Barbara Cleverly: Strange Images of Death

‘Agreed.’ She accepted without thought, not bothering to ask what the fee would be. She knew he was just making pompous noises and he knew that she would break any agreement that proved not to suit her anyway.

He pushed on with his pretence: ‘So long as you’re hiring my detective services, I think I should insist on a clear client’s instruction from you. I wouldn’t want to discover you were expecting me to track down that silver bangle you dropped down a drain in Arles the year before last.’

Dorcas smiled. ‘No. I want you to find something much more precious, Joe. Something I lost thirteen years ago. I want you to find my mother.’

‘Well, according to the innkeeper, this village is indeed the one we’re looking for-Silmont. He gave me a very old-fashioned look when I asked for directions to the château. Made verging-on-the-rude remarks about the acuity of my eyesight and brought my English common sense into question.’ Joe waved a hand towards the end of the village street and grinned sheepishly. ‘Can’t say I blame him! It’s obvious enough, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Like standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square and asking someone where Nelson’s statue is. How embarrassing!’

‘Is this what you were expecting, Dorcas?’

She was sitting in the passenger seat where he’d left her, parked outside the Hôtel de la Poste. Clearly she was taken aback, as he was himself. ‘It’s not what I’d pictured. No, not at all. But then … you never know with Pa.’

‘All his geese are swans?’

‘Yes. People and places. You know … every vagabond he meets round a campfire is really an undiscovered genius violin player, every pretty waitress in a café is the twin of Kiki de Montparnasse … any house in the country is a château. I’ve learned never to expect too much. But …’

‘But this ? What are we to make of this ? If we’ve got the right place. It seems, for once, to be a true bill. The word “château” doesn’t go far enough. It can, indeed, mean any grand house in the country but this is a château-fort , no less! A castle. With all its imposing bits and pieces in place. Impressive! I’m impressed. Overwhelmed might be nearer the mark. Pass me the guidebook from the glove locker, will you? I think we should spend a minute or two getting this place in focus. Something so grand and ancient-it’s bound to get a mention.’

They spent silent moments looking down at the guide and up at the outcrop of rock, a quarter of a mile distant at the end of the village street. The crag reared up in front of them, proudly bearing the weight of limestone masonry that grew imperceptibly from the rock itself to take the form of an imposing fortress.

‘It’s not a bit like the Château Houdart, is it?’ Dorcas murmured. ‘That was welcoming, lived-in, looked pretty on a wine label. This is a jolly scary place, Joe!’

‘Machicolations, crenellations, canonniered arrow slits …’ Joe muttered. ‘Blimey! It’s got the lot. Put your tin hat on, Dorcas! And hope they’ve not boiled the oil up yet. A l’attaque! Yes?’

He put the car in gear and moved off slowly.

‘Is this the usual style of accommodation for one of your father’s artistic jamborees?’ he asked cheerfully to dispel her gathering gloom as they wound upwards under intimidating walls. Joe always tried to avoid speaking in a dismissive tone when discussing Orlando’s activities. Privately, he considered it the height of indulgence, an embarrassing bohemian flourish, this habit of congregating together with a coven of fellow artists to spend the summer months daubing away in each other’s company, stealing mistresses from one other, squabbling and boozing, conspiring to exchange one outrageous ‘ism’ for a newer one. Fauvism, Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, and now, he heard, Surrealism was all the go. Well, that at least seemed to make sense.

‘No. It is a bit grand. But his crowd will gather wherever some art-lover, some patron is kind enough-and rich enough-to offer them accommodation for a season.’

They looked up again at the château and Joe voiced the thought: ‘Some accommodation! I do wonder who the generous host might be? Any information on him ? I shall need to know to whom I should address my bread-and-butter note …’

Dorcas shook her head. ‘No idea. You’ll have to ask. But the artists always pay their rent! In kind, of course. You know-they leave some of their best work behind as a thank-you. They’re very productive. And artists are very generous. Did you know that Van Gogh never sold a painting in his life? He gave away more than a thousand of them.’ And, again, she hurried to defend her father and his chosen occupation: ‘But some of Orlando’s pals are getting quite well known in art circles. They’re being offered really high prices for their work in the Paris salerooms. Fortunes have been made. If anyone offers you a canvas while you’re here, Joe-don’t refuse it, will you?’

He promised he would accept anything he might be offered by any of the inmates with a convincing show of pleasure. And pleasure might be just what he experienced, he corrected himself, remembering the one or two attractive and unusual pictures Dorcas had herself been given by her father’s friends. He’d noted-and instantly coveted-one portrait of a dark-haired girl who could be no one but Dorcas, standing barefoot and windblown on a Mediterranean beach. The ugly scrawled signature at the bottom would have been unknown at the time of painting but Pablo Picasso was, these days, a name to be reckoned with in the saleroom.

After a noisy grind upwards in bottom gear, they arrived at a flat turning space in front of the entrance to the castle. Joe paused and put the handbrake on, reluctant at the last moment to commit himself to crossing the drawbridge.

The watcher at the summit of the north-east tower grunted in surprise. What was this? It could only be the brat arriving at last. In the company of the Englishman. But a hesitant Englishman? Circumspect and careful?

Lips curled in derision as the dark man jumped lithely from the car, bossily pointed a staying finger at his companion and proceeded to stroll over and subject the drawbridge to an unhurried examination. The underside was checked, the hauling mechanism inspected, the central planks stamped upon by a hefty English brogue and finally the man did what he should have done in the first place: he walked across and noted the presence in the courtyard of two vehicles heavier than his own tin-can conveyance.

‘Get on with it, man!’ the watcher yearned to cry out. ‘You’re already a week late and unwelcome at that! The way is clear before you-just deliver your package and get out. While you can.’ But curiosity took the place of impatience. This was surely a display of untypical behaviour? One would have looked for an arrogant charge across the bridge followed by the squeal of brakes and an uninhibited: ‘Halloooo the château! Anyone at home?’

The castle, over the centuries, had seen its share of English invaders and they’d never knocked politely. Roving gangs of masterless men for the most part, men for whom murdering, robbing and rape were a way of life. The dregs of crusading armies, they had deserted their cause to range unchallenged over a defenceless Europe.

Not quite defenceless.

The watcher smiled and looked to the west in the direction of the mighty Rhône. Distance, even from this vantage point, hid the gleaming towers of the fortress across the river from Avignon, but the image was easily and comfortingly conjured up: a white stronghold glowing against an ethereally blue sky, straight from the pages of a Book of Hours. And, farther yet, Tarascon, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Aigues Mortes. Defences against barbaric invasion.