The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (22 page)

Romanov flies us across to the vil age by helicopter, a Eurocopter EC155 he informs us, with plenty of space for the four of us and the pilot.

The people renting the vil age are also Russian - a large extended family of about thirty-five people or so - Romanov is not quite sure. Stil , there is plenty of extra space for us as we are distributed among different parts of the family. Romanov stays with the main family of Ivan and Cristina. Mike and I are al ocated to some lively cousins who insist on us drinking a lot of wine and tel ing jokes which Mike is better at than I am. After a few desultory attempts where we realise that Anglo-Belgian humour is not the same as its Russian equivalent, Mike sidetracks them by introducing party games instead, improvising a game of Twister which goes down extremely wel with al the cousins, including some very pretty ones whom I don’t mind in the least rubbing up against, and they do not object either, although Alice does. She goes off in a huff and does not appear again until the morning when she has confirmed that Mike and I slept innocently al night in our own room.

The vil age was presumably deserted before it was restored as a wealthy tourist trap, and it is certainly deserted in the morning after a hard night’s drinking. However, Romanov is up and ready, as is the Earl, so as soon as we appear we are al invited aboard the helicopter and taken back to Montauban for breakfast, fol owed by an interrogation by Capitaine Moreau and his team in front of the commissaires to list and identify the graves of the rest of the bodies.

We spend two more days with a growing army of police and discrete groups of gravediggers as they decide to attack al the sites at once so that they can have a mega news story no doubt without the residual pressure of having to come up with more bodies. Nevertheless, they are not fast enough. The press has heard rumours of al the local activity and reporters are beginning to intermingle intrusively with the working parties, not that most of them are working.

We find al the bodies, at which point we are dismissed back to Freyrargues where Romanov cal s a press conference of his own, claiming a personal victory for his privately funded venture on behalf of the people of France, who are bemused but delighted, no doubt.

Amid euphoric celebration, and relief among the rest of the family that the Earl has not been shown up to be as batty as he might have been, we are al invited to stay at Freyrargues, Mum and Dad too, where Fiona and Sarah have already returned.

Sarah is the first to talk to us as we arrive. “Quite the heroes,” she declares to Mike and me. “A bit gruesome, but it has taken fifty years off the Earl’s clock from the look of things. He is so pleased with himself. Was he talking to the ghost al of the time?”

“I wasn’t counting,” I reply, “but he certainly spoke to her quite a bit.”

“Did he speak to her out loud?”

“Yes, or at least some of the time. I am not quite sure how they communicate.” Mike gives me a quizzical glance.

“Thank God they found the bodies, otherwise the Earl would have been incarcerated in the local lunatic asylum by now, except that the French have a fairly tolerant view of British eccentrics, especial y aristocratic ones.”

“And what have you been doing?” Mike asks her.

“Waiting for you mostly. That is al we have talked about for four days. Have they caught the kil er yet?”

“They haven’t said, but as they are announcing it al over the press I would guess that they probably have somebody under garde à vue.”

“Probably,” Mike adds.

“Where is Alice now?” asks Sarah.

Mike and I both shrug. Actual y, she said she was going off to visit her mother.

“They are cracking open the champagne,” Sarah informs us. “Come and have a glass. Dad is already tucking in.

Inspector John is coming over shortly, and Mum wil be here tomorrow.”

“It’l be flat by then,” says Mike.

Sarah pul s a mock-strained face. “I think we have more than one bottle,” she ripostes.

“Wel ,” cal s Fiona as she approaches us, flanked by Peter and John, “quite a trip!”

“Did you do a lot of strenuous digging?” Peter inquires.

“We never had a shovel out of our hands,” I reply deadpan.

Peter punches me. “You dirty liar,” he declares affectionately. “Give me your hands.” He takes them, stroking the palms gently. “Not exactly cal oused, are they?” He eyes me intently. “I would guess that your true work is of a softer nature.”

“Paul is a student,” Sarah chimes in.

“There you are, then. What did I tel you? Such wonderful y delicate hands. I could do a lot with these,” he adds.

“I am sure you could,” Sarah replies, “but you might have to cut them off first. I don’t think that Paul is one of yours.”

