Strange Images of Death (28 page)

‘I can tell you exactly where the trousers went on their last outing. There’s a tiny Provençal plant growing on the south side of the moat where we found boot scrapes. It is very rare.
Thymus pseudolanuginosus.
Are you familiar with it? It is vestiges of this plant that we were able to comb from your trousers,’ he lied convincingly.

Jane Makepeace was convinced. But unimpressed. ‘I think you cannot have heard me clearly. Those are Cecily’s trousers. She wears the uncouth garments all the time. You must have noticed.’

Such was her bored confidence that Joe was silent for a moment. He picked up the trousers, examining them once again. He looked up to see Dorcas mouthing a number at him, and went straight back on the attack. ‘Miss Somerset’s waist size is a generous thirty inches, I’m told. These are twenty-four inches. Exactly the same as yours. In any case, not difficult—merely time-consuming—to check sales receipts from Harrods.’

A slight flicker of emotion across her face told him that she understood the seriousness of her position but she still refused him the satisfaction of a comment.

A car screeched noisily up to the window and a door slammed. At an annoyed glance from Jacquemin, Joe got up and closed the window again. They listened as feet pounded down the corridor. There was a rap on the door and Martineau came straight in.

‘Yes, Lieutenant?’ Jacquemin greeted him.

‘It’s here, sir. They’ve just driven it over from Avignon. Urgent, the sergeant said.’

He handed over an envelope to the Commissaire.

‘Ah! At last!’ Jacquemin exchanged meaningful glances with Joe and slit open the envelope. ‘From the laboratory.’ He studied a sheet of paper with an expressionless face, stared at Jane Makepeace for a moment and passed the sheet to Joe, ensuring that Miss Makepeace caught a clear glimpse of the police letterhead.

‘Now what have we?’ Joe began to mutter. He summarized for his audience: ‘The fingerprints lifted from the enclosed object were clear. Photographs reveal, apart from smudged prints—possibly those of the owner—one thumb and one first finger. The thumb provides fifteen distinct points of agreement with that of one of the people whose prints were sent in from the château. Fifteen! Remind me, Jacquemin, how many you require in France for a conviction. Twelve, you say. Will you show Miss Makepeace the object on which her fingerprints were so clearly evident?’

Jacquemin opened the smaller envelope and placed the lens cap on the desk.

‘You gave it to Estelle to hold. She still had it clutched in her dead hand on the pathologist’s slab. I told you the dead could speak, Jane.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Joe held his breath. If this was not Jane Makepeace’s breaking point, she didn’t have one.

The room fell silent, all eyes turned on her.

Pale with stress or anger, she rose to her feet and, ignoring Joe, spoke to Jacquemin in clear French. ‘This cap is the bit that comes at the front of the camera that Cecily’s so proud of. She didn’t exactly pass it around for the appreciation of the crowd—she is rather possessive and secretive about it. But I managed to get my hands on it on one occasion. If you’ve developed the film, you’ll have noticed a picture of a group of us posing in the courtyard. I’m on the front row. Cecily asked me to hold the lens cap for her while she took the photograph … she didn’t want to put it down on the gravel … always treading on it, she said. You can ask any one of the others who were there at the time. They’ll tell you. Of course my prints are on that thing! I’m always the one who gets asked to hold things, find things, sort things out! And now I’m being expected to bear the responsibility for this nonsense? Not on your life, Commissaire!’

Enjoying Jacquemin’s consternation, she drew herself up to her full height and with the cool, amused expression of a Greek Kore added: ‘And now I’m leaving to go about my lawful business. I suggest you get on with yours.’

Joe and Jacquemin looked at each other, unable to conceal a flash of dismay. Each understood that the case against her was so weak as to be laughed out of court in France or in England. Jacquemin had been right—a confession was essential. It was clear that nothing less would bring her to justice. It was equally clear that she would never deliver one.

‘No! Make her stay, Joe!’ A shrieking, stamping Fury dashed forward and blocked her path. Dorcas delivered to her face a torrent of cursing in Romany, as far as Joe could follow a word. ‘You’re a murdering, hard-hearted witch! And why,’ she turned to Joe, ‘do you keep saying she took
one
life? Doesn’t Estelle’s baby count for anything? Two!’ she yelled at Jane. ‘They were brought in as an offering—like a cat’s kill in the night. “There, see what a loving cat I’ve been. Blood on the carpet? You should be grateful. I did it for you … Pat my head and tell me how clever I am …” She can’t just walk out of here … Joe? Commissaire?’

Before they could speak she was rattling on: ‘Give her a choice. She can either make an oral confession here, at once in front of us, and then get straight into a police car to take her to Avignon or—’ her tone chilled and she spoke emphatically—‘we make her face a much more terrible authority.’

Joe was mystified. ‘You’re calling on God?’ he asked.

