7

Beyond the boxwood there were rose arbours, and in among these the puppet theatre that had been rebuilt in 1931 but whose origin dated back to 1881. Beyond it, there was the Palais where the nobility of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré had been imprisoned twelve to a room, during the Reign of Terror in 1792, and a high hoarding had been wrapped completely around the Jardin du Luxembourg to keep them in until called to the guillotine.

And now? asked St-Cyr silently, as Hermann leaned on the makeshift crutches the smelter workers had kindly crafted. Now the Palais is home to the Luftwaffe and a swastika flies from it while we, the people, are the prisoners, but without the wall of boards.

There was snow everywhere, and often with distance-loving spaces between, there were strolling couples, old, young, the Occupier, too, with his Parisiennes. Choirboys – perhaps sixty of them – were furiously at war with snowballs among the lindens and under the stern-eyed gazes of their respective choirmaster priests. Each ‘soldier’ wore his ‘colours’ in a trailing choir gown. ‘The Saint-Sulpice, Hermann, and Saint Germain-des-Prés. It’s an annual affair, if God provides.’

The snow! ‘They’re too silent, Louis. Have they all got sore throats?’

Not a one of them made a sound. All swore or yelled with glee but under their breaths. ‘People respect the rights of others here to peace and quiet,’ said St-Cyr drolly, trying to calm him down. ‘It’s a rule that even lovers must conduct their most amorous activities in absolute silence!’

Beyond the war of snowballs, beyond the tennis courts, balustraded terraces, with wide promenades, stepped down to the large, octagonal pond where in summer and days gone by, Louis and his little boy had sailed their toy boats. Statues, most of them of the queens of France, looked silently on, and as the steps on the other side rose from terrace to terrace, they eventually led into a wide promenade that was flanked by stately plane trees.

In the distance, beneath the grey of the skies, sunlight touched the dome of the Panthéon. Breath billowed. Neither of them said a thing. Both simply wanted the moment to last, thought St-Cyr, but all too soon it was gone.

‘Herr Schlacht will be waiting for us at the bandstand, Hermann. It’s over there, on the way to the Fontaine des Médicis and before Valois’s Leda and the Swan.’

‘Louis, let me talk to him alone. He’ll want that.’

‘Can I trust you, Hermann?’

‘Not to make a secret deal?’ Always there was this doubt between them; less now as the years together had sped, but still, it was there. ‘I’ll do what I can because I have to. Oona’s suffered far too much already.’

‘Then go. I’ll walk about for a bit, and then follow.’

Hermann reached the upper terrace and stood looking off towards the Panthéon. Framed by the lines of plane trees and closer urns where sprays of golden chrysanthemums from the hothouses were coated with ice, he looked old and defeated. A giant with one foot so bundled in rags, he gave the premonition of captured soldiers marching through the snows and into Siberia.

As if on cue, the bell of the Bibliothèque Nationale sounded once, to shimmer on the frigid air. But then all motion stopped; no one moved, for that one bell was taken up by the Notre Dame, and after that by the Sacré-Coeur and others – one by one, and throughout the city.

No wonder the choirboys had fought in silence – they’d known this would happen and now … now stood or crouched, as if statues themselves.

‘Stalingrad …’ sighed St-Cyr, a rush of joy and tears of gladness filling him even as he gazed across that frozen expanse towards Hermann, who made a statue, too. ‘Von Paulus has surrendered.’

It was Sunday, 31 January 1943.

Behind the bandstand there was a cleared space, a no-man’s-land not easily visible from elsewhere in the Jardin. Along one side of this space rows of stacked iron chairs leaned away towards tall trees like a regiment whose legs were spread as if urinating.

Having pulled one of the chairs free, Schlacht sat with forearms crossed and resting on the head of a burled walking stick. The beige, herringbone overcoat was tightly buttoned under the double chin; the grey eyes looked out emptily from beneath the pulled-down brim of a freshly blocked trilby. The gloves were new and of pigskin and all but unheard of these days; Schlacht the well-to-do Berlin Kleinbürger wanting yet to rise above the middle class.

The voice, when it came, was thick and still of the scrap-metal yards. ‘Well, Kohler, you’ve me to thank for your being alive.’

‘And to blame for this.’

The foot. Kohler still hadn’t come down from the bandstand. ‘If I understood Godonov’s daughter correctly, the burns are small and not serious.’

‘The Russians – even the White ones – will say anything these days.’

‘And that partner of yours?’

‘Louis? He’s probably communing with the beehives the Société Centrale are overwintering under the fruit trees.’

The Society did keep hives here and regularly held beekeeping demonstrations and gave lectures. ‘These papers, Kohler. This Oona Van der Lynn of yours …’

‘She’s not mine. No woman is.’

‘No matter. Diese papiere sind nicht gültig, Kohler.’

Not valid, not good …

‘Where is she? What have they done with her?’

‘Bitte. Kommen sie hier. Sit awhile. Rest yourself. She’s fine and will not be harmed.’

‘Unless …’

‘Let’s talk first. Then we’ll see.’

Tucking Oona’s papers away, Schlacht offered a cigarette from a packet with a black cat on a red background. ‘Craven A’s,’ breathed Kohler. ‘Taken from downed American aircrew that were stopped while on their way to Berlin.’

‘The war’s not good, is it?’

‘Not good, but then I don’t exactly live at the expense of the Occupied like some.’

Schlacht nipped off the end of a small cigar. ‘Now listen, be realistic. De Bonnevies got in the road. If that wife of his hadn’t poisoned him, someone else would have.’

‘And you’re sure Madame de Bonnevies did it?’

The cigar was lit. ‘What I’m certain of is that my Uma didn’t, and that, mein lieber Detektiv, is the only reason I’m here talking to you. Leave her out of things.’

‘She wanted you dead.’

The cigar was examined fondly like the little friend it was. ‘She misunderstood things, Kohler, that’s all, and has reconsidered, but wants her maid returned.’

‘That girl’s free to do as she pleases and has found a better job.’

‘With Gabrielle Arcuri.’

‘Who has generals and the OKW at her beck and call, the boys in the front lines, too, and all the others.’

Kohler had yet to sit down. ‘Then we’ll leave Mariette Durand where she is and hope her new boss stays out of trouble, but I must warn you rumours still persist about that woman’s loyalties.’

