The Splendour Falls (21 page)

‘Sorry.’ I sat down, stretching out my own weary legs. ‘I went out rather early, for a walk along the river.’ I didn’t mention meeting the cat, or Neil – for some reason, that part of my morning seemed private and not for sharing. But I did tell Paul about Lucie Valcourt, and how we’d fed the ducks together earlier, and what she’d said about her uncle’s English friend.

‘Wow,’ he said. Leaning back, he absently rumpled his
hair with one hand. ‘So you think Muret might have been the guy who was supposed to meet your cousin here in Chinon?’

‘It certainly sounds like it, don’t you think? I mean, he could have read the journal article at Victor Belliveau’s house. They knew each other.’

‘Only everybody so far says he didn’t know English.’

‘I know.’ I frowned. ‘And I haven’t figured out yet why he would be interested at all in what my cousin wrote about. There are so many questions. I was going to ask Martine about it, actually. I went round to the gallery this morning.’ I smiled. ‘But it was rather too crowded to talk properly, and I’m not sure I would have had the nerve to ask anything, anyway. I mean, it isn’t done, is it? Not when you hardly know a person, and it’s her ex-husband you’re asking about, and he’s only been dead a week. Still,’ I told him, brightening, ‘I’m having lunch with Armand Valcourt, and he might be able to—’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Paul cut in, with an incredulous smile. ‘You’re what?’

‘Having lunch with Armand Valcourt,’ I repeated. ‘And you can wipe that smug look off your face, Paul Lazarus, because I really don’t—’

‘OK, OK.’ Paul lifted both hands in self-defence. ‘And it’s not a smug look, I’m just jealous, that’s all.’

Jealous? Heavens, I thought, he surely didn’t think of me that way, did he? ‘Paul—’

‘Hardly seems fair, you eating lunch with a rich guy while I’m stuck with cheese-on-a-bun and Simon.’ He grinned at me. ‘Where’s he taking you?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Somewhere disgustingly expensive, I’ll bet. There are a couple of gourmet restaurants down the rue Voltaire, the kind of restaurants where they have six forks, you know the type. What time are you meeting him?’

‘At noon.’ I turned my wrist to read my watch. ‘Oh, Lord, it’s just gone eleven now, and I haven’t even showered.’

‘Go on then, I’ll cover for you.’ He leaned back in his seat and reached for the tattered paperback. ‘Just remember your mission, Dr Watson.’

‘And that is?’

‘Get the man drunk and ask him about Didier Muret.’

‘Right.’ I smiled, and turned to leave. ‘Let’s hope he tells me something useful, then.’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t. I, for one, would feel a whole lot happier knowing there was no connection between Martine’s husband and your cousin.’

He didn’t need to tell me why. My own mind had already gone this route a few hours earlier, and reached the same unsettling impasse: if my suspicions were correct, then Harry had been here in Chinon last Wednesday, feeding ducks with Lucie and chumming with her uncle Didier. And by Thursday morning, Didier Muret was dead. 

He didn’t choose a gourmet restaurant, after all, and I only had to muddle through three forks, a simple feat recalled with ease from my days of eating at Embassy dinners. Except for the forks, my lunch with Armand Valcourt bore no resemblance to those plodding Embassy events.

For one thing, the surroundings were more comfortable. The restaurant’s dining-room was rustic, whitewashed country French, its deep-silled windows stuffed with flowers blooming pink and red in the slanting midday sunlight. Pine tables, artfully distressed in keeping with the country theme, were set at discreet intervals around the room, and the russet tile floor gleamed warmly mellow, spotless, at our feet.

They’d seated us beside the fireplace. Not yet in use, it too was filled with flowers, shell-pink roses mixed with ferns and feathered pale chrysanthemums. The smell of
roses, delicate, seductive, clung to every breath I took. It swirled around the scent of wine, the whiff of garlic, and the tender tempting fragrance of the shellfish jumbled on my plate.

Exquisite food, a charming ambience, and the close, attentive company of a handsome man who, if not exactly an aristocrat, was clearly near the top rung of the social ladder, as evidenced by the quietly respectful service we’d received. It was a shade surreal, the whole affair, which was perhaps why I felt so terribly relaxed. That, or the fact that Armand had twice refilled my wine glass.

He was holding out the bottle now, dividing the remaining wine between our empty glasses as he finished off an anecdote about his daughter and her bicycle.

‘She looks like you, you know,’ I told him. ‘Not feature for feature, but the smile is the same.’ We were speaking English, mainly I think because it gave us the illusion of privacy, encircled as we were by three tables of French-speaking patrons.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and looked at me. ‘You have no children?’

‘No.’

He didn’t push it, didn’t pry. ‘They are like nothing else, children. Nothing can prepare you for the feelings they create. You would do anything.’ He pried a mussel from its shell and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘I was not sure, myself, that I wanted a child, but when Lucie was born …’ He set his fork down with a shrug. ‘Everything was changed.’

‘It must be difficult, though, raising her alone.’

