In 1891, young Léonie Vernier and her brother Anatole arrive in the beautiful town of Rennes-les-Bains, in southwest France. They’ve come at the invitation of their widowed aunt, whose mountain estate, Domain de la Cade, is famous in the region. But it soon becomes clear that their aunt Isolde-and the Domain-are not what Léonie had imagined. The villagers claim that Isolde’s late husband died after summoning a demon from the old Visigoth sepulchre high on the mountainside. A book from the Domain’s cavernous library describes the strange tarot pack that mysteriously disappeared following the uncle’s death. But while Léonie delves deeper into the ancient mysteries of the Domain, a different evil stalks her family-one which may explain why Léonie and Anatole were invited to the sinister Domain in the first place.
PART VIII – Hôtel de la Cade October 2007
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
PART IX – The Glade October-November 1891
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
CHAPTER 82
CHAPTER 83
PART X – The Lake October 2007
CHAPTER 84
CHAPTER 85
CHAPTER 86
CHAPTER 87
PART XI – The Sepulchre November 1891-October 1897
CHAPTER 88
CHAPTER 89
CHAPTER 90
CHAPTER 91
CHAPTER 92
CHAPTER 93
CHAPTER 94
CHAPTER 95
CHAPTER 96
CHAPTER 97
PART XII – The Ruins October 2007
CHAPTER 98
CHAPTER 99
CHAPTER 100
CHAPTER 101
CODA
AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE VERNIER TAROT
Acknowledgements
1
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.’
2
CHAPTER 64
Julian broke the seal on a new bottle, poured a generous measure, then sat heavily down at his desk with the reproduction pack in front of him.
Pointless exercise.
He’d studied the reproduction Bousquet Tarot deck over many years, always looking for something, a hidden key or a code he might have missed. The search for the original cards had occupied him ever since he first came to the Aude valley and heard the rumours about the undiscovered caches of treasure buried beneath the mountains, the rocks, even the rivers.
Having acquired the Domaine de la Cade, Julian had quickly come to the conclusion, like many before him, that all the stories surrounding Rennes-le-Château were a hoax and the renegade nineteenth-century priest at the heart of the rumours – Saunière – was prospecting for more material than spiritual treasures.
Then Julian started to pick up stories about how a deck of cards revealed the location not of a single tomb, but allegedly the entire treasury of the Visigoth Empire. Perhaps even the contents of the Temple of Solomon, looted by the Romans in the first century AD, then in turn plundered when Rome itself fell in the fifth century to the Visigoths.
The cards were rumoured to be hidden within the estate itself. Julian had sunk every penny into trying to find them through systematic searching and excavation, starting with the area around the ruins of the Visigoth sepulchre and working out from it. It was difficult terrain and the effort was extremely labour intensive – and therefore expensive.
Still nothing.
When he’d exhausted his credit at the bank, he’d begun borrowing from the hotel. It was useful that the hotel was – at least in part – a cash business. But it was also a tough market in which to make money. The overheads were high. The place was still finding its feet when the bank called in its loans. But he kept taking money out all the same – gambling that, soon, he’d find what he was looking for and everything would be all right.
Julian drained his glass in one.
Only a matter of time.
It was his brother’s fault. Seymour could have been patient. Should have trusted him. Not interfered. He knew he nearly had it.
I would have repaid the money.
Nodding to himself, Julian flipped the lid of his Zippo with a snap. He took out a cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply. Julian had spoken with the police commissariat in Couiza just after Hal had left the station, who had suggested that it would be better if the boy stopped asking questions. Julian had promised to have a word and invited the commissaire for a drink the following week.
He reached for the bottle, pouring himself another two fingers. He cast his mind back over the conversation in the bar. He had been deliberately clumsy, hardly subtle in his technique, but it had seemed the easiest way to flush the American out. She had been reluctant to talk about the Tarot. The girl was sharp. Attractive, too.
‘What? What does she know?’
He realised the sound he could hear was the sound of his fingers drumming on the desk. Julian looked down at his hand, as if it didn’t belong to him, then forced it to be still.
In a drawer of his locked desk, the deeds of the transfer of ownership lay ready to sign and return to the notaire in Espéraza. The boy wasn’t stupid. He didn’t want to stay at the Domaine de la Cade. He and Hal couldn’t work together, any more than he and Seymour had been able to. Julian had been leaving a decent interval before talking any further to Hal about his plans.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said. There was a slur in his voice.
He should talk to her again, the American girl. She must know something about the original Bousquet deck, why else was she here? Her presence was nothing to do with Seymour’s accident or his pathetic nephew or the hotel finances, he could see that now. She was here for the same reason he was. He hadn’t done all the dirty work to see some American bitch come in and take the cards from him.
He gazed out at the darkened woods. Night had fallen. Julian reached out and turned on the lamp, then screamed.
His brother was standing right behind him. Seymour, waxy and lifeless as Julian had seen him in the morgue, the skin on his face scarred from the crash, lined, his eyes bloodshot.
He leapt up out of his chair, sending it hurtling back behind him to the ground. The whisky glass went flying across the polished wood of the desk.
Julian spun round.
‘You can’t be …’
The room was empty.
He stared, uncomprehending, his eyes darting around the room into the shadows, back to the window, until he realised. It was his own pallid reflection, stark in the darkened glass. It was his eyes, not his brother’s.
Julian took a deep breath.
His brother was dead. He knew. He had spiked his drink with Rufenol. He had driven the car to the bridge outside Rennes-les-Bains; struggled to manoeuvre Seymour into the driver’s seat; released the handbrake. He had seen the car fall.
‘You made me do it,’ he muttered.
He lifted his eyes to the window, blinked. Nothing there.
He exhaled, a long, exhausted breath, then bent down and righted the chair. For a moment he stood with his hands gripping the back, knuckles white, his head bowed. He could feel the sweat running down his back between his shoulder blades.
Then he pulled himself together. He reached for his cigarettes, needing the hit of the nicotine to calm his nerves, and looked back out to the black woods beyond.
The original cards were still out there, he knew it.
‘Next time,’ he murmured. He was so close. He could feel it. Next time, he’d be lucky. He knew it.
The spilt whisky reached the edge of the desk and started to drip, slowly, on to the carpet.
3
CHAPTER 65
‘OK, shoot,’ Meredith said. ‘Tell me what happened.’ Hal put his elbows on the table. ‘Bottom line, they don’t see any grounds for opening things up. They are satisfied with the verdict.’
‘Which is?’ she gently pushed him.
‘Accidental death. That Dad was drunk,’ he said bluntly. ‘That he lost control of the car, went over the bridge into the River Salz. Three times over the limit, that’s what the tox report claims.’
They were sitting in one of the window alcoves. The restaurant was quiet this early so they could talk without being overheard. Across the white linen tablecloth, in the light of the candle flickering on the table, Meredith reached out and covered his hands with her own.
‘There was a witness, apparently. An English woman, a Dr Shelagh O’Donnell, who lives locally.’
‘That’s helpful, isn’t it? Did she see the accident?’
Hal shook his head. ‘That’s the problem. According to the file, she heard brakes, the sound of tyres. She didn’t actually see anything.’
‘Did she report it?’
‘Not straight away. According to the commissaire, lots of people take the road too fast on the bend coming into Rennes-les-Bains. It was only the following morning when she saw the ambulance and the police recovering the car from the river that she put two and two together.’ He paused. ‘I thought I might talk to her. See if there’s anything that’s come back to her.’
‘Wouldn’t she have told the police already?’
‘I didn’t get the impression they thought her a reliable witness.’
‘In what way?’
‘They didn’t say it in so many words, but they implied that she was drunk. Also, there were no tyre marks on the road, so it’s unlikely she could have heard anything. According to the police, that is.’ He paused. ‘They wouldn’t give me her address, but I managed to copy down her number from the file. In fact . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I invited her up here tomorrow.’
‘Is that such a great idea?’ said Meredith. ‘If the police think you’re interfering, won’t that make them less rather than more likely to help?’
‘They’re already pissed off with me,’ he said fiercely, ‘but to tell you the truth, I feel like I’m hitting my head against a brick wall. I don’t care any more. For weeks I’ve been trying to get the police to take me seriously, sitting around here, being patient, but it’s got me nowhere.’ He stopped, his cheeks flushed. ‘Sorry. This can’t be much fun for you.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, thinking how similar Hal and his uncle were in some ways – both quick to flare up – then felt guilty, knowing just how much Hal would hate such a comparison being made.
‘I appreciate there’s no reason for you to take what I say at face value, but I just don’t believe the official version of events. I’m not saying my dad was perfect – to be honest, we didn’t have much in common. He was distant and quiet, not the sort of man to make a fuss – but there’s just no way he would drink and drive. Even in France. No way.’
‘It’s easy to misjudge that sort of thing, Hal,’ she said gently. ‘We’ve all done it,’ she added, although she never had. ‘Had one too many. Played the odds.’
‘I’m telling you, not Dad,’ he said. ‘He liked his wine, but he was fanatical about not getting behind the wheel if he’d been drinking. Not even one glass.’ He dropped his shoulders. ‘My mother was killed by a drunk driver,’ he continued in a quieter voice. ‘On her way to pick me up from school in the village we lived in, half past three in the afternoon. An idiot in a BMW, on his way back from the pub, tanked up on champagne and driving too fast.’
Now Meredith totally understood why Hal couldn’t bring himself to accept the verdict. But wishing things were different didn’t make them so. She had been there herself. If wishes were promises, her birth mother would have gotten healthy. All the scenes and fights would never have happened.