‘I’ll be certain to let Gabi know.’

‘And the war, Kohler? Have you heard how things are at home?’

Schlacht had been sitting on copies of the Berliner Tageblatt and the Zeitung, and took these from under himself. ‘Bombenlose Nacht, Kohler. Apparently it’s what my fellow Berliners now say to each other when parting company.’

Bombless night, instead of auf Weidersehen.

‘Even apple cider, our favourite non-alcoholic drink, is no longer available. Rhubarb juice has been substituted! And now … now those little Witze, those political jokes my fellow Berliners love to circulate, include several about the Bolsheviks. When Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich announces on Radio Berlin that Bolshevism is dead, people are heard to whisper, “Long live Bolshevism”!’

As cruel and ruthless as they come, Sepp Dietrich had commanded the Führer’s SS bodyguard during the days of the Blood Purge, and since then had blossomed into a Colonel General in the Waffen SS.

Everyone’s friend and one to be admired, snorted Kohler silently.

When still no answer had come from him, Schlacht continued. ‘We’re realists, you and I, Kohler. The American landings in North Africa are only the beginning. We both know time is on the enemy’s side and that the Reich has fewer than thirty thousand men here in France to keep order. Not more than two thousand five hundred of them, yourself included, are Gestapo.’*

Paris’s police force had damned near half as many flics as that 30,000, to say nothing of the Milice, the Cagoule and all the others but this was heresy coming from someone like Schlacht. ‘And Endsieg seems a far-off dream, is that it?’

Final victory … ‘The Führer is not always right, so let us agree it’s wisest to take precautions.’

With the help of Swiss banks! ‘Are you making me an offer?’

‘I’m asking you to keep out of my life. Forget about this business of the wax and honey, forget about my candles. Concentrate instead on Madrid or Lisbon and travel papers for the Van der Lynn woman that won’t be questioned.’

Such a tidy offer could only have been suggested by the SS of the avenue Foch. ‘And?’

Schlacht didn’t let his gaze waver. ‘Five million francs; two hundred and fifty thousand marks, Kohler, and not the Occupation ones. Gold wafers if you prefer.’

‘Ten million, but let me have it in gold.’

‘Don’t push. It isn’t wise of you. I really will forget about Mariette Durand, and I’ll get you the papers quietly.’

‘And in return?’

‘I’m sure the one you’re looking for is a member of the Society Central. A jealous beekeeper, nothing more.’

‘And he poisoned de Bonnevies?’

‘He would have known exactly how to do it.’

‘But … but it might still have been an accident. We’re not sure yet.’

‘Then let it be one. That’s even better.’

‘And Madame de Bonnevies had nothing to do with it?’

Always the loose cannon, Kohler would know perfectly well the embarrassment he could cause if he went straight to the Kommandant von Schaumburg with what he already knew. ‘Juliette was merely an amusement my Uma and I have agreed must end.’

‘And the Hôtel Titania?’

‘I own and whose front desk Juliette helped to manage, so you see, Kohler, where my wife’s misunderstanding lay. Of course …’ Cigar ash was examined. ‘Of course I’ll have to find a replacement, and for this …’ He sighed heavily and looked up again. ‘I’m willing to make a trade.’

‘Giselle?’

‘Think about it. She’d be perfect.’

Kohler was sickened by the thought and at a loss for words. ‘A former prostitute, mein Lieber. Young, very beautiful – wise in such ways and everything a businessman such as myself could hope for in a prospective employee. The Durand girl will be left alone and your Oona sent to freedom with the gold. Take it or leave it and don’t, please don’t, ever mess with me again.’

Giselle … Kohler saw her as she’d been that first time in the waiting room with all the others at Madame Chabot’s. Straight, jet-black hair, good shoulders and of a little more than medium height. He saw her turn to smile at him as her name was called, the négligée falling open, nothing on under it, the girl asking, ‘What, please, is it you desire, monsieur?’

‘Fate … it was fate,’ he muttered sadly. Schlacht had left him cold, had flung that cigar of his aside, and was now gone from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the stab marks of his walking stick all too clear in the snow.

‘Jésus, merde alors, what the hell am I going to do?’ he demanded angrily. He couldn’t trust the Berliner and the SS to carry through with the papers. He mustn’t even think of it! ‘But I want to,’ he lamented. ‘Mein Gott, to see Oona safely in Spain would make it all worthwhile.’

But would it?

‘She’d only find out what I’d done and would never forgive me; Giselle neither, and certainly not Louis! Yet Oona could buy that little hotel on the Costa del Sol they’d all dreamed of, and not so little now either. She could set herself up really well and be ready and waiting for him and Giselle when …

The butt of Schlacht’s cigar had gone out. With difficulty, Kohler leaned over – tried to keep his right foot out of the snow – and plucked the thing away.

‘You bastard,’ he said as he scattered the tobacco in the wind, rather than tuck the butt into his mégot tin. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand marks in gold. Ausweise and papers no one would fool with …’ And hadn’t Giselle helped him and Louis out before? Hadn’t she been plucked from the street and taken to the avenue Foch to Oberg who had made her stand before him as he’d stared up at her through his bottle-thick glasses? Hadn’t she been beaten up by the French Gestapo of the rue Lauriston?

‘I can’t ask her to help us,’ he said. ‘I mustn’t.’

Even so, temptation clawed. All the way back to the pond, he thought about it – tried to figure a way out. Let Schlacht get the papers for Oona. Agree to go along with him, and then … then …

Louis … where the hell was Louis when needed most and not in sight?

‘I can’t tell him a thing. If I do, Oona will be killed.’

Danielle de Bonnevies stood looking down at one of the Society’s hives, some twenty or so of which were wintering among espaliered fruit trees, and when the detective from the Sûreté caught sight of her, she felt herself automatically flinch, but worse than this, knew he had seen her do so.

The flock of sparrows that had been feeding on the crumbled vitaminic biscuits she had scattered in the snow at her feet fled, leaving the yellowish stain of the biscuits and the two of them starkly alone. He’d know all about where she’d got those biscuits – from the J-threes to whom they’d been distributed at school. He’d know she sold them to others, the very best pigeon bait there was. ‘Inspector …’ she heard herself bleat. ‘Why … why are you here?’

‘Me? I was just enjoying the few moments of peace the investigation seems to have allowed.’

