A Twist of Orchids (24 page)

He explained his doubts about space and layout. “And there are the condos and the swimming pools to come, don’t forget. Where’s it all going to go?”

“Are you saying it’s a scam?” Hope, like a timid banner, unfurled in Mara’s heart.

“Er—no.” Donny was a bore, a blowhard, but Julian really didn’t think he had the bottle to try skulduggery of this magnitude. “Just a highly speculative venture. Maybe Donny’s launching Phase I as a kind of trial balloon to see how many investors he can pull in. That would give him cash up front to set things in motion for the golf course. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a long time delivering Phase II. If ever.”

“Phase I is bad enough,” said Mara hotly. “And my land will still be affected. Don’t forget, this damned putting green is going to run right along the entire length of my north property line. Joseph’s, too.” Mara shook her head. “But he doesn’t understand. Or care.”

Julian contemplated this. “Maybe he does. Just not in the way you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, there’s no way the consortium can make good on all their promises with what we’re seeing here. But Joseph is sitting on a whacking great parcel of cleared, level land that’s bang up against the proposed development. Maybe he’s planning to sell
out to them.” Julian stood very still. “Bloody hell. In fact, that’s got to be it. In order for Montfort-Izawa to go ahead with their project, they must have secured more adjacent land. What’s the betting they have some kind of private understanding to buy Joseph out? His verbal agreement to sell is all it would take at this stage. Nothing formal, nothing on record, but there you have another 45 hectares, enough to make the project feasible.”

Mara stared at him in horror. “You’re telling me I’ll not only have a fairway and condos down one side of my property, but across from me, too?” She shook her head. “No. I can’t believe Joseph would do this. He wants to live out his days in his own home, remember?”

“Nothing easier. Montfort-Izawa strikes a deal with him. He stays put in the house, but the rest of the property changes hands. You must see that a piece of land as big as the Gaillards’ is key to this whole scheme. It’s contiguous to the development, and it definitely offers the necessary space and layout. And there’s another thing. Have you stopped to ask yourself why, if the consortium has owned the land for all these years, it hasn’t done something with it sooner?”

“The market hasn’t been right until now?”

“Or they’ve been waiting to acquire the final piece. Gaillards’ property.”

Mara shook her head vigorously. “It’s out of character. I told you, Joseph’s rooted to the soil. He’d never sell. Neither would Amélie, and even dead her word still rules.”

“Maybe he needs money.”

“He doesn’t. He spends very little. And Jacqueline told me he gets some kind of monthly stipend, plus a bit from the farmers who graze their cattle in his fields. Besides, there’s something you’re overlooking. No matter how bad their relationship is, I’m sure Joseph would want to hang on to the property for Christine,
not sell it if he doesn’t need to, just to pump up his bank account. You know how sentimental the French are about land and passing it on to their children.”

Julian paced a patch of ground, arms crossed, hands tucked under his armpits. “Then Montfort-Izawa must be getting another parcel of land from someone else. I can’t see it proceeding otherwise. Unless …”

Mara, who was staring at the tops of her shoes, looked up. Julian stopped pacing, stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared out over the landscape. A dark bank of clouds was building up in the west, blotting out the last angry rays of the sun.

“Christine,” they both said at the same time.

Julian took a deep breath. “Apart from Joseph, she’s the only one in a position to negotiate with Montfort-Izawa. If they’re already distributing brochures, they must be pretty damned confident they have the space they need. You said Joseph would never sell, but Christine might, if she can get power of attorney over Joseph’s affairs. And if he’s deemed unfit mentally—”

“Or if he dies …” Mara cut in. “And if Montfort-Izawa is steaming ahead with the development now, it can only mean that Christine intends to get Joseph out of her road, one way or the other, and very soon.”

Huguette Roche is early with Joseph’s meal today. She brings it in a basket.

“You’ve heard there’s another big storm coming in?” She looks a little windblown, like a precursor of the storm itself. She sets his supper out on the counter: potato soup in a jar with a rubber bung; a hearty pot-au-feu, boiled beef with vegetables, in a covered earthenware casserole; a wedge of prune tart between two plates. It’s the kind of food Joseph is used to, not that
steak haché
Mara gives him.

