‘No. No, here is fine. I … I will just have to get used to it, won’t I?’
The girl waited for him to say yes, but he would simply take out his pipe and tobacco, thought St-Cyr.
‘Inspector, I don’t know who could have poisoned him. That bottle of liqueur was not in the study when I left here early on Thursday morning. My father was already at work at five when I came in to kiss him goodbye. He was happy — earnest, that is, about his work. Our work.’
‘And did you know the contents of the address he was revising?’
‘I knew only that he was working on an important paper, but … but not the subject of it. Papa refused to tell me. “It’s too controversial,” he said. It … it had to be about his bees, of course. They are our dedicated and loyal little friends, isn’t that so? Tireless and always bringing beauty and the gold of their honey, the light from their wax, while at the same time pollinating the very plants without which we could not survive.’
Quickly Danielle wiped her nose and eyes with a hand and tried to smile, and when she heard him ask, ‘Was he to have given the address that evening?’ vehemently shook her head.
‘Tomorrow at two p.m. The Jardin du Luxembourg. A … a room in the Palais is still not possible so, again, as since the Defeat, the Society must meet in one of the greenhouses, but it … it is really quite pleasant and perhaps far more in keeping with the subject. I, myself, though forced always to sit at the back, have never objected to our holding the meetings there. The bees love it, and one can watch them going about their tiny lives as if in total peace.’
Her voice had strengthened but was she now on firm ground? he wondered. She was also, in a way, striking a blow for equality and the injustice many women and young girls felt at the hands of men who often knew far less than they.
‘Aren’t you going to light your pipe?’ she asked.
‘Ah! I’ve forgotten. I often do. Would you like a cigarette?’
Would it help? ‘No. I don’t. I haven’t ever. I’ve had no desire to use them.’
And now need no such crutches? Merde, what was there about her? The need to constantly be on her guard, the need to hide the fact she must know the mites were from Russia? ‘While away, you stayed, I believe, at the family’s country house.’
‘Only at night. My route took me too many kilometres from it otherwise. I arrived after dark on Thursday, crept into bed and was up and away before dawn on Friday. Today also. It’s … it’s just an old place. Not much to look at and sadly in need of repair.’
And nothing for you to worry about — was this the impression she wanted to impart? ‘You use it only once in a while.’
‘Yes.’ And damn maman for telling him of it. ‘I must vary my route and so must stay overnight in other places. Sometimes where we have out-apiaries. That way I can check on the hives also.’
And let me give you those locations? Let us talk no more of the country house — was that it, then? ‘Could someone have come here on Thursday evening to see your father?’
‘And bring him such a gift?’
The frown she gave was deep. ‘Well?’ he heard himself ask.
‘Perhaps one of the Society might have arranged to visit him, but he didn’t tell me this, and I … why I did not ask. I was in too much of a hurry to be on my way. I did not think. I just assumed everything would be the same when I returned — fine, do you understand?’
Flinging herself around again, she stood with head bowed and her back to him. Tears spattered the workbench, hitting the hands she pressed flat against it. Splashing between her fingers. Hands that, washed in ice-cold water and without soap, still held dirt and looked chapped and worn.
The Inspector took hold of her by the shoulders. ‘There … there were those in the Society who did not want him to give that address,’ she said bitterly. ‘They … they were afraid les Allemands would close down the Society and arrest everyone. Cowards, papa called them. Cowards!’
Her hair was very fine and light and when he released her left shoulder, his right hand remained in comfort, deliberately touching it and she knew — yes, knew now — that he would stop at nothing to get his answers, that he had, indeed, the eyes and insidious curiosity of a priest! Of Father Michel, yes!
‘But he was determined to give the address?’ she heard him ask and felt herself instinctively nod then blurt, ‘It was his duty to do so. His duty, he said!’
The girl was thin, and she shook hard when he wrapped comforting arms about her. ‘Please go upstairs, mademoiselle. Go back to bed. There will be time enough for questions.’
But will there? she silently asked, still clinging to him but opening her eyes now to see, through the mist of her tears, the desk, the wall with its collection of bees under glass, the paintings, the whole of it, of life itself and what it had become. The French windows to the garden also.
‘Inspector …’
It was Madame de Bonnevies and the look she gave condemned both himself and her daughter for sharing grief’s moment in such an intimate way.
The girl released her hold but remained defiantly standing beside him so that her right arm touched his and now … now that hand found its timid way into his own and he felt her close her fingers about his and tightly. She was still trembling.
‘Mother, what is it? What’s happened?’
Had the girl been expecting an absolute disaster? wondered St-Cyr and thought it probable.
The mother’s voice grated.
‘That one’s partner has arrived and is waiting in the car for him. A matter of some urgency. This,’ she said acidly, and held out the flattened remains of what must once have been a birdcage!
‘All right, Hermann, enlighten me.’
‘Not here, idiot. Somewhere quiet.’
Was it as bad as that? wondered St-Cyr as the Citroën roared up the impasse, crossed over the rue Stendhal, made a hard right on to the rue de Prairies, a right again and then shot down the rue de Bagnolet. Of course there was so little traffic these days, it really didn’t matter if one stopped where one was supposed to stop. Mon Dieu, it took only ten minutes to cross the city from suburb to suburb at peak times, even with the clutter of bicycles, bicycle-taxis and pedestrians, far less to reach Chez Rudi’s on the Champs-Élysées, especially with Hermann behind the wheel!
‘This is not somewhere quiet!’ seethed the Sûreté acidly.
‘But it is the centre of all gossip and gossip is what we need, mein lieber Französischer Oberdetektiv. Let me do the talking — that’s an order, eh, so don’t object!’
Hermann was really in a state but one mustn’t take crap like that! ‘Inspektor, my lips are sealed. After all, you, too, are one of my German masters.’
‘Piss off. This is serious. Act natural.’
‘I am.’
‘Then don’t look as if the ground had just fallen out from under you! Try smiling.’
‘You know how much I resent having to come here when most of the city is starving!’
‘But you do get fed, so please don’t forget or deny it. And don’t seal your lips to a damned good feed. I’m going to order for you.’
Nom de Jésus-Christ, must Hermann be the same as all the others of the Occupier only more authoritarian, more forceful, more blind and insensitive to even the simplest wishes of his partner?
Of course. After all, like Rudi Sturmbacher, he was a Bavarian.
Beerhall big and at the tea-and-coffee stage at 3:47 p.m., the restaurant was in one of its more genteel modes. Couples here, couples there. Uniforms and pretty girls who should have known better than to consort with the enemy in a place so visible.