CHAPTER 47
DOMAINE DE LA CADE
Julian Lawrence waited until the chambermaids had finished the first floor before leaving his study. The trip to Rennes-le-Château and back would take two hours at least. He had plenty of time.
When Hal told him he was going out, and with a girl, Julian’s first reaction had been relief. They had even talked for a couple of minutes without Hal storming out. Maybe it meant his nephew was going to accept what had happened and get on with his life? Let his doubts go.
As things stood, there were loose ends. Julian had hinted that he’d be willing to buy his nephew out of his inherited share of the Domaine de la Cade, but had not pushed it. He had expected to have to wait until after the funeral, but he could feel himself getting impatient.
Then Hal had let drop that the girl in question was a writer and Julian had started to wonder. Given Hal’s behaviour over the past four weeks, he wouldn’t put it past the boy to try to get a journalist interested in the story of his father’s accident, just for the hell of it.
Julian had checked the register and discovered she was an American, Meredith Martin, and booked in until Friday. He’d no idea if she knew Hal or if his nephew was simply taking advantage of finding someone who might listen to his sob story. Either way, he couldn’t risk Hal using the girl to stir up more trouble. He wasn’t prepared to let his plans be damaged by rumour and innuendo.
Julian went up the back stairs and along the corridor. With the master key, he let himself into Meredith Martin’s room. He took a couple of Polaroids, to make certain he could return the room to the exact state in which he’d found it, then started to search, beginning with the bedside table. He went quickly through the drawers, but found nothing of interest other than two plane tickets, one for Toulouse to Paris Orly on Friday afternoon, the other her return flight to the States on 11th November.
He moved to the bureau. Her laptop was plugged in. He opened the lid and booted it up. It was easy. There was no password protection on her operating system and she had been using the hotel’s wireless system.
Ten minutes later, Julian had read through her emails – tedious, domestic stuff, nothing relevant – tracked her online trail through recent sites she’d visited, and looked at a few of the stored files. None of it suggested she was a journalist out for a story. Local history, mainly. There were notes about research in England, then very basic stuff – addresses, dates, times – about Paris.
Next, Julian went into her picture files, going through them in date order. The first few were taken in London. There was a folder of shots from Paris – streets scenes, landmarks, even one of a sign showing the opening hours of the Parc Monceau.
The final folder was marked Rennes-les-Bains. He opened it and began to peruse the images. These worried him more. There were several photographs of the riverbank at the entrance to the town to the north, specifically a couple of the road bridge and the tunnel at exactly the place where his brother Seymour’s car had left the road.
There were other photographs of the graveyard at the rear of the church. One, taken from the covered porch looking back to the Place des Deux Rennes, enabled him to identify exactly when they had been taken. Julian laced his fingers behind his head. He could just make out, in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture, part of the tablecloth on which the book of condolence had sat.
His brow furrowed. Meredith Martin had been in Rennes-les-Bains last night taking photographs of the funeral and the town.
Why?
As Julian copied the folder of images on to his memory stick, he tried to think of what innocent explanation there could be, but came up blank.
He exited the programme and shut the computer down, leaving everything just as he’d found it, then moved to the wardrobe. He took a couple more Polaroids, then worked methodically through every pocket, the piles of T-shirts and shoes, finding nothing of interest.
At the bottom of the wardrobe, beneath a pair of boots and a pair of LK Bennett spikes, was a soft black travel bag. Squatting down, Julian undid the zip and looked inside the main compartment. It was empty apart from a pair of socks and a bead bracelet, caught in the stiff lining. He pushed his fingers into every corner, but found nothing. Next he went through the outside pockets. Two large compartments at either end, both empty, then along either side three smaller compartments. He picked up the bag, turned it upside down and shook it. It seemed heavy. He turned the bag over again and pulled at the cardboard base. With a tearing sound of Velcro, the lining came up, to reveal another compartment. He reached in and drew out a square package of black silk. With his thumb and forefinger, he unfolded the four corners.
Julian froze. The face of Justice was staring up at him.
For a split second, he thought he was seeing things, then he realised it was just another reproduction set. He fanned them out to make sure, cutting the deck twice.
Printed, laminated, not the original Bousquet Tarot. Stupid that, even for a second, he’d thought it could possibly be.
He stood up, clutching the deck in the palm of his hand, flicking through the cards, increasingly quickly, in case there was something unique, something different about this deck.
There wasn’t. It appeared the same as the one he had downstairs in his safe. No additional words, no variation in the images.
Julian forced himself to think. This discovery turned everything on its head, especially coming on the heels of the information coming out of the Visigoth burial site at Quillan. With the grave goods, a slate had been found confirming the existence of other sites in the vicinity of the Domaine de la Cade. He hadn’t been able to get through to his contact this morning.
But the immediate question was, why did Meredith Martin have a reproduction set of the Bousquet deck with her? And hidden at the bottom of her bag. It couldn’t be coincidence. Presumably, at the very least, she knew about the original deck of cards and their association with the Domaine de la Cade?
What else? Maybe Seymour had said more to Hal than Julian had previously thought? And if Hal had brought her down here, rather than just taking advantage of meeting here, maybe it wasn’t to investigate the circumstances of the crash but to do with the cards?
He needed a drink. He was sweating, around the collar, under his arms from the shock of believing that, if only for a moment, that he was holding the original cards in his hands.
Julian wrapped the replica deck back up in the black silk, returned the package to the bag and replaced it at the bottom of the wardrobe. He glanced round the room one last time. Everything looked as it had before. If anything was misplaced, Ms Martin would put it down to the chambermaids. He let himself out into the corridor and walked briskly back towards the service stairs.
The whole operation, from start to finish, had taken less than twenty-five minutes.