‘No! Divine retribution takes far too long. And the thunderbolts never land where you’d like them to land. Not God—Guy! You could summon Guy de Pacy to have an interview with her. Here in this room. When you’ve told him exactly what she’s done—leave them alone together. Let
him
ask the difficult questions: Why did you kill the woman I loved? Why did you kill the child I would have loved? Why did you think I would spend the rest of my days with a conscienceless killer?’

‘No! No!’ Joe protested. And, seeing his way through: ‘Impossible! Guy is wounded to the heart and suffering dreadfully. The words he delivered over the corpse of Estelle constantly come back to me: “I want this killer, Sandilands,” he said. “I want his guts. I want to see the light die in his eyes; I want to hear his last gasp.” He has a filthy temper. And—let’s remind ourselves—he’s something of a killer himself. We couldn’t leave her alone with him, the woman who murdered his child.’ Joe shuddered. ‘Out of the question! I won’t be held responsible! This woman’s ruined his life. In the grip of a red rage he would throttle her!’

Jacquemin picked up his cue. ‘It would be a
crime passionnel
, Sandilands. Crimes of passion! I am aware that we French are generally condemned for our too ready understanding and forgiveness of such uncontrollable flare-ups!’

He pursed his lips, shook his head and came to a decision.

‘Martineau, go and fetch de Pacy.’

Chapter Thirty-Six

Joe settled down at the table in the deserted hall with a cup of tea brought to him by Nathan Jacoby and, in return for the kindness, launched again into an account of the confession and arrest of Jane Makepeace.

Nathan’s reaction of: ‘Good Lord! I don’t believe it! But she was kind to Estelle! None of the others were. A fine woman, I’d have said,’ was completely at odds with the rest of the reactions he’d listened to. Everyone else, on hearing the news, suddenly put on an expression of omni-science. Of course, they’d always had their suspicions. She was just too good to be true, wasn’t she? Oiling her way into the lord’s confidence like that. And what a way to treat poor Guy who’d been so good to her …

‘A fine woman,’ Nathan had insisted. ‘Are you quite sure, Joe?’

‘She admitted her crime to the Commissaire rather than face Guy de Pacy and account for her foul act,’ said Joe.

‘But why?’

‘She loved him. As far as that woman is capable of finer feeling, I truly believe she did. For the first time—and quite late—in her life, she found a man she could admire. But I don’t think he would have come in for such close attention had he not been on the brink of inheriting all this.’ Joe waved an arm around. ‘She really fell with a bang for Silmont. And for the wonderful things it contained. For their own sake, I’m sure. Greed of a monetary kind was not, I think, a spur to murder. She handled the silver, the china, the tapestries every day … knew them better than their owner possibly. She wanted them for her own. Quite desperately. And was ready to sacrifice three lives she considered worthless to have them.’

‘Glad to hear you’re counting correctly, Joe.’

He turned to find Dorcas had come up silently behind them.

‘But it was very nearly four, you know,’ she pointed out.

‘Marius?’

‘Yes. When she found out he’d caught a glimpse of her in the chapel, she decided to get rid of him too, didn’t she?’

‘She certainly volunteered to walk the boys down to their grandmother’s house. And perhaps that was out of character.’

‘It certainly was! The boys can’t stand her. She could just have intended to question Marius on the way down and check that he hadn’t remembered anything incriminating. She was safe from suspicion as long as he held to the story he was telling everyone that it was a man who’d come into the chapel. In his village world, women just don’t wear trousers. And, being a tall woman, her feet are larger than the average woman’s. But had he heard her voice? She couldn’t be certain and had to find out.’

‘We’ll never know exactly what her intentions were. But what I do know is that you stepped between them, Dorcas, and put a stop to it. I begin to think you have a more insightful knowledge of the human mind than the psychiatrist’s daughter!’

Joe had waved goodbye to the charabanc party with disguised elation. He was staying on for a day, he told them, to catch up with his notes and help Commissaire Jacquemin. Orlando and his mob would be on their way to Aix when he’d finished a painting sometime in the next few days. Petrovsky and his merry band were staying the night also, held over not through duty but necessity. The diligent Martineau had taken it upon himself to crack open the boot of his grand car and discovered there many items of interest to the local PJ. Cocaine, rude pictures, even a rude ciné film in which certain faces at least were clearly recognizable. He and his party were being detained until the morning when he could give a full statement of his activities to the Avignon police.

And Joe had settled to closing down the murder case for any of those guests who wished to speak of it.

‘I’m hoping, Nathan, you’ll fetch up in London one of these days,’ said Joe. ‘Let me give you my card. We’ll spend a boozy evening remembering Estelle.’

He took out his note-case to find a card and the photograph of Laure and her friends slipped out. Nathan seized on it at once and began to identify and criticize the unknown photographer’s equipment and technique. The men were startled to hear a gurgling exclamation of surprise and amusement behind them.

