David Dickinson - Death of a wine merchant

‘You’re to come with me,’ said the barrel, ‘and don’t make any trouble.’ Powerscourt felt what he presumed was the point of a knife jabbing into his ribs. He knew he could never win in a fight with this man. He would be crushed. As he was guided out of the courtyard he wondered where they were taking him.

Lady Lucy felt rather lonely when her husband disappeared through the double doors. She watched as the man with no teeth set off in pursuit. At this stage she was not particularly worried. She had seen Francis go off so often on strange missions but he always returned. She wished Johnny Fitzgerald was with him. He always served as guardian angel on these occasions. She had two indices of anxiety that she carried with her. One was the level of danger for Francis, rated on a scale of one to ten. Today in Beaune didn’t count for much more than a two or a three. There was another index, totally out of her control. This was the knot of anxiety that formed in her stomach when she felt he was really in peril. It grew tighter and tighter when she was really scared for him. So far the knot had not put in an appearance. There was another reason for feeling lonely here in the beautiful courtyard. Most of these people were countrymen. Their hands were calloused from working in the fields or hauling bottles and barrels around the cellars and the storerooms of Burgundy. There were one or two more sophisticated clients here, men in elegant suits with buttonholes who might have come from Paris or Lyon to bid for the great hotels and restaurants. But they were all male. The voices of the suffragettes and the marching protesters demanding equal rights for women did not seem to have reached Beaune yet. Everybody here this morning was male, every last one of them. As the shouts of the bidders grew louder and traded insults with their rivals, Lady Lucy slipped away to their hotel, the Ducs de Bourgogne tucked away in a little square a couple of hundred yards away. Francis would find her there.

Powerscourt was pleased to see, but did not show his pleasure, that the man with no teeth, who he now gathered was called Jean Jacques, must have fallen foul of the nurse with the medicines back at the hotel. His trousers were stained in a strange medley of colours, red and green and a chalky white. A strange smell, a compound of dispensary and chemical factory, rose from them. And he must have twisted his leg as he fell, for he was limping painfully. Powerscourt thought of suggesting that he should have stayed in the hospital but thought better of it.

They were joined by a third man, in his early thirties, with a mean face and a vivid scar on his right cheek. The others referred to him as boss at all times. Powerscourt felt sure that his rule was maintained through fear rather than brotherly love. ‘We’re taking him to the barn first of all,’ he said. The two others, No Teeth and Barrel as Powerscourt mentally referred to them, maintained a discreet guard through the streets of Beaune. Powerscourt noticed that one enterprising wine merchant had already filled his windows with bottles whose labels had Hospices de Beaune on the top with the titles of the particular wines, Corton Charlemagne or Beaune, underneath. The citizens, barred from the auction by the high entry fee or the lack of space, were making up for their loss in the shop, carrying off bottles by the dozen in enormous panniers on the front of their bicycles.

They were on the very outskirts of the town when Scarface took them off the main road and on to a little track that led through the fields. Half a mile away there was a farmhouse with an enormous barn fifty yards or so behind it. Just inside the doorway they halted while instructions were given. In the shadows at the back of the barn Powerscourt could see a very strange device. It was very old and looked as though it had survived from some earlier times. It was in the shape of an H or the goal posts at rugby except that the section above the cross bar was quite short and there was another beam of the same size just above the ground. And the beams were far thicker. At the top was a long beam, six or seven feet long and three or four feet wide. This beam was attached to the lower one, of similar size, running along the bottom of the H. Linked to the two vertical columns that joined the top and bottom were a series of short wooden arms that could be used to raise and lower the upper beam until it could touch the lower one if required.

‘ Pressoir !’ said Barrel with a note of reverence. ‘ Ancien pressoir! Formidable !’

Then Powerscourt understood and he was terrified. The device must have been used to press the juice out of the grapes in the olden times. The grapes would have been held in some sort of container, probably made of cloth rather than wood, and arranged on the lowest horizontal beam. The top section would be lowered further and further down to crush the fruit until all the juice was extracted. There must have been a series of buckets or other containers by the sides to hold the grape juice. Or, in a less peaceful world, a man could be squeezed or pressed between the two beams until all the blood had run out of his body.

‘Tie him up,’ said Scarface. ‘On the lower beam, naturally.’

In less than a minute Powerscourt found himself lying on the bottom beam, secured to the contraption with thick rope. He wondered what they proposed to do with the upper beam. He did not have long to wait. There was a series of grunts and curses as the two men tried to work the levers that would lower the upper section.

‘They’re stuck,’ said Jean Jacques. ‘Nobody’s oiled the damned things for a couple of hundred years.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Barrel, ‘they were working earlier this summer. Damn it, I saw them myself.’

With that he gave a tremendous heave. Powerscourt could see the muscles straining in his face. With a thick squeak the left-hand lever began to work. Looking at the beam descending towards him Powerscourt began to pray. Then, as if working in sympathy, the other one limped slowly into action. The two men looked on as the upper section of the press grew closer and closer to Powerscourt’s chest.

‘Hey, boss,’ said Barrel cheerfully, ‘do you want any juice this morning?’

The knot returned to Lady Lucy as she picked her way through a large helping of roast chicken in the hotel dining room. It was slight at first, the knot, then it gathered strength as her lunch progressed. By the time she reached the cheese it was as tight as she had ever known it. Where was Francis? Who were these people who pursued him into the Hotel Dieu and must be holding him prisoner somewhere by now? Why were they after him? As she reviewed the case of the murdered Colville in her mind she could not think of anybody who might want to harm her husband. Perhaps he had not told her about a whole new raft of enemies. Perhaps he did not know of them himself. Perhaps they had risen up from some old investigation years before, but for the life of her she could not think who such people might be. She wondered if she should go back to the hospital and ask the nuns what they had seen. Then she remembered what Francis had always told her. If I get lost or taken prisoner, he always said, don’t go charging round the place trying to find me. You may be taken prisoner too. Please stay put where I know I can find you. That will be for the best. And so, sipping at a bitter coffee, Lady Lucy sat in the dining room of the Hotel des Ducs de Bourgogne wondering where her husband was. She wished Johnny Fitzgerald was with him. Somewhere she knew she had the telegraphic address of her brother-in-law William Burke in London. He would be able to find Johnny but even if she sent the cable first thing in the morning when London offices would be open again it would be at least two days before Johnny Fitzgerald could reach Beaune. The knot seemed to be growing worse. Lady Lucy was determined about one thing. She wasn’t going to cry. Not yet anyway. And certainly not in the hotel dining room.