‘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.