5

The flat at 28 quai d’Orléans had once been the property of a retired antiques dealer, felt Kohler. In the grand salon the floral trim of the panelling exuded that warm, soft glow of gilding that had been applied a good one hundred years ago. Portraits were of counts and countesses who had lived well before the Revolution. But in amongst this feast of ormolu, oil paint and Baccarat, of gilded, silk-covered Louis XIV and XV armchairs, were the bits and pieces of their new owners.

‘Madame collects,’ quavered the bonne à tout faire timidly.

The girl, a brunette of medium height in a neatly pressed uniform, was all of sixteen and still terrified of him. Mariette Durand, he reminded himself, so caught up in things he couldn’t yet quite comprehend them. ‘Porcelains from the 1920s,’ he went on. ‘Mein Gott, cheap figurines of bathing beauties.’

Some naked, most not, they were everywhere, even on the mantelpiece against a gorgeous ormolu clock whose figurine depicted Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. They were between mounted Imari vases. Green, red, or navy-blue bathing suits on some of them, and all poised as if for a plunge, or simply lounging about on bits of coral, on red lobsters, or sunning themselves flat on the sand. Figurines from ten to fifteen centimetres in length. No chips, no cracks that he could see.

‘Madame swims,’ offered the girl, as if an explanation for such a strange passion was needed. ‘Every day she goes to the Lutétia pool.’

One of the sweat-relieving havens of the Occupier. ‘Even when it’s open to others and not nur für Deutsche?’

And only for Germans.‘Oui.She … she says it is good for the figure.’

‘And she’s conscious of that?’

‘Very.’

One had best prise off the shoes – it was that kind of carpet. An exquisite white porcelain, Sevres damsel with harp sans clothes but with open cloak in a stiff breeze, caused him to pause. One arm was uplifted, that breast higher than the other; one foot placed back, the girl proudly dancing into the wind, while at the feet of this little goddess of perfection lay a Russian table whose marquetry would have made Louis’s Gabrielle green with envy. Yet here, too, there was a clutter of the flea-market gleanings of Frau Schlacht.

‘They … they help her to think of home,’ offered the girl.

‘And Herr Schlacht – are they here to help him think of her?’

The girl sucked in a breath and fought for the correct words. ‘She … she hopes so. During the early twenties she was a bathing beauty. Her father ran a concession at Wannsee, one of the pleasure lakes and suburbs to the north of Berlin. Bier, Wurst und Schnitzel, with ices and soda drinks. That is where Herr Schlacht first met her.’

‘A romance made of all the good things, eh?’

The detective moved on through the flat. He wished, perhaps, that others he knew could also see it. Quite obviously the owner had left Paris during the exodus of June 1940 and hadn’t returned, thereby forfeiting all right to the flat and its contents. Those, too, of his safety deposit boxes and bank accounts.

There were music boxes – girlhood things Frau Schlacht must have once admired and now found possible to buy in quantity, thought Kohler. There was even a mechanical bank – man and his best friend, which when fed a sou, danced around to a scratchy tune. ‘Nothing but the best,’ he snorted.

‘Every Saturday she visits Saint-Ouen to spend the morning among the stalls. They remind her of home, I think. I … I have to accompany her because of the language, you understand. Madame can’t speak a word of French.’

Or won’t, like so many of the Occupier. ‘And Switzerland – does she take you there when she visits it for her husband?’ It was just a shot in the dark. Well, not really, but what the hell, one never knew …

‘Four times a year. At … at every quarter. Herr Schlacht has relatives who are old and … and in need of comfort.’

Once again, a man with a big family. ‘And are her suitcases heavier when you leave or when you arrive?’

She would duck her eyes and say it modestly, thought Mariette. ‘Heavier when we arrive. Always it is this way.’

‘And how many banks does she visit for that husband of hers?’

Madame would kill her if she knew about her telling him, but he was of the Gestapo and had shown her his badge. ‘Three. One in Zurich, another in Bern, and the last in Lausanne. It … it is best that way, is it not?’

This kid wasn’t dumb and had figured it all out, had damned well known it was illegal for any citizen of the Reich to send or hold money in a foreign bank, yet they all did it, those who could.

In the master bedroom a flowery dust of icing sugar fell from the Turkish delight the detective sampled. Herr Kohler noticed this dust as he noticed everything, and even as he nodded and said, ‘Pas mal, pas mal – not bad – she knew he was thinking she was counting the bonbons because Madame would most certainly do so later.

‘I’ll leave her a little note,’ he said, eating another.

‘Please don’t. You … you mustn’t. Just let her blame me as she often does when she loses count. I … I will eventually be forgiven.’

‘What does she pay you?’

‘Fifty a week.’

Two hundred francs a month! And yet … and yet such maids, even those who had taken the trouble to learn a little deutsch – and this one knew far more than that – were dirt cheap and easy to come by. The French bourgeoisie had seen to that. And one did get fed, clothed and have a room, even though it was usually nothing but a filthy garret and as cold as Siberia in winter. But this one must have been treated far better and, under Frau Schlacht’s firm hand, no doubt, had learned to bathe and groom herself every day or else.

‘Saturday afternoons, after the flea market, I am allowed to visit my family and to … to take them a few little things that are no longer needed here.’

A stale loaf of bread, a half-litre of wine – the dregs of a dead soldier? wondered Kohler. A suspect egg, a few withered carrots, even the icing sugar that would soon be left in the bottom of this box.

The detective set the bonbons on the bedside table among the clutter of figurines. He touched the Art Deco alarm clock Madame had found last Saturday. He sat down on the edge of her bed and ran a hand over the antique lace of its spread, but did not say pas mal this time, for he was now concentrating on the photograph of Madame’s son whose frame was draped in black.

‘A sergeant and so young,’ said Mariette, surprised by the steadiness of her voice, for the room had grown quiet and the clock, it must have stopped. Ah no!

‘A midshipman on a U-boat, a Fähnrich zur See in Unterseebooten,’ muttered the detective, and there was to this giant with the terrible scar the sadness of a father who had, perhaps, lost a son himself. The postcard he picked up had the photograph of men firing the bow cannon of a submarine, and beneath this, the words of a song. ‘Kameraden auf See,’ he snorted sadly. ‘That’s an eighty-eight millimetre gun, probably the most versatile thing to have come out of this lousy war so far. Is this the medal she kisses before bed? It’s the boy’s Kriegsabzeichen. Every man aboard a U-boat gets one after two sorties. Two is good and damned lucky. Three are possible. Four is … Well, you must know all about that.’

He ran a forefinger over the eagle and swastika above the badge’s U-boat, then indicated the oval wreath of oak leaves around it. ‘When did his boat go down?’ he asked.

‘In December. The fifteenth. A Tuesday.’

And still fresh in Frau Schlacht’s mind.

‘Madame lost her brother in the Great War. She …’

‘Hates you French.’

‘But myself not so much, I think.’

This kid had really learned her lessons.

There were photos on the wall next to a landscape of Renoir’s: black, cheaply-framed snapshots of the three Schlacht daughters. The youngest was a fresh-faced Luftwaffe Signals Auxiliary; the middle one, a Red Cross nurse, but taken in the summer of 1941 during the blitzkrieg in the east and not among the shattered, snow-covered ruins of Stalingrad. The eldest, a big, round-faced replica of Herr Schlacht, wore the grin, the uptilted goggles and dungarees of a scrap-metal cutter with torch in the yards along the Luisenstädter Kanal.

