PART VIII
Hôtel de la Cade October 2007
CHAPTER 63
TUESDAY 30TH OCTOBER 2007
Meredith saw Hal before he saw her. Her heart skipped a beat at the look of him. He was sprawled in one of three low armchairs set around a small table, wearing much the same clothes he’d had on earlier, blue jeans and white T-SHIRT, but had swapped his blue sweater for a pale brown one. As she watched, he lifted his hand and pushed his unruly hair off his face.
Meredith smiled at the already familiar gesture. Letting the door swing shut behind her, she walked across the room towards him.
He stood up as she drew close.
‘Hi,’ she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. ‘Tough afternoon?’
‘I’ve had better,’ he said, kissing her on the cheek, then turning round to summon the waiter. ‘What can I get you?’
‘The wine you recommended last night was pretty good.’
Hal ordered. ‘Une bouteille du Domaine Begude, s’il vous plaît, Georges. Et trois verres.’
‘Three glasses?’ Meredith queried.
Hal’s face clouded over. ‘I bumped into my uncle coming in. He seemed to think you wouldn’t mind. Said you were talking earlier. When I said we were meeting for a drink, he invited himself.’
‘No way,’ she said, keen to counteract the impression Hal had got. ‘He asked me if I knew where you had gone after you dropped me back here. I said I wasn’t sure. That was the extent of it.’
‘Right.’
‘Not what you’d call a conversation,’ she said, driving the point home. She leant forward, hands on her knees. ‘What happened this afternoon?’
Hal glanced at the door, then back to her.
‘I tell you what, why don’t I reserve us a table for dinner? I don’t want to start, then have to break off in a few minutes when my uncle gets here. It brings things to a natural close without being too obvious about it. How does that sound?’
Meredith grinned. ‘Dinner sounds great,’ she said. ‘I skipped lunch. I’m ravenous.’
Looking pleased, Hal stood up. ‘Be back in a moment.’
Meredith watched him walk across the room to the door, liking the way he seemed to fill the space with his broad shoulders. She saw him hesitate, then turn, as if he could feel her gaze on his back. Their eyes collided mid-air, held for a moment. Then Hal gave a slow half-smile and disappeared into the corridor.
It was Meredith’s turn to push her black bangs off her face. She felt her skin flush hot in the hollow of her throat, her palms grow damp, and shook her head at such schoolgirl silliness.
Georges brought the wine in an ice bucket on a stand and poured her a large, tulip-shaped glass. Meredith drank several mouthfuls in one go, like it was soda, and fanned herself with the cocktail list on the table.
She cast her eyes around the bar at the floor-to-ceiling shelves of books, wondering if Hal knew which – if any – had survived the fire and were part of the original library. It occurred to her that there might be some kind of link involving the Lascombe family and the Verniers, especially given the connection with printing through the Bousquet family. On the other hand, all the books could be from the vide-grenier sale.
She looked out of the window to the darkness beyond. On the furthest edges of the lawns she could see the shapes of the trees, swaying, moving, like an army of shadows. She felt eyes upon her, fleetingly, as if someone had passed just in front of the window and was looking in. Meredith narrowed her gaze, but couldn’t see anything.
Then she became aware that someone was in fact coming up behind her. She could hear footsteps. A trickle of anticipation slithered down her spine. She smiled, then turned, her eyes bright.
She found herself looking up not at Hal, but into the face of his uncle, Julian Lawrence. There was a faint smell of whisky on his breath. Embarrassed, she adjusted the expression on her face and started to get to her feet.
‘Ms Martin,’ he said, lightly putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘Please, don’t get up.’
Julian threw himself into the leather armchair to Meredith’s right, leaned forward, poured himself some wine and sat back, before she had the chance to tell him he was in Hal’s chair.
‘Santé,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘My nephew’s done another vanishing act?’
‘He’s gone to get us a reservation for dinner,’ she replied.
Polite, to the point, but nothing more.
Julian just smiled. He was dressed in a pale linen suit and blue shirt, open at the neck. As every time she’d seen him, he looked comfortable and in control, although he was a little flushed. Meredith found her eyes drawn to his left hand resting on the arm of the chair. It betrayed his age, late fifties rather than the mid-forties she would have given him, but his skin was tanned and his grip looked strong against the red leather. He wore no ring.
Feeling the silence pressing on her, Meredith looked back up to his face. He was still staring right at her in the same direct manner.
Like Hal’s eyes.
She pushed the comparison from her mind.
Julian put his glass back on the table. ‘What do you know about Tarot cards, Ms Martin?’
