The Eden Inheritance (61 page)

Ingrid was staring at her blankly.

‘Lilli, you have lost your reason. You don't know what you are saying.'

‘Oh yes, I do know,' Lilli said. ‘His name was Guy de Savigny. Take a look at this, Ingrid.'

She passed the candlestick to Ingrid. For a moment the older woman refused to take it, as if shrinking from contact with confirmation of what Lilli had told her. Then, reluctantly, her fingers closed over the smooth silver, she glanced quickly at the base, then set it down.

‘You may be right.'

‘I'm sure I am. Anything else would be too much of a coincidence. It's a very unusual name.'

‘Yes, it is. So why couldn't Otto recognise it …?' She broke off. Perhaps he had never heard it. He had already been too ill to care about such things when Guy was engaged, and certainly when she had booked the air taxi for Lilli she had told him only that the pilot had a French sounding name. But certainly he had reacted strangely to that nugget of information. He had, she remembered, become very distant, lost in a world of his own. At the time she had put it down to the effect of the drugs, now, suddenly, she found herself remembering that those glazed eyes had not only stared into space, but also strayed around each and every one of the treasures, and all the while that slightly puzzled frown had remained.

Could it be that some sixth sense had warned him that the man with the French sounding name was somehow connected with his past?

‘But I still don't understand,' Ingrid said slowly. ‘ If this man is one of the same de Savignys, if he came here looking for your father and his family's treasures, why didn't he say something? Why did he go away again? Obviously, with your father dead he couldn't have brought him to justice, if that was his intention, but I'm surprised he didn't at least try to look for his family's heirlooms. If he had come here and seen them he would presumably have been able to identify them. Why didn't he do that?'

Lilli's hand flew to her mouth. Tiny cracks of light were beginning to illuminate her shock and confusion.

Guy had been here. He had seen the treasures – they had even talked about them – on the afternoon she bad almost drowned. But he had said nothing. It could mean only one of two things. Either he had not recognised them – or he
had
, and chosen to say nothing. Why should he do that? Unless … Unless …

‘I really think you should forget all about this, Lilli,' Ingrid was saying. ‘ Let sleeping dogs lie. Those things are yours now.'

‘No,' Lilli said. ‘They are not mine and they never have been. I am going to get in touch with Guy de Savigny and clear the matter up once and for all. Please don't try to stop me, Ingrid.'

Looking at her small, determined face, Ingrid realised with a sinking heart that further argument would be a waste of breath.

‘So,' Kathryn said when at last Guy finished his story, ‘you decided not to reclaim the family heirlooms because you felt sorry for von Rheinhardt's daughter.'

‘I suppose you could put it like that.' Guy's tone was hard. Knowing he would never see Lilli again was a constant weight on his heart and the fact that he was still certain he had done the right thing did not help. All very well to tell himself they could never have built a real relationship on a foundation of secrets and lies, even to know with the thinking part of his brain that it was undoubtedly true, he still could not get her out of his mind. His senses all remembered her with a clarity that ached in the night and the hardest thing he had ever had to do was try to forget her and get on with his life.

‘I couldn't hurt her any more,' he said. ‘I honestly don't think she could have taken it.'

‘What a wicked man he was!' Kathryn said. ‘ Not content with being responsible for God knows how many deaths in the war, he went on to peddle death and misery in the drugs trade. Well, at least he got his just desserts in the end. Except that it was too quick and easy for him. He should have suffered the way he made others suffer.'

‘Believe me, he suffered,' Guy said. ‘And in the end he saved my life, I hope you realise. The letter bomb in the box file was meant for me.'

Kathryn shuddered at the thought of what might have happened. But still she could not find it in her heart to be magnanimous to the man she hated.

‘He didn't do it for you, though. He did it for the girl. If she hadn't been with you he'd have let you be blown up and not lost a moment's sleep over it. I'm sorry, Guy, but you can't expect me to forgive him just because he inadvertently saved your life. If he hadn't been mixed up with such evil and dangerous people it wouldn't have happened at all.'