The detective eased the bedside table drawer open and ran his pale blue eyes over the contents. He touched the neckerchief Madame’s son had worn on parade as a Hitlerjugend and noted that it was tightly crumpled and damp.

‘She still cries,’ said Mariette softly. ‘A mother must, is that not so, monsieur?’

The boy’s pocketknife – black-handled and with an oval portrait of the German Führer and stainless steel eagle and swastika – was there, too, and as the detective fingered it, she heard herself saying, ‘Klaus forgot to take it with him when he last visited Paris in November. Madame … Madame feels his leaving it behind was an ill omen for which she blames herself for not having sent it on to him by special courier. But you see, she did not know where to send it.’

‘Lorient, probably. It’s on the Breton Coast. My partner and I were there not so long ago. A dollmaker. The Kapitän zur See Kaestner.’

‘But … but could it have been the same boat and now you’ve come here, too?’ she blurted, revealing at once that she, herself, might quite possibly be superstitious.

The detective looked up at her and shrugged, but there was not the emptiness that had just been in his gaze. Now there was a warmth, the loss of loved ones, the feeling, yes, that all were a part of this war and that he had had enough of it.

Unlike Madame, he spoke French and well, and this was a curious thing, but had it made her tongue loose? wondered Mariette and hazarded, for it was not her place to demand, ‘Have you seen enough, monsieur?’

‘I’ll leave in a minute. Don’t worry. Just don’t tell her I was here, eh? and remember your concierge, Madame Jouvand, is also on board and won’t say a thing.’

He examined the Louis Vuitton trousse de toilette Madame had bought – an extravagance she had lamented but had not denied herself. He examined her jewellery, such as it was.

‘Marcasite,’ he said, fingering a bracelet. ‘Onyx and carnelian – most of these are from what was once Isaac Kahn’s factory in Pforzheim. Mein Gott, does she not realize he was Jewish? I may have to report it. You remember I said so, eh?’ And grâce à Dieu for that little bit of ammunition!

There were plastic bracelets and bangles, chrome neckchains – the gaudy, cheap and plain, when Madame could have had the very best.

There were sturdy black leather shoes fit for walking all day, lisle stockings, no silk ones, not her, thought Kohler – silk was for parachutes. There were stiff, prewar woollen skirts and jackets, a small pin on the lapel of one. ‘The Honour Cross of the German Mother,’ he said. ‘A bronze …’

A Tyrolean hat à la Fräulein Braun caught his eye and he asked, ‘Like Eva, does your mistress spend her time waiting for the light of her life to come home?’

‘He’s never here. Well, not never. Only sometimes.’

‘In and out, eh?’

‘She hopes he will stay and invariably begs him to, but he’s … he’s very busy.’

‘So, okay, tell me where you went last Thursday?’

The detective had not said why he had come to the flat. ‘She … she went out at about two in the afternoon. That … that is all I know.’

A cautious answer. ‘Did she take anything with her?’

‘I … I do not think so, monsieur. Just her handbag. The big one.’

‘You can do better than that.’

The emptiness had come back into his eyes. He patted the bedspread and indicated she had better sit down beside him. ‘It helps,’ he said tonelessly. Would he now beat her, force her to answer – torture her? wondered Mariette and felt tears rushing into her eyes.

‘Look, I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘My partner and I don’t do that sort of thing. I just have to know.’

‘She … she went out, that’s all. She did not say where to, nor when I had got myself ready, did she want me to accompany her. Always she does, but … but not that time.’

‘And when she came back?’

A hesitation had entered the detective’s voice. ‘She said, “There, it’s done.”‘

‘What was done?’

Hurriedly the girl dried her eyes. ‘I … I really don’t know. Something she had to do. Something important, I think.’

In defeat, the girl’s shoulders drooped, and she folded her hands in her lap.

‘Now tell me about the beekeeper. Give me all you can about his visits. My partner will be sure to ask and gets bitchy if I forget something. You’ve no idea, Mariette. A Sûreté. A Chief Inspector, no less, but impossible!. Merde, you should hear him sometimes!’

‘And where is this “partner” of yours at the moment?’ she asked with wisdom well beyond her tender years.

‘The Salpêtrière.’

‘Ah!’ She tossed her head and nodded. ‘The sister. A tragedy Madame is only too aware of, since Monsieur de Bonnevies always speaks of Angèle-Marie at length when questioned by her.’

Startled, Kohler hazarded, ‘And she never fails to ask him?’

‘Never. Not for some time now.’

‘Is it because of something Madame de Bonnevies did? Well, is it?’

Merde, why had he had to ask, how had he known?

Hastily the girl crossed herself.

‘May God forgive me, yes. Yes, it is because she suspects her husband is having une affaire de coeur with the woman. It’s crazy. I tell her this. I plead with her but … but Madame is of her own mind, monsieur. Of her own mind!’

The detective let a sigh escape. ‘And Herr Schlacht does mess about with the ladies, doesn’t he?’

‘A lot, but not with me. I swear it. She … she put a stop to that before it ever got started. I screamed and she … she heard me.’

There was more to this, there just had to be.

‘She badgered Monsieur de Bonnevies until finally he agreed that, yes, his wife was probably seeing Herr Schlacht,’ said the girl.

‘And not just for an isolated lunch at Maxim’s?’

‘Other places. He … he did not know where.’

‘A candle factory?’

The girl bit a knuckle and tried to stop herself from crying. ‘The Hôtel Titania, on the boulevard Ornano.’

A maison de passe, a seedy hotel where prostitutes, licensed or otherwise, took their ‘lovers’.

‘I know this because I … I have followed Madame de Bonnevies there for Madame.’

The life had gone right out of the kid but he’d have to ask it. ‘Did you see Schlacht go into that hotel?’

‘He … he came in his car.’

She’d have to be told. ‘Then watch yourself. If you feel you have to bolt and run, go at once to 12 rue Suger, in Saint-Germain-des-Près, and ask for Oona or Giselle. They’ll know what to do and will probably hide you in the house of Madame Chabot, around the corner. Failing that, go to the Club Mirage on the rue Delambre in Montparnasse, but use the courtyard entrance and be careful, since the Gestapo’s Watchers may still be taking an interest in the place. Ask for Gabrielle, and tell those Corsican brothers behind the bar that Hermann says it’s urgent and they’re to keep you out of sight or else.’

Shiny brass cowbells hung from dark ceiling timbers and made little sounds when vibrated by the din as Kohler squeezed himself into the Brasserie Buerehiesel. Loud laughter, boisterous, good-natured banter and argument competed with orders for meals, for beer and wine. Crockery clacked, copper pots were banged – there were no signs on the rows of bottles behind the bar saying Nur Attrapen, only for decoration. No coloured water. Not in this establishment.

Schiefala, smoked pork shoulder, served with hot potato salad; Baeckaeoffe, a long-simmered stew of lamb, pork and veal with onions and potatoes; and choucroute, sauerkraut with several types of ham and sausage – the fabulous golden-crusted tarte à l’oignon also – were constantly on the move. One hustling waiter had seven heaped dinners perched in a row on an arm and three in his right hand. How the hell did he do it?

‘Monsieur, your coat, please, and weapon. You do have a weapon?’

The coat-check girl was cute but firm. There were off-duty Felgendarmen on the door and hired especially to bring ease, so everything was okay in that department, but what the girl really meant was the SS ceremonial daggers so many of them would wear. They simply got in the way when sitting cheek to cheek in such long rows. ‘No weapon. Not tonight.’