Hal raised his eyes and stared at her. ‘Dad wouldn’t drive if he was drunk.’
Meredith gave a non-committal smile. ‘But if the tox screen came back positive for alcohol . . .’ She left the question floating. ‘What did the police say when you raised that?’
Hal shrugged. ‘It was obvious they thought I was just too fucked up by the whole situation to think straight.’
‘OK. Let’s come at it from other directions. Could the tests be wrong?’
‘The police say no.’
‘Did they search for anything else?’
‘Like what?’
‘Drugs?’
Hal shook his head. ‘Didn’t think there was any need.’
Meredith thought. ‘Well, could he have been driving too fast? Just lost control on the bend?’
‘Back to the lack of skid marks on the road and, in any case, that doesn’t account for the alcohol in his bloodstream. ’
Meredith fixed him with her gaze. ‘Then what, Hal? What are you saying?’
‘That either the tests are fake, or someone spiked his drink.’
Her face gave her away.
‘You don’t believe me,’ he said.
‘I’m not saying that,’ she said quickly. ‘But think about it, Hal. Even supposing it was possible, who would do such a thing? Why would they?’
Hal held her gaze, until Meredith realised what he was getting at.
‘Your uncle?’
He nodded. ‘Got to be.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ she objected. ‘I mean, I know you don’t see eye to eye, but even so … to accuse him of …’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it, Meredith. Who else?’
Meredith was shaking her head. ‘Did you make this accusation to the police?’
‘Not in so many words, but I did request that the gendarmerie nationale were shown the file.’
‘Which means?’
‘The gendarmerie nationale investigate crimes. At the moment, the crash is being treated as a traffic accident. But if I can find some sort of evidence linking it to Julian, then I could make them reconsider.’ He looked at her. ‘If you would talk to Dr O’Donnell, I’m sure she’d be more likely to open up.’
Meredith sat back in her chair. The whole scenario was crazy. She could see Hal had talked himself into believing it one hundred per cent. She really felt for him, but she was sure he was wrong. He needed someone to blame, needed to do something with his anger and his sense of loss. And she knew from her own experience that however bad the truth turned out to be, not knowing was worse. It made it impossible to put the past behind and move on.
‘Meredith?’
She realised Hal was staring at her. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just thinking.’
‘Would you be able to be there when Dr O’Donnell comes tomorrow?’
She hesitated.
‘I’d really appreciate it.’
‘I guess,’ she said in the end. ‘Sure.’
Hal gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.’
The waiter came over and straight away the mood changed, became less intense, more like a regular date. They both ordered steak and Hal chose a bottle of local red to go with it. For a moment, they sat half looking at one another, catching each other’s eye, smiling awkwardly, not sure what to say.
Hal broke the silence. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Enough of my problems. Are you going to tell me now why you’re really here?’
Meredith went still. ‘Excuse me?’
‘It’s obviously not for the Debussy book, is it? Or, at least, not only for that.’
‘Why do you say that?’ It came out snappier than she’d intended.
He flushed. ‘Well, for a start, the stuff you were interested in today didn’t seem to have much to do with Lilly Debussy. You seem more into the history of this place, Rennes-les-Bains, and the people here.’ He grinned. ‘Also, I noticed that the photograph hanging above the piano has disappeared. Someone’s borrowed it.’
‘You think I took it?’
‘You were looking at it this morning, so . . .’ he said, pulling an apologetic smile. ‘And, well, with my uncle . . . I don’t know, probably my mistake, but I got the idea you might be here checking up on him . . . You certainly didn’t seem to like each other.’
He stumbled to a standstill.
‘You think I’m here to check up on your uncle? You’re kidding, right?’
‘Well, possibly, maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, no.’
She took a sip of her wine.
‘I didn’t mean to offend—’
Meredith held up her hand. ‘Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Because you don’t believe your father’s accident was, in fact, an accident, and because you think the results might have been tampered with or his drink was spiked and the car forced from the road—’
‘Yes, although—’
‘Bottom line, you suspect your uncle was involved in your father’s death. Right?’
‘Well, put like that, it sounds—’
Meredith kept right on talking, her voice rising. ‘And so because of all this, for some crazy reason, when I turn up you jump to the conclusion that I’m somehow involved? Is that what you think, Hal? That I’m some kind of, what, Nancy Drew?’
She sat back in her chair and stared at him.
He had the grace to blush. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you,’ he said. ‘But, well, it was something Dad said in April – after that conversation I was telling you about earlier – that gave me the impression that he was unhappy with the way Julian was running things out here and was going to do something. ’
‘If that was the case, wouldn’t your father have just come right out and told you? If there was a problem, it would have affected you too.’
Hal shook his head. ‘Dad wasn’t like that. He hated gossip, rumour. He’d never say anything, even to me, until he was completely certain of his facts. Innocent until proved guilty.’
Meredith thought about it. ‘OK, I can see that. But you still picked up on the feeling something was wrong between them?’
‘It might have been something trivial, but I got the impression it was serious. Something to do with the Domaine de la Cade and its history, not just money.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry, Meredith, I’m not being clear.’
‘He didn’t leave you anything? A file? Notes?’
‘Believe me, I’ve looked everywhere. There’s nothing.’
‘And when you put all this together, you started to think he might have employed someone to dig around your uncle. See if anything turned up.’ She stopped, looked at him across the table. ‘Why didn’t you just ask me?’ she said, eyes flashing angrily, although she could see perfectly well why not.
‘Well, because I only started to think you might be here for . . . because of my dad when I was thinking about it this afternoon.’
Meredith folded her arms. ‘So it’s not why you started talking to me in the bar last night?’
‘No, of course not!’ he said, looking genuinely appalled.
‘Then why?’ she demanded.
Hal turned red. ‘Christ, Meredith, you know why. It’s obvious enough.’
This time, it was Meredith’s turn to blush.
4
CHAPTER 66
Hal insisted on signing for dinner. As she watched him, Meredith wondered if his uncle would make him settle up, given he technically owned half the place. Straight off, her worries for him came flooding back.
They left the restaurant and walked out into the lobby. At the bottom of the staircase, Meredith felt Hal’s fingers wrap around hers.
Hand in silent hand, they walked up the stairs. Meredith felt totally calm, not nervous or ambivalent at all. She didn’t have to think about whether this was what she wanted. It felt good. They didn’t even need to discuss where to go, automatically both understanding that Meredith’s room was better. Right for them, right now.
They reached the end of the first-floor passageway without bumping into any other guests. Meredith turned the key, loud in the hushed corridor, and pushed open the door. Almost formal, they walked in still holding hands.
Slats of white light from a harvest moon shone in through the windows and patterned the surface of the floor. Rays refracted and glinted on the reflective surface of the mirror, on the glass of the framed portrait of Anatole and Léonie Vernier and Isolde Lascombe, propped on the desk.
Meredith reached out to put on the light.
‘Don’t,’ Hal said quietly.
He cupped his hand behind her head and drew her to him. Meredith breathed in the smell of him, just like at Rennes-les-Bains outside the church, a mixture of wool and soap.
They kissed, their lips carrying the trace of red wine, softly at first, tentatively, the mark of friendship moving into something else, something more urgent. Meredith felt comfort give way to desire, a heat that spread through her, up from the soles of her feet, between her legs, the pit of her stomach, the palms of her hand, to a rush of blood to the head.
Hal bent over and picked her up, sweeping her into his arms in one movement, and carrying her to the bed. The key dropped from Meredith’s hand, landing with a heavy thump on the thick pile carpet.
‘You’re so light,’ he whispered, kissing her neck.
He placed her carefully down, then sat beside her, his feet still firmly planted on the floor, like a Hollywood matinée idol under fear of the censor.
‘Are you . . .’ he started, stopped, then tried again. ‘Are you sure you want—’
Meredith laid a single finger across his mouth. ‘Ssshh.’
Slowly she began to undo the buttons of her shirt, then guided his hand to her. Half invitation, half instruction. She heard Hal catch his breath and then the rise and fall of his breathing in the dappled silver light of the room. Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the mahogany bed, Meredith leant forward to kiss him, her dark hair falling over her face, the difference in their heights eliminated now.
Hal struggled to remove his sweater and became tangled as Meredith pushed her hands beneath the cotton of his T-SHIRT. They both laughed, a little shy, then stood up to finish undressing.
Meredith didn’t feel self-conscious. It seemed totally natural, the right thing to do. Being in Rennes-les-Bains, all of it felt like time out of time. As if for a few days she had stepped out of her regular life – the person she was, thinking of consequences, life running on in the same kind of way – to a place where different rules applied.
She removed her last piece of clothing.
‘Wow,’ Hal said.
Meredith took a step towards him, their bare skin touching, top to toe, so intimate, so startling. She could feel how much he wanted her, but he was happy to wait, to let her lead the way.
She took his hand and pulled him back to the bed. She lifted up the covers and they slipped in between the sheets, the linen crisp and cool and impersonal against the heat generated by their bodies. For a moment they lay side by side, arm to arm, like a knight and his lady on a stone tomb, then Hal propped himself on one elbow and with his other hand started to stroke her head.
Meredith breathed deeply, relaxing under his touch. Now his hand was moving lower, smoothing over her shoulders, the hollow of her throat, skimming her breasts, winding her fingers with his, his lips and his tongue whispering over the surface of her skin.