“I am definitely not one of yours,” I confirm.

“Told you,” crows Sarah. “Paul is one of ours, as it turns out, luckily for us.”

“And Mike,” I suggest.

“Yes, and Mike too. We are truly blessed. Besides, Peter, have you forgotten that you are married?”

“How could I ever forget that?”

“So keep your hands off him. Leave him to us women.”

“You mean that I cannot talk to him.”

“Of course you can talk to him, Peter. How could we ever stop you? But holding his hands is as far as you are al owed to go, isn’t that right, Paul?”

“Wel , yes,” I confirm, “plus hugs.” I go up to Peter and give him a great bear hug, of the type Dad used to give us, and sometimes stil does – to squeeze al the bad air out of us.

“Woo!” Peter exclaims. “Paul, you take my breath away.”

“Come on!” shouts Romanov across the hal way. “We are celebrating! We are toasting our success now.”

“Is Alice here?” he asks.

“Haven’t seen her,” the Earl admits. “Paul?”

I shrug. “How would I know?”

The Earl recovers. “Oh, that’s right, Paul. How would you know? No, Mihail, I don’t think she is.”

“Pity. Oh wel , Constance, we wil have to take al the credit ourselves, then. To us!” He drapes his left arm across the Earl’s shoulder.

“To you!” we al reply.

“Probably the only good few days work you have ever done, Constance,” Romanov adds. “However, al that is about to change. Interpol wil be cal ing you any minute. To my good friend Constance, Earl of Affligem, spook handler and supernatural detective extraordinaire.”

We raise our glasses again.

“Your Lordship.”

“Father.”

“Constance.”

The Earl is bobbing up and down, mostly in pleasure, but he may be trying to duck the next blow from Romanov too. “I think I am going to lie down for a bit. Ghost whispering is an exhausting business.”

We al laugh.

“But very wel paid, undoubtedly, “ Romanov teases him.

* * *

“You are protecting me now, are you?” Mike observes.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that Sarah is obviously much more interested in you than in me.”

“I doubt it.”

“No you don’t.”

“I have no interest in Sarah.”

“You are interested in any woman who wil remove her panties for you, Paul. We al know that. I am surprised that you didn’t take Peter up on his offer too.”

I smile sharply. “He is already taken, Mike. And he has a bel rope. I don’t do bel ropes.”

“Give you time.”

“What is this, Mike?”

Mike takes a deep breath. “Nothing, Paul. I am just jealous. I real y like her and she made it clear that she real y likes you.”

“I repeat, Mike, I am not the slightest bit interested in Sarah. She is al yours. I think you are letting your jealousy run away with you. You are imagining things. Why would she be interested in me?”

“You are more her age and completely in with the Affligem set, those are a couple of reasons.”

“And you are not?”

“Only as your brother. You are there on merit.”

“Mike, I promise you, I shal not touch Sarah. She is al yours. Even if she takes al her clothes off and jumps naked on top of me demanding sex, I promise I wil refuse.” However, an unexpected stirring below my midriff indicates that this promise would not necessarily be kept.

“We’l see. Anyway, what are we doing today? Everything seems a bit flat now that our adventure is over.”

“Let’s take Sarah out to lunch and see what we can do for you.”

“OK. You owe me that.”

I cannot think how, but I swal ow my rebuttal.

* * *

Wel , it wasn’t too hard to persuade Sarah to come out with us. We had decided to go into Béziers, to the top of Béziers in fact, opposite the cathedral on the hil , partly because I like the cathedral, and partly because I like a restaurant nearby which is much better than its location would suggest. They use a real y nice scent in the toilet too. Buying decisions can be quixotic.

As we were leaving, we bumped into Inspector John and I suggested that he join us. He said great, and should we invite Alan, Sarah’s dad, too? I looked at Sarah and turned down the suggestion flat. I wasn’t going to put a whole shooting party together – that would stop me from having the opportunity to try to persuade Sarah to ignore me and to concentrate al of her love and attention on Mike. I knew it was a long shot whatever happened (despite Mike being an extremely lovable guy), but I wanted Mike to see that I was doing my best.