‘Then please find yourself a seat if you can.’

‘Danke.’

Neighbourhood pub and feedbag, the waiters, cook’s helpers and cook-owner had all been Alsatian fifth columnists prior to the blitzkrieg of 1940 and were now in their element. Meteor Pils, straight from Hochfelden, was on tap; Ackerland too – both the light and the brown. ‘Mortimer … have you Mortimer?’ he shouted at the balding barkeep who had little time and simply said in deutsch, ‘Ah, ein Kenner,’ a connoisseur, and filled a large, clear-glass stein with the dark, strong mother of beers.

‘I needed this,’ said Kohler, squeezing sideways to better look the place over.

A slab of Münster cheese, ripe and seasoned with caraway, passed by – well, actually, there were six slabs of it. There were signs for Schutzenberger beer on the walls, signs for sabots made by a François Schneider, portrait pipes carved by an Adolf Lefèbvre, signs for the red Vorlauf from Marlenheim that surpassed most French burgundies.

There were life-sized tin sculptures of storks wading in ponds or nesting on the roofs of half-timbered bits of home. There was even a gaudy poster of the Baron von Münchhausen in his hot-air balloon; others, too, of ruined castles – Hohenburg, Löwenstein and, yes, Fleckenstein which even Louis XIV couldn’t quite destroy in 1680.

There were alpine scenes and alphorns, one of which some idiot had taken to blowing until silenced.

There were the business suits of the collaborators, of the butter-eggs-and-cheese boys with their petites amies and those of the Occupier. All down the long tunnel of two sets of tables, and under lamps whose light fought with the haze of tobacco smoke and the heady aroma, there were the uniforms, most with tunic buttons undone.

And there, sitting jammed into a far corner beneath the guild sign of a wrought-iron hunting hawk, and staring out over glass and bottle of eau de vie, was Frau Schlacht. The new permanent wave was perfect for the short, thick blonde hair which was parted on the left, the expression empty though, the lips tightly pursed as if deep in thought.

A cigarette, untouched for some time, wasted its life in a saucer before her. In a place of conviviality she sought solitude.

A chalkboard gave the menu. Five hundred francs for the prix fixe of choucroute, a thousand for the roast quail stuffed with goat’s cheese and served with a creamy sauce of preserved white grapes. Other items were in between, and for a bottle of the Pinot Blanc: four hundred francs; for that of the Reisling, six hundred francs; the spicy Gewürztraminer requiring three hundred more.

When what looked to be a seat became free a few places from her, he squeezed himself down the long tunnel between the tables and gave a nod the woman completely ignored.

The eau de vie de framboise she downed required four kilos of raspberries per bottle of the brandy and was priced accordingly at four thousand francs, yet she sipped it constantly until her pâté de foie gras came aux truffes sous la cendre, wrapped in chopped truffles and baked under the ashes, and served with a dicing of beef jelly whose colour was that of old amber.

Her eyes were very blue, the forehead clear and smooth and broad, the lips good, the chin and nose and all the rest really something.

Kohler ordered another beer and the Baeckaeoffe. Louis would just have to wait it out at the Salpêtrière. This spider in her little corner was simply too important to leave.

When the seat directly opposite her became vacant, he moved in, but there was no surprise from her, no smile of anticipation or welcome. She simply stared at and through him, then went stolidly on with her pâté until every last bit of it was gone and the bottle half-empty.

Then she ordered two servings of the grated potato pancakes with toasted goat’s cheese, and the chicken in mushroom sauce.

‘It is good,’ she said. ‘I had the same last night and will do so again.’

A Berliner through and through, but Jésus, merde alors what a conversationalist! ‘Do you live nearby?’ he asked. The racket around them intruded.

‘Not far,’ she said, and for a time that was all.

He’d take to studying her now, she felt, this giant of a Bavarian with the terrible duelling scar, the bullet graze across the brow, and the shrapnel nicks from that other war. He would want to get fresh with her, but would wait a little – he had that look about him. Great ease with loose and stupid girls, the younger the better, she told herself and said silently, Men! They are all the same.

‘I have three daughters,’ she announced straight out of the blue, but offered nothing further until he said, ‘I had two boys. Both were killed at Stalingrad.’

Moisture filled her eyes making them clearer, brighter, but causing him to despise himself for using the boys to crack her armour.

‘I have lost a son, too,’ she said and took a deep draught and then another of the eau de vie. ‘He left his pocketknife with me and I did not send it on to him.’

Verdamm! she’d be bawling her eyes out if he didn’t do something. ‘Waiter … Another beer, please!’ he shouted. ‘And for you, Frau …?’

‘Schlacht. Uma. A bottle of the Riesling, I think. Yes, that will suit.’

They would settle down now, this Scheisse, this Schweinebulle and herself, and maybe that crap about his sons was true, and maybe it wasn’t. We will eat and I will let him strip me naked with those cop’s eyes of his, she told herself. He will get nowhere but I will let him try just for the fun of it.

Oskar … had Oskar finally done something the Gestapo did not like? she wondered. Oskar was always up to things. But this one couldn’t have come because of him. He was just hungry for a woman, like all the others.

‘Guten Appetit, Herr …?’

‘Kohler. Hermann. From Wasserburg, the one that’s on the Ihn.’

Ja, mein Herr, and you are lonely, aren’t you? she said silently to herself and nodded inwardly. A veteran from the Great War, he had big, capable hands whose thumbs, first and second fingers were deeply stained by nicotine.

A smoker, a drinker, and a fucker. She would show him and his kind. She would ask for a steak knife when her dinner came. Yes … yes that would be best, and she would give him a lesson he would not forget.

Louis … Louis wasn’t here to back him up, thought Kohler desperately. Louis must still be with the beekeeper’s sister. But what the hell is it with this one, mon vieux? he bleated silently. She can’t know why I’m here, yet is as uptight as a queen bee with her hot little stinger in my balls.

Line 5, the place d’ltalie-porte Pantin metro was a bitch, the evening rush horrendous and lengthy as usual.

Jostled, shoved – crushed – St-Cyr cursed aloud to none and all in particular, ‘Hermann, you salaudl Where the hell have you gone with my car?’

No one bothered to pay any attention to his frustration. No one cared. ‘JÉSUS, MERDE ALORS, MONSIEUR, THERE IS ROOM FOR NO MORE!’ he shouted.

‘FOUTEZ-MOI LA PAIX, BÂTARD. I’LL SHOW YOU!’

‘SÛRETÉ! SÛRETÉ!’

The whistle fell from his hand. The whistle was lost. He was jabbed in the small of the back, was jammed against two Blitzmädels who managed to squeeze sideways to fit him in and reeked of the cheap, foul colognes that were now so common.

Sweat, farts, colds, coughs, sneezes, the sour stench of thawing, wet overcoats and clothing that hadn’t been washed since the Defeat, roared in at him!

‘A patriot,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I am still of such a mind.’ Mon Dieu, the heat of so many bodies …

The train rattled on. There were so few seats, all thought of getting one simply did not exist. A Wehrmacht gas-mask canister dug into his groin, a jackboot trod harder on his left foot as the soldier turned at his objection of, ‘Monsieur …’

The burly Feldwebel grinned hugely and began to chat up the girls from home. St-Cyr hung on but the acid could not be stopped. ‘The Wehrmacht ride free, mon General,’ he said in French, ‘while the rest of us have to pay!’