Meredith felt desire burn in her, red hot, as if she could trace it along the lines of her veins, her arteries, her bones, every part of her. She raised herself towards him, her kisses hungry now, wanting more. Just when the waiting was becoming intolerable, Hal shifted position and lowered himself into the space between her naked legs. Meredith looked up into his ice-blue eyes and saw every possibility reflected, for an instant, in them. The best of her, and the worst.
‘You’re sure?’
Meredith smiled and reached down to guide him. Carefully, Hal eased himself inside her.
‘It’s OK,’ she murmured.
For a moment they lay still, celebrating the peace of being in one another’s arms. Then Hal began to move, slowly at first, then a little more urgently. Meredith placed her hands firmly on his back, her body filled with the hammering of her own blood running through her. She could feel the power of him, the strength in his arms and hands. Her tongue darted between his lips, wet and devoid of speech.
Hal was breathing harder, moving harder, as desire, need, the ecstasy of the automatic movement drove him on. Meredith held him to her, tighter, rising to meet him, possessing him, also caught by the moment. He cried out her name, shuddered, and they both fell still.
The rushing in her head faded away. She felt the full weight of him come back, squeezing the air from her body, but she did not move. She stroked his thick black hair and held him in her arms. It was a moment before she realised his face was wet, that he was silently crying.
‘Oh, Hal,’ she murmured in pity.
‘Tell me something about yourself,’ he said a little later. ‘You know so much about me, what I’m doing here – too much probably – but I know next to nothing about you, Ms Martin.’
Meredith laughed. ‘How very formal, Mr Lawrence,’ she said, moving her hand across his chest and lower.
Hal grabbed her fingers. ‘I’m serious! I don’t even know where you live. Where you come from. What your parents do. Come on, tell.’
Meredith knitted her fingers through his. ‘OK. One résumé coming right up. I grew up in Milwaukee, stayed there until I was eighteen, then went to college in North Carolina. I stayed on and did postgrad research there, had a couple of teaching jobs at graduate colleges – one in St Louis, one outside Seattle – all the time trying to get funding to finish my Debussy biography. Fast-forward a couple of years. My adoptive parents upped sticks, left Milwaukee and moved to Chapel Hill, close by my old college. Earlier this year I was offered a job in a private college not far from UNC and, at last, a publishing deal.’
‘Adoptive parents?’ said Hal.
Meredith sighed. ‘My birth mother, Jeanette, was not able to take care of me. Mary is a distant cousin, a kind of aunt a couple of times removed. I’d spent time with them, on and off, when Jeanette was sick. When things finally got too bad, I went to live with them for good. They formally adopted me a couple of years later, when my birth mom . . . died.’
The plain, carefully chosen words did not do justice to the years of late-night phone calls, the unannounced visits, the shouting in the street, the burden of responsibility the child Meredith had felt for her damaged and volatile mother. Nor did her matter-of-fact recitation of the facts hint at the guilt she carried with her still, all these years later, that her first reaction on hearing her mother was dead was not that of grief, but relief.
She couldn’t forgive herself for that.
‘Sounds tough,’ Hal said.
Meredith smiled at his British understatement and shifted closer against his warm body beside her in the bed.
‘I was lucky,’ she said. ‘Mary is an amazing lady. It was she who got me started on the violin, then the piano. I owe everything to her and Bill.’
He grinned. ‘So you really are writing a biography of Debussy?’ he teased.
Meredith hit him playfully on the arm. ‘Sure am!’
For a moment, they lay in companionable silence, still and touching.
‘But there is something more to you being here than that,’ Hal said in the end. He turned his head on the pillow towards the framed portrait across the other side of the room. ‘I’m not wrong about that, am I?’
Meredith sat up, pulling the sheet up with her, so only her shoulders were uncovered.
‘No, you’re not wrong.’
Picking up she wasn’t quite ready to speak, Hal sat up too and swung his legs to the floor. ‘Is there anything I can get you? A drink? Anything?’
‘A glass of water would be good,’ she said.
She watched as he disappeared into the bathroom, emerging seconds later with two tooth mugs, then grabbed a couple of bottles from the minibar, before climbing back into bed.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks,’ Meredith said, taking a mouthful from the bottle. ‘Until now, all I knew about my birth mother’s family was that they might have come from this part of France, during – or just after – World War I and settled in America. I have a photograph of, I’m pretty sure, my great-grandfather, in French army uniform, taken in the square in Rennes-les-Bains in 1914. The story was he ended up in Milwaukee, but since I didn’t have a name, I couldn’t get much further. The city had a large European population from the early nineteenth century. The first permanent European resident was a French trader, Jacques Veau, who established a trading post on the bluffs where the three rivers, the Milwaukee, the Menomonee and the Kinnickinnic, meet. So, it was plausible enough.’
For the next few minutes, she gave Hal a skeleton version of what she’d discovered since arriving at the Domaine de la Cade, keeping to the hard facts, all pretty straightforward. She told him about why she’d taken the portrait from the lobby and the piece of music that she’d inherited from her grandmother, Louisa Martin, but did not mention the cards. There had been more than enough uncomfortable discussion in the bar earlier, and Meredith sure didn’t want to remind Hal of his uncle now.
‘So you think your unknown soldier is a Vernier,’ Hal said, when Meredith had talked herself to a standstill.
She nodded. ‘The physical resemblance is overwhelming. Colouring, features. He could be a younger brother or a cousin, I guess, but taking the dates and his age into consideration, I’m thinking he could be a direct descendant.’ She stopped, letting a smile break out on her face. ‘Then just before I came down to supper, I got an email from Mary saying that there was the record of a Vernier in the graveyard at Mitchell Point, Milwaukee.’
Hal smiled. ‘So you think Anatole Vernier was his father?’
‘I don’t know. That’s the next step.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe Léonie’s son?’
‘Then he wouldn’t be a Vernier, would he?’
‘He would if she wasn’t married.’
Hal nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
‘So, here’s the deal. Tomorrow, after we’ve visited with Dr O’Donnell, you help me do a little research into the Verniers.’
‘Deal,’ he said lightly, but Meredith could feel he’d tensed up again. ‘I know you think I’m making too much of it, but I’d really appreciate it you being here. She’s coming at ten.’
‘Well,’ she murmured softly, feeling herself growing sleepy. ‘As you said, she’s more likely to talk with another woman there.’
She was struggling to keep her eyes open. Slowly, Meredith felt herself drifting away from Hal. The silver moon made her progress across the black Midi sky. Below in the valley, the bell tolled the passing of the hours.
5
CHAPTER 67
In her dream, Meredith was sitting at the piano at the foot of the stairs. The chill of the keys and the melody were familiar beneath her fingers. She was playing Louisa’s signature piece, better than she had ever played it before, sweet and yet haunting.
Then the piano vanished and she was walking along a narrow and empty corridor. There was a patch of light at the end and a set of stone stairs, dipped and worn away in the centre by the passage of feet and time. She turned to go, but found herself always standing in the same place. It was somewhere within the Domaine de la Cade, she knew, but not a part of the house or grounds she recognised.
The light, a perfect square, was coming from a gas jet on the wall, which hissed and spat at her as she passed. Facing her at the top of the steps was an old and dusty tapestry of a hunt. She stared a moment at the cruel expressions of the men, the smears of red blood on their spears. Except, as she looked with her dream eyes, she realised it was not an animal they were hunting. Not a bear, not a wild boar, not a wolf. Instead, a black creature, standing on two legs with cloven feet, an expression of rage on its almost human features. A demon, his claws tipped red.
Asmodeus.
In the background, flames. The wood was burning.
In her bed, Meredith moaned and shifted position as her dreaming hands, both weighed and weightless, pushed at an old wooden door. There was a carpet of silver dust on the ground, glinting in the moonlight or the halo from the gaslight.
The air was still. At the same time, the room wasn’t damp or cold like a space left empty. Time jumped forward. Now Meredith could hear the piano again, except this time distorted. Like the sound of a fairground or a carousel, menacing and sinister.
Her breath came faster. Her sleeping hands clutched at the covers as she reached out and grasped the cold metal latch.
She pushed open the door. Stepped up over the stone step.
No birds flew up, there was no whispering of voices, hidden, behind the door. Now she was standing inside some kind of chapel. High ceilings, flagstone floors, an altar and stained-glass windows. Paintings covering the walls, immediately recognisable as the characters from the cards. A sepulchre. It was utterly silent. Nothing but the echo of her footsteps disturbed the hush. And yet, little by little, the air began to whisper. She could hear voices, noises in the darkness. At least, voices behind the silence. And singing.
She moved forward and felt the air part, as if unseen spirits lost in the light were standing back to let her pass. The very space itself seemed to be holding its breath, beating in time with the heavy rhythm of her heart.
Meredith kept walking until she arrived before the altar, at a point equally placed between each of the four windows set inside the octagonal wall. She was standing now inside a square, marked in black upon the stone floor. Around it, letters inscribed upon the ground.
Help me.
Someone was there. In the darkness and the silence, something was moving. Meredith felt the space around her shrinking, fold in upon itself. She could see nothing, yet she knew she was there. A living, breathing presence, in the fabric of the air. And she knew she had seen her before – beneath the bridge, on the road, at the foot of her bed. Air, water, fire and now earth. The four suits of the Tarot, containing within them all the possibilities.
Hear me. Listen to me.
Meredith felt herself falling, down into a place of stillness and peace. She was not afraid. She was no longer herself, but instead standing outside, looking in. And, clear in the room now, she heard her own sleeping voice speak calmly out.
