Barbara Cleverly: Strange Images of Death

‘But you’re not going mad, Joe. There was something moving up there,’ Dorcas agreed slowly, staring upwards. He noticed that she didn’t point and looked quickly away. ‘I caught a flash of something white. Up there in that turret. North-eastern, would that be?’

Her voice changed from calming to startled and she gasped as, with a clatter and whoosh of wings, a flock of birds soared into the air. They eddied and swirled and with one mind descended on a different turret roof. Dorcas exclaimed with pleasure and relief. ‘Well, you can come off watch now, Joe! But we weren’t wrong, were we? The lookout turret was occupied. By peaceful white doves!’

Joe smiled. ‘Yes, doves,’ he agreed.

‘And by whoever disturbed them,’ he added silently. He kept the thought to himself. The suspicion that someone had been covertly observing their arrival was vaguely menacing and he wished he had not risked transmitting his fears to young Dorcas.

He needed to take action. He needed to assert himself and shake off the menacing influence of his surroundings. He gave two peremptory peeps on the hooter and got out of the car.

The response was shrieks and excited laughter. Half a dozen children appeared from a dark doorway and came tearing over the courtyard. Three of them, two boys and a small girl, hurled themselves at Dorcas, chattering in a mixture of French and English. The oldest boy Joe could just identify as her brother Peter who seemed to have grown over the summer to eye level with Dorcas.

The boy released his sister from a hug and went to stand shyly in front of Joe. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he began his prepared speech, ‘for bringing her. We’re all just sitting down to lunch in the hall. Will you come? No, no! Leave the luggage. I’ll get someone to help with it later. Now, you’ll be wanting to wash your hands … But first …’

Well, things were looking up, Joe thought, noting young Peter’s helpful manners. The lad was shooting up in size. Slim like his father and blessed with Orlando’s distinctive thick auburn hair and fine features, he promised to become a handsome young man. In response to a sergeant major’s glare from Peter, the others formed up in height order for presentation.

‘Dicky, my brother, and Rosie, my sister, I believe you know, sir. The other three are … um … children of the household. All French.’ Peter made the introductions in their language: ‘ Monsieur, je vous présente: Clothilde, René, et le petit Marius … Mon oncle, Joseph .’

Joe shook a series of sticky hands and murmured the appropriate formulae.

As intrigued by the round-eyed French contingent as they were by him, he took the time to lean over and talk to each child in turn. He established that the fair-haired Clothilde, plump as a Fragonard cherub, was the daughter of one of the guests. She confided that she was seven and a half years old. The two boys, one eight and the other, le petit Marius, not quite certain of his age-or unwilling to confide it-were the sons of the cook. Joe rather thought, judging by the set of the jaw and the ugly glint in his eye, that Marius did not want it revealed that he was the youngest of this group and didn’t press him.

But Joe quickly understood that he was not the star of the show. His questions answered, all eyes now slid past him, drawn by the glamour of a motor car. With a conspiratorial wink for Peter, Joe invited them to do what they had clearly been dying to do since they came into the courtyard. He lifted them all into the car and Peter organized a rota for sitting in the driver’s seat and honking the horn. Distracted by the giggles and squabbles, Joe took some time to realize that Orlando had appeared and propped himself in the doorway, watching them with amused indulgence. He called out Dorcas’s name, held out his arms and she ran to him with a squeal of delight, hopping and chattering like a magpie.

‘Now-lunch!’ said Peter, remembering his lines. ‘We’ve got a rabbit stew … I hope you can eat rabbit, sir?’ he announced and led the way back to the hall.

Dorcas stood aside and turned to Joe, allowing her father to greet his friend.

Tall, handsome, stagily framed in the archway, Orlando stood ready with his easy smile. He was wearing his usual gear of corduroy trousers tied up at the waist with string and a rough cotton shirt dramatically smudged with paint. A red scarf of Provençal pattern was knotted negligently at his throat. All carefully worked out, Joe always suspected. A Punch cartoon could not have more clearly signalled: ‘bohemian artist at work’. But there was nothing studied about his welcome. The unmanly hug was rib-cracking in its enthusiasm.

‘Where the blazes have you been?’ Orlando wanted to know. ‘We were looking for you last week! In Champagne? But why? What kept you up there? Was it the local brew or were you intoxicated by your hostess? What was the name of the enchantress? Calypso? Circe? … Aline, eh? Well, come inside! Nothing fizzy to offer you, I’m afraid, but we do have a quite splendid red wine from the vineyard over the wall.’ He grinned. ‘And one or two seductive Sirens to divert the weary traveller.’

‘I say-I hope we haven’t fetched up here at an inconvenient time-’ Joe began.

‘No, not at all! This is really rather a good moment to drop anchor. We’re all in the refectory. You’ll find everyone at the table so you can get a look at the complete gallery. It’s the one occasion in the day when you’ll find them gathered together. Catch them between hangovers. And indiscretions. One or two stragglers yet to arrive but mostly they’re into their second helping of stew by now.’

Joe’s eye automatically sought out Dorcas as everyone began to troop into the building, and he enjoyed the sight of her picking up her little sister Rosie for a cuddle and carrying her on her back into the dark interior. Joe hung about ushering the others ahead and was the last to leave the courtyard. He turned and spent some moments staring with a residual unease at the summit of the watch tower silhouetted against a blindingly blue sky. On impulse, he sketched an insolent bow in its direction and went inside.

Joe entered the building with eyes still dazzled by his prolonged scanning of the midday sky and it was a second or two before he was aware of the figure coming towards him down the corridor. Dressed in black and moving on silent feet, the stranger made straight for him. Once within striking distance, the man grunted an exclamation and raised his hand, the chopping edge lined up on the centre of Joe’s face.

Joe’s reaction was swift and instinctive. He seized the outstretched arm by the wrist and tugged the man forward, jerking him on to his swiftly extended right foot. The unknown crashed to the stone-flagged floor, falling to his knees with a scream of pain. A second scream rang out as Joe yanked his arm up behind his back.

‘What the hell? For Chrissakes, lemme go!’ protested an American voice.

From the end of the corridor Orlando’s voice rang out, reinforcing the suggestion: ‘Joe! Let him up! Are you mad? What’s going on?’

‘Who’s your friend?’ Joe asked when Orlando joined them.

‘That’s Nathan! Nathan Jacoby. He’s staying with us. He was only coming to say hello.’

‘He has a strange way of introducing himself!’ Joe grunted, his anger blocking any embarrassment or regret. He hauled the spluttering American to his feet and addressed him in a tone of false bonhomie: ‘Look, mate, let me explain: if you come at a London copper down a dark corridor dressed like a lascar thug and stick a fist in his face, you must expect to be lifted out of your socks. In polite circles we put out a hand at waist level. Like this.’ Joe demonstrated. ‘How do you do, Mr Jacoby … I’m Joseph Sandilands … And I’m pleased to meet you,’ he added, remembering the American greeting.