A hand reached out over Nathan’s shoulder and took the photograph from him. ‘But how on earth, Mr Jacoby, did you come by this? I last saw one of these ten years ago on my mother’s mantelpiece. I hardly recognize myself!’

Joe turned to find Petrovsky’s duenna laughing down at them. ‘Nathan found it in an old postcard sale in Avignon,’ he invented.

‘That’s right. The fair in front of the Pope’s Palace,’ Nathan added, puzzled but gallantly decorating Joe’s lie. ‘I collect old photographs.’

‘Anyone you know on this, Madame … er?’ Joe asked with a show of polite interest.

‘Carla is my name. I know everyone! Gracious! How dreadful to be a collectable item! It’s my confirmation class. Can you guess which one is me?’ she asked with a touch of flirtation in her voice.

‘Easy,’ said Joe. ‘I’d recognize those handsome features anywhere. But it’s the feet that are the real give-away!’

‘I got a ticking-off from the other girls, I can tell you! Showing off and spoiling the line like that. And they were right—I
was
showing off. My parents could afford the ballet lessons, you see.’

‘And do you remember the names of the others?’

‘Of course! There’s the twins Babette and Berthe on the left. They married neighbouring farmers and I still see them from time to time. And my best friend, Marie-Jeanne Du rand, on the right. Poor Marie-Jeanne. She got into a spot of bother and we none of us spoke to her for years. Unkind. But after the War to end War, a little thing like a romance that turned sour seemed not so dreadful … water under the bridge. She’s fine now and I always make a point of coming up here to see her again when the company’s in the neighbourhood. I’d never volunteer for this tedious duty otherwise!’

Joe cleared his throat. ‘She’s still here in the region, are you saying, your friend?’ he asked in a strangled voice.

‘Of course. Like me, she’s much changed. Married—to a veteran of Verdin, widowed, two children … life leaves its mark. But she’s right here. And happy now. Come with me and meet her, show her the photograph. She’d be very interested …’

‘No, no! Thank you.’ Joe’s refusal was more brusque than he would have wished. ‘Water under the bridge, as you say,’ he murmured. ‘Kinder to let it flow away.’

A footman appeared and looked about him in surprise. No lord, no steward, no Miss Makepeace. His eye lighted on Joe.

‘Sir. The kitchen would like to know the numbers for dinner tonight. Have you any idea …?’

‘Make that eight adults and three children. That would be safe. What have we on the menu, Marcel?’

‘There’s
boeuf gardiane
. Oh, and cook told me to tell you, sir—she’s made a
soufflé glacé à la framboise
for dessert. “A bitter-sweet send off”, she said I was to say. If that makes any sense?’

‘Tell Marie-Jeanne it makes a good deal of sense, will you? Thank you, Marcel.’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Surrey, England, late September 1926

‘Lord! Rotten Bramley time again!’ said Joe, trampling over the windfall apples in the grass. ‘What are you doing, Dorcas, mooning about down here in a damp orchard? You ought to be indoors packing your trunk. Socks to be counted, pencils to be sharpened. Look—I’ve brought you the geometry set I promised. Aren’t you in the least little bit excited at the prospect before you?’

‘Of course! I’m terrified but looking forward more than I’m scared. Just. I was saying goodbye to my youth. It’s the right season for it, isn’t it? Every leaf that plops on to the ground reminds me. Four years of school to come. Intensive years. I’ve got a lot to make up before matriculation. If I want to get into Imperial College I shall have to work through every holiday as well.’ She turned a determined face to Joe. ‘I shan’t see you again for …’

‘Four plus three is seven,’ he supplied cheerily. ‘Seven years. I shall be in my dotage by then and you’ll be the one bringing
me
gifts. You know—knee rugs and mint imperials in a two ounce bag. How’s Orlando? I haven’t seen him since I got back.’

‘He’s well. Productive and hard at it. He’s got a show on in a London gallery in December.’

‘How lovely! You must get me an invitation.’

They stared at each other, their minds not engaged by the trivialities they were uttering.

‘There’s something I must ask you, Joe, before Lydia calls us in for supper.’

‘Fire away.’

‘You didn’t ever tell him, did you? That you’d found my mother? It’s important.’

Joe was silent for a moment. ‘No. I haven’t spoken of her since he asked me to stop my search. But how on earth …?’

‘She told me herself.’

‘What!’

‘I got to know her pretty well. She told me her friend Carla had unwittingly given her away to you.’

‘But how did
you
ever put two and two together?’

Dorcas grinned. ‘I found out the truth in five minutes. I felt very guilty, knowing that you were blowing a gasket, working on the problem. But I asked you to stop as soon as I could.’

‘Five minutes? What can you mean by that?’