‘Léonie?’
It seemed to Meredith now that there was a different quality in the darkness around the shrouded figure, a movement of the air, almost like a wind. At the foot of the bed, the figure gave a slight movement of her head. Long copper curls, colour without substance, unveiled as the hood fell from her hair. Skin translucent. Green eyes, although transparent. Form without substance. A long black dress beneath the cloak. Shape without form.
I am Léonie.
Meredith heard the words inside her head. A young girl’s voice, a voice from an earlier time. Again, the atmosphere in the room seemed to shift. As if the space itself gave a sigh of relief.
I cannot sleep. Until I am found, I can never sleep. Hear the truth.
‘The truth? About what?’ Meredith whispered. The light was changing, loosening.
The story is in the cards.
There was a rushing of air, a fracturing of the light, a shimmering of something – someone – withdrawing. The atmosphere was different again now. There was a threat in the darkness, which Léonie had held at bay. But the gentle presence of the ghost had vanished, replaced by something destructive. A malevolence. It was now oppressively cold, pushing in upon Meredith. Like an early morning mist at sea, the sharp tang of salt and fish and smoke. She was back in the sepulchre. She felt the need to run, although she did not know what from. She felt herself edging towards the door.
There was something behind her. A black figure or some kind of creature. Meredith could almost feel its breath on the back of her neck, puffs of white clouds in the frigid air. But the stone nave was shrinking. The wooden door was getting smaller and more distant.
Un, deux, trois, loup! Coming to get you, ready or not.
Something was snapping at her heels, gaining speed in the shadows, getting ready to leap. Meredith started to run, fear giving power to her shaking legs. Her sneakers were skidding, sliding, on the flagstone floor. Always behind her, the breathing.
Nearly there.
She threw herself at the door, feeling her shoulder crashing into the frame, sending pain ricocheting down her arm. The creature was right behind, the bristling of its fur, the stench of iron and blood, melting into her skin, the surface of her scalp and the soles of her feet. She fumbled at the latch, rattling, tugging, jerking it towards her, but it wouldn’t open.
She started to bang on the door, trying not to look over her shoulder, trying not to be caught in the gaze of its blue, hideous eyes. She could feel the silence deepen around her. Could feel its malevolent arms coming down around her neck, wet and cold and rough. The smell of the sea, dragging her down into its fatal depths.
CHAPTER 68
‛Meredith! Meredith. It’s all right. You’re safe, it’s all right.’
She woke with a massive jolt that left her gasping for breath. Every muscle in her body was alert, every nerve screaming. The cotton sheets were tangled and mussed. Her fingers were locked rigid. For a moment she felt subsumed by a devouring anger, as if the rage of the creature had forced its way down through the surface of her skin.
‘Meredith, it’s OK! I’m here.’
She was trying to prise herself free, disorientated, until gradually she realised that she felt warm skin, holding her tight to save her, not harm her.
‘Hal.’
The tension fell from her shoulders.
‘You were having a nightmare,’ he said, ‘that’s all. It’s all right.’
‘She was here. She was here . . . then . . . it came and . . .’
‘Ssshh, it’s OK,’ he said again.
Meredith stared at him. She reached up her hand and with her fingers traced the contours of his face.
‘She came . . . and then, behind her, coming to . . .’
‘There’s no one here but us. Just a nightmare. It’s all over now.’
Meredith looked around the room, as if expecting at any moment someone to step out of the shadows. At the same time, she knew the dream had passed. Slowly, she let Hal take her in his arms. She felt the warmth and the strength of him holding her closer, holding her safe, tight against his chest. She could feel the bones of her ribcage as they rose and fell, rose and fell.
‘I saw her,’ she murmured, although she was talking to herself now, not Hal.
‘Who?’ he whispered.
She didn’t answer.
‘It’s all right,’ he repeated gently. ‘Go back to sleep.’
He began to stroke her head, smoothing her bangs back from her forehead like Mary used to do when she first went to live with her, soothing away the nightmares.
‘She was here,’ Meredith said again.
Gradually, beneath the repetitive and gentle motion of Hal’s hand, the terror faded away. Her eyelids became heavy, her arms and legs and body too, as the warmth and feeling came back.
Four o’clock in the morning.
Clouds had covered the moon and it was completely dark. The lovers, learning to know one another, fell back to sleep in each other’s arms, shrouded in the deep blue of early morning before the day comes.
6
PART IX
The Glade October-November 1891
CHAPTER 69
FRIDAY 23RD OCTOBER 1891
When Léonie woke the following morning, the first thought that came to her mind was of Victor Constant, as it had been the last before she went to sleep.
Wishing to feel the fresh air on her face, she dressed quickly and let herself out into the early morning. Evidence of yesterday’s storm was all around. Broken branches, leaves sent flying into spirals by the agitating wind. Everything was quite still now and the pink dawn sky was clear. But in the distance, over the Pyrenees, a grey bank of storm clouds, which threatened more bad weather to come.
Léonie took a turn around the lake, pausing a while on the small promontory that overlooked the choppy waters, then walked slowly back towards the house across the lawns. The hem of her skirts glistened with the dew. Her feet left barely an imprint on the wet grass.
She walked around to the front door, which she had left unbolted when she had slipped out, then stepped into the hall. She stamped her boots on the rough-haired mat. Then she pushed the hood from her face, unhooked the clasp, and hung her cloak back on the metal hook from which she had taken it earlier.
As she walked across the red and black tiles towards the dining room, she realised that she hoped Anatole had not yet descended for breakfast. Although she worried for Isolde’s health, Léonie was still sulking about their headlong and premature departure from Carcassonne the previous evening, and did not wish to be obliged to be civil to her brother.
She opened the door and found the room deserted apart from the maid, who was setting the enamel red and blue patterned coffee pot on the metal trivet in the centre of the table.
Marieta gave a half-bob. ‘Madomaisèla.’
‘Good morning.’
Léonie walked round to take her customary seat on the far side of the long oval table, so that she was facing the door.
One thought preyed upon her mind. That if the ill weather was continuing in Carcassonne without respite, then the patron of the hotel might be unable to deliver her letter to Victor Constant in the Square Gambetta. Or indeed that, due to the torrential rain, the concert would have been cancelled. She felt helpless and thoroughly frustrated at the realisation that she had no way of being certain whether or not Monsieur Constant had received her communication.
Not unless he chooses to write to tell me so.
She sighed and shook out her napkin. ‘Has my brother come down, Marieta?’
‘No, Madomaisèla. You are the first.’
‘And my aunt? Is she recovered after last evening?’
Marieta paused, then dropped her voice, as if confiding a great secret. ‘Do you not know, Madomaisèla? Madama was taken that bad in the night that Sénher Anatole was obliged to send to town for the doctor.’
‘What?’ Léonie gasped. She rose from her seat. ‘I had no idea. I should go to her.’
‘Best to leave her,’ Marieta said quickly. ‘Madama was sleeping like a baby not thirty minutes past.’
Léonie sat down again. ‘Well, what did the doctor say?’ she questioned. ‘Dr Gabignaud, was it?”
Marieta nodded. ‘That Madama had caught a chill, which was threatening to develop into something worse. He gave her a powder to bring down the fever. He stayed with her, your brother too, all night.’
‘What is the diagnosis now?’
‘You will have to ask Sénher Anatole, Madomaisèla. The doctor spoke with him in private.’
Léonie felt dreadful. She was guilty about her previous uncharitable thoughts and that she had somehow slept through the night without having the first idea of the crisis taking place elsewhere in the house. Her stomach was full of knots, like a ball of thread tangled and twisted out of shape. She doubted that she would be able to let even the smallest morsel pass her lips.
However, when Marieta returned and placed in front of her a plate of salted mountain bacon, fresh eggs from the pullets, and warm white bread with a turned roll of churned butter, she felt she might manage a little.
She ate in silence, her thoughts flipping backwards and forwards like a fish thrown upon the riverbank, first worrying about her aunt’s health, then more pleasurable thoughts of Monsieur Constant, then back to Isolde.
She heard the sound of footsteps crossing the hall. Tossing her napkin to the table, she leapt to her feet and ran to the door, coming face to face with Anatole in the hall.
He was pale and had hollow circles under his eyes, like black fingermarks, betraying the fact that he had not slept.
‘Forgive me, Anatole, I have only just heard. Marieta suggested it would be better to leave Tante Isolde to sleep than disturb her. Is the doctor returning this morning? Is—’
Despite his wretched appearance, Anatole smiled. He held up his hand, as if to deflect the volley of questions.
‘Calme-toi,’ he said, placing his arm around her shoulder. ‘The worst is over.’
‘But—’
‘Isolde will be fine. Gabignaud was excellent. Gave her something to help her sleep. She is weak, but the fever has gone. It’s nothing that a few days’ bed rest will not cure.’
Léonie shocked herself by bursting into tears. She had not realised how much affection she had come to feel for her quiet, gentle aunt.
‘Come, petite,’ he said affectionately. ‘No need to cry. Everything will be fine. Nothing to get worked up about.’
‘Let’s not ever argue again,’ Léonie wailed. ‘I cannot bear it when we are not friends.’
‘Nor I,’ he said, pulling his handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to her. Léonie wiped her tear-stained face, then blew her nose.
‘How very unladylike!’ he laughed. ‘M’man would be most displeased with you.’ He grinned down at her. ‘Now, have you breakfasted?’
Léonie nodded.