‘Salut, mon brave!’ sang out a listener somewhere. Was it the one who had told him to bugger off? he wondered.

Another began to whistle Beethoven’s Fifth.

Monsieur Churchill’s stubborn V was soon on several lips until the protest died through the gaze, perhaps, of a Gestapo. French or of the Occupier, the difference would not matter.

Packed in like sardines – unable to even look down at the floor to search for a whistle that Stores would accuse him of carelessly losing, he tried to hold on, tried to avoid eye contact – it was impossible! Smelt the garlic breaths of a thousand, that of boiled onions, too, for few had grease or oil to fry them in, tried to think. I must! he said.

Angèle-Marie de Bonnevies had seldom received any visitors other than her brother. The father hadn’t even come to see his little girl, had renounced her, and the mother had had to obey him.

Locked up, confined to a common ward, she had regressed constantly, but after the Great War, and the death of the father, the beekeeper had returned and had done what he could. A room – it had taken him years to convince the doctors such would help. And even though still deeply troubled, she had improved – Lemoine had been convinced of this. ‘Monsieur de Bonnevies had asked for weekend passes for her, Inspector. First to take her out simply for an afternoon, then … then, by degrees, to get her used to living at home once more. He was determined she could do it. Never have I seen a man so convinced.’

‘And afraid of what the Occupier might well do to your patients?’

‘Yes.’

But had Madame de Bonnevies decided to put a stop to things? After all, it was her money they were living on and she had been forced to look after the mother. Had the beekeeper’s death then really little or nothing to do with Frau Schlacht? If so, then why the fear of our discovering that one name among all others in the husband’s little book, particularly if the poison had really been meant for herself?

De Bonnevies had never allowed Danielle to visit her aunt. ‘Madame, of course, has never visited,’ Lemoine had said. ‘Nor has her son – I understand it was not his child and therefore of no relation.’

‘And Father Michel, their parish priest?’ he had asked.

‘Years ago, but not since Monsieur de Bonnevies returned from the war. The two of them must have come to some agreement.’

‘Why?’ he had demanded.

Lemoine had shrugged and said, ‘The priest was interfering in the girl’s recovery. Hearing the confessions of the deranged, troubling her unnecessarily. That sort of thing. Always after one of the good father’s visits, Angèle-Marie would be silent for hours and would insist on standing in a corner, facing the wall.’

‘No tears?’

‘None. Just voices, but those of the inner mind and never spoken or cried out. We came to dread these visits and I think, in some ways, so did she.’

The train shot into the Saint-Marcel Station. At once there was extreme pressure from those who wanted to get off or on. Dislodged, St-Cyr was shoved brutally out on to the platform, was caught, dragged, heard the doors shutting … shutting, and finally managed to get back in.

‘I’ve received a letter from home, Freda,’ said one of the Blitzmädels to the other in deutsch. ‘All nonessential businesses have been ordered to close. Every male from the age of sixteen to sixty-five has to report for duty. All are being mobilized.’

The Reich had finally done it. The situation in the east must be far more serious even than the defeat at Stalingrad indicated.

‘Scham Dich, Schwatzerl’ said the shorter, plumper Blitz-mädchen sharply. Shame on you, bigmouth. ‘The enemy is listening – silence is your duty!’

The quote had come from a popular poster which showed a duck in coveralls quacking loudly. The temptation was more than he could resist, but perhaps caution had best prevail. ‘Mein Partner says it’s even rumoured they are watering the beer at the Adlon,’ he said pleasantly enough in German. One of Berlin’s finest hotels.

‘What can’t kill me, strengthens me,’ retorted the Feldwebel with a broad grin. Another popular saying, but enough said by all concerned for now!

The train began to cross the first bridge – one could feel the change. Elevated – out in the open air; in darkness, too, it had once been possible to see almost the whole of the Salpêtrière even at night, but now the city was plunged into darkness, now even the dim lightbulbs of the carriage didn’t glow through the ether of their times.

From two million passengers a day in 1940, the metro’s ticket sales had leapt to four million. And we live as a nation of moles when not on our bicycles or walking, said St-Cyr to himself, but had Rudi Sturmbacher been right? Had the enemy some monstrous new weapon that would rain flying bombs on England?

On our hope, our strength, as is America.

Rudi could do with one of those posters. He’d have to suggest it to Hermann who would immediately insist on it.

We are two originals ourselves, he said, but in this, though there has been the greatest of good fortune, there can only be danger. War, like small-town and village neighbourhoods the world over, frowned heavily on all but the ordinary.

Once through the Gare d’Austerlitz, the train headed out over the Seine and he could feel this, too, and knew there had formerly been splendid views of the river, the Île de la Cité and the Notre Dame.

When the train began to dive underground, he decided he’d had enough of it. ‘The morgue,’ he said in deutsch. ‘I’ve a murder investigation to see to and must get off.’

The Feldwebel shoved several out of the way and stooped – yes, actually stooped – to retrieve the whistle. ‘This is yours, I believe,’ he said and grinned hugely again. ‘It was under my jackboot. So sorry.’

And had been flattened just like a certain birdcage!

The warmth, the sounds of the restaurant were all around them but the former bathing beauty still had a gaze that was even emptier than his own and he was getting nowhere, felt Kohler uncomfortably. Mein Gott, what was running through that mind of hers?

‘You do not eat,’ she said, jabbing with her fork to indicate his stew. ‘It is not good to let it get cold.’

Steadily marshalling food and drink, she had downed potato pancakes and chicken with cream sauce and mushrooms as if there was no tomorrow and to hell with keeping one’s figure. The bottle of Riesling had all but been sunk. The steak knife she had requested had yet to be touched but was unfortunately far too close to hand.

From time to time one of her shoes would brush against his trouser leg under the table, as if daring him to make a pass at her. He’d have to use the son again. ‘Lorient,’ he lied. ‘I was just thinking … Well, one of the boys we had to question at the submarine base there looked a lot like you, but … Ach! It can’t be possible.’

Caught off guard, she winced and set her fork down. ‘What boy?’

‘A Fähnrich zur See. There was some trouble – not with its crew or the boy, so don’t let it worry you. My partner and I had to visit the base to ask a few questions. A local thing. Nothing else. You know how the French are. They kill each other in the most diabolical ways and then try to blame it on their friends from the Reich, when we’ve only come to put a little order into their lives.’

Louis would have shuddered at that. ‘The sergeant would have been about nineteen, Frau Schlacht. A quite handsome young man. Promoted often. Eager to do his duty for Führer and fatherland and proud of it, too.’

‘Klaus … was it my Klaus?’ she stammered. ‘I … I have a photo. Yes … yes, it is here in my purse. A moment, Herr Inspektor.’ Could he really have spoken to Klaus? wondered Frau Schlacht. Was it possible?

Lorient … so Klaus’s submarine had been based there.

Herr Inspektor, thought Kohler. So she’d figured that one out. Then it would be best to be firm. ‘An Atlantikboot Type lXB. U-297, but that’s confidential.’

‘Yes … yes, of course.’

‘Gut. There are spies everywhere these days.’

The Inspector took the snapshot from her fingers, hesitating long enough to look at her with compassion and no longer such emptiness. ‘He … he was the best of boys,’ she said earnestly. ‘A Kapitän … I could see him with his own command one day.’

Not in the Freikorps Doenitz, the U-boat Service. Not likely! ‘That’s him, Frau Schlacht. I never forget a face. Men like myself are trained to remember and I’ve had years at it.’