A lie … What he’d said was an absolute lie! ‘I … I’ve come for the meeting but … but am a little early.’

And not at home in mourning. ‘The Society. Yes, of course. I’d forgotten.’

Another of his lies. He wouldn’t have missed a thing like that. Not when papa had been about to tell the world what was happening to Russia’s bees. Not when she’d told the Sûreté one of the Society could so easily have been the poisoner.

‘Cowards,’ she muttered under her breath but loudly enough. ‘Papa called them cowards because they were afraid of being arrested.’

‘Some of them didn’t want him to speak out, did they?’ she heard the Sûreté saying as he came closer, too close, and she could, though not daring to face him yet, see the white breath of his words as they fell on her.

‘No, they didn’t,’ she said defeatedly, but then, as if in anger, she turned and said accusingly, ‘I saw Herr Schlacht telling the tall one with the crutches something he did not want to hear.’

The girl must have spotted them as she’d come along the promenade between the plane trees. ‘Hermann and he are having a little heart-to-heart of their own, mademoiselle, but it’s interesting that you should know of Herr Schlacht.’

‘I … I don’t know him well. Maman has … has only spoken of him once. Just once.’

‘And yet you could identify him so easily?’

‘He … Maman … They …’

‘They secretly met at a hotel in the Eighteenth.’

‘Yes.’

Hastily she dragged off a mitten and wiped her eyes – tried to find composure and took to staring bleakly down at the beehive in front of her. Snow capped its flat roof. ‘Brood chamber below and honey super above,’ she said hollowly of the two-tiered boxes. ‘Six to ten frames of comb in the brood chamber should tide the colony over, but here there are extras in the upper chamber so that the worker bees can place the honey and pollen where they feel it best and the wintering cluster can move slowly about the hive as it wishes. Papa always put a super like this on top of the brood chamber and then a square of heavy tarpaper to shed the rain and snow melt.’

‘He loved his bees, didn’t he?’

‘As a husband ought to love a wife, only in his heart there wasn’t room for one.’

‘Did your mother go willingly to the Hotel Titania on the boulevard Ornano?’

‘You’re simply trying to get me to tell you she had another reason.’

‘And did she?’

Étienne … was he wondering about Étienne? ‘I wouldn’t know, would I, Inspector? We seldom spoke.’

‘Yet surely you knew of her repeated attempts to free your brother?’

‘My half-brother.’

‘Father Michel refused to find three willing workers to be sent to the Reich in exchange for her son. Maxim’s, mademoiselle. Isn’t Maxim’s the reason your mother went to that hotel?’

To prostitute herself. To let Herr Schlacht paw her naked body and rape her, yes rape her in return for his paying the necessary 50,000 francs down. ‘I … I really wouldn’t know, Inspector. Étienne was someone she and I never discussed.’

‘Even though she was so worried about him and had done everything she could to secure his release?’

The girl didn’t answer. Cramming her mittened hands deeper into the pockets of her overcoat, she waited in silence. And what was it Hermann had said Frau Schlacht had told him about the half-sister and half-brother? That the beekeeper had complained to her that Danielle’s one mistake was to blindly trust Étienne and to encourage his every endeavour.

‘You posed for your brother, mademoiselle. You were the best of comrades. He made sketches of you and at least one superb bronze we know of.’

‘Did I pose naked for him – is this what she told you?’

‘She?’

‘Mother, of course. She hated my being close to her son. Étienne and I used to tease each other about it. Jealous … she was so jealous, I’m not surprised she told you I was naked when I posed.’

‘And were you?’

‘What do you think, Inspector? Do I look the type?’

Wryly she tossed her head at his silence and said, ‘When I was three or four I did when bribed with the whole of a peach flan, but not since then.’

Yet that father of yours believed you had done so right up to when the boy went off to war, thought St-Cyr and heard himself ask harshly, ‘Was Étienne de Bonnevies’ release arranged and paid for by Herr Oskar Schlacht?’

‘Did Étienne poison my father – is this what you’re wondering? If so, then the answer is no, Inspector. Étienne couldn’t kill anything. Not in this war we lost and not before it either. “All who are born have a right to life,” he’d always say and leave the job, if absolutely necessary, to me. To me, Inspector. Me, the fumigator par excellence of my father’s hives. You’ll not have forgotten that, I think!’

‘When questioned in your father’s study, mademoiselle, you tried to keep me from the microscope he’d been using and denied having been told why he felt a disaster was so certain.’

‘Acarine mites in Caucasians from Russia. All right, I knew that Herr Schlacht was causing diseased hives to be brought into France. Does that satisfy you now?’

‘How long has it been going on?’

‘How long did papa and I know of it? Since early last summer. We knew it had to be stopped. Things like that can be so easily spread – in one season half the hives can be wiped out in any apiary, sometimes all of them.’

‘So when Frau Schlacht wanted honey for facial masks and bee stings for her arthritis, your father was only too willing to supply them?’

‘She’d been a client right from September of 1940.’

‘And the candle-making has been going on since when?’

‘The … the fall of last year, I think. Earlier perhaps.’

‘The fall of 1941?’

‘Yes … yes, perhaps.’

‘And where is the factory located?’

‘The factory …? I … We … Papa and I tried to find out, but then I … I told him that it was best if we … we left the matter alone.’

‘Why? Because you knew that fifty thousand francs had been paid?’

‘And Étienne had come home yet mother didn’t know of it? I’d have told her if I’d known such a thing, Inspector. Believe me, I’d have gladly ended the little hell I’ve had to endure with her. Going out in search of food – peddling my merchandise and constantly running the controls, so much so my nerves are all but shot? Shot, do you understand? Only to come home to nothing but silence and disapproval from her? You saw the way she slapped me when I asked if she’d put the oil of mirbane into that … that bottle of Amaretto. You and your partner questioned her thoroughly, didn’t you? Well, didn’t you? You saw how she feels about me, the “accident”, the “tragedy” her womb committed, its betrayal – God, why couldn’t she have drowned me at birth? I … Ah nom de Dieu, forgive me. You see the state I’m in.’

But had the outburst been deliberate? wondered St-Cyr, forcing himself to question, as Hermann did, if the girl might well be guilty.