‘That first night I spent at Madame Dalbert’s house, looking after the boys, they were a bit upset … you know … ripples from an adult world disturbing them. When they’d cleaned their teeth I offered to read them a story and sing a song or two. That’s always calming. The little one, Marius, bragged that he could sing in English. He knew a special going-to-bed song, he said. He started to sing.’

Dorcas shivered and Joe put his warm scarf around her shoulders. ‘I was devastated! He sang words to the tune of “Golden Slumbers”. Do you know it? It’s rather a dirge but an easy tune for children to carry.’

In her clear voice she launched into the old song:

‘Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,

Breakfast awakes you when you rise.

Sleep, Nanny’s dumpling,

Do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby.’

‘Dorcas, those aren’t the right words. Surely it’s “Smi-iles awake you” and “Sleep, little darling”, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right! You’ve met Nanny Tilling who brought me up? Well, you’ll know what I mean when I say she’s a bit eccentric. Over-bright to be a nanny, Orlando says. She was brought back out of retirement to help my mother look after me the first year of my life, before she ran away. Nanny was easily bored by stories and songs and used to invent her own happy endings and change the words to songs to make more sense. Those words were Nanny Tilling’s version of what she thought was a boring piece of nonsense. My mother learned the English song from hearing her sing it and she passed it on to her French children. Her second brood. Marius and René are my half-brothers.’

‘And there I was, chasing about, offending village priests, arm-wrestling news editors, and you knew all the time.’

‘I’m sorry. And, before you ask—I know about my father. My real father. She told me that too. I think she knew she’d never see me again so she made a clean breast of everything. And she was very concerned that I should know the truth about her leaving me squalling in my cradle. You’ve probably guessed—my grandmother! Orlando’s mother. God rot her! The moment I was weaned, she ordered my mother to leave. She chose a moment when Orlando was away from home, being treated for his lungs in a London clinic. If my mother refused to go, Grandma was going to tell the police that she’d stolen a necklace of hers. And with the attitude of the law being what it is concerning gypsies, she’d spend the next few years doing hard labour in Holloway. Either way, she was going to have to leave her baby in Orlando’s care since her son was unaccountably fond of it. Granny gave her a hundred pounds and told her to take the train out in the morning. My mother was alone, despised, friendless and very, very angry. She decided to go home to France and try to come back for me later. At least, that’s what she told me, but she could just have been saying that, couldn’t she?’

The slight appeal in her voice left Joe speechless and searching for an answer she could believe in.

But before he could flounder into a comforting formula, Dorcas rallied and decided to take a positive line: ‘Anyway, my mother showed a bit of spirit and—’ she gurgled—‘having been accused of the theft of Granny’s best pearls anyway—she took them! Made off with them and sold them in Paris. The money tided her over until she found employment in a hotel kitchen.

‘After the war, she went back to her home and was taken in again by her parents. She married a man, a local man who’d been wounded in the war, and they had two sons before he died. Her cooking skills were well regarded and when she was widowed and penniless again, the lord gave her a job in the kitchens at Silmont.’

‘She must have been mortified to catch sight of Orlando on the other side of the red baize door!’ said Joe.

‘Yes. That’s why she was so insistent no one should ever pass through it. And when
you
burst in regardless and announced you were an English copper—well, you can imagine the turmoil! She still expects a hand on her shoulder demanding the return of those pearls!’

‘Poor Marie-Jeanne! And I shocked her a second time, turning up with you in the kitchens. She was so overcome—now I realize at the sight of you, Dorcas—she collapsed. But she managed to recover herself pretty quickly. It must have been a trying time for the poor woman. Still, I think we came to an understanding, Marie-Jeanne and I.’

‘I think she rather liked you … Now listen, Joe! I’m telling you all this so you’ll see how important it is to me that you don’t get drunk and reveal all to Orlando. He’s as dear to me as any real father. I don’t want to distress him. And it would curdle things, cause mistrust, if he suspected I thought of him as anything other than my father. He’d be forever thinking I was about to run off on another wild-goose chase, looking for my own flesh and blood. Well, I’m not! I’ve decided flesh and blood’s overrated. Look at the trouble it caused at Silmont! I love the Dalberts but I knew when it was time to come home. To Orlando, Nanny Tilling, Yallop, Auntie Lydia. To the people I’ve
chosen
to love and who care for me. I think a child’s character is formed by the people around her, the loving faces she sees every day. She inherits their morals, their language, their physical gestures.’

‘There are scientists who would take a different view,’ Joe objected mildly.

She smiled. ‘I know. Nature versus Nurture. Which is more important? It’s going to be fun, Joe, acquiring the skills to answer such questions. Ask me again in seven years’ time and I may have a different tale to tell. But you do promise you won’t say a word to Orlando?’

‘I haven’t and I never will. Your secrets and everything about you are safe with me, Dorcas.’