. ‘I'd like to go fishing with René Yvon-Paul.'

‘He'd like that, too.'

She peeled off his suit jacket and the woollen cardigan his mother had knitted for him perhaps ten … no, fifteen years ago. There were holes in the elbows, mismatched buttons …

‘It's a part of me,' he said apologetically. ‘Hermann complains.'

‘And is that a hint, because if it is, I have to tell you I want to look at this first before letting you know who took him away.'

‘Away …?'

She nodded. Tears moistened her eyes, sharpening their violet shade. ‘Forgive me,' she said. ‘I've missed you terribly and now don't know what's to become of either of you. The
Milice
dump Oona's purse out on the street while you are still on your way home from Avignon. They scrutinize her papers which are not so good, as you know very well, and now …'