Years … ‘U-297 … And this boat was sunk?’ she asked and heard him say, ‘Last December, the fifteenth. A Tuesday.’

Then it was true. True!

Pale and badly shaken, the woman swallowed hard, touching the face in the photograph, forcing herself not to kiss it and cry, but to simply put the thing away for later.

And I’m a cruel bastard, said Kohler to himself, but as the Maréchal Pétain is so fond of saying these days, La cause en vaut les moyens. The cause justifies the means.

‘Frau Schlacht, you’ll forgive me, but we’ve not met by accident. I need to ask you a few questions. Nothing difficult. They’re just routine.’

‘Questions …?’

The emptiness of her gaze returned, the mask perhaps that of the rejected forty-four-year-old housewife whose husband was fucking someone else and who had come to hate all men as a result.

‘Bitte, mein guter Inspektor, ask.’

The shrug she gave was that of one who had known all along he was a cop. ‘Let’s begin, then, with last Thursday.’

‘Not until I know the reason why.’

‘You’ll not have heard yet, but the beekeeper who used to visit you was murdered.’

‘On Thursday?’ she asked without a hint of surprise or other emotion.

‘That evening.’

‘And is it that you wish to know where I was?’

This thing was going to go round and round unless he was careful. ‘The afternoon, I think. Let’s begin then.’

‘The Lutétia Pool. I go there regularly.’

She was lying, but must he dig a deeper hole for himself and Louis? ‘Can anyone corroborate this?’

He still hadn’t begun to eat. ‘Any number of people. The Standartenführer Scheller; his sister, Hildegard also. Both instruct me.’

The SS and a colonel, no less!

She’d let him have it now, thought Frau Schlacht. ‘The one who collects the tickets, the one who tends the lock-up. My little maid, too. She will swear to it, since she was with me. I’ve taught her to swim and now am teaching her to do it much better.’

‘Then that’s settled. No problem,’ he lied. ‘Now tell me what you can about de Bonnevies and his visits.’

‘His treatments. But … but how is it that you knew he came to see me?’

This one had been tough since birth! ‘Your name, and others, were in a register he kept. Treatments Mondays at four p.m. Six hundred grams of pollen. Apple or rose, if possible. Two litres of mead a month. Honey in two …’

‘Ja, ja. For the facial masks and to soothe the throat when taken with glycerine and warm lemon juice. So how, please, did you know enough to find me here?’

It would have to be convincing. He couldn’t let her go after Madame Jouvand and Mariette. ‘Kripo, Section Five, Frau Schlacht. We’ve files on everyone. The Reichsführer Himmler insists on it.’

‘Files on my Oskar?’ she hazarded and for a moment found she could no longer look at him, but sought solace in the chequered, rough linen beneath the steak knife.

‘My partner and I believe he’s been making candles and selling them on the black market. That’s contrary to Article sixty-seven, subsection eighty-two. Look, he could well have told you nothing – we understand this. Some men are like that with their wives, but …’

‘But he is under suspicion for making candles?’

‘Yes.’

Switzerland. They must want more about the trips she took! ‘I know nothing of these candles. My Oskar is a very private man who has always believed emphatically that his business dealings were not for the tender ears of his wife. And as for this black market of which you speak, does such a thing really exist?’

Jésus, merde alors, Louis should have heard her! ‘I’m really more concerned with getting some background on the victim, Frau Schlacht. What sort of “treatments”?’

‘Are we now to forget the matter of the candles?’

Verdammt! ‘Yes.’

‘Then I must tell you that the knuckles of my left hand have been troubling me for some time. A little arthritis. A girl does not like to admit to such things, but …’

Herr Kohler tried to grin. ‘My grandmother had the same,’ he said earnestly. ‘Two stings a week and do you know, it worked like a charm. After three months, just three, she could go back to weaving skeps like she once had. The best in our region.’

‘Skeps?’

‘Beehives.’

‘Hot waxing is good, too, and pollen. I take a spoonful a day, with milk.’

And never mind the scarcity of the latter or that the kids in Paris hardly ever saw a drop! ‘Royal jelly … have you tried that?’

He was all business now, this Detektiv from the Kripo. A little black notebook was flipped open; he’d a pencil in hand.

‘It’s said to improve the body’s Résistance to colds and other infections,’ she acknowledged. ‘I, myself, take it once a month.’

‘It’s collected by killing queen larvae and robbing the contents of their cells with a little spoon.’

If she thought anything of this she didn’t let on.

‘Some say it prevents ageing, but Herr de Bonnevies had no patience with such thoughts. I shall miss him. He was good, for a Frenchman. Very professional.’

‘And discreet but …’ It would be best to shrug and lie again. ‘But do you know, in spite of this, he wrote down a lot in that little book of his.’

‘Such as?’ she asked, and finding her purse, decided to skip the dessert and coffee.

‘Such as, that you’ve told me almost nothing when I need toknow everything if I’m to make life easy for you and that husband of yours.’

There, he’d said it, thought Kohler, and God help Louis and him now.

‘Then you had best give me a lift home and we can discuss things in private. You do. have a car, don’t you?’

Like an idiot, he’d left it in front of her building and now she’d know for sure he had talked to her concierge and maid. Now the steak knife was missing from the table!

‘The car’s just around the corner,’ Uma heard him say, and there was a coldness to his voice she well understood.

‘Then I will wait here until you bring it round, yes? That way I will not get snow on my shoes.’

And not see where the car’s parked, thought Kohler grimly, since she’d already figured that out. She’d grill the two, was as swift as a fox and would make damned sure of it!

With the falling snow there was a little more light, a little less darkness, and this light was suffused and it magnified the hush of the city.

St-Cyr stood a moment in the centre of the place Mazas. Above the entrance to the morgue, a faint, blue-painted electric bulb glowed forlornly, but clear against the eastern sky, the dome of the Gare de Lyon raised its dark silhouette, reminding him of the restaurant and of the years gone by. The years … but there was no time to dwell on them.

Had de Bonnevies gone to the restaurant-cum-warehouse at the Gare de Lyon and discovered the squashed honeycomb and mangled bees from Peyrane? Had he then informed the Kommandant von Gross-Paris of what was happening?

Then why, having found a sympathetic ear, had he taken the suicidal step of planning to give an address that could only have raised the hackles of Old Shatter Hand and the rest of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, to say nothing of der Führer and all others of the Occupier? Their friends as well.

And who had told von Schaumburg of the Russian beehives in Shed fourteen at the Gare de l’Est.

Irritated by the constant need for haste, he stubbornly turned his back on the morgue and began to walk downriver towards the quai Henry IV. Suddenly he had to hear the river gurgling softly, had to know that it was still there and that the city … this city he loved so much, would survive the war, this terrible war.

Hermann must have been delayed – why else would he not have returned to the Salpêtrière? They’d not eaten yet since Chez Rudi’s, hadn’t even had an evening’s decent apéritif or one of the frightful coloured waters that were so common and made with ersatz flavouring and saccharin.

Frau Schlacht – had the woman proved difficult? he wondered and, suddenly needing the comfort of the river, hurried his steps.

In 1697 the quai Henry IV had been the south bank of the Île Louviers, a small island. In 1790, the Ville de Paris had acquired ownership. In 1806 there had been a market for firewood on the island, but long before this duels had been fought here at dawn. In 1843 the channel between the island and the Right Bank had been filled in to make the quai. The Canal St Martin began here, too. And, yes, the city had its history, every place its past, its intrigue, its matters of state.