His question took her totally by surprise. Taken aback, she stared dumbly at him, wondering how the hell he’d struck upon that subject in particular. Her thoughts flew to the photograph she’d stolen from the wall of the lobby, the deck of cards, the tagged sites on her laptop, the musical notes overlapping. He couldn’t know about it, any of it, but she felt herself colouring up with embarrassment at having been caught out, all the same. Worse, she could see he was enjoying her discomfort.
‘Jane Seymour in the movie Live and Let Die,’ she said, trying to make a joke of it. ‘That’s about it.’
‘Ah, the beautiful Solitaire,’ he said, raising his eyebrows.
Meredith met his gaze and said nothing.
‘Personally,’ he continued, ‘I find myself attracted by the history of the Tarot, although I do not for a moment believe that fortune-telling is any sort of way to plan one’s life.’
Meredith realised how similar his voice was to Hal’s. They had the same habit of rolling their words as if every one was special. But the key difference was that Hal wore his heart on his sleeve, every emotion laid bare. Julian, on the other hand, always sounded faintly mocking. Sarcastic. She glanced at the door, but it remained resolutely shut.
‘Are you aware of the principles behind the interpretation of Tarot cards, Ms Martin?’
‘It’s not something I know much about,’ she said, wishing he’d get off the subject.
‘Really? My nephew gave me the impression that it was an interest of yours. He said Tarot cards had come up when you were walking around Rennes-le-Château this morning. ’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I misunderstood.’
Meredith racked her brains. Tarot had never been far from her mind, sure, but she didn’t remember actually discussing it with Hal. Julian was still staring right at her, a hint of challenge in his unwavering scrutiny.
In the end, Meredith found herself responding, just to cover the awkward silence. ‘I think the idea is that although it seems as if the cards are laid at random, in fact the process of shuffling is merely a way of allowing invisible connections to be made visible.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well put.’ He kept staring. ‘Have you ever had your cards read, Ms Martin?’
A strangled laugh escaped out of her. ‘Why do you ask?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Just interested.’
Meredith glared at him, mad at him for making her feel so uncomfortable, and at herself for letting him do it.
At that instant, a hand fell on her shoulder. She jumped, looked round with alarm, this time to see Hal smiling down at her.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to surprise you.’
Hal nodded at his uncle, then sat down in the vacant seat opposite Meredith. He took the bottle from the ice bucket and poured himself some wine.
‘We were just talking about Tarot cards,’ Julian said.
‘Really?’ said Hal, glancing from one to the other. ‘What were you saying?’
Meredith looked into his eyes, and read the message in them. Her heart sank. She did not want to get caught up in a discussion about Tarot, but she could see Hal saw it as a good way of keeping his uncle off the subject of his visit to the police commissariat.
‘I was just asking Ms Martin if she had ever been to a Tarot reading,’ Julian said. ‘She was about to answer.’
She looked at him, then to Hal, and realised that unless she could think of an alternative topic of conversation in the next couple of seconds, she was going to have to go with it.
‘Actually, I did have a reading,’ she said in the end, trying to make it sound as dull as possible. ‘In Paris, in fact, a couple of days ago. First – and last – time.’
‘And was it a pleasurable experience, Ms Martin?’
‘It was interesting, certainly. What about you, Mr Lawrence? Have you ever had your cards read?’
‘Julian, please,’ he said. Meredith caught a look of amusement flicker across his face, amusement mixed with something else. A sharpening of interest?
‘But, no,’ he said. ‘Not my kind of thing, although I confess I am interested in some of the symbolism associated with Tarot cards.’
Meredith felt her nerves tighten at having her suspicions confirmed. This wasn’t small talk. He was after something specific. She took another mouthful of wine and fixed a bland expression on her face. ‘Is that right?’
‘The symbolism of numbers, for example,’ he continued.
‘Like I said, it’s not something I know much about.’
Julian reached into his pocket. Meredith tensed. It would be too appalling if he produced a deck of Tarot cards, cheap. He held her gaze a moment, as if he knew exactly what was going through her mind, then pulled a packet of Gauloise and a Zippo from his pocket.
‘Cigarette, Ms Martin?’ he said, offering her the packet. ‘Although it will have to be outside, I’m afraid.’
Mad that she was making such a fool of herself – worse, that she was letting it show – she shook her head. ‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Very wise.’ Julian placed the packet, the lighter on top, on the table between them, then carried on talking. ‘The number symbolism in the church at Rennes-le-Château, for example, is quite fascinating.’
Meredith glanced over at Hal, willing him to say something, but he was sitting looking resolutely into the middle distance.
‘I didn’t notice.’
‘Did you not?’ he said. ‘The number twenty-two, in particular, comes up surprisingly often.’