Thinking it best to give pause to his questions, or perhaps wanting to better plan his little campaign, the Inspector indicated that they should walk towards the promenade that would lead them to the terraces and his partner. He wouldn’t leave her alone now, but would keep on asking things, felt Danielle, and she would have to answer with sufficient truth to counter disbelief.

‘That bottle, mademoiselle. You stated that when you left the house at five a.m. on Thursday it wasn’t in the study.’

‘I’d never seen it before.’

‘But you stated first that your mother had poisoned your father and then … then felt one of the Society might have done it?’

‘Mother couldn’t have, and I told you this, that I’d spoken out of despair. As for a member of the Society, come and meet them. Hear what they have to say to me, then decide for yourself!’

It was nearly two o’clock and still there was no sign of Louis. Had he left the Jardin du Luxembourg? wondered Kohler anxiously. Had he realized Schlacht would have to offer a deal that couldn’t be refused because Oberg and the SS had first been consulted?

Louis would feel a need to sort things out and redefine his side of the partnership. He’d want to be by himself. Mein Gott, the Bonze made gold wafers for the SS of the avenue Foch, and sure as hell Oberg wouldn’t want Old Shatter Hand finding out about it! That was why Oona was a hostage. No other reason. Oona …

With difficulty, he hobbled back up the steps to the highest of the terraces, to stand again, leaning on his crutches, forcing himself to let his gaze sift calmly over the Jardin. A Wehrmacht concert band, oblivious to peace and quiet, struck up Deutschland über Alles as if to thumb their noses at the loss of the Sixth Army – 24 generals, 150,000 dead, 100,000 taken prisoner, tanks, guns, everything – and to let the French know the Occupier was here to stay. Few turned to pause and listen, most just kept on as they were and tried to ignore the racket.

A Bach fugue followed to crash sorrowfully around the ears, but then the oompah-tubas and other brasses hit their stride with that old beerhall favourite In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus!

‘I feel like an idiot standing out here like this,’ he swore softly. The French would hate him when this Occupation ended, as surely it must, and never mind Rudi’s talk of flying bombs, or the Milice, or the Cagoule. The Résistance would grab Oona and Giselle if he didn’t do something soon and fast. They wouldn’t understand that he wasn’t one of the Occupier, not really, and that neither Oona nor Giselle had given themselves to the enemy. They’d blame Louis for collaborating. They’d hang that patriot or slam him up against the post without even a blindfold! They wouldn’t listen to a word his partner screamed.

It was at times like this that a priest, if one believed in such, might be helpful, and as sure as that God of Louis’s had called them, one hurried past. Was it a sign? wondered Kohler bleakly.

Knitted dark black, bushy brows formed thatches over dark brown, harried eyes that were behind heavy black horn-rimmed bifocals. The black overcoat had been carefully brushed, the black beret cleaned and ironed …

‘Father, just a minute!’

Swiftly the priest took him in at a glance. ‘Not now. Can’t you see I haven’t time?’

‘Kohler, Father. Gestapo Paris-Central and that little murder in Charonne, eh?’

‘My son, forgive me, but … but if I don’t hurry, a young life may be lost. The métro was stopped by your people, and now …’

‘Now you’re late and worried about Danielle de Bonnevies.’

‘Now I greatly fear she is about to make a terrible mistake.’

Brusquely Father Michel indicated the greenhouses that were behind hedges and a high stone wall next to the School of Mines, in the southeastern corner of the Jardin.

‘Then I’d better come with you,’ sighed Kohler. ‘Here, let me rest a hand on your shoulder. These crutches of mine are a curse.’

‘Is she suspected of poisoning that father of hers?’

‘Did she?’

‘No. No, of course she didn’t. What makes you think so?’

‘Aren’t I the one who’s supposed to ask the questions?’

‘Then stop her from speaking out. Let me defend her.’

‘Against whom?’

‘Herself and them. Juliette also, for I’m certain she has tried to prevent Danielle from doing this and has failed.’

Forbidden territory, open only to a select few and then but rarely, the greenhouses of the Jardin were the domain of its gardeners who understandably resented any and all intrusion. But oh mon Dieu, thought St-Cyr, forgetting their troubles for the moment. It was like stepping into spring.

Tulips, crocuses, daffodils and cyclamens, begonias and baby’s-breath – the tiny-flowered variety so affectionately called Paris Market – were here en masse. There were freesia and alyssum and forget-me-nots, and over the weathered lattice of an arbour that divided the long length of the greenhouse in half, soon a vibrant display of orange-flowering nasturtiums.

Shrubs were in terracotta pots and tubs on the crowded banks of trestle tables along whose aisles the members had filed: acacia, soon with its delight of tiny clusters of yellow; star jasmine in its late blooming, the perfume mingling with that of calla lilies and around them, masses of anemones, primroses and sky-blue scilla.

‘Monsieur …’

The gardener sternly indicated the crowd of forty or so who had finally made their way to the far end where chairs had been set up in the aisles. ‘It’s not the Orangery,’ muttered St-Cyr, ‘but is every bit as pleasant. I envy you.’

‘Few would.’

A pessimist? he wondered. Every fall the oleanders, date palms, orange and pomegranate trees, grown in large wooden planters about the garden, were taken indoors to the Orangery, but it, too, must be reserved for the Occupier and out of bounds even to such a long-standing and respected group as the Society.

Instead of it, they had to be content with row upon row of magic, a veritable jungle of colour where hot-water heating pipes banged because it was their nature, and moisture constantly dampened the flagstone floor.

Bees unobtrusively went about their business. ‘They’re working overtime,’ he quipped, for the man was trying to hurry him into joining the others. ‘Like detectives, they’re not allowed vacations.’

A coat sleeve was urgently plucked at.

‘Was he really murdered?’ asked the gardener, his expression now one of deep concern.

They were still some distance from the assembled. Danielle de Bonnevies had hurried on well ahead of them. ‘St-Cyr, Sûreté, Monsieur …?’

‘Lalonde. Paul-André, sous-jardinier.’

Assistant gardener. ‘What do you think?’

Short, wiry and dressed in unbelievably faded coveralls, and wearing an old grey fedora, Lalonde was over seventy, the face thin and with a high forehead and bony hands that had been wrinkled and blotched by a life spent largely outdoors.

No glasses, though, and an enviable clearness to deep blue eyes that now gave the frankest of gazes.

