Beekeeper (61 page)

Authors: J. Robert Janes

Switching on the overhead light, he hesitated, asked silently, Was she smothered â is that how it was done?

The smell â¦ always there was that clinging, throat-clawing sweetness Hermann now found so terrifying.

Flinging back the covers, St-Cyr sucked in a ragged breath and held it, forced himself to look closely as, grey and bloated, cut open, festering and crawling with maggots, five dead rats lay belly up, their entrails trailing.

âTrapped â¦ They were first trapped,' he heard himself muttering and wondered where her corpse must be. Her corpse â¦

âOn Saturday,' he said, his voice stiff with control, â30 January. Almost six days now, but was Bousquet supposed to find these?' he asked when Hermann hobbled into the room to swear under his breath.

âWhere's the girl, Louis?'

âDon't open that armoire. Let me.'

Dresses had been flung aside, others had fallen from their hangers. A brown velvet hacking jacket, a paisley silk cravat and brown whipcord riding breeches covered her. A slip, a half-slip, then a pair of lace-trimmed underpants, silk and expensive, were hooked over the end of the riding crop in her hand.

The cheeks were ashen to a contused greyish purple; her eyes were closed, sprays of petechiae dusting the lids, the bridge of her nose and forehead. Effluent and bloodstained oedematous fluid and froth had erupted and then oozed from her nostrils and mouth. There were blotches. The stench was terrible.

âSmothered,' he said softly. âHeld down under a pillow on the bed, Hermann, then carried here while unconscious to be crammed into a corner and finished off, the other sock no doubt jammed into her mouth. She's lost the child. About three months, I think. Laloux will be more precise. Aborted foetuses are a speciality with him, among other things.'

She had also voided herself.

âThese rats are all males,' managed Kohler. âWhy only those, unless they're the next to get it?'

âDe Fleury, Bousquet, Richard, this one's “lover”, and PÃ©tain, eh?' snapped St-Cyr.

âMademoiselle Trudel was to have left for Clermont-Ferrand, Louis. There's a third-class ticket on the floor with her clothes.'

âYet she changed her mind.'

âWas agitated. Didn't pick up Friday's message. Went out very early Saturday morning to meet Albert and get that bottle. Forgot her hat and mittens. Must have been freezing, yet walked all the way there and back in the dark.'

âThen took off her clothes and climbed into bed.'

âTo freeze and wait for her lover?' hazarded Kohler.

âWho was to have checked in with her before the couple made their separate ways to catch the train to Paris, or to give her a lift to it, eh?'

âShe's scribbled two items on a bedside note. A seven with a plus and minus sign and then a half-hour for the train to Clermont Ferrand, and an eight with the same for the early train to Paris, kidding herself that they still run so closely on time.'

âA
grigou
.'

âOne of
les gars, mon enfant.
' One of the boys.

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This edition published in 2012 by
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