‘Well, I have not. Will you keep me company?’
For the rest of the day, Léonie stayed close to her brother, all thoughts of Victor Constant pushed to the side for the time being. For now, the Domaine de la Cade and the love and affection of those sheltering within it was the sole focus of her heart and mind.
Over the course of the weekend, Isolde kept to her bed. She was weak and tired easily, but Léonie read to her in the afternoons, and, little by little, the colour came back to her cheeks. Anatole busied himself with matters concerning the estate on her behalf and even sat with her in her chamber in the evenings. If the servants found such familiarity surprising, they did not remark upon it in Léonie’s hearing.
Several times, Léonie caught Anatole looking at her as if he was on the point of confiding something. But whenever she questioned him, he smiled and said it was nothing, then dropped his eyes and carried on with what he was doing.
By Sunday evening, Isolde’s appetite had returned sufficiently for a supper tray to be taken to her room. Léonie was pleased to see that the hollow, drawn expression had gone and she no longer looked so thin. Indeed, in some respects, she looked in better health than before. There was a glow to her skin, a brightness to her eyes. Léonie knew that Anatole had noticed it too. He walked around the house whistling and looking much relieved.
The main topic of conversation in the servants’ quarters was the severe flooding in Carcassonne. From Friday morning to Sunday evening, town and countryside alike had been racked by the sequence of storms. Communications were disrupted and in some areas suspended altogether. The situation around Rennes-les-Bains and Quillan was bad, certainly, but no more than one might expect during the autumn season of storms.
But by Monday evening, news of the catastrophe that had struck Carcassonne reached the Domaine de la Cade. After three days of relentless rain, worse on the plains than in the villages higher up in the mountains, in the early hours of Sunday morning, the River Aude had finally burst its banks, flooding the Bastide and the low-lying river areas. Early reports had it that much of the quartier Trivalle and the quartier Barbacane were completely under water. The Pont Vieux, linking the medieval Cité to the Bastide, was submerged although passable. The gardens of the Hôpital des Malades were knee-deep in black floodwaters. Several other buildings on the left bank had fallen into the torrent.
Further up the swollen river, towards the weir at Païchérou, whole trees had been uprooted, twisted and clinging desperately to the mud.
Léonie listened to the news with increasing anxiety. She feared for the well-being of Monsieur Constant. There was no reason to believe any ill had befallen him, but her worries played remorselessly upon her. Her anguish was all the worse for being unable to admit to Anatole that she knew the flooded neighbourhoods or that she had some specific interest in the matter.
Léonie reprimanded herself. She knew it was perfectly absurd to feel so strongly for a person in whose company she had spent little more than an hour. Yet Monsieur Constant had taken residence in her romantic mind and she could not shake her thoughts free of him. So whereas in the early weeks of October she had sat in the window and waited for a letter from her mother from Paris, now, at the tail-end of the month, she instead wondered if there was a letter from Carcassonne lying unclaimed in the boxes at the poste restante in Rennes-les-Bains.
The question was how she could make the trip to town in person? She could hardly entrust so delicate a matter to one of the servants, not even the amiable Pascal or sweet Marieta. And there was another concern: that if the patron of the hotel had not delivered her note to the Square Gambetta at the appointed time, in the event the concert had not been postponed, then Monsieur Constant – who was clearly a principled man – would be honour bound to let the matter drop.
The thought that he would not know where to find her – or, equally, that he might be thinking ill of her for her discourtesy in not keeping to their discreet arrangement – played endlessly on her mind.
CHAPTER 70
Her chance came three days later.
On Wednesday evening, Isolde was improved enough to join Anatole and Léonie for dinner in the dining room. She ate little. Or, rather, she sampled many dishes, but none seemed to her liking. Even the coffee, freshly brewed from the beans Léonie had purchased for her in Carcassonne, was not to her taste.
Anatole fussed around her, endlessly suggesting different collations that might tempt her, but in the end only succeeded in persuading her to eat a little white bread and churned butter, with a little chèvre trois jours and honey.
‘Is there anything? Whatever it is, I will endeavour to get it for you.’
Isolde smiled. ‘Everything tastes so peculiar.’
‘You must eat,’ he said firmly. ‘You need to recover your strength and …’
He stopped short. Léonie noticed a look pass between them and again wondered what he had been about to say.
‘I can go down into Rennes-les-Bains tomorrow and purchase whatever you would like,’ he continued.
Léonie suddenly had an idea. ‘I could go,’ she said, trying to keep her voice light. ‘Rather than tear you away, Anatole, it would be my pleasure to go down to the town.’ She turned to Isolde. ‘I am well-acquainted with your tastes, Tante. If the gig could be spared in the morning, Pascal could drive me.’ She paused. ‘I could bring back a tin of crystallised ginger from the Magasins Bousquet.’
To her delight and excitement, Léonie saw a spark of interest flare in Isolde’s pale grey eyes.
‘I confess, that is something I could manage,’ she admitted.
‘And perhaps, also,’ Léonie added, quickly running through Isolde’s favourite treats in her mind, ‘I could visit the patissier and purchase a box of Jesuites?’
Léonie detested the heavy, sickly cream cakes, but was aware that Isolde could be occasionally persuaded to indulge herself.
‘They might be a little rich for me at present,’ Isolde smiled, ‘but some of those black pepper biscuits might be quite the thing.’
Anatole was smiling at her and nodding.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘That is settled then.’ He covered Léonie’s small hand with his. ‘I am more than happy to come with you, petite, if you wish it.’
‘Not at all. It will be an adventure. I am certain there are plenty of things to occupy your time here.’
He glanced across at Isolde. ‘True,’ he concurred. ‘Well, if you are certain, Léonie.’
‘Quite certain,’ she said briskly. ‘I will leave at ten o’clock, so as to be back in good time for luncheon. I shall compile a list.’
‘You are kind to go to so much trouble,’ Isolde said.
‘It is my pleasure,’ Léonie replied, truthfully.
She had done it. Provided she could slip away to the poste restante without Pascal’s knowledge some time during the course of the morning, she would be able to put her mind at rest as to Monsieur Constant’s intentions towards her, for good or ill.
When Léonie retired for the evening, she was dreaming of how it might feel to hold his letter in her hand. What such a billet-doux might say, the feelings that might be expressed therein.
Indeed, by the time she finally fell asleep, she had already composed, a hundred times over, a beautifully drafted response to Monsieur Constant’s – imagined – elegantly stated protestations of affection and regard.
The morning of Thursday 29th October was glorious.
The Domaine de la Cade was bathed in a soft copper light, beneath an endless blue sky, spotted here and there with generous white clouds. And it was mild. The days of storms had gone out, bringing in their place the memory of the scent of summer breezes. An été indien.
At a quarter past ten, Léonie stepped down from the gig in the Place du Pérou, dressed for the occasion in her favourite crimson day dress, with matching jacket and hat. With her shopping list in her hand, she promenaded along the Gran’Rue, visiting each of the shops in turn. Pascal accompanied her to carry her various purchases from the Magasins Bousquet; from Les Frères Marcel Pâtisserie et Chocolaterie, boulangerie artisanale; and from the haberdashery where she purchased some thread. She paused for a sirop de grenadine at the street-side café adjoining the Maison Gravère, where she and Anatole had taken coffee on their first expedition, and felt quite at home.
Indeed, Léonie felt as if she belonged to the town and the town to her. And although one or two people with whom she had a passing acquaintance were a little cold to her, or so it seemed – the wives looking away and the husbands barely lifting their hats as she passed – Léonie dismissed the notion that she could have given some offence. She now believed wholeheartedly that although she considered herself thoroughly Parisian, in point of fact she felt more alive, more vital, in the wooded landscape of mountains and lakes of the Aude than ever she had done in the city.
Now, the thought of the dirty streets and soot of the 8th arrondissement, not to mention the limitations placed upon her freedom, appalled her. Certainly, if Anatole could persuade their mother to join them for Christmas, then Léonie would be more than content to remain at the Domaine de la Cade until the New Year and beyond.
Her tasks were quickly accomplished. By eleven o’clock, all that remained was to slip away from Pascal for long enough to make her detour to the poste restante. She asked him to convey the packages back to the gig, which had been left in the care of one of his many nephews by the drinking trough a little to the south of the main square. She then declared that she intended to pay her respects to Monsieur Baillard.
Pascal’s expression hardened. ‘I was not aware he had returned to Rennes-les-Bains, Madomaisèla Léonie,’ he said.
Their eyes met. ‘I do not know for certain that he has,’ she admitted. ‘But it is no trouble to walk there and back. I shall meet you in the Place du Pérou presently.’
As she was speaking, Léonie suddenly realised how she could engineer an opportunity to read the letter in private. ‘In point of fact, Pascal,’ she added quickly, ‘you may leave me. I believe I shall walk all the way back to the Domaine de la Cade instead. You need not wait.’
Pascal’s face flushed red. ‘I am certain Sénher Anatole would not wish me to abandon you here to make the return journey on foot,’ he said, his expression making it clear that he knew how her brother had scolded Marieta for letting Léonie slip from her charge in Carcassonne.
‘My brother did not give you instructions that I should not be left unaccompanied?’ she said immediately. ‘Did he?’
Pascal was forced to concede that he had not.
‘Well, then. I am confident of the path through the woods,’ she said firmly. ‘Marieta brought us through the rear entrance to the Domaine de la Cade, as you know, so it is not unknown to me. It is such a fine day, possibly the last of this year’s sun, I cannot believe my brother would not wish me to take advantage of the good air.’