Despite the antipathy she felt for Hal’s uncle, Meredith found herself being drawn in. She wanted to hear what Julian had to say. She just didn’t want to give the impression she was interested.
‘In what form?’ The words slipped out, a little abrupt. Julian smiled.
‘The baptismal font in the entrance, the statue of the devil Asmodeus. You must have seen it?’
Meredith nodded.
‘Asmodeus was supposed to be one of the guardians of the Temple of Solomon. The Temple was destroyed in 598 BCE. If you add each digit to the next – five plus nine plus eight – you get twenty-two. You know, I presume, Ms Martin, that there are twenty-two cards in the major arcana?’
‘I do.’
Julian shrugged. ‘Well then.’
‘I presume there are other occurrences of the number?’
‘The twenty-second of July is the feast day of St Mary Magdalene, to whom the church is dedicated. There is a statue of her between paintings thirteen and fourteen of the Stations of the Cross; she is also depicted in two of the three stained-glass windows behind the altar. Another link is with Jacques de Molay, the last leader of the Templars – there are supposed to be Templar links at Bézu, across the valley. He was the twenty-second Grand Master of the Poor Knights of the Temple, to give the outfit its full name. Then the French transliteration of Christ’s cry from the cross: “Elie, Elie, lamah sabactani” – my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me – has twenty-two letters. It’s also the opening verse of Psalm 22.’
This was all interesting, in a kind of abstract way, although Meredith couldn’t figure out why he was telling her. Just to see her reaction? To find out how much she did know about Tarot?
And, more to the point, why?
‘Finally, the priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, died on the twenty-second of January 1917. An odd story attached to his death. Allegedly, his body was placed on a throne on the belvedere of his estate, and the villagers filed past and each plucked a tassel from the hem of his robe. Much like the image of the King of Pentacles in the Waite Tarot, in fact.’ He shrugged. ‘Or, if you add two plus two, plus the year of his death, you end up with—’
Meredith’s patience ran out. ‘I can do the math,’ she muttered under her breath, then turned to Hal. ‘What time is our reservation for dinner?’ she said pointedly.
‘Seven fifteen. Ten minutes.’
‘Of course,’ Julian said, ignoring her interruption, ‘playing devil’s advocate, one could just as easily take any number and find a whole string of things that suggested there was some special significance.’
He picked up the wine bottle and leaned forward to top Meredith up. She covered her glass with her hand. Hal shook his head. Julian shrugged, then emptied the remains of the wine into his own glass.
‘It’s not as if any of us have to drive,’ he said casually.
Meredith saw Hal clench his fists.
‘I don’t know if my nephew mentioned it, Ms Martin, but there is a theory that the design of the church at Rennes-le-Château is in fact based on a building that once stood within our grounds here.’
Meredith forced her attention back to Julian.
‘Is that right?’
‘There’s a significant amount of Tarot imagery within the church,’ he continued. ‘The Emperor; the Hermit, the Hierophant – who is, as I’m sure you remember, the symbol of the established church in Tarot iconography.’
‘I really don’t know—’
He carried on talking. ‘Some would say the Magician is suggested, in the form perhaps of Christ, and of course four of the paintings of the Stations of the Cross have towers in them, not to mention the Tour Magdala on the belvedere.’
‘But that looks nothing like it,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
Julian leaned sharply forward in his chair. ‘Like what, Ms Martin?’ he said. She could hear excitement in his voice, as if he thought he’d caught her out.
‘Jerusalem,’ she said, the first thing that came into her mind.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Or perhaps like any Tarot card you’ve seen,’ he said.
A silence fell over the table. Hal was frowning. Meredith couldn’t figure out if he was embarrassed or had picked up the tension between her and his uncle and misunderstood it.
Julian suddenly drained his wine, placed his glass on the table, pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ he said, smiling at them as if they’d just passed the most pleasant half-hour in one another’s company. ‘Ms Martin. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay with us.’ He put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. Meredith could see Hal struggling not to pull away. ‘Can you pop your head into my study when you’re finished with Ms Martin? There are a couple of things I need to discuss with you.’
‘Tonight?’
Julian held Hal’s gaze. ‘Tonight,’ he said.
Hal hesitated, then gave a sharp nod.
They sat in silence until Julian had gone.
‘I don’t know how you can . . .’ Meredith began, then stopped. Rule number one: never criticise anyone else’s family.
‘How I can put up with it?’ Hal said savagely. ‘Answer, I can’t. As soon as I’ve sorted things, I’m out of here.’
‘And are you any closer to that?’
Meredith saw the belligerence go out of him as his thoughts switched from loathing his uncle to grieving his father. He stood up, hands buried deep in his pockets, and looked at her through clouded eyes.
‘I’ll tell you at dinner.’