‘What you mean to ask, Inspector …’

‘It’s Chief Inspector, but yes, I want to know which ones.’

‘Any of several.’

‘Please save me time I can’t spare.’

‘Then any of the most vocal three. Monsieur le président de Bonnevies was not an easy man. Oh bien sûr, one could always ask his advice but he was far too unyielding a scientist for them, too much the perfectionist. It was his idea to release a few bees here, so as to bring more meaning to the winter’s lectures he will now no longer be able to give. Monsieur Baucour, my superior, tried many times to get him to remove the bees, but Alexandre refused to hear of it. Once his mind was made up, it stayed that way, but …’

Lalonde gave a sheepish grin and sucked in on his grizzled cheeks. ‘But I, myself, have become quite accustomed to them and find them most restful.’

A man after my own heart! thought St-Cyr.

Lettuces, radishes, shallots and green onions were being grown in among the flowers and as they walked along the aisle, the assistant gardener kept an eye on everything.

‘Alexandre was a very worried man, Chief Inspector. He and the three you will hear most, fought constantly. They didn’t want him to …’

Danielle had stepped up on to the rostrum. Suddenly her voice sang out with, ‘Mesdames, Mesdemoiselles et Messieurs, attendezvous. My father is gone and I must take his place.’

‘STOP HER, PLEASE!’

Father Michel and Hermann had just entered the greenhouse and were at the other end, the priest with an arm raised.

‘NO, FATHER, THEY MUSTN’T!’ shouted Danielle.

‘INSPECTOR, I BEG YOU!’ cried the priest as he hurried along an aisle, with Hermann trying desperately to catch up.

‘Mademoiselle de Bonnevies, you are out of order!’ shouted one of the men at the front.

‘ORDER!’ shouted another.

‘Please let her speak,’ said an older woman tartly. ‘She has every right and more than enough experience.’

‘Madame Roulleau, you mind your tongue!’ seethed the one who had cried for order.

‘My father …’ began Danielle again. ‘Many of you know he planned to give an important address today but … but was prevented from doing so – was poisoned, do you understand?’ she shrilled, her voice echoing under the glass.

No one moved in their seats or said a thing. Were they too afraid of or embarrassed by what was to come? wondered St-Cyr. The speech de Bonnevies had been working on was still tucked in his jacket pocket – merde, there’d been so little time and he’d put off reading it! But now the girl, having denied any knowledge of its substance, was freely admitting she had lied.

As Father Michel, and finally Hermann, caught up with him, he indicated the offending document. The three of them stood side by side in the centre aisle at the back of the gathering, the girl up front on a makeshift dais that gave her the advantage of but a half-metre of height over those who were seated. There were several of the Occupier – two SS from the SIPO, the Sicherheitspolizei, their security police who specialized in investigating enemies of the State – Jésus, merde alors, why had they come?

The German overseer was here, too. Every segment of French agriculture and industry, even apiculture, had one, usually a specialist in his field.

‘Frau Käthe Hillebrand,’ breathed Hermann, nodding towards a smartly dressed blonde in a light beige, camelhair overcoat, soft lemon-coloured cashmere scarf, brown leather gloves and a wide-brimmed tan fedora that all but hid the right half of her brow and was, yes, very provocative.

‘That is our Bonze’s secretary, Louis, but what the hell is she doing here?’

‘Listening, perhaps.’

Madame Roulleau was knitting a pullover from scavenged unravelled wool, but held the needles poised for more dialogue, the fingers pudgy, the face lined with worry and with deep pouches under soft brown eyes.

De Bonnevies was to have paid her a visit on Friday. Beside her sat an elderly gentleman who wore the yellow and green ribbon of the Médaille Militaire. ‘Captain Henri-Alphonse Vallée, of 2 place des Vosges, Hermann,’ said St-Cyr quietly. ‘Confident in all difficult matters.’

‘Mesdames et Messieurs …’

‘SIT DOWN! YOU’VE NO RIGHT!’

This had come from one of the three men at the front: a grey business suit, and with immaculately groomed grey hair.

‘I have every right, Monsieur le vice-président Jourdan, but let us put it to a vote,’ countered Danielle, clearly flustered and upset, yet determined to carry through. ‘All those in favour of allowing me a few moments of their time; and then, those not in favour. Monsieur I’Inspecteur Kohler of the Gestapo has just arrived with Père Michel, our parish priest and an old friend of my father’s. Perhaps these two could count the votes.’

‘THIS IS INSANE! SIT DOWN!’

‘TAKE YOUR PLACE, MADEMOISELLE!’

‘AT THE BACK, WHERE I WILL NEVER BE HEARD, MONSIEUR DE SAUSSINE? You who have fought so hard to stop my father from speaking out, should at least have the courage to allow his daughter to do so, if for no other reason than to honour the man who taught you virtually everything you know!’

‘Let us listen to her,’ grumbled Mme Roulleau, stuffing her knitting away in its bag. ‘Oh come now, mes vieux amis, what can a mere girl say that offends so much?’

You wise old owl, thought St-Cyr. You know exactly what that girl plans to tell them.

‘Those for letting her continue,’ sang out Kohler.

Hands were raised, some hesitantly and only after others had been lifted.

‘And now the nays!’ he cried.

The SS played no part in the voting, and neither did any of the others of the Occupier, including two Obergrenadiers on leave, a Hauptmann, a Major and another Blitzmädel.

‘Praise be to God,’ sighed Father Michel. ‘The nays have it in abundance!’

‘Oh no they don’t, Father,’ swore Kohler softly and then, much louder, ‘Thirty-five to eight say she speaks!’

‘Merci,’ managed Danielle and tried to smile.

Father Michel crossed his chest and said softly but acidly, ‘May God forgive you, my son.’

‘Mesdames, Mesdemoiselles et Messieurs, will no one speak for the bees of Russia? Reliable estimates tell us that over one-half of all Russian honeybees have already perished – one-half! This tragic loss is not just due to the fierce shelling of tiny villages and hamlets, you understand, nor to other acts of war which leave the farms in ruins and the hives untended. It is also due to disease and its rapid spread. Since few are left to trap the swarms when each colony divides, these establish themselves in the wild and there, too, the diseases spread to decimate those few colonies that are still being carefully tended.