Pascal did not move.
‘That will be all,’ Léonie said, more sharply than she intended.
He stared at her a moment longer, his broad face impassive, then suddenly he grinned. ‘As you wish, Madomaisèla Léonie,’ he said in his calm, steady voice, ‘but you shall answer to Sénher Anatole, not I.’
‘I shall tell him that I insisted you left me, yes.’
‘And by your leave, I shall send Marieta to unlock the gates and walk to meet you halfway down. In case you mistake the path.’
Léonie felt humbled, both by Pascal’s good nature in the face of her ill temper, and also by his concern for her well-being. For the truth was that despite her fighting talk, she was a little anxious at the thought of going alone all the way through the woods.
‘Thank you, Pascal,’ she said softly. ‘I promise I will be quick. My aunt and brother will not even notice.’
He nodded, then, with his arms full of the packages, turned on his heel and walked away. Léonie watched him go.
As he turned the corner, something else caught her eye. She glimpsed a person in a blue cape darting into the passageway that led to the church, as if he did not wish to be seen. Léonie frowned, but put it out of her mind as she retraced her steps back towards the river.
As a precaution in case Pascal should take it upon himself to follow her, she had decided to walk to the poste restante via the road in which Monsieur Baillard’s lodgings were to be found.
She smiled at a couple of Isolde’s acquaintances, but did not stop to pass the time of day with anyone. Within minutes, she had reached her destination. To her intense surprise, the blue shutters of the tiny house were pinned back.
Léonie stopped. Isolde had been certain Monsieur Baillard had quit Rennes-les-Bains for the foreseeable future. At least until the feast day of St Martin, or so she had been told. Had the house been let to someone else for the interim? Or had he returned ahead of time?
Léonie glanced down the rue de l’Hermite, which led, at the river end, to the street where the poste restante was situated. She was in a fever of excitement about the possibility of receiving her letter. She had thought of little else for days. But having enjoyed a period of exquisite anticipation, she was suddenly fearful that her hopes might be on the point of being dashed. That there might be no communication from Monsieur Constant.
And she had been regretting the absence of Monsieur Baillard now for some weeks. If she passed by without stopping and later discovered she had missed an opportunity to renew her acquaintance with him, she would never forgive herself.
If there is a letter, it will still be there in ten minutes’ time.
Léonie stepped forward and rapped upon the door.
For a moment, nothing happened. She leant her ear closer to the painted panels and could just pick out the sound of feet walking across a tiled floor.
‘Oc?’ came a child’s voice.
She took a step back as the door was opened, suddenly shy that she had taken it upon herself to call uninvited. A small dark-haired boy, with eyes the colour of blackberries, stood looking up at her.
‘Is Monsieur Baillard at home?’ she said. ‘It is Léonie Vernier. The niece of Madame Lascombe. From the Domaine de la Cade.’
‘He is expecting you?’
‘He is not. I was passing so took the liberty of paying an impromptu visit. If it is inconvenient…’
‘Que ès?’
The boy turned. Léonie smiled with pleasure at the sound of Monsieur Baillard’s voice. Emboldened, she called out.
‘It is Léonie Vernier, Monsieur Baillard.’
Moments later, the distinctive figure in the white suit she remembered so clearly from the evening of the dinner party appeared at the end of passageway. Even in the gloom of the narrow entrance, Léonie could see he was smiling.
‘Madomaisèla Léonie,’ he said. ‘An unexpected pleasure.’
‘I have been undertaking certain tasks for my aunt – she has been unwell – and Pascal has gone ahead. I had thought you were away from Rennes-les-Bains at present, but when I saw the shutters pinned back, I …’
She realised she was gabbling, and checked her tongue.
‘I am delighted you did so,’ Baillard said. ‘Please, do come in.’
Léonie hesitated. Although he was a man of some reputation, an acquaintance of Tante Isolde and on visiting terms with the Domaine de la Cade, she was aware it might be considered inappropriate for a young girl to enter the house of a gentleman alone.
But then who is here to witness it?
‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I should be delighted.’
She stepped over the threshold.
7
8
CHAPTER 71
Léonie followed Monsieur Baillard down the passageway, which opened into a pleasant room at the rear of the tiny house. A single large window dominated the whole of one wall.
‘Oh,’ she exclaimed. ‘The view is quite as perfect as a picture. ’
‘It is,’ he smiled. ‘I am fortunate.’
He rang a small silver bell that sat on a low side-table next to the wing armchair in which he had clearly been sitting, beside the wide stone fireplace. The same boy reappeared. Léonie discreetly cast her eyes around the room. It was a plain and simple chamber, with a selection of mismatched chairs, a boudoir table behind the sofa. Bookcases covered the length of the wall opposite the fireplace, every inch of them filled.
‘There, now,’ he said. ‘Please, take a seat. Tell me your news, Madomaisèla Léonie. I trust all is well at the Domaine de la Cade. You said your aunt was indisposed. Nothing serious, I hope?’
Léonie removed her hat and gloves, then settled herself opposite him.
‘She is much improved. We were caught out in the ill weather last week and my aunt developed a chill. The doctor was called, but the worst is over and every day she grows stronger.’
‘Her condition hangs in the balance,’ he said, ‘and it is early days. But all will be well.’
Léonie looked at him, puzzled at this non sequitur, but at that moment the boy returned carrying a brass tray with two ornate glass goblets and a silver jug on it, much like a coffee pot but with swirling diamond patterns, and the question died on her lips.
‘It comes from the Holy Land,’ her host told her. ‘A gift from an old friend, many years ago now.’
The servant handed her a glass filled with a thick red liquid.
‘What is this, Monsieur Baillard?’
‘A local cherry liqueur, guignolet. I a dmit, I am rather partial to it. It is particularly good when taken with these black pepper biscuits.’ He nodded and the boy offered the plate to Léonie. ‘They are a local speciality and can be purchased everywhere, but I judge those baked here at the Frères Marcel quite the best I have tasted.’
‘I bought some myself,’ Léonie replied. She took a mouthful of guignolet, then immediately coughed. It was sweet, tasting intensely of wild cherries, but very strong indeed.
‘You have returned earlier than we were expecting,’ she said. ‘My aunt led me to believe that you would be away until November at least, perhaps even until Noel.’
‘My business was quicker to conclude than I had expected, so I returned. There are stories coming up from the town. I felt here I might be of more use.’
Use? Léonie thought it an odd word, but said nothing of it.
‘Where did you go, Monsieur?’
‘To visit old friends,’ he said quietly. ‘Also, I have a house some way into the mountains. In a tiny village called Los Seres, not so far from the old fortress citadel of Montségur. I wished to ensure that it was ready, should I need to repair there in the foreseeable future.’
Léonie frowned. ‘Is that likely, Monsieur? I was under the impression that you had taken lodgings here in town in order to avoid the rigours of winter in the mountains.’
His eyes sparkled. ‘I have lived through many mountain winters, Madomaisèla,’ he said softly. ‘Some hard, others less so.’ He fell silent a moment and seemed to drift into thought. ‘But, tell me,’ he said finally, gathering himself together once more. ‘What of you these past weeks? Have you had any further adventures, Madomaisèla Léonie, since last we met?’
She met his gaze. ‘I have not returned to the sepulchre, Monsieur Baillard,’ she said, ‘if that is your meaning.’
He smiled. ‘That was indeed my meaning.’
‘Although, I must confess, the subject of Tarot has continued to hold some interest for me.’ She scrutinised his expression, but his timeworn face gave nothing away. ‘I have begun a sequence of paintings also.’ She hesitated. ‘Reproductions of the images from the walls.’
‘Is that so?’
‘They are studies, I suppose. No, in point of fact, they are rather copies.’
He leaned forward in his chair. ‘And you have attempted all of them?’
‘Well, no,’ she answered, although thinking it a singular question. ‘Just those at the beginning. What they term the major arcana, and even then, not each character. I find that I am disinclined to attempt certain of the images. For example, Le Diable.’
‘And La Tour?’
Her green eyes narrowed. ‘Quite. Nor the Tower. How did—’
‘When did you begin these paintings, Madomaisèla?’
‘The afternoon of the supper party. I only wished to occupy myself, to fill the empty hours of waiting. Without the slightest conscious design, I found I had painted myself into the picture, Monsieur Baillard, so I felt moved to continue. ’
‘May I ask within which of them?’
‘La Force.’ She paused, then shivered as she recollected the complication of emotions that had swept over her at that moment. ‘The face was my face. Why do you think that should be?’
‘The most obvious explanation would be that you see the characteristic of strength within yourself.’
Léonie waited, expecting more, until it became clear that again Monsieur Baillard had said all he intended on the matter.
‘I admit I find myself increasingly intrigued by my uncle and the experiences of which he writes in his monograph, Les Tarots,’ Léonie continued. ‘I do not wish to press you against your better judgement, Monsieur Baillard, but I have wondered if you knew my uncle at the time of the events detailed in the book?’ She scanned his face, looking for signs of encouragement or else displeasure at the line of questioning, but his expression remained unreadable. ‘I have realised the . . . situation sits precisely within the period of time after my mother had left the Domaine de la Cade and yet before my aunt and uncle married.’ She hesitated. ‘I imagine, without intending to be disrespectful in any way, that he was by nature a solitary man. Not drawn much to the company of others?’