“If you don’t want it now, you can heat it up yourself later, can’t you?” she asks. “I have to get back and help Jean-Marie tie things down. The last big storm we had, it blew our wheelbarrow right into the next field.” She tells him to leave the dishes in the sink. She’ll return in the morning to take care of everything.

“You’ll be all right?”

“
Oui, oui.
”

“
Bon.
Is there anything else I can do before I go?”

Joseph shakes his head.

“
Okay. A demain.
” Huguette hurries out, relieved to be away.

Joseph is glad Huguette does not have time to visit with him. He does not want to hear any more about the weather, or the local gossip, and Mara has already talked to him about golf courses and condominiums. She was there earlier in the day, sitting forward in her chair, making short, sharp gestures with her hands, filling his kitchen with words. So many words make it
difficult to think, and he needs more than anything to think. It will be dark soon, and he knows he has very little time. He looks about him to see what he can use, what he will be physically able to move. He already fears that whatever he can do will not be enough to keep out the coming storm or the headless monster that will arrive, riding like a bird of carrion on its back.

•

“We have to find a way to protect Joseph,” Mara said as she and Julian hurried back to the house. Their weekly get-together with Loulou at Chez Nous was at eight that evening, and it was already a quarter to seven.

“Protection is a job for the gendarmes, Mara,” Julian said severely. He looked over his shoulder. The livid stain that passed for a sunset was bleeding quickly from the sky. A gusting wind flattened the grasses at the sides of the road. The predicted storm was on its way.

Mara shook her head. “They wouldn’t believe us. To the police he’d just be a sick old man suffering from hallucinations.”

“Well,” said Julian, “there is always the possibility that Joseph really is imagining things. Look, you’ve warned Christine off. If she did have designs on her father’s life, I doubt she’ll try anything now.”

“We can’t be sure of that. There could be a lot at stake for her. And Donny O’Connor, for that matter. Maybe that’s why Daisy’s been pushing to get Joseph into a nursing home.”

“Donny, maybe. But I honestly get the impression that Daisy is genuinely attached to Joseph. In her own way, I think she wants what’s best for him.”

Mara looked unconvinced. “Why do I have this awful feeling that Joseph’s life is hanging by a thread and I’m the only one worried?”

“You have a hypersuspicious mind.”

The phone was ringing as they opened the door. Mara shot a look of foreboding at Julian.

He raised a reassuring hand. “Probably just Iris,” he muttered, pushing past her. “With more bad news, I don’t doubt.”

Mara kicked off her shoes and unzipped her jacket.

“Comment?”
She heard Julian say. He continued in French, “Well, can’t you tell me now? All right. I’ll be right there.” He slammed the receiver down.

“It’s Joseph, isn’t it?” she cried out.

“No, it’s Osman,” he shouted, going for his car keys. “That was Betul. Something has happened. She won’t tell me on the phone, but she sounds really frightened. She’s asking for my help.”

•

The dogs shot out of the house ahead of them and into the van as soon as Julian yanked open the driver’s door. Mara, one arm in her jacket and struggling to insert the other, climbed in on the other side.

“This is crazy,” she yelled as the van roared up the road. “Christine is a job for the gendarmes, but the Ismets aren’t? Their son was up to his eyeballs in drugs, probably murdered by Ton-and-a-Half or his hatchet man, don’t forget.”

“I’m not likely to, am I?” Julian retorted grimly. Irritably, he shoved Jazz’s head away from its accustomed position on his shoulder. An exploratory nose, cold and wet, probed the back of his neck before the head, heavy and persistent, returned. He shoved again, harder. Grumbling, Jazz retreated and lay down on the bed of the van. A slash of lightning split the sky, followed by a great crack of thunder. Bismuth, shaking so hard that his teeth chattered, tried to burrow under the bags of potting soil.

“Julian, you’re speeding. Slow down.”

They drove into the leading edge of the storm, which arrived in heavy spatters against the windscreen. By the time they reached
Brames, ragged sheets of rain were blowing down the main street of the town. They parked in front of Lokum and raced for the entrance. Betul was watching for them at the door, her face a circle of white within her head scarf, her eyes terrified.

“Are you all right?” Julian asked as they pushed inside, dripping water on the floor.

“Yes, yes. It’s Osman.” Betul hardly took Mara in, accepting her presence without question. “I didn’t want to say on the phone. He’s been beaten up.”