‘But it wasn't Lilli's fault,' Guy flared. ‘She can't be blamed for what her father did and I don't want her to suffer any more for it. She adored him. It would have broken her heart to know that besides being a drug-trafficker he was also a butcher. I wanted to leave her some illusions. Surely you can understand that?'

Kathryn was silent for a moment shocked by his vehemence. He was in love with the girl – that was what had effected the change in him. It was what she had wanted for him for so long – but why, of all the girls in the world, had he had to fall for Otto von Rheinhardt's daughter?

Revulsion filled her, a wash of emotion which owed nothing to logical thought, before, with an effort, she pushed it away.

Who was she to condemn anyone – much less Guy – for falling in love with the wrong person? Wasn't it exactly what she had done – and with dire consequences? At least Guy had had the sense to realise it could never work.

As for his reasons for not telling Lilli the truth about her father, they, too, seemed to echo the deceit she had practised on Guy. She had been desperate to spare him the knowledge of what his father had done too. And in that at least, it seemed she had succeeded.

‘Well at least there won't be a public trial,' she said quietly. ‘At least we shall be able to leave the past where it belongs.'

He nodded and they sat in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts.

‘What will you do now?' she asked eventually.

He shrugged.

‘Start looking for another job, I suppose. But I think I should go to France first and fill Grandpapa in on what has happened.'

‘You won't tell him, though, that you know exactly where his family heirlooms are?'

‘No,' he said, ‘I shan't tell him that.' His face was shadowed and once again Kathryn thought how changed he was in some subtle way. ‘I think I should be going, Mum. I'll come and see you again very soon.'

‘Please,' she said. The change in him seemed to have extended to mending the cracks which had appeared in their relationship when she had told him about her wartime affair – he had not mentioned it again and neither would she.

‘I'm glad things have turned out the way they have,' she said.

He raised an eyebrow. He looked, she thought, very sad.

‘I'm glad you are pleased, anyway,' was all he said.

Spring had begun to bless Charente with its first gentle touch. The trees were still bare but the promise was there in the softening of the air and the new green spikes which would soon blossom into early flowers. But the dankness of winter still hung in the vast and lofty rooms of the château, making its presence felt as soon as the pale sun sank in the weak blue sky, and Guillaume still shrank into his heavy tweed suit and warmed himself whenever he could in front of the roaring fires which blazed in the cavernous fireplaces.

‘Well, Guy, if I'd been you I think I would have stayed in the Caribbean until the weather was a bit warmer in this part of the world,' he said, stretching his long thin fingers out towards the blaze and rubbing them together to generate extra warmth. ‘But then, I suppose at your age you don't feel the cold as I do, with my old bones.'

‘No, Grandpapa, I don't suppose I do. Though it's still a bit of a shock to the system to be swimming in a warm sea one day and freezing in a European winter the next.'

‘So – you've come to tell me how you got on, no doubt,' Guillaume said, changing the subject. ‘Did you find the man your friend told you about? Was it von Rheinhardt?'

‘Yes, Grandpapa, it was. But he's dead now.' Guy related the story as he had to Kathryn, but omitting any mention of Lilli or the treasures.

Guillaume, however, was not to be so easily satisfied.

‘Did he have our heirlooms, that's what I want to know. I must say I was hoping you might bring them home with you. It would have been so good to see them again – and have them back here where they belong. Of course, it might not have been von Rheinhardt who stole them. There were others. But I always thought it was him.'

‘Getting into the villa wasn't easy when he was so ill,' Guy said evasively. His grandfather's obvious longing to have his treasures back was making him feel guilty, but the decision was made now; there could be no going back on it.

‘No, I suppose not. A great pity. Though he might not still have the treasures now even if he had them in the first place. He might have sold them years ago, before he made his fortune out of drug-trafficking. I imagine he needed a great deal of money to keep him in the lifestyle he was used to.'