‘Monsieur, I will love you for ever tonight.’

‘I will spend a moment with you, the half or the hour,’ said another.

‘Or all of us could go somewhere warm with you, n’est-ce pas?’ said yet another. ‘And you … you could have the pleasure of the three of us, but for the price of one.’

Kids … they were just school kids! Fourteen, if that! ‘Go home. You don’t, and I’ll have you arrested!’

They said nothing. They simply strolled away, arm in arm, and he could see them clearly enough in their thin coats, no kerchiefs or hats tonight. No stockings either, probably, for stockings could not be had by most and beige paint was used instead.

‘I was desperate,’ cried out one from the safety of distance. ‘I begged.’

‘I needed to be warm,’ shrilled another.

‘Grigou!’ Cheapskate! ‘Trou de cul! ’ Asshole! ‘I hope when we next meet you are stretched out in that place on a slab!’

‘Gripped by your lover, eh? Another bum-fucker like yourself!’

‘Pédé! Salut, my fine monsieur. We’re going to find a flic and tell him you’re one of those. He’ll fix you. He’ll run you in and beat the shit out of you!’

Merde, the young these days. No parental guidance, no soap either, with which to wash out their mouths! Prostitution was now such a problem, bilingual licences had even been issued to more than six thousand of those who regularly plied the streets but did not work in any of the one hundred and forty legalized brothels. At least this way they were forced into regular medical checkups. But syphilis was still rampant, gonorrhoea a plague, illegitimate births too many, though seldom spoken of until that day of retribution came as surely it would, although sadly for them.

They’d have their heads shaved, these ‘submissive girls’, so, too, the ‘honest’ women who had found another, or others, among the Occupier while their husbands languished behind barbed wire or lay beneath the clay.

The morgue was dimly lit. ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté, to view the corpse of Alexandre de Bonnevies of the Impasse de champ de parc de Charonne.’

‘They said you’d come.’

It would be best to simply raise the eyebrows.

‘Monsieur le préfet, and the sous-préfet of the quartier Charonne,’ acknowledged the attendant.

‘Did they ask for Dr Tremblay, or tell you to wait and let me do the asking?’

‘Dr Arnaud has already performed the autopsy. The heart, the lungs, the liver, spleen and all the rest, including the stomach and its contents.’

‘Arnaud is a fool and careless, and is aware that I am fully cognizant of his failings. I want Tremblay. They know it and you will now get him here immediately!’

‘Tremblay. It shall be as you wish. I can only try.’

‘But first, mon ami, you will roll out the corpse and put it in a quiet place. I want no noise, no ears but those of the dead and my own, so please don’t get any smart-assed ideas, and forget all about what the préfet told you to do.’

This one ‘talked’ to the dead. ‘Préfet Talbotte will be disappointed.’

‘Let him be. If he’s happy, there will only be trouble for others. Myself, yourself, who knows? So it is always best not to hear. Then … why then you can claim you know nothing and I will be certain you do and not come after you.’

The sheet drawn fully back, St-Cyr let his gaze move slowly over the victim. If anything, the skin’s pale blackberry hue had increased. There was still rigor, still the smell of bitter almonds.

De Bonnevies had been wounded three times in the Great War – shrapnel or machine-gun fire had torn a deep gouge across the left thigh. The bullet from a Mauser rifle, a sniper, perhaps, had hit him just below the right shoulder. It would have lifted him off his feet and thrown him back.

Barbed wire and metal splinters had ripped their way across and into his chest, the wire probably whipping about as a result of exploding shells and de Bonnevies lucky not to have lost half his face and sight. Otherwise the corpse was what one would have expected of a fifty-eight-year-old who was tall, of medium build.

Drawing the sheet back up to the chest, he said apologetically, ‘It can’t be pleasant for you to lie here like this, but there are things we have to discuss and it is best I get to know you as well as I can.’

According to the wife, death had occurred between 8:30 and 10 p.m. Thursday, 28 January. It was now nearly 8 p.m. Saturday.

‘You were a man who loved his little sister, monsieur. You had made a tragic request of her in the summer of 1912, for which you have suffered ever since and now … why now, for all we yet know, this same request, and your desire to settle accounts at any price, may well have led to your death.

‘Madame de Bonnevies would certainly not have appreciated the news of Angèle-Marie’s anticipated visits and your plans to have her again living in the house. But did you tell her of them?’

He would pause to walk back and forth a little, gesturing now and then, thought St-Cyr. ‘Knowing what we do so far of your relationship with your wife, monsieur, I have to doubt you confided in her. But if aware of the planned visits, and in despair, could she really have tried to poison you in the way that you so obviously thought? Would she have known enough about your beekeeping?

‘Bien sûr, it’s possible, but I have to say no. And if not to her, then to whom? You see, you had shaved. You had unlocked the outer gate and that of the garden. You must have been expecting a visitor, a woman. Frau Uma Schlacht, I believe.’

Bending over the corpse, he examined the cheeks closely, the throat also, ignoring its crudely stitched incision and the stench.

There were two small nicks on the left side of the neck, just under the jaw. ‘A straight razor was used, and you were a man who would not have used a dull one. Were you nervous?’ he asked.

Water was dripping somewhere and he turned suddenly at its intrusion. The attendant, in a bloodstained smock, was standing in a far corner, beyond the rows of pallets. ‘Beat it,’ said the Sûreté. There was no need to shout. ‘Sounds echo here,’ he said apologetically to the corpse, and then again, ‘Were you nervous?’

There was a scrape on the right side of the chin. ‘A lack of lather?’ he asked. ‘No hot water?’

De Bonnevies had got dressed as if to go out to a meeting of the Society. ‘You were nervous, weren’t you,’ said St-Cyr, ‘and now I am quite sure of it.’

Frau Schlacht, coming to the house, would most certainly have caused this, but had she really done so and why?

It was an uncomfortable thought, but had he missed anything here?

Pausing, he threaded his way among the Occupation’s fresh take of corpses and demanded the beekeeper’s clothing from the disgruntled attendant. A vacant pallet was sought, the Chief Inspector taking time out from his conversations with the dead to examine each item thoroughly.

‘I told you to leave me alone with him. I meant it,’ he said, not raising his voice.

Sand had been used on the shirt collar during its laundering. Vichy advised its Occupation-weary citizens to do such a thing instead of lamenting the lack of laundry soap. The finer the better, and voilà, the sweat stains could be erased with a little patient scrubbing. A market had even developed for the stuff. ‘Clean, washed sand, Monsieur de Bonnevies but, I’m afraid, a shirt that was quickly laundered and not rinsed sufficiently.’

Gently tapping the shirt collar over a slip of notepaper, he collected the sand. Had the daughter picked it up on one of her foraging trips? he wondered. ‘It’s not from around here,’ he said. ‘The local sand has tiny filings of iron which are rusty, if they’ve been in the river long enough and there was oxygen available. Grey or black otherwise, and with organic matter even after washing.’

This sand was clean, very fine, and of white quartz with only a few grains of naturally occurring black magnetite and ruby-red garnet.

And the girl had had freshly laundered undergarments in her suitcase of trade goods and these had been washed with the aid of the same sand.

‘Danielle has the perfect alibi,’ he muttered, still not looking up. ‘Not only was she not in the city, she simply couldn’t have poisoned you, and I’m convinced of this, so please don’t trouble yourself unduly.’