‘Not quite alone.’ He smiled, a smile that forgave my
ignorance of the privileged world he lived in. ‘There was a nurse, in the beginning, to take care of her. Then, when Brigitte died, Martine came back to live with us. And of course, there is always François.’

‘He’s been with you a long time, has he, François?’

‘A long time, yes. His parents worked for my grandparents, and François himself was born the same year as my father – 1930.’ He caught himself and winked at me. ‘Don’t tell him I told you this. He likes to be most secretive about his age. My wife said always François was like those men in films, you understand, the valet faithful to the family who counts their needs ahead of his.’

I told him I could understand her point. ‘He looks the perfect butler, and he does seem rather loyal.’

‘Perhaps. But he is more like family, François, and he stays because the vineyard is his home as much as mine. He does not serve without the questions, like the valet of the films, and if he serves at all it is because he likes the person he is serving.’

‘He must like you, then.’

Armand smiled above his wine glass. ‘I try his patience, sometimes, but this is natural for people who have passed a life together. Lucie he adores.’

I remembered the way François had watched his young charge by the ducks that morning, how his weary eyes had softened on her face. But even as I thought of that another image rose to take its place – of François staring, startled, at the laughing little girl. Seeing ghosts, he’d told me. For a moment I debated asking Armand if Lucie looked very like her mother, but then decided it might be easier to ask him
about Didier. If I could only find some plausible excuse, some way of leading him round to the subject …

Toying with my glass, I tried the indirect approach. ‘You said Martine came back to live with you when … when you were widowed. Where did she live before that? Here in Chinon?’

‘With her husband, yes. You know that he is dead?’ The dark gaze flicked me, moved away. He shrugged. ‘One should not be speaking ill of the dead, I know, but he was not a pleasant man, her husband. Already when she came to help with Lucie there were problems with the marriage.’

I nodded, pleased that my tactic had worked. ‘Yes, I’d heard they were divorced.’

‘Annulled. There is a difference, to the Church.’ The wine swirled like liquid gold in his glass as he lifted it and smiled faintly. ‘If you believe in that sort of thing.’

‘And you don’t, I take it?’

‘Me? No, I believe in the things that I can touch – my land, my family, old traditions and good wine. And you?’

I had to admit I hadn’t the faintest idea. ‘I’m a sceptic, I’m afraid.’

‘You have no religion?’

‘No.’

‘People, then. You must believe in people.’

‘People aren’t permanent,’ I answered drily, and he raised his eyebrows in surprise, a slow smile forming at the corners of his mouth.

‘You are indeed a sceptic, as you say. Tell me, did you always think this? As a child?’

‘Good heavens, no.’ I grinned. ‘I was the most believing
child that ever lived. I wished on stars and everything.’

‘So what has happened?’

‘Life.’ I gave the answer with a shrug. My last mussel had grown cold in its shell, and I pushed it away with my fork. How had we got on to this subject from Didier, I wondered? The conversation wanted steering back to more productive ground. ‘And Martine’s husband? What did he believe in?’

‘Money,’ came the answer, then he tempered his quick judgement with an even-minded shrug. ‘That is not fair, perhaps, because I do not know what it is like to be coming from nothing, as Didier did. He had, I think, an ugly childhood. Martine had money, so he married her.’

I found it rather difficult to imagine any man marrying Martine Muret simply for her money, but Armand assured me this was so. ‘It is the thinking of most people, of Martine herself. But then,’ he admitted, ‘most people, they think this is also why I married my wife.’

‘You?’ I stared, surprised. ‘But you’re …’

‘Rich? Yes, now, but when I married things were not so well for the
Clos des Cloches
. I managed badly in the early years, the harvests were not good, and everybody knew this. I’m not surprised that people think I chose Brigitte for money.’

‘And did you?’ It was too late to withdraw the question, however much I kicked myself for asking it. Already Armand was leaning back, head tilted, considering his answer.

‘In part.’ He smiled without apology. ‘This was no burning passion, between Brigitte and myself. It was more business, an exchange. She wanted a nice house, where she
could play the hostess, hold her parties. And me, I wanted a beautiful wife of good family. That she had money was one more attraction. At that moment, we suited one another, but later … I was sorry for her death, but I did not suffer with it.’ His smile softened. ‘Do I shock you? I should keep to the politics in conversation, or you will not come to lunch with me again.’

But he didn’t keep to politics. Instead he asked about my family and my childhood, so I favoured him with a few of the better anecdotes I’d gathered growing up a Braden. I finished with the one about the day Harry tried to burn me at the stake. We’d been playing in the garden – Joan of Arc, as I recall – with me strapped to the rose trellis for an added touch of authenticity. The blaze had been spectacular, and for a few long moments, while Harry was off looking for my father’s garden hosepipe, I had felt uncomfortably close to poor St Joan.

Most people laughed when I told them that story, but Armand looked rather shocked. ‘He is alive still, this cousin of yours? Your father did not kill him?’

‘No, he survived. He lectures in history, on and off, in London.’

‘I see.’ He smiled then, and leaning back he felt for his cigarettes. ‘Then I am glad you did not bring him with you. The history of my family, that is one thing, but the wars, the kings and queens …’ His shrug dismissed such trivialities. ‘I find them always boring.’

