David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘Would you say,’ said Powerscourt, ‘that his intentions were friendly or unfriendly?’

‘Unfriendly, Francis, definitely unfriendly.’

‘I’d better see if I can give him the slip,’ said Powerscourt, peering about him for ways of escape. Years of experience told him that there was little point in waiting for meetings with unfriendly powers. ‘You stay put here, my love, no point in the two of us falling into enemy hands. If it takes some time I’ll see you back at the hotel. It’s just round the corner.’

Some ten feet to his left there was a large double door. One half of it was slightly ajar, as if people inside were trying to keep an eye on the auction. Firing a fusillade of excusez-moi s and pardon s, Powerscourt slipped through the people in front of him and shot through the door. He disturbed a flock of nuns who had obviously taken temporary leave of their charges to watch the auction. He started to run. After a moment or two he heard another pair of boots behind him. He shot round a corner and almost collided with another nun, dressed in sober grey like the others, helping a man on crutches. Then round another corner and he was in one of the most extraordinary rooms he had ever seen. His impressions of the Grand Salle passed in a kaleidoscope of size and colour. An enormous room well over two hundred feet long. Fifty feet high and fifty feet wide. A great timber roof in the shape of an upturned keel. Gargoyles and monsters in green at the end of the beams. Ranged along the sides, fourteen to a row, long wooden compartments with beds covered in red blankets and white sheets, set back a couple of feet from the walls. In the beds, some sitting up, some asleep or dozing, some with their curtains drawn closed, the patients of the biggest ward of the Hospices de Beaune, the Salle des Pauvres, the Room of the Poor. Moving quietly around the huge space, the nuns, one or two carrying medicines, others helping the sick to the bathrooms, the lucky ones waiting in attendance on the doctors who sat by their patients and reviewed their treatment. Powerscourt thought it was the most unlikely place for a chase he had ever been in. But the footsteps were behind him again. The nuns at the double doors couldn’t have held the man with no teeth up for very long. He shot behind the left-hand row of beds and tiptoed slowly up the ward. An elderly lady peered at him indignantly from what he thought must be bed number seven or eight and was about to speak when he held his fingers to his lips and made the sign of the cross. That seemed to keep her quiet for the time being. He heard the footsteps, slower now. A man with both arms in plaster turned slowly in his bed and stared at Powerscourt. Powerscourt resisted the urge to write another message on the man’s plaster and tiptoed on. Halfway up the line of beds there was a break and sufficient room to let Powerscourt or a nurse through into the main thoroughfare. He tiptoed quickly into the gap and wished he hadn’t.

The man following him was walking quite slowly up the Salle des Pauvres, peering behind the beds on either side. Powerscourt could stay where he was or he could run. He ran. He shot up to the ends of the row, behind the beds with the red blankets, inspected in astonishment by the patients, one reading her missal, another inspecting herself in a mirror, then out past a painting of the Last Judgement on his left and into the next ward. This was much smaller, with half a dozen beds and some very ill patients indeed. Two of them were chalky white in the face and looked as though they might not last the day. Two more were asleep or dead already. Powerscourt sprinted on. Advancing towards him now was an elderly nun in the regulation grey carrying a tray of medicines. The tray seemed to be rather large and she was holding it well in front of her. When she saw Powerscourt she opened her mouth as if she was going to speak or perhaps to scream. Then, almost in slow motion, the tray slipped from her grasp and a whole flotilla of medicines fell to the floor, pills white and pills red, lotions, potions, mixtures, medicines of every shape and size. They slithered across the floor, forming a slippery sheet that might cause anybody coming her way to fall into this viscous soup of medicines. Powerscourt didn’t stop to find out if his pursuer retained his grip on the floor. He was almost through the next room which seemed to be filled with elderly women when he saw a phalanx of nursing power advancing towards him. In the lead, resplendent in white, was a formidable woman of about forty years of age. Powerscourt thought she must be a sister at least, maybe the Matron herself. She stared in disbelief at the running man come to invade her hospital and disturb the repose of her patients and then she began to speak in one of those imperious voices that have grown used to being obeyed.

‘What on earth do you think you are doing, charging round our hospital in this way?’ she began.

Powerscourt felt the time for serious discussion with nursing sisters or even Matrons was not now. Maybe another time.

‘Terribly sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Chap following me, you see. Very bad teeth. Maybe you could do something for him now he’s here. Can’t stop at the moment. Terribly sorry. Au revoir .’

And with that he was gone. He fled through a room where the walls were lined with tapestries and a sombre couple on the wall in Renaissance costume who were, he presumed, Chancellor Rolin and his wife, still keeping watch over their hospice after four hundred and fifty years. Behind him he could hear voices raised in anger. Maybe the man with no teeth had been arrested by the nursing sorority and was even now having his mouth examined. But he didn’t wait to find out. On he sprinted through the kitchens and here lay disaster. Lunch was being carried to the wards by a group of six nurses lining up two abreast to take delivery of the meals and carry the trays to the wards. Powerscourt noticed that chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables was on the menu today for those with the will and the teeth to eat it. But there was scarcely any room to move past the nurses. A grey stove was in the way with a steaming double oven between him and the wall. This was no time for dignity, Powerscourt said to himself. There was only one way out. He dropped to the floor and crawled through between the legs of the nuns, reciting the Lord’s Prayer as he went. He thought it might provide a diversion and stop them screaming. It wasn’t completely successful. A volley of Hail Marys followed him out of the kitchen and into a corridor. He thought he might have come round in a circle and emerged on the other side of the courtyard. He could hear the noise of the auction growing louder, punctuated by the enormous bangs of the auctioneer’s gavel and the cheers of the crowd who might, he thought, have been sampling the wares on offer. One small room at the end that might have been an office was dominated by sacred paintings on the walls and a trio of nuns writing things in enormous dark ledgers at high desks. They too looked as if they were about to speak but they were too late. Powerscourt was already opening the door. I’m through, he said to himself. Whatever was going on with that toothless youth is over. I can find Lucy at the hotel and we can do what we came for.

But Powerscourt was not through. He came out at the very back of the courtyard, closest to the door into the street. He couldn’t see Lady Lucy. The crowd were concentrating on the auction, many of them rather tipsy by now. He hadn’t known it but he was up against two or maybe more enemies on this day. As he emerged, blinking slightly in the sunshine, an enormous man seized him by the arm. Looking at him for the first time Powerscourt thought he was shaped exactly like a barrel with an enormous chest. He could have done sterling work in the front row of a rugby scrum. Powerscourt wondered if he had in fact been manufactured by some master cooper in his quarters in Santenay or Pommard and brought to life by the patron saints of Burgundy.