And the son of that bitch my wife? the victim seemed to demand. What of Étienne, eh? Oflag 17A, mais certainement, but she was trying her utmost to secure his release.

The son of another man, a former lover of Madame de Bonnevies who was still alive? wondered St-Cyr. They’d have to find out and get the man’s name.

‘Did you tell anyone about what the taste of honey would do to that sister of yours?’ he asked. ‘Someone knew only too well what would happen and made certain it did. They wanted the doctors to see her true state and to stop all this nonsense of your having her home.’

Then that person must have been my wife, Inspector, the corpse seemed to answer, and continued: There was a crowd of at least two thousand visitors, people coming and going all the time. Juliette would have known the approximate time of my visit and could have been there earlier.

A small jar of honey, a wooden dipper, a gift and gone. Damage done and message certain.

‘But … but your sister said it was a man who had given her the honey, monsieur,’ said St-Cyr, ‘and I have to ask could the same person have left the Amaretto?’

He seemed to smile, this victim of theirs, to take academic delight in the dilemma, and say, Inspector, pardonnez-moi, but have you forgotten the list you took from my pocket?

‘Ah bon! Merci. But at the time I found it, I asked myself why should anyone you were to visit on the following day have felt a need to poison you, and I ask it again?’

There was no answer.

Searching his pockets, the Chief Inspector at last found what he was looking for. Unfolding a scrap of paper, he stood a moment in silence as he studied it beside the corpse. Then he said quietly, and without turning or looking up, ‘We’ve a visitor again. Merde, the nerve! I knew his father well. M. Victor Deschamps, but so often a son fails to please or live up to the aspirations of a parent. Piss off, mon ami, before I personally wipe the floor with you!’

Had he eyes in the back of his head? wondered Deschamps.

‘I have!’ shouted the Sûreté.

There were four names on the list de Bonnevies had planned to visit on Friday. No further details were given but, laying the list on the shroud, he found the victim’s little ledger and soon had paired addresses with all of them.

After the General von Schaumburg, the beekeeper had intended to visit the long-standing keeper of one of his out-apiaries. Madame Roulleau was the concierge of the building at 14 rue d’Argenteuil, in the first arrondissement and not far from place Vendôme and the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré where Madame de Bonnevies’s father had once had a shop, and where the beekeeper’s father had been head clerk. A person, then, who quite possibly might have known the victim from years and years ago.

The third name on the list was that of a Captain Henri-Alphonse Vallée, the visit to deliver a small bottle of pollen and a little honey, ‘for the energy of an old and much-valued comrade in arms, and for wise counsel on all difficult matters.’

The address was 2 place des Vosges and not too far from the morgue, if time allowed. A vélo-taxi … would one be possible? he wondered.

The fourth name was that of a Jean-Claude Leroux. No reason was given for the visit, simply the address: 53 rue Froidevaux. It was in the Fourteenth and overlooking the Cimetiére du Montparnasse.

‘From one cemetery to another,’ he muttered. ‘Is this the one who visits Le chat qui crie on Sunday nights once a month and takes only Charlotte who is eighteen?’

The corpse did not reply but seemed to silently return his gaze.

Not waiting for Herr Kohler to open the gate for her in the convenient absence of the concierge, Uma did so herself and stepped into the lift at 28 quai d’Orléans. She’d fix this one from the Kripo; she’d deal with the girl and, afterwards, with that bitch who managed the building. She’d show the two of them that they couldn’t talk about an employer behind her back and think to get away with it. The girl would be on the train first thing tomorrow – straight to Dachau; the woman to one of the camps in the east.

Reluctantly Kohler followed her into the elevator. One had always to make these little sacrifices. But Gott im Himmel, what the hell was he to do? She’d accuse her maid of being one of the terrorists and it would be game over. Oona’s and Giselle’s names and the address of the flat he rented would come up – the kid would have to spit them out; that of the Club Mirage also, and Gabrielle. Water … would the boys down in the cellars of the rue des Saussaies use the torture of the bathtub on the kid? Of course they would. They’d strip her naked just for the fun of it.

He’s afraid, this Schweinebulle, snorted Uma inwardly. In a moment he will be on his knees begging me to forget all about his disturbing a quiet meal after first having questioned my maid and that other one.

‘Oskar is clean, mein Herr. I really can tell you nothing.’

The woman had reached the door to her flat. Unlocking it, she entered and shouted angrily, ‘Mariette …’

‘Oui, Madame,’ sang out the kid, from somewhere.

‘Komm’ hier!’

‘Oui, Madame.’

The kid still hadn’t appeared, but the woman went on in a rage, ‘Tell the Detektiv Kohler you were with me at the pool on Thursday afternoon. Stop him thinking otherwise, then repeat for me exactly what you said to him when he was here earlier.’

‘Oui, Madame, mats qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?’ But what’s happened? ‘I know of no detective, Madame,’ she said in German.

Sacré nom de nom! swore Kohler silently. The kid had icing sugar smeared on her chin and lips. Frau Schlacht had seen it …

‘Hure, how many this time?’ shrilled the woman. ‘Bitte, you little Schlampe!’

Brutally pushing the girl aside, she headed for the bedroom and when she had the box of Turkish delights in hand, raced her eyes over it. ‘Three!’ she shouted, stung by their absence.

‘Madame …’

Violently the box was thrown at Mariette, the kid slapped hard and hard again.

Bleeding from the lips, she fell backwards on to the rug, winced, cringed as a hard-toed shoe drove itself into her stomach.

‘Enough! Verdammt! They’re only candies, Frau Schlacht!’

‘And she has stolen three of them! Arrest her. Do it, or I will call in others who will!’

The woman was livid. One had best not grin. ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘I’ve accepted your word that she was with you all afternoon on Thursday and probably throughout the evening. Isn’t that right, mademoiselle?’ he asked in French.

Badly shaken, the girl hurriedly nodded then bowed her head and shut her eyes. Tears were squeezed.

‘There, you see, meine gute Frau,’ said Kohler. ‘The perfect alibi. Why not give her another chance?’ And grâce à Dieu for a kid who had the brains and guts to think ahead and take the rap herself to protect the concierge and hide the fact he’d been here earlier.

‘A week’s wages. No, two, and no half-days off for a month!’ snapped the woman.

‘Gut! That’s perfect. Now everyone’s happy.’

The girl was told to leave them and dutifully curtsied before doing so. Frau Schlacht led the way into the grand salon but didn’t suggest they sit.

‘Your questions, mein Herr?’

‘May I?’ he asked, pointing to one of the Louis XIV sofas.

‘As you wish. For myself, I will remain on my feet.’

Tough … by Christ, she was tough. ‘A drink would help – for the two of us, Frau Schlacht. You see, my partner and I have this theory, and evidence to back it up, that your beekeeper was murdered for one reason.’ This wasn’t exactly true, but what the hell …

‘Coffee will be ready in a few moments, Madame, should you wish it,’ sang out the kid in deutsch from the kitchen.

No answer was given. The woman’s arms were folded tightly across her chest, her feet spread firmly for battle.

‘What reason?’ she demanded, her gaze fixed hatefully on him.

‘He got in the way. That husband of yours has been using relatives in the occupied territories to send him beeswax. The problem is, his collectors know nothing of honey-gathering or bees, and have been sending him squashed hives, buckets of mangled comb, and one hell of a lot of sick bees.’

‘Explain yourself.’

‘Acarine mites in Caucasian bees, some of whose honey may well have been used to augment the winter stores of Parisian bees.’