Here was my opportunity, I thought, to swing the conversation round again. ‘Your brother-in-law was quite the historian, though, from what I hear.’

‘Didier?’ The cigarette lighter clicked shut. Leaning back, Armand narrowed his eyes as the smoke curled upwards. ‘A historian? Who has told you this?’

‘I don’t remember,’ I hedged, keeping my voice light. ‘Someone at the hotel, I imagine. I thought they said he had a love of history.’

He lifted the cigarette and inhaled smoothly, but I saw the line of his jaw tighten. ‘You have been misinformed, I think. My brother-in-law loved nothing but himself. And money. Always money.’ His voice sounded hard. Didier Muret, I was learning, had that effect on people. ‘He couldn’t keep a job, because he stole. Brigitte, my wife, she once found him work with her own lawyer, for Martine’s sake, but it was no good. The money went missing there, too. Martine left him after that. She let him stay in the house, but he got no more money from her.’

Well done, Martine, I thought. ‘Actually,’ I went on, trying to make the white lie sound convincing, ‘I think it was young Simon who told me your brother-in-law liked history. They’d met each other once, I think.’

‘Simon?’ Armand looked sceptical. ‘The boy with the long hair, who came to tour my vineyard? But he does not speak French, not like his brother. And Didier, he spoke no English. They might have met, but they could not have talked to one another.’

‘I must have got it wrong, then,’ I said brightly. Three people had now told me the same story, and three people, I thought, couldn’t be mistaken. Which meant that Didier Muret could not have read my cousin’s article, would not have had a reason to contact him, had probably never
met him. What had Armand said that morning, about his daughter?
Lucie, she sometimes gets her story wrong
. And a duck named ‘Ar-ree’ was hardly the best evidence, I reminded myself with a wry smile. ‘It must have been some other Didier he was talking about. Simon’s less than clear in conversation, sometimes.’

Not that I was very much better. I really
must
go easy on the wine while trying to investigate, I thought. It took all my effort, as we left the restaurant, just to walk a straight line without tripping over cobblestones.

I don’t think Armand noticed. He strolled easily beside me, along the half-deserted rue Voltaire. I smiled when I saw he walked with one hand in his pocket, his cigarette held loosely in the other. Most French men walked like that. It was a sort of national identity badge, a wholly unconscious habit they acquired at some early age and carried till they died. In my younger days in Paris I’d often passed a lazy hour at the Luxembourg gardens, spotting the
français
among the tourists by the way they walked.

‘I have enjoyed this,’ Armand said, when we came out into the fountain square. ‘I enjoy your company. We should have dinner one night before you leave.’

It was a non-committal sort of invitation, and I responded in kind. ‘I’d like that.’

The light goodbye kiss caught me slightly off guard, I must admit. Things naturally progressed this way, of course, among the French: from smiles and nods to handshakes to
la bise
, the friendly double kiss, but they didn’t usually progress this quickly. Armand Valcourt, I thought, worked fast.

He was only a flirt, and a harmless one, and I was decidedly single, but still I felt a twist of guilty conscience. I cast a quick glance upwards at the hotel, along the row of empty balconies, to where the tall and graceful windows of Neil’s room reflected back the calmly drifting clouds. I thought I saw a flash of something pale behind the glass, but I might have imagined the movement.

I must have imagined it. The château bell was chiming three o’clock when I entered the hotel lobby – it was Neil’s normal practise time, but there was no violin this afternoon. There was only Thierry, looking very bored behind the desk. No, he told me, nobody was back yet. There was only him, and the telephone, and … He broke off, brightening. ‘You would like a drink, Mademoiselle? In the bar?’

I shook my head. ‘The last thing I need, Thierry, is a drink. I’m floating as it is. No, I think I’ll go upstairs and have a nap.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘The naps,’ he said, ‘are for old women, and for children.’

He was quite wrong, I thought later, buried deep beneath my freshly-ironed sheets and soft wool blanket. An afternoon nap was a glorious indulgence, tucked into the middle of a long and active day, with rich food and fine wine fuzzing round the edges of one’s drifting mind. I sighed and snuggled deeper.

Few sounds rose to drown the murmur of the fountain underneath my open window. Now and then a car passed by, or someone shouted to a friend across the square. Nearby a dog barked sharply and was silenced by a quick command. But nothing else disturbed the peace, the perfect
peace that filled my shadowed room. The fountain’s voice grew louder still, subtly altering pitch, becoming low and deep and lulling like the darkly flowing river to the south.

It was so close, that sound … so close …

It was beside me. I hardly ever dreamed, not any more, so I was rather surprised to find myself moving in that strange, disjointed way that dreamers do, not in my room but down along the river, where the plane trees wept like mourners in the wind beneath a grey uncertain sky. I moved with no real purpose, no true course. One moment I was standing on the bridge, and then there was no bridge, and I was sitting on the riverbank, my arms hugged tightly round my upraised knees. Across the calm water I could see my cousin Harry, pacing back and forth along the tree-lined shore of the little island. He wanted to cross, but without the bridge it was impossible.