J. Janes - Beekeeper

‘Relax, eh? I’ll see what I can do to calm him,’ he said to a pink-cheeked Grenadier who couldn’t be any more than sixteen and was dreading the Russian Front. ‘Kohler, Kripo, Paris-Central.’

Cigarettes were passed to both of the boys for later. ‘ Danke ,’ said the other one softly. ‘He’s in there frying our balls, I guess.’

It was very quiet in the spacious foyer where tapestries hung and gilded Louis XIV armchairs offered respite. But the doors to the salons were all closed, the adjutant not at his desk, the secretary …

Ilse Gross came through to take one look at him and shake her head. ‘Von Paulus,’ she mouthed the name. ‘Der Führer …’

Prising off his shoes and dumping coat, fedora and gloves on top of them, Kohler headed for the grand salon. Clearly the rolling drumbeat and trumpet call of Die Wache am Rhein came to him and then words over a wireless that crackled.

Radio-Berlin were broadcasting von Paulus’s faint-voiced gratitude to the Führer who had just made him a Field Marshal and expected him to carry on to the death.

Looking ill, a grey, bristle-headed giant struck down, von Schaumburg was huddled under blankets before a roaring fire. Field-grey, regulation-issue woollen long johns were pulled up to the knees; the big bare feet plunked into a tin basin of steaming water that smelled strongly of Friar’s balsam. Both his adjutant, Rittmeister Graf Waldersee, and his aides, Major Prince Ratibor and Oberleutnant von Dühring, were with him.

But only von Schaumburg had the flu. And why must that God of Louis’s do this to them?

The radio message came to an end as the Führer’s Headquarters signed off.

‘Kohler, ach du lieber Gott, Dummkopf , what has happened? Why aren’t you working?’ Phlegm was hawked up, choked on, and spat into a handkerchief.

‘Nothing’s happened, General. It’s just a small delivery my partner and I thought you would …’

‘ Das Bienen …’ he coughed. ‘Have you brought them. Idiot ?’

The bees … ah shit!

Startled, Kohler threw the others a puzzled glance only to see the three of them quickly retreat and softly close the doors.

‘Well?’ demanded von Schaumburg. ‘My knuckles, they’re swollen. Swollen , Kohler.’

Arthritis, and Louis hadn’t told him everything that had been in that little book of de Bonnevies’. ‘The bees were all dead, General. As soon as we can find replacements, we’ll send their owner to you.’

‘Ten stings a week, one on each knuckle. He was to have come to me yesterday.’

‘Yes, General, we know that.’

‘ Verfluchte Franzosen .’

Damned French …

‘ Banditen , Kohler. Terroristen. Did you see what you and that … that partner of yours let those people do?’

Gott im Himmel , were they now to be blamed for everything? ‘General, I’ve brought your honey and pollen, the royal …’

‘ANSWERS. I WANT ANSWERS, DAMN YOU!’

A coughing fit intruded, the nose erupted. Mulled wine was taken deeply. The Nordic eyes, with their sagging pouches, were filled with rheum.

The throat was cleared. ‘You see what the filthy French have done to me, Kohler? Now tell me how he died.’

Here was the man to whom Vichy was now forced to pay not 400 million but 500 million francs per day to the Reich in reparations and costs: £2,500,000 at the official exchange rate of 200 francs to the pound sterling, or at 43.5 francs to the American dollar, all but $11,500,000.

Pine needles littered the surface of the foot-bath. Rheumatism, too, thought Kohler ruefully. Nearly seventy, and long past retirement, the general waited. The unshaven jowls were grey, the blunt, high forehead and prominent nose damp with perspiration.

Briefly he gave him an update on the murder but for a moment Old Shatter Hand’s thoughts were transfixed by the flames of other matters. ‘Von Paulus will surrender tomorrow, Kohler, and for this, the Führer will call him a traitor. Cut off, surrounded, outnumbered and out-gunned, should he lay down the lives of those of his men who remain?’

‘General, I leave all such matters to those who know best.’

‘And the Führer is always right, is that it, eh?’

‘General …’

‘Yes, yes, you don’t believe it for a moment and have just recently lost both of your sons. War isn’t pleasant. Condolences, Kohler. Condolences.’

Another deep draught of the mulled wine was taken. A Gevrey-Chambertin, the 1919, and mein Gott , was he draining Coty’s cellars in preparation for the Wehrmacht’s packing up and heading home?

‘In 1935, de Bonnevies visited my family’s estates in Mecklenburg on the Plauer See. He remembered our beekeeper fondly — they’d spent an afternoon discussing a mutual interest in bee-breeding and making mead.’

‘Acarine mites in Caucasian bees, General …’

‘From Russia, Kohler. Russia !’

It had to be asked. ‘Brought in with squashed honeycomb, some of which might then be used for supplementing the winter stores of Parisian bees?’

Kohler had been to the Restaurant of the Gare de Lyon, so gut, ja gut ! but that honeycomb hadn’t been from Russia. ‘To the Gare de l’Est, you idiot. Rerouted through the Reich to find its way to Paris thereby denying the needs of the Fatherland. I want the practice stopped.’

Oh-oh. ‘A name, General?’

‘That I can’t give you and you know this. All I can tell you is de Bonnevies was aware of it and deeply concerned for the health of not just his own bees, but those of his colleagues and all others.’

‘And was that why he was poisoned, General?’

‘Questions … must you ask me questions when you find me like this? He had a sister in the Salpêtrière, the women’s asylum. He may have gone to see her on Thursday. He always did.’

Frau Gross came in with one of the Wehrmacht’s doctors. Two nurses followed. There was talk of putting the general in hospital, of at least getting him back to bed.

‘Candles, Kohler. I think it had something to do with candles.’

‘The wax.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s it. The shortages.’

And the marché noir , the black market? wondered Kohler, but let the matter sit. Louis might have something by now. Louis …

The candle was no more than ten centimetres in length and one in diameter. Made from tightly rolled foundation sheet, the wick, a simple piece of string, would work well enough, thought St-Cyr. First soaked in salt water and then dried, it brought back boyhood memories of homemade fireworks and other forbidden explosive devices. The pewter candleholder would have entranced a boy of ten and filled his head with dreams of brigands and seaside inns.

Madame de Bonnevies was tensely watching him. ‘Do you light one of these every day?’ he asked and saw a faint, sad smile briefly touch her lips.

‘When I can, yes. It perfumes the air. Étienne loved the smell of it. He …’

‘Madame, your son can’t have occupied this room in several years. Not, I think, since beyond the age of …’

How could he do this to her? ‘Sixteen,’ she gasped.

‘And did your husband know you were using his foundation sheets for such a purpose?’

‘No! There, are you satisfied?’

‘And this practice?’ He indicated the candle. ‘Has been going on for how long?’

The police were always brutal, the Sûreté only more despicable. ‘Since the Defeat, since my son was taken. A mother has to do something, hasn’t she? Well?’

She wouldn’t cry, she told herself. She would face his scrutiny bravely. But he turned away and, setting the candleholder down on Étienne’s desk next to the windows, found Sûreté matches and lit it.