‘The sickness spreads …,’ she said and, losing herself to the thought, abstractedly added, ‘Candles. You mentioned a factory, but I do not know where it is.’

‘But did de Bonnevies ever mention it?’

‘Only to say that bundles of altar candles were being left regularly on the doorstep of a church. The one to which he belonged.’

And Father Michel, the parish priest, hadn’t told Louis a thing about them!

‘Your husband controls a precious-metals foundry. What else does he do?’

This one was not going to go away until he had something to chew on. ‘I’ve already told you Oskar is a businessman and that I know nothing of his affairs.’

Nothing about the trips to Switzerland you make for him? wondered Kohler, but this couldn’t be asked – he had the girl’s safety to think of.

‘Is he into real estate, do you think?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

Maisons de passe? wondered Kohler, but he really couldn’t ask that one either. ‘The beekeeper had a son. Did he ever say anything of him?’

‘Lazy. Not like my Klaus. A coward who hid behind a Red Cross armband but was badly wounded by mistake, of course, during the blitzkrieg in the west. The boy was no good. An artist, a sculptor who made nude statues and drawings of his half-sister. Herr de Bonnevies said it wasn’t proper and that the girl should not have posed like that for the boy. Her one mistake, he said, was to trust her half-brother blindly and to encourage his every endeavour.’

That was two mistakes, but no matter. ‘Trust?’

‘Be the best of Kameraden.’

‘And the son, where is he now? Two metres under?’

‘Really, mein lieber Detektiv, you must already know where he is. Why, then, ask it of me?’

The woman hadn’t moved and still stood in exactly the same way. ‘Bitte, Frau Schlacht, just let me hear it from you.’

‘Oflag 17A, in what was formerly Austria,’ she said, gazing emptily at him.

‘And the boy’s mother? How does she feel about it?’

‘I wouldn’t know. He seldom spoke of the woman.’

Except to tell you he thought she was having an affair with your husband, thought Kohler, but he couldn’t ask it. ‘There was a sister,’ he hazarded. ‘Now where did I write that down?’

The Schweinebulle took time out to flip through the little black notebook he had been holding all this time. ‘Ja. Here it is,’ he said and showed her the entry. ‘The Salpêtrière, the house for the insane. Was he worried about this Angèle-Marie?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Inspector. Such family disgraces are best kept hidden, are they not?’

That bit about her not knowing of the sister was another lie but he’d best say something. ‘You’re absolutely right, of course. A disgrace. It was dumb of me to have even asked.’

‘Then if there is nothing more, it is time for you to leave.’

‘There is just one other thing, Frau Schlacht. Minor, you understand – you must forgive the plodding mind of a Detektiv. Always there are these little details, but one never knows when something might turn out to be important.’

‘Why not just ask?’

It would be best to give her a nod and to consult the notebook again. Any page would do. ‘Your husband is one of the Förderndes Mitglied, is he not?’

‘Verdammt! Just what the hell has the fucker done?’

Schlacht’s infidelities had wounded her, all right. ‘Nothing but what we’ve discussed, unless there is something else you’d like to tell me.’

You bastard, swore Uma silently.

One had best leave her with a little something to worry over. ‘Apparently he lost what the Reichsführer and Reichsminister Himmler took great pains to present. It might well have fallen into one of those pot-furnaces of his – maybe he was checking the melt – but I still have to think that badge is a problem.’

‘What problem?’ she asked and swallowed, blanching.

‘You see my partner and I tend to believe he must have left it somewhere and we’d like to know where and with whom.’

‘Idiot! I know nothing of his affairs. Ass here, ass there,’ she said and flung an arm out to emphasize the sweep of territory Paris presented. ‘Certainly he has had many, but …’

She actually managed to smile ingratiatingly.

‘But what is a forgotten wife to do, Herr Kohler? You’re married, aren’t you? You’ve left your wife at home, haven’t you? Well?’

‘My Gerda married an indentured French farm labourer after the divorce came through by special order, since a relative of hers had pull. But war’s like that in any case, Frau Schlacht. It splits couples apart and puts others together. German with French; French with German. Love – even carnal love – knows enough to find its greenest pastures in times of strife. I’ll be in touch if I need anything further.’

At the door Mariette Durand showed him to, the girl smiled wanly and whispered, ‘Merci, monsieur.’

‘Did she go to that brasserie as usual last Thursday evening, or did she come home hungry?’

‘Hungry, but … but why do you ask?’

Kohler put a finger to her lips and, giving her a fatherly kiss on the forehead, said softly, ‘Don’t worry, eh?’ and then sternly, and in deutsch Frau Schlacht would hear, ‘Remember what I said, eh, Fräulein? Behave yourself and do exactly as you’ve been told or I really will have to arrest you.’

And then he was gone from her and Mariette could feel every muscle in her body weaken. I must escape, she said to herself, and he has let me know I have no other choice but to pick my time and go.

The Brasserie Buerehiesel was full. There was hardly space to reach the bar. ‘A beer,’ shouted Kohler above the din. ‘Münchener Löwen, if you have it.’

‘We haven’t.’

‘Then give me another of what I had before.’

‘And here I thought you were a connoisseur.’

‘And you a barkeep with a memory? Merde! A Mortimer, Dumtnkopf!’

‘She tell you to keep your hands to yourself?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘She saves it for the husband she never sees. So, did she stick that steak knife into you?’

Taking it out, Kohler set it on the zinc. ‘We were too busy, but I found it in her overcoat. The thing had cut a hole in her pocket. You’re lucky not to have lost it, and should be grateful.’

‘Then what can we do for you, Herr Hauptmann der Geheime Stattspolizist?’

‘A bottle of Amaretto for my partner.’

‘No one drinks that stuff in here.’

‘I didn’t think they did. I only ask because I want to keep him happy. Pastis and that almond crap, he loves them both!’

‘Then try the one who’s selling the condensed milk. Maybe he can help you.’

It was now forbidden to even have condensed milk without a doctor’s certificate. Such as the supplies were, all of it had been confiscated during the past week. Laying five thousand francs on the bar, Kohler turned to fight his way through the crowd.

On the passerelle Saint-Louis, and in pitch darkness, he caught up with the man simply by calling out, ‘Halt! Was wollen sie?’ as a sentry would. Halt! Who goes there?

‘Franzie Jünger, mein Kamerad.’

‘Unit?’

Ach Schiesse, ein Offizier! ‘Attached to Wehrmacht Supply Depot Seven. I drive a lorry.’

‘Then you’re just the man I want.’

‘The lorry’s not with me.’

‘That’s no problem. I’ve got a car. The lorry will come later, eh? For now, we line things up.’

‘Such as?’

‘A customer for that milk.’

‘Can’t she breastfeed her brat?’

‘She hasn’t one. She uses it with honey, for facial masks. It cleans and moistens the skin, I guess.’

‘And?’

‘I need to find a bottle of Amaretto.’

‘What the hell is it?’

‘Drink.’

‘But for that, mein Kamerad, you don’t need a lorry.’

‘It’s for the frozen beehives and the buckets of honey and wax I’ve found. They’ve got to be moved or we’ll lose out on them.’

‘How many men will we need?’

‘Four, and yourself. Oh, and we’ll need a place to store the stuff.’

‘The honey.’

‘Yes, and the wax.’

‘Okay. Lead the way. Thirty for you, fifty for me, and twenty for the boys.’

‘Thirty-five for each of us, and thirty for the boys.’

‘Agreed.’