‘But … but it’s not simply of these matters that my father wished to speak. There is theft on a massive scale. In most rural areas of the Ukraine and in Poland and elsewhere in the east, the peasants are still using the woven wicker or straw skeps, and now … now especially in winter, these hives are being gathered by German soldiers. Skeps are piled one on top of another without regard to their brood clusters or to disease, and these … these are being shipped by rail to Paris.’

Again she paused, but this time opened her left hand to release a bee which lingered until gently blown away.

‘Normally in the late fall the peasants would examine each hive, and would drown the oldest and heaviest, but also the lightest and weakest colonies, both to destroy any disease and to harvest the honey. But now these diseased colonies, and the healthy ones, too, arrive here. Papa knew that among them some carried acarine mites and European foul brood, also chalk brood which, as many of you know, makes the dead larvae appear as if Egyptian mummies wrapped in white cotton. He tried to stop what was happening, and for this … for this was poisoned.’

‘VOYOU!’ sang out one of the men at the front, leaping to his feet to shake a fist at her. Delinquent …

‘SALOPE!’

‘C’EST SCANDELEUX!’ cried another, joining him.

‘God forbid our guests should have to listen to such rubbish!’

‘À TOUT PRIX, MONSIEUR DE SAUSSINE!’ shrieked Danielle. At any price!

She caught a breath and hastily wiped away her tears, calmed herself a little and at a sudden thought, even tried to smile. ‘After all, hasn’t the Maréchal Pétain told us that no neutrality is possible between truth and falsehood? Why, then, should we lie about this matter?’

‘Silence, girl. You’ve already said too much!’

‘MURDERER!’ she shrilled. ‘ASSASSIN! I WILL FINISH AS IS MY RIGHT!’

One of the SS nodded at her to continue and in spite of their presence, she found her voice. ‘Those hives are joined by crushed and mangled honeycomb and broodcomb from the Vaucluse, from Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Touraine and other regions, and this … this is not for the honey they contain but for the wax which is made into candles. The wax!’

She let that sink in.

‘And we all know which of our most revered of institutions must burn only beeswax candles, don’t we, Père Michel? The Église de Saint-Germain-de-Charonne, your very own church, n’est-ce pas? The Notre Dame, aussi, and Sacré-Coeur, and all others, since all have found ways to purchase them on the black market at highly inflated prices. Even in wartime such candles are necessary. Especially so, I think, since no others are available. But some of you here have used the honey from these diseased hives to augment your winter stores – admit it, messieurs. My father knew very well one of these three was selling it to you and lying about it.’

Either Jourdan, de Saussine, or the man who sat between them, thought St-Cyr.

‘She’s a dead girl, Louis. She’s just committed suicide but we had to let her speak out.’

‘Agreed. Brave yet foolish, Hermann, but did she have another reason for doing so and is that not why this priest didn’t want her to?’

‘You fools,’ swore Father Michel. ‘You call yourselves detectives but are so blind. There is my reason, and hasn’t that woman suffered enough?’

Not two metres behind them, Juliette de Bonnevies had stood silently watching the daughter whose existence she had hardly acknowledged. Now she gazed steadily at each of them in turn, and the black veil she wore only served to emphasize the hardness of her betrayal and their suspicions of her.

The uproar had subsided but now the charges were being laid and a deathly calm had settled over the members of the Society, all of whom had been confined to their chairs and placed under an armed SS guard.

Wary of putting his foot too deeply in the shit, Louis had wisely stayed in the background.

‘The girl is accused of buying and selling on the black market, Kohler.’

‘And that represents two counts against her, eh?’ he panicked, taking in the blue-eyed, hawk-eyed, greying son of a bitch in the snappy field-grey uniform who was the same SS major as had had him arrested at the Club Mirage! The Golden Party Badge put the bastard among the first 100,000 members of the Nazi Party. The silver Blutorden, with its red and white ribbon, narrowed things down to the Blood Purge – all 1,500 of them had received one in 1933, on its tenth anniversary.

The SS Dienstauszeichnungen, the Long Service Award, only had a silver swastika with SS runes on the ribbon – twelve years, but this one would be anxiously awaiting the twenty-five-year gilt swastika, since he’d damned well been around since 1923.

‘Lots of people buy and sell these days. She’s only a kid.’

‘Discipline, Kohler. Discipline! She has also fomented discord by accusing the Army of a criminal act.’

‘Mein Gott, since when did the SS ever take up the cause of protecting the Wehrmacht’s enviable reputation? And here I thought they were well able to do that themselves.’

Kohler would never learn. As a prisoner of war in 1916, he had come to love the French so much he had even learned to speak their inferior language. ‘The girl is under arrest, and will be considered Sühnepersone. She’ll be shot as soon as her name is selected.’

‘But … but, Sturmbannführer, she’s a suspect in a murder investigation. Both Gestapo Boemelburg, my superior officer, and the Kommandant von Gross-Paris have ordered us to look into the matter.’

‘And that takes precedence over acts of terrorism?’

‘Look, be reasonable. We need to question her.’

‘Then do so. You have exactly one hour.’

Schiesse! ‘Then begin by hauling before us the pigeons who fingered her on the black-market charges. My partner and I had best question them first.’

‘As you wish.’

Oberg must really be in a rage. ‘Would it help if we found it wasn’t murder at all, but simply an accident?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘That way, our reports would contain nothing other than statements from the wife, the daughter and the priest. I’d vet everything. You have my word on it.’

‘And that of your partner?’

‘Louis will be made to see we have no reason to declare anything else. A clean slate all round and a happy funeral.’

‘But … but this would surely not eradicate the criminal charges, Kohler? I, too, must file reports. The Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Polizei, the Höherer SS und Polizeiführer of France is most thorough and accepts only total loyalty, absolute thoroughness, and the truth above all else.’

Ach du lieber Gott, what the hell did this one really want?

‘Giselle le Roy, Kohler. The Dutch alien, Oona Van der Lynn, to be sent into exile to one of the camps.’

And never mind the deal Schlacht had offered, even though this one would have known all about it. Never mind even admitting that such an offer had been made.

‘Then take me to see your boss. I’ve things I have to say to him.’

‘And your partner?’

‘Leave him here to do what he does best.’

