Barbara Cleverly - Strange Images of Death

Someone pointed to a gesticulating figure enjoying the attention of a small audience. He made his way over and, smiling, asked her to step aside with him.

‘Better for all, I think, Miss Somerset, if you stop stirring up dissent in the ranks. It’s an arrestable offence in France.’

Caught in the act, Cecily hurried to comply.

‘Now, can you tell me if Dorcas is here? Or Jane Makepeace-she’ll do. I’d like to have a word with either of them.’

‘I haven’t seen Dorcas since yesterday and Jane …’ She looked about her. ‘ She seems to have been accorded special permission to come and go as she pleases. She’s appointed herself go-between for the guests and de Pacy. She was here before you called me in for interrogation. Can’t see her now.’

Joe cursed under his breath and began to look about him wildly.

‘Oh! Speak of the devil-here they come,’ said Cecily pointing to the door. ‘Your two birds together! I wonder what they’re hatching.’

Joe turned on his heel and hurried towards them. ‘Miss Makepeace,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I was looking for you. Hoping you can do something for me. Could you possibly establish a little calm around here? It’s all getting out of hand. Perhaps if you were to announce that everyone must stay here in the hall and be ready to hear a statement from the French police concerning their plans for departure, they might settle down.’

Jane smiled her understanding and began to clap her hands for attention.

‘Dorcas, with me. Outside,’ Joe muttered, pushing her back though the door.

‘Well? Did you get what I sent you for?’

‘No. It wasn’t there.’ She spoke quietly as they hurried along the corridor back to the office. ‘I looked carefully but I knew it was a waste of time. I mean, this killer isn’t going to leave evidence like that just lying about. Luckily for you I’d guessed why you wanted it so badly and how it had been disposed of. I was caught in the act though! Jane Makepeace came in while I was standing in the middle of the dormitory wondering what to do next.’

‘What did you do, Dorcas?’

‘What I always do. Made up a story. I pretended I was just beginning my search not ending it and asked her if she could point out Estelle’s drawers. I wanted to return a bracelet she’d lent me and didn’t quite know where to put it. I took it off my arm as I spoke. She recognized it. It actually was Estelle’s, you know.’ Dorcas produced a slim rope of coral beads on a string from her pocket. ‘I think it was convincing. Jane showed me Estelle’s empty drawers. The police, she said, had been in and taken all her things away. They’d been packed up in her suitcase for sending back to England. And then she told me-very kindly, I thought-that the beads were supposed to be a good luck charm. Estelle had clearly given her good luck away with the bracelet and she thought Estelle would want me to keep it. Don’t go bothering the Commissaire with a little thing like that, was her advice.’

Dorcas slipped the bracelet back around her wrist. ‘Just in case,’ she said. ‘But that certainly tells us where the thing you’re looking for fetched up, doesn’t it?’

‘Tell this to Jacquemin, will you?’ said Joe grimly.

‘Discipline’s completely broken down, Jacquemin. You really can’t keep them all here much longer. In fact they’ve given us a deadline. Four o’clock. Rather less generous than the lord, who specifies moonrise! The charabanc arrives then to take them to Avignon in time for the night sleeper to Paris. Orlando and his brood aren’t hurrying off-they’re planning a more leisurely take-off in the caravan. And Jane Makepeace refuses to abandon Guy de Pacy and the lord in their hour of need.’

‘I ought to make an arrest before the bus arrives,’ grumbled Jacquemin. ‘We’re not ready for this. We await the evidence of fingerprints from the lens cover and that’s about all we’ve got. They may not send it until tomorrow.’ He tore a clump of grey hairs from his moustache. ‘It’s no good-I can’t proceed without a confession.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Joe. ‘So-let’s extract one, shall we? No guns, no thumbscrews, I think you’ll agree? Lacking the scientific evidence, the only thing we have left in our repertoire is low cunning and deceit. I think we can manage that between us! But first, Dorcas has something to tell you.’

‘Look, do we have to have this child in the incident room? Send her away, Sandilands.’

‘No. You must listen to what she has to say.’

‘You’re asking me to unpack that lot?’ said Jacquemin, glaring at Estelle’s suitcase.

‘Sir, Forestier packed everything while I made an inventory,’ said Martineau, shuffling through a pile of papers. ‘I don’t recall any such item … Ah! … Here-look-items seven to nine in the clothing department. Brown skirt, black skirt, red print skirt. Any good?’

He dragged the case into the centre of the room and began the business of removing the strap and unlocking the fasteners. The packing was carefully done and halfway down he found what he was looking for. He held the garment up for inspection.

‘Folded up neatly in the middle of the pile with her skirts. Black trousers. Soiled on seat and trouser bottoms with dust and plant matter, sir. Lady’s.’

‘Tall lady’s,’ said Dorcas. ‘Here, let me show you.’ She held them up in front of her. ‘You see? You’re looking for someone at least six inches bigger than I am. And Estelle was quite small. Only one inch taller than me, I’d say. This pair did not belong to her.’

‘And how do you safely and discreetly dispose of an incriminating item in a building swarming with people … observant domestics … and the police expected any minute? You’re not going to start a bonfire or put them in a rubbish bin. No. You slip them off as though changing for dinner, kick them away casually under the bed, and you put them away later in the drawer of someone who is in no position to deny ownership and whose belongings are being shipped straight out back to England,’ Joe said. ‘Here, let me have a closer look, Martineau.’ He took the garment to the window and held it this way and that. He checked the label inside the waistband; he scratched at the fabric with a fingernail. Finally, he smiled and said: ‘Leave them available on the desk, will you? That’s going to be the first of my pressure points. The second … where did you put the lens cap?’

The Commissaire produced it in its envelope.

‘Fine. Now pass me that sheet of headed paper I brought back from the lab with me, will you? A clean envelope? Large one?’

Joe sealed the lens cap and the sheet of paper inside the envelope and asked Martineau to write the Commissaire’s name on the front in large, curlicued French handwriting. Satisfied with the look of his package, he handed it to Martineau. ‘This is where you’ll have to disappear for a bit, Lieutenant. Drive one of the police cars out of the courtyard and turn around. Dramatic crunch of running feet on gravel, please, and then, moments later, you bustle in waving this envelope. We’ll take it from there.’

Martineau grinned and went out, checking that the corridor was clear.

After a few more minutes’ consultation, Jacquemin stepped to the door and handed a chit to the two attendant coppers. ‘Your instructions, Corporal. At once, please, and to be carried out in that order. Straight into my presence, mind! No wandering off to be permitted on any pretext. Assume imminent arrest and take appropriate precautions.’

One of them was back, rapping on the door in three minutes.

Jacquemin opened it himself, all gracious smiles. ‘Ah! There you are, Miss Somerset. So sorry to have to haul you back in again so soon.’