Guy said nothing and Guillaume went on: ‘Talking of identification, there was something I thought of after you came here. I remembered some of the things were engraved with our name. Not all of them, of course. Many of them couldn't be. But some of the silver … the candlesticks, for instance … had our mark on them. Still, I suppose that's of no use now. Unless we could get in touch with the authorities who are investigating the island, of course,' he added, brightening. ‘ Perhaps they could get into the villa and see what's there.'

‘I doubt they'd be interested,' Guy said swiftly. ‘They are drugs enforcement people, not ordinary policemen.'

‘Ah well.' Guillaume sighed deeply. ‘It's probably all for the best. I never wanted von Rheinhardt to be brought to justice after all this time. Raking up the past would have done more harm than good. But then, I expect you realise that now that you know the full story.'

‘Actually, Grandpapa, I think you all made far too much of it. Collaborating in the early days was a very understandable thing to do. I don't think anyone would blame you too much, especially in the light of what happened later,' Guy said.

A faintly puzzled look furrowed Guillaume's brow. He passed his fingers lightly across his bloodless lips.

‘And what about the British agent? What do you think people would make of that? You do know about the British agent?'

Guy's face took on a shut-in look.

‘The one my mother had an affair with, you mean? Well, yes, I can see that isn't something you, or she, would want to be public knowledge. And I have to admit I was pretty shocked that she could betray my father in that way. But I don't suppose it would exactly make world headline news.'

‘Guy.' Guillaume hesitated. ‘I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing. In fact, I am not at all sure your mother has told you the whole truth.'

Guy found himself remembering his own earlier suspicions concerning his mother's absence when he had been a child.

‘You mean there's more? He wasn't killed and she ran off with him? Christ, no wonder she didn't tell me. She'd know how I'd feel about it, I imagine.'

‘It wasn't like that,' Guillaume said slowly. ‘I think I am going to have to fill you in on a few points, Guy. I am glad, of course, that you feel such loyalty to your father. But it must not be at the expense of your regard for your mother. No, I won't stand by and see that happen. We didn't always see eye to eye, Kathryn and I, but I admire her all the same for a number of reasons. Not least in the way she has brought you up and made your father an icon in your eyes, in spite of everything.'

‘In spite of the fact that she loved another man?'

‘No – in spite of what your father did to him.' Guillaume faced his grandson squarely, his mind made up that at last the full truth must be known. ‘Your mother had an affair, yes. The rights and wrongs of that could be argued by anyone knowing the way things were at the time, but I am not going to go into that now. Suffice it to say I cannot find it in my heart to blame her too much. But your father blamed her all right. He blamed her so much he betrayed the British agent to the Germans – and very nearly got you, your mother and your Aunt Celestine killed into the bargain. He didn't know, of course, that you would be there that night. But it was unforgivable, what he did, all the same. He wanted to see Paul Curtis captured and killed and he betrayed him to von Rheinhardt. A man who was here risking his neck to help us, and your father let his personal jealousy dictate his actions.'

Guy had turned pale.

‘Grandpapa – he couldn't!'

‘He did. He admitted it to me himself. The guilt nearly killed him. It did kill him. When he could bear it no more he gave himself up to von Rheinhardt, demanding to take the place of one of the hostages. It was an act of heroism, yes, but he did it because he could no longer live with the knowledge of what he had done.'

Guy was silent, trying to assimilate what he had been told. At last he shook his head.

‘But why didn't Mum tell me this? Why did she let me go on thinking …?'

‘She wanted you to respect him, Guy. And so you should. We are all human, God knows. None of us is perfect. Why should your father be any different? But it isn't right that you should canonise him and underestimate your mother. She is a remarkable woman.' He was silent for a moment, then he went on: ‘You know, of course, that she worked for the Resistance herself, I presume?'

‘While she was here – in France?'

‘No, afterwards. She worked for a special branch of the SOE, gathering information, making contacts, escorting out those who wanted to go over. I imagine she was perfect for the job, an Englishwoman who could pass as native French. She never came back here, of course, but I gather she came in and out of France on different missions at least six times. And you never knew?'