Without a word or even a nod, Hermann was gone from the greenhouse and that could only mean trouble, thought St-Cyr. Some of the members simply stared emptily at the backs of the chairs ahead of them; a few smoked cigarettes. All were afraid – this was abundantly clear. Several were embarrassed by, and ashamed of what had been done to Danielle, but all prayed they’d not be arrested themselves.

That is only human, he cautioned himself. Madame Roulleau and Captain Henri-Alphonse Vallée, from widely differing worlds, held each other by the hand. War did things like that, the Occupation especially. It broke down social barriers and cast aside the customs of centuries.

Both were much shaken by the girl’s arrest and, though they would earnestly want to speak out on her behalf, knew well what that would almost certainly bring.

Under guard, Danielle sat in a chair on the dais, her head bowed, the not quite shoulder-length, pale auburn hair falling forward. That she was silently praying seemed evident, and he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for her. The worry of always having to run the controls had finally caught up with her, but as with so many these days, she’d been accused by people who had known her for much of her life, and they’d done so, not out of any sense of public duty, but simply to save their own asses or to get back at her, and never mind the hundred thousand francs reward that might or might not be paid.

Jourdan, de Saussine, and the third member of their front-row coterie, Bertrand Richaux, stonily kept their counsel. They’d wait to be questioned, and perhaps it would be best to let them, since they’d expect to be among the first and every moment of delay would serve to further put them on edge.

Alone among the Occupier, apart from the guards, Frau Käthe Hillebrand had stayed behind, and when his gaze met hers, she smiled as if to say, What now, Inspector? She was calmly smoking a cigarette and had taken out a notebook and pen to record things for her boss. A woman, then, who would know more than she’d let on and would now be very careful about what she said.

Father Michel had tried to comfort Juliette de Bonnevies but without success. Both still stood near him, the woman with her back to the priest, her gloved fingers delicately caressing the petals of a crimson cyclamen as if trying desperately to find a moment’s peace.

‘Your son, madame. Has he been released?’ he asked, closing the gap between them as though on impulse. ‘You begged Herr Schlacht to intercede on his behalf, didn’t you?’

‘Inspector …’

‘Father, later. It’s with this one that I must begin. Please leave us immediately. Well?’ demanded St-Cyr of her.

Startled, she stiffened and, lifting her hand from the cyclamen, briefly touched her veil as she turned to look at him, the dark brown eyes now rapidly moistening.

‘I begged him to, and he agreed that if I would do as he asked, the fifty thousand francs the waiter had demanded would be paid.’

Her lips had quivered as she’d said this, but quickly she overcame her nervousness.

‘Madame, you knew of Herr Schlacht through your husband’s contacts with his wife.’

‘Yes. All right. I … I did go through that little book of Alexandre’s not once but several times. It wasn’t hard to contact Frau Schlacht’s husband. The Hôtel Drouot … We met six months ago and he decided what he wanted from me in exchange, while I, poor fool, believed him. I did! damn you. I was desperate.’

‘But he didn’t pay up.’

‘No, he did not. Two or three times a week I’d go to that filthy place of his and …’

‘The Hôtel Titania.’

‘Room 4–18. From its little balcony there is a rather pleasant view of the Sacré-Coeur, even in winter.’

‘Then in so far as you know, Étienne is still in Oflag 17A?’

‘Yes, and I would willingly give myself to anyone, male or female, who would see that he was allowed to come home.’

‘But your husband didn’t want him to, did he?’

‘What do you think?’

The dark, almost black hair and sharply defined features with their pale complexion suited the veil most admirably and she knew it and used it to good advantage, so much so, he was reminded she’d been very much of the Sorbonne and the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, but never of the quartier Charonne.

‘He wanted his sister to return and you couldn’t have that, could you?’ asked St-Cyr.

‘As I’ve already told you, Inspector, I didn’t poison him. Oh bien sûr, if I’d known how to, I most certainly would have tried to, but …’ Her slender shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug as she looked away.

‘But would Danielle?’ he asked.

‘Have told me how to – Is this what you’re after? Well, is it?’

‘No, madame. Would Danielle have told your son?’

‘Who despised his father for the way he treated me and would want to stop it?’

‘Before Angèle-Marie was allowed to compound your suffering.’

‘Étienne isn’t in France, Inspector. Oskar always promised to pay for his release. He’d always say, “Next week, or tomorrow, or in a few days,” and I’d let him do whatever he wanted to me. I’d even beg him to do it and willingly I’d allow others into the room to watch or participate, if that was what he wished. What did it matter, really, so long as Étienne came home?’

‘Then could anyone else have paid for that boy’s release?’

‘His real father – Is this what you’re wondering, because if it is, then I must tell you that he died in 1938.’

‘His name, Madame de Bonnevies? I’m sorry, but it’s necessary.’

‘But … but it has no bearing on my husband’s death. How could it have?’

‘All things have bearing, even the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl in the Père Lachaise on 20 August 1912.’

How cruel of him. ‘Henri-Christophe de Trouvelot. His widow has since remarried, and now the mother who refused her son the joy of his one true love, lives alone.’

‘Where?’

‘Forty-two boulevard Maillot.’

In Neuilly, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne, and money … lots of money. ‘Ah bon! that’s all I want from you at present. Next … who’s next?’ he called out and then, in deutsch to a guard, ‘You may release this one.’

But no one was to be released until the major had returned.

The conservatory was warm, huge and humid, and stepping into it like entering a verdant jungle where one expected monkeys to chatter and pythons to lurk.

Or scorpions, thought Kohler uncomfortably as he leaned on his crutches. The major and his adjutant had ushered him through the entrance of this dripping glass house and now stood guard outside it!

Merde, what the hell was up? This wasn’t the Luxembourg but the Jardin des Plantes where, not so long ago and in its zoo, a bomb had been left for him to defuse. Sweat and all the rest of it. Suspicions of Résistance people – Gabrielle no less – and a safe-cracker named the Gypsy.

Scheisse! Oberg couldn’t have liked the outcome of that affair, nor what had happened in Avignon, and had deliberately chosen to meet him here as a reminder. But that could only mean the meeting had been decided on well before he’d even asked for it. And why, please, the secrecy?

There were flowers – things called Flame of the Woods and Bleeding Glory Bower. Orchids, too, and hadn’t Oberg liked them? They grew on the ribbed trunks of the palms, and in among the creepers. One was high above him, another over there … Pretty things that seemed to wait in silent judgement.