She stopped once more, giving Monsieur Baillard the opportunity to make some response. He remained perfectly still, his veined hands in his lap, seemingly content to listen.
‘From comments Tante Isolde has made,’ Léonie ploughed on, ‘I gained the impression that you had been instrumental in effecting an introduction between my uncle and Abbé Saunière, when he was appointed to the parish at Rennes-le-Château. She also hinted, as you had, at some unpleasantness, rumours, incidents traced back to the sepulchre, which required the intervention of a priest.’
‘Ah.’ Audric Baillard pressed the tips of his fingers together.
She took a deep breath. ‘I have . . . Did the Abbé Saunière perform an exorcism on behalf of my uncle, is that it? Did such an . . . an event take place within the sepulchre? ’
This time, having asked the question, Léonie did not rush in. She allowed the silence to do the work of persuasion. For an endless time, or so it seemed, the only sound was the ticking of the clock. In a room beyond the passageway, she could just discern the chinking of crockery and the distinctive rough scratching of a broom on the wooden boards.
‘To rid the place of evil,’ she said eventually. ‘Is that so? Once or twice I have glimpsed it. But I realise now that my mother might have felt its presence, Monsieur, when she was a girl. She quitted the Domaine as soon as she was able.’
9
CHAPTER 72
‘In certain decks of Tarot cards,’ Baillard said eventually, ‘the card representing the Devil is modelled upon the head of Baphomet, the idol the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon were accused – falsely – of worshipping.’
Léonie nodded, although it was not clear to her how this digression might be of relevance.
‘There was said to be a Templar presbytery not far from here, at Bézu,’ he continued. ‘No such thing existed, of course. In the matter of historical record, there has been confusion in the collective memory, a conflation of the Albigensians and the Poor Knights. They did bestride the earth contemporaneously, but were little connected one with the other. A coincidence of timing, not an overlapping. ’
‘But how does this connect to the Domaine de la Cade, Monsieur Baillard?’
He smiled. ‘You observed, on your visit, the statue of Asmodeus in the sepulchre, è? Bearing the burden of the bénitier?’
‘I did.’
‘Asmodeus, also known as Ashmadia or Asmodai, is most likely derived from a form of Persian, the phrase aeshmadaeva , meaning demon of wrath. Asmodeus appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit and, again, in the Testament of Solomon, which is a pseudepigraphical work of the Old Testament. That is, a work purportedly written by and attributed to Solomon, but unlikely to have been so in historical truth.’
Léonie nodded, even though her knowledge of the Old Testament was somewhat limited. Neither she nor Anatole had attended Sunday school or learnt their catechism. Religious superstition, their mother claimed, sat ill with modern sensibilities. Traditional in ways of society and manners, Marguerite was a vehement opponent of the Church. Léonie suddenly wondered, for the first time, if the violence of her mother’s feelings could be traced back to the atmosphere of the Domaine de la Cade within which she had endured her childhood, and made a note to ask her at the earliest opportunity.
Monsieur Baillard’s calm voice called her back from her reflections.
‘The story tells of how King Solomon invokes Asmodeus to aid in the construction of the Temple – the great Temple. Asmodeus, a demon most particularly associated with lust, does appear, but his presence is disturbing. He predicts that Solomon’s kingdom will one day be divided.’
Baillard stood up, crossed the room and took from the shelf a small brown leatherbound book. He turned the tissue-thin pages with his delicate fingers until he found the passage he wanted.
‘It reads: “My constellation is like an animal which reclines in its den, spake the demon. So do not ask me so many things, Solomon, for eventually your kingdom will be divided. This glory of yours is temporary. You have us to torture for a little while; then we shall disperse among human beings again with the result that we shall be worshipped as gods because men do not know the name of the angels who rule over us.” ’ He closed the book and looked up. ‘Testament of Solomon, chapter five, verses four and five.’
Léonie did not know how she should react to this, so remained silent.
‘Asmodeus, as I said previously, is a demon associated with carnal desires,’ Baillard continued. ‘He is most especially an enemy of newly weds. In the apocryphal Book of Tobit, he torments a woman called Sarah, killing each of her seven husbands before the marriages can be consummated. On the eighth occasion, the angel Raphaël instructs Sarah’s latest suitor to place the heart and liver of a fish on red-hot cinders. The smoky, foul-smelling vapour repels Asmodeus and causes him to flee to Egypt, where Raphaël binds him, his power broken.’
Léonie shivered, not at his words but at the sudden memory of the faint, but disgusting, stench that had assailed her senses in the sepulchre. An inexplicable scent of damp, smoke and the sea.
‘These parables seem rather archaic, do they not?’ said her host. ‘They are intended to convey some larger truth, but so often serve only to obscure.’ He tapped the leather book with his long, thin fingers. ‘In the Book of Solomon, it is also said that Asmodeus detests being near water.’
Léonie sat up straighter. ‘Hence perhaps the holy water stoup being set upon his shoulders? Could that be, Monsieur Baillard?’
‘It could,’ he agreed. ‘Asmodeus appears in other works of religious commentary. In the Talmud, for example, he corresponds with Ashmedai, a far less malevolent character than the Asmodeus of Tobit, although his desires are focused on Solomon’s wives and Bath-sheba. Some years later, in the middle of the fifteenth century, Asmodai appears as the demon of lust in the Malleus Maleficarum, a rather simplistic catalogue, to my mind, of demons and their ill works. As a collector, it is a book perhaps your brother would know?’
Léonie shrugged. ‘He might well, yes.’
‘There are those who believe that different devils have particular potency at different times of the year.’
‘And when is Asmodeus considered to be at his most powerful?’
‘During the month of November.’
‘November,’ she echoed. She thought a moment. ‘But what does it mean, Monsieur Baillard, this marriage of superstition and supposition – the cards, the sepulchre, such a demon with his fear of water and hatred of marriage?’
He returned the book to the shelf, then walked over to the window and placed his hands upon the sill, with his back to her.
‘Monsieur Baillard?’ she prompted.
He turned round. For a moment, the copper sun coming in through the wide window seemed to cast a halo of light around him. Léonie had the impression that she was looking at an Old Testament prophet such as one might see in an oil painting.
Then he stepped back into the centre of the room, and the illusion was lost.
‘It means, Madomaisèla, that when village superstitions talk of a demon walking these valleys and wooded hillsides, when the times are out of joint, we should not dismiss them as stories only. There are certain places – the Domaine de la Cade is one – where older forces are at work.’ He paused. ‘Alternatively, there are others who choose to raise such a creature, to commune with such spirits, failing to understand that evil cannot be mastered.’
She didn’t believe it, yet at the same time her heart skipped a beat.
‘And my uncle did this, Monsieur Baillard? Are you asking me to accept that my uncle, through the agency of the cards and the spirit of the place, called forth the devil Asmodeus? And then found himself unable to master him? That all those stories of a beast are, in point of fact, true? That my uncle was responsible, morally at least, for the killings in the valley? And knew this?’
Audric Baillard held her gaze. ‘He knew it.’
‘And so that was why he was obliged to seek the services of Abbé Saunière,’ she continued, ‘to banish the monster he had released?’ She stopped. ‘Did Tante Isolde know of this?’
‘It was before her time here. She did not.’
Léonie stood up and walked to the window. ‘I do not believe it,’ she said abruptly. ‘Such stories. Devils, demons. Such tales cannot be credited in the modern world.’ Then her voice dropped, thinking of the pity of it. ‘Those children, ’ she whispered. She resumed her pacing, causing the floorboards to creak and groan in protest. ‘I do not believe it,’ she repeated, but her voice was less certain.
‘Blood will attract blood,’ Baillard said quietly. ‘There are some things that draw evil to them. A place, an object, a person may, by force of their ill will, draw to them ill circumstances, wrongdoings, sins.’
Léonie came to a halt, her thoughts running along other pathways. She looked at her gentle host, then threw herself back into her chair.
‘Even supposing I could accept such things, what of the deck of cards, Monsieur Baillard? Unless I mistake your meaning, you are suggesting that they might be a force for good or for ill, depending on the circumstances of their use.’
‘That is so. Consider how a sword is either an instrument for good or for bad. It is the hand that wields it that makes it so, not the steel.’
Léonie nodded. ‘What is the provenance of the cards? Who painted them in the first instance and for what purpose? When I first read my uncle’s words, I understood him to be saying that the paintings upon the wall of the sepulchre might somehow step down and imprint themselves upon the cards.’
Audric Baillard smiled. ‘If that were the case, Madomaisèla Léonie, there would be only eight cards, whereas there is a full deck.’
Her heart sank. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I had not considered that.’
‘Although,’ he continued, ‘it does not mean that there is not some kernel of truth in what you say.’
‘In which case, Monsieur Baillard, tell me, why those eight tableaux in particular?’ Her green eyes were sparkling as a new idea came to her. ‘Could it be that the images that remain imprinted upon the wall are those very same that my uncle drew to him. That in another situation, another such communication between the worlds, it might be other tableaux, images from other cards, visible upon the walls?’ She paused. ‘From paintings, perhaps?’
Audric Baillard allowed a faint smile to play across his lips. ‘The lesser of the cards, simple playing cards, if you will, date from that unhappy time when, once more, men driven by faith to murder and to oppress and to extirpate heresy plunged the world into blood.’
‘The Albigensians?’ Léonie said, remembering conversations between Anatole and Isolde about the tragic thirteenth-century history of the Languedoc.
He gave a resigned shake of his head. ‘Ah, if only lessons were learnt so quickly, Madomaisèla. But I fear they are not.’