“Beaten up? By whom?”

“He won’t talk. Just that it was two men. I think it has something to do with drugs. Please reason with him, Monsieur Wood. He’s upstairs. Make him see sense. Make him go to the police.”

She led them up the narrow stairs into their red sitting room. Osman sprawled on the divan. His eyes and nose were swollen. The front of his shirt was bloody and torn.

“Who did this to you?” Julian confronted the Turk.

“Go away,” Osman said, refusing to look at Julian.

“Was it Rocco Luca and his men? Was it Serge Taussat?”

“I don’t talk to you.”

“What did they want?”

“I am Turk,” Osman recited in a cracked voice. “I am correct, hard-working—”

Julian lost all patience with the man. “You’re a fool. Osman, you’ve got to take this to the police.”

“No. No gendarmes,” said Osman, looking directly at Julian for the first time.

“At least tell us what happened,” Mara urged, stepping forward.

“Who’s she?” Osman demanded suspiciously.

“A friend,” said Julian. He made a tardy introduction that neither husband nor wife acknowledged.

Betul went into the kitchen and reappeared a minute later with a cloth in a basin of steaming water. She moved a small table near the divan, set the bowl on it, and wrung out the cloth.

“Stupid,” Betul muttered as she bent to wipe her husband’s face. He flinched and pulled away. She flung the cloth into the basin. “Stupid, stubborn man. They will kill you. Then where will I be? No son, no husband. How will I live?”

“Is nothing!” Osman shouted with sham courage. “Is only fight. Racist thugs.”

Julian’s temper flared. “You’ve tried that racist line before, and see where it’s got you. Betul’s right. If this is about drugs, Osman, these people won’t hesitate to step up the violence. You got a couple of black eyes and a punch in the nose this time. You were lucky. Next time, you’ll end up in hospital, or—or worse.” He almost said: “In a garbage skip, like your son.”

Osman maintained a sullen silence.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Julian said. “Give me your phone, Mara. I’m calling the police.”

Osman lurched off the divan, knocking Betul and the bowl of water aside. He lunged at Julian but tripped on the fringed edge of the rug. Julian caught him as he went down.

“Why don’t you want the police?” he shouted over the Turk’s roar of pain. “What is it you’re hiding?”

Osman sagged. Julian let him drop the rest of the way to the floor. Betul was crying. Osman shoved himself up on his elbows and shouted something at her in Turkish. She shouted back. Osman groaned and slumped down again.

Betul turned to Julian. “He says he doesn’t know who the men are who beat him up, but they said they will finish him if he speaks to you.”

“If he speaks to me? Why me?” Julian exclaimed, startled.

“They think you are under cop,” moaned Osman.

“Undercover police,” Betul translated.

Julian and Mara exchanged shocked glances.

“They know you were looking for Kazim, and now they threaten to kill Osman if he talks to you. Then they will also kill you.”

Joseph has gathered logs, one by one, from the woodshed. He has found a large, empty feedsack and a length of rope, and now he is pushing the wooden table across the kitchen floor. The table is heavy and difficult for him to move, even though it is set on wheels. They roll with a screeching sound and catch on the uneven flagstones. Sometimes he has to shuffle around to the front of the table to lift it over slight impediments. His breath squeezes out of him in shallow gasps, his legs feel as if they are filled with wet cement.

The table is too wide to go through the doorway. He bends stiffly to tip it back so that it balances on two legs. The table’s weight nearly pulls him over with it. However, he lets go just in time. The table crashes onto its side. He leans against it, stooped and shaking and momentarily stunned.

By angling the table back and forth, he maneuvers the forward legs through the doorway. The wheels, adding length to the legs, make the job harder. Then, as laboriously, he angles the table the other way to accommodate the back legs. Now he is in the hallway, which stretches like an endless tunnel before him. He has to stop to rest. It is a mistake. Disastrously, his brain switches off, and his body freezes.

The freezing has happened to him several times in the last few months. He knows the name of this inability to move—akinesia—and it is one of the many indignities of his disease. He can go neither forward nor backward, and in this wavering limbo
his balance deserts him. He falls sideways, toppling like a drunkard to the floor where he lies unmoving, face down.