I started scheming from the off. I insisted on driving, with Inspector John by my side and Sarah and Mike in the back. I made sure that I took nearly al the corners more violently than was remotely necessarily to get them fal ing over each other, not that Mike thanked me for it.

“Paul, what on earth are you doing? You are driving like an idiot.”

“You are driving rather wildly, Paul,” Inspector John added.

I think that Sarah guessed what I was up to.

Climbing up in the car to the top of the hil overlooking Béziers, the winding al eyways did my work for me. Everyone got out of the car a little giddy. Sarah observed rather caustical y “I think that Mike and I have just consummated our marriage.”

A sunbeam of understanding final y crossed Mike’s face.

Inspector John obviously wanted to learn al about the exhumations. You could even say that he was a bit peeved not to have been invited along, as a real, authentic policeman ‘n’ al .

“And none of them was Alice?”

“Not according to Alice. I don’t know whether the police wil keep us informed of developments or not. They did say that they had arrested somebody though, without naming him. They said that they had been trying to nail him for ages, but he is an important and influential guy and they could not move against him without any evidence, like dead bodies and things.

They seemed pretty delighted with themselves, according to the Earl, and with him, of course.”

“It’s amazing that he can real y communicate with ghosts. I thought it was you who could do that, Paul.”

“No, I can only sense them sometimes.”

“I wonder if he talks to his ancestors. It must be a bit hard knowing that your parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents etc. wil be watching everything that you do forever. It must certainly cramp his style. It would knock al your vices on the head for starters. Either that, or send you crazy. Maybe a bit of both.”

“Dunno,” I reply. “He hasn’t said.”

“He hasn’t said anything to me, either,” Sarah affirmed. “Mind you, he doesn’t tend to say much to me anyway. I’ve never seen him talking to anyone much except Paul here. What do you talk about?”

“I don’t know. He just seems to have adopted me for some reason. Perhaps I’l end up inheriting everything.”

“Fiona wil be pleased.”

“I’l give her some of the antiques for her shop.”

The arrival of food saved the conversation from slowly strangling itself to death by cutting it dead outright.

“Wil you tel us more about your daughter, John, if that wouldn’t be prying?” Sarah swept the hair away from her face. “If you would rather not, obviously don’t.”

“Julia?”

“Did you, do you, have more than one daughter?”

“No, I only ever had one child. I don’t know why I said that real y.”

“What was she like?”

“To be honest, Sarah, she was a wonderful woman but a bit mixed up. She was very successful. She made herself mil ions on the markets, but she never real y came to terms with her younger sister dying of leukemia when she was young, and her mother committing suicide a few years later.”

Sarah frowned empathetical y. “That must have been very difficult for you too.”

“I had lost touch with her years before that so it wasn’t as devastating as it might have been. Stil , yes, it was a shock. I was very fond of Lucy, obviously. Very, very fond of her. She just wanted my child, if that. I don’t know what she wanted from me, if anything. I am not sure that she knew herself. I think she was exorcising some demons in some way having anything to do with me at al , and it was only once. Only once and we had a child. She simply disappeared. She was raped by the vil age doctor when she was a young girl. She didn’t ever recover from that, I suspect, although she was not the easiest of souls even before that, after her parents were kil ed.”

“What a life!” I commented.

“Yes, what a life indeed. Orphaned. Foster parents who real y didn’t like her, or any children for that matter. Raped.

Single mother. Second daughter died of leukemia when she was six or seven, and final y probably murdered.”

“Murdered?” exclaimed Sarah, horrified.

“Wel , we don’t know for sure. We suspect that she was murdered to prevent her from spil ing the beans on the doctor –

Julia suspected that anyway – but there was never any proof, and even Julia only came to that realisation just before she, Julia, died herself.”

“How did she die?” Sarah said, continuing her inquisition.

“She kil ed herself too.”

“Oh my God!”

“The boys here already know some of the story. Julia’s life was as bad as her mother’s. Sister died, mother died, girlfriend committed suicide … ”

(Sarah didn’t give any indication of surprise that Julia was a lesbian).