In the gravitas of his voice, it seemed to Léonie that behind his words lay a wisdom that spanned centuries. And she, who had never taken the slightest interest in the events of the past, found herself wishing to understand how one consequence led to another.
‘I speak not of the Albigensians, Madomaisèla Léonie, but instead of the later wars of religion, the conflicts of the sixteenth century between the Catholic house of Guise and what we might call, for sake of clarity, the Huguenot house of Bourbon. ’ He raised his hands, and then let them drop. ‘As always, perhaps it will be ever thus, the demands of faith quickly become inextricably bound to those of territory and control.’
‘And the cards date from this period?’ she urged.
‘The original fifty-six of the cards, intended simply to help pass a long winter’s evening, followed much in the tradition of the Italian game of tarrochi. A hundred years prior to the time of which I speak, the Italian court and nobility had given birth to a fashion for such entertainments. When the Republic was born, the court cards were replaced by Maître and Maîtresse, Fils and Fille, as you have seen.’
‘La Fille d’Épées,’ she said, remembering the painting upon the wall of the sepulchre. ‘By when?’
‘That is not so clear. It was at much the same time, on the eve, indeed, of the Revolution, that in France the harmless game of Tarot was transformed into something other. A system of divination, a way of linking the seen and known to the unseen and unknown.’
‘So the deck of cards was already at the Domaine de la Cade?’
‘The fifty-six cards were the possession of the house, if you like, rather than the individuals within it. The ancient spirit of the place worked upon the deck; the legends and rumours invested the cards with some further meaning and purpose. The cards were waiting, you see, for one who would complete the sequence.’
‘My uncle,’ she said, a statement, not a question.
Baillard nodded. ‘Lascombe read the books being published by the cartomancers in Paris – the antique words of Antoine Court de Gébelin, the contemporary writings of Eliphas Lévi and Romain Merlin – and was seduced by them. To the deck of cards he had inherited he added the twenty-two greater arcana – those speaking of the fundamental turns of life and what lies beyond – and fixed those he wished to summon to him upon the wall of the sepulchre. ’
‘My late uncle painted the twenty-two additional cards?’
‘He did.’ He paused. ‘You believe absolutely, then, Madomaisèla Léonie, that through the agency of the Tarot cards – in the specific place and with the conditions that make such things possible – demons, ghosts might be summoned? ’
‘It does not credit belief, Monsieur Baillard yet I find I do believe it.’ She paused and thought for a moment. ‘What I do not understand, however, is how the cards control the spirits.’
‘Ah, no,’ Baillard said swiftly. ‘That was the mistake your uncle made. The cards may summon the spirits, yes, but never control them. All possibilities are contained within the images – all character, all human desire, good and ill, all of our long and overlapping stories – but should they be released, they take on a life of their own.’
Léonie frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘The tableaux upon the wall are the imprints of the last cards summoned in that place. But if one were to alter, through the touch of a brush, the features on one or other of the cards, they would take on other characteristics instead. The cards can tell different stories,’ he said.
‘Would this be true of these cards anywhere?’ she asked. ‘Or only in the Domaine de la Cade, in the sepulchre?’
‘It is the unique combination, Madomaisèla, of image and sound and the spirit of the place. That one place,’ he replied. ‘At the same time, the place works upon the cards. So, for example, it might be that La Force, now, attaches itself specifically to you. Through your artistry.’
Léonie looked at him. ‘But I have not seen the cards themselves. Indeed, I have not painted cards, only imitations on common paper of what I saw on the walls.’
He gave a slow smile. ‘Things do not always hold fast, Madomaisèla. And besides, you have painted more than yourself into the cards, have you not? You have painted your brother and your aunt into these pictures also.’
She blushed. ‘They are just paintings intended as a memento of our time spent here.’
‘Perhaps.’ He inclined his head to one side. ‘Through such pictures your stories will endure longer than you have tongue to tell them.’
‘You are frightening me, Monsieur,’ she said sharply.
‘That is not my intention.’
Léonie paused before asking the question that had been on her lips since the very first moment she heard of the Tarot cards. ‘Does the deck exist still?’
He fixed her with his wise eyes. ‘The deck survives,’ he said finally.
‘Within the house?’ she asked quickly.
‘The Abbé Saunière begged your uncle to destroy the cards, to burn them, so that no other man would be tempted to make use of them. The sepulchre too.’ Baillard shook his head. ‘But Jules Lascombe was a scholar. He could no more destroy something of such ancient origin than the Abbé himself could denounce his God.’
‘Are the cards hidden within the grounds, then? I am certain they are not in the sepulchre.’
‘They are safe,’ he said. ‘Concealed where the river runs dry, in a place where once the ancient kings were buried.’
‘But if that is the case, then—’
Audric Baillard raised his finger to his lips. ‘I have told you all this as a way to curb your inquisitive nature, Madomaisèla Léonie, not to fan your curiosity. I understand how you have been drawn into this story, how you wish to have some more explicit understanding of your family and the events that have shaped their lives. But I repeat my warning: no good will come of trying to find the cards, especially at such a time, when matters hang so delicately balanced.’
‘At such a time? What do you mean, Monsieur Baillard? Because November approaches?’
But it was clear from the expression that had fallen over his face that he was prepared to say nothing further. Léonie tapped her foot. She had so many questions she wished to ask. She drew breath, but he spoke before she could say more.
‘It is enough,’ he said.
Through the open window came the sound of the bell of the tiny church of Saint-Celse and Saint-Nazaire tolling out the midday. An emaciated single note marking the passing of the morning.
The sound jerked Léonie’s attention back into the present. She had quite forgotten her task. She leapt to her feet.
‘Forgive me, Monsieur Baillard, I have taken up more than enough of your time.’ She dragged her gloves on over her fingers. ‘And in so doing have quite forgotten my own responsibilities this morning. The bureau de poste . . . If I hurry, I might still …’
Clutching her hat, Léonie ran across the room to the door. Audric Baillard drew himself to his feet, an elegant and timeless figure.
‘If I may, Monsieur, I will call again? Au revoir.’
‘Of course, Madomaisèla. The pleasure will be mine.’ Léonie waved, then quitted the room, rushing down the passageway and out of the front door into the street, leaving Audric Baillard alone in the quiet room deep in reflection. The boy slipped out of the shadows and closed the door behind her.
Baillard sat down once more in his chair.
‘Si es atal es atal,’ he muttered, in the old language. Things will be as they will be. ‘But with this child, I wish it were not so.’
10
CHAPTER 73
Léonie ran along the rue de l’Hermite, dragging her gloves up over her wrists and struggling with the buttons. She turned sharply right and along to the post office.
The double wooden door was closed and barred. Léonie hammered on it with her fist and called out.
‘S’îl vous plaît?’ It was only three minutes past midday. Surely, there must still be someone inside? ‘Il y a quelqu’un? C’est vraiment important!’
There was no sign of life. She knocked and called out again, but nobody came. An ill-tempered woman with two thin grey plaits leant out of the window opposite and shouted at her to stop her banging.
Léonie apologised, realising how stupid she was being by drawing attention to herself in such a manner. If there was a letter waiting for her from Monsieur Constant, it was now destined to remain there for the time being. She could hardly remain in Rennes-les-Bains until such time as the poste restante reopened later that afternoon. She would simply have to return on another occasion.
Her emotions were muddled. She was vexed at herself for having failed to achieve the one thing she had set out to do. At the same time, she felt she had been granted a reprieve.
At least I do not know that Monsieur Constant has not written.
Her muddled reasoning, in some strange way, cheered her.
Léonie descended to the river. Away to the left, she saw the patients of the thermal spa sitting in the steaming, iron-rich water of the bains forts. Behind them, a row of nurses in white uniforms, their wide sweeping hats perched upon their heads like giant seabirds, stood waiting patiently for their charges to emerge.
She crossed to the far bank and found the path along which Marieta had taken them easily enough. The character of the wood had changed a great deal. Some of the trees had lost their leaves, through either the natural approach of autumn or the ferocity of the storms that had battered the hillside. The ground beneath Léonie’s feet was carpeted in wine-coloured foliage, golden and claret and copper. She stopped for a moment, thinking of the watercolour sketches she was working on. The image of Le Mat came into her mind and she thought perhaps she would amend the background colours to suit the autumn hues of the forest.
She walked on, wrapped in the green mantle of the evergreen wood higher up. Twigs, fallen branches, stones shaken loose from the banks on either side, rattled and snapped under her feet. The ground was covered by fallen pine cones and shiny brown fruit from the horse chestnut trees. For a moment, she had a pang of homesickness. She thought of her mother and how, each October, she had taken Anatole and Léonie to the Parc Monceau to gather horse chestnuts. She rubbed her fingers together, remembering the feel and texture of childhood autumns.
Rennes-les-Bains had vanished from sight. Léonie walked a little faster, knowing that the town was still within hailing distance, but at the same time feeling she was suddenly a very long way indeed from civilisation. A bird flew up, its wings beating heavily on the air, making her jump. She laughed nervously when she realised it was only a tiny wood pigeon. In the distance she heard the shots from hunting guns and wondered if Charles Denarnaud’s hand was behind one of them.
Léonie pressed on and soon reached the estate. When the rear gates of the Domaine de la Cade came into view, she felt a rush of relief. She hurried forward, expecting at any moment to see the maid step out with the key.
‘Marieta?’
Only the sound of her own voice echoed back. By the quality of