Bananas, too. Their thick stalks and long, broad leaves all but hiding pale green bunches.

Spiders, most probably. Black widows maybe.

In 1926 Karl Albrecht Oberg had landed a job with a wholesale tropical fruit importer in his home town of Hamburg. Perhaps he had dreamt of jungles like this while tallying the books, perhaps of naked Polynesian maidens, but he’d have thought of them with disgust, no doubt, for he had been, and still was, contentedly married and was as strait-laced, severe and no-nonsense a son of a bitch as one could find. A plodder with women. A man of little joy. Within three years he’d left to join a competitor, only to have the Great Depression shove him out the door and into the tiny tobacco kiosk he’d managed to buy in the Schanenburgerstrasse, near the town hall.

In June of 1931, he had joined the Party – number 575205 – and months later the SS, where Reinhard Heydrich had put him in the Sicherheitsdienst and had shot him up the ranks.

September 1941 saw him as S.D. und Polizeiführer at Radom, where he earned the epithet ‘The Butcher of Poland’ for his ruthless suppression of resistance and passionate extermination of Jews and other so-called undesirables, most especially the Gypsies, ah yes.

At forty-five years of age, and with the power of life or death over every living soul in France, he had landed in Paris. Hardly a word of French to him – he’d leave all that to others.

One had to pause and gape, for there he was at last, coming out from the jungle. The field-grey greatcoat, with its wide parade lapels and shining cap, with its silver skull and crossbones, went with the highly polished jackboots and the black leather gloves which were impatiently being slapped into the left hand. Behind him, water from a tiered and sculpted fountain shot up into the air before showering into streams beneath the glass dome of the conservatory, and flanking Australian tree ferns towered above him.

A man of little more than medium height, round and fleshly of face, and with a slight paunch and double chin, and a small, closely clipped, Führer-style moustache, tight sardonic smile, and pale, blue-grey, bulging eyes behind thick and steel-rimmed spectacles.

When approached, the look he gave was simply one of mild impatience as if to say to himself, I can squash this bug any time I like.

It was impossible to clash the heels together, and one crutch would fall away to clatter on the floor as the salute was given!

‘Heil Hitler, Herr Höherer SS und Polizeiführer. Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central. You wanted to see me?’

‘Kohler … Ah yes. You’ve been wounded.’

The crutch was snatched up. ‘It’s nothing, mein Brigadeführer und Generalmajor von der Polizei. A small accident. I was careless.’

‘Then you mustn’t let it happen again. These days, good men are becoming harder and harder to find.’

Oberg let that sink in. ‘This entanglement with the Procurement Office, Kohler. Das Amt is a Wehrmacht organization but most useful to the SS.’

The office … the bureau … ‘That is understood, Herr Höherer.’

‘Gut. Then in your reports to the General von Schaumburg you should emphasize two things. First, that we have no interest whatsoever in it, and secondly, that this compound is really quite remarkable.’

The tin was about ten centimetres in diameter and the same in height, the label showing an industrious Panzergruppe polishing their boots in a Russian flax field while bees floated happily around them.

‘The Soldier’s little Friend?’ he bleated.

‘Beeswax and lanolin. Herr Schlacht manufactures the compound for the Wehrmacht, Kohler, and has just been awarded a two-year contract. I, myself, find it excellent, and have enthusiastically recommended it to the General von Stülpnagel.’

Oberg had been in the same regiment on the Western Front in 1916 and, as a lieutenant then, had been awarded both the Iron Cross First Class and Second. They were still on speaking terms, von Stülpnagel leaving all ‘political’ matters to Oberg.

‘One first warms the boots a little, with a candle flame perhaps, then works the compound well into the leather, Kohler. It has a pleasant smell and is also good for the skin, particularly if the hands are chapped. You’d best keep that tin, I think.’

‘Herr Generalmajor, are you sending me to Russia?’

‘And now you’re shitting your pants, is that it?’

Ach du lieber Gott, how shrill can the bastard get? ‘I …. I only ask because our investigation is not yet complete.’

Reports – whispers – stated clearly that this one engaged in pornographic debauchery with the women he kept, and with both of them at the same time! ‘This murder, Kohler …’

Louis wasn’t going to like what was said but might understand if told. If. ‘It was an accident, Herr Generalmajor. I’m positive of this, but that fool of a French partner of mine can be very pigheaded. All I need is a little time.’

‘A few formalities, then?’

‘Absolutely nothing more.’

No plea to save his women, none whatsoever for the beekeeper’s daughter who had spoken out like that, and nothing for his partner. Was Kohler at last learning to be loyal? ‘Then that’s settled and I’ll not detain you further. Oh, there was one other matter. Now what was it? Ah yes, candles for the Reich, Kohler. Herr Schlacht buys what he can on the black market but the quantities fall far short of the quotas set by Berlin.’

A constant problem, no doubt. ‘So he buys the wax and manufactures them,’ sighed Kohler.

‘And supplies both the home market and the Wehrmacht. Candles for our boys in the trenches, Kohler. Please don’t forget this in your reports to the General von Schaumburg. Candles and boot grease.’

And a saint, a loyal member of the Party, and one of the Förderndes Mitglied.

‘There are no slackers in Das Amt, Kohler. It is far too useful an organization for me to let an idiot like you help to close down. Now get out of here and let me enjoy a few moments to myself.’

Close it down … Slackers? Ach, mein Gott! thought Kohler. No wonder they were worried. The Führer must be shrieking his head off over Stalingrad and must have ordered a witch-hunt. Namely for all those hiding in cushy jobs well behind the lines, and in Paris especially.

‘Be careful, Kohler. You may yet have friends in Gestapo Boemelburg and the General von Schaumburg, since they both still find a need for you. But don’t mess up this time. Praise Das Amt to the hilt while saying nothing of our interest. Let Herr Schlacht buy what he needs and sell what he makes, and leave that wife of his out of things. Agree to go along with the offer he has extended and keep everyone happy.’

They were desperate. Schlacht had been told to pay up or else! ‘Jawohl, mein Generalmajor und Höherer SS. Heil Hitler.’

* The number needed to keep order had steadily declined to this figure of 30,000, but later increased to about 200,000 by the end of 1943. There were also operational troops in France – about 400,000 in 1942, but by 1944, nearly 1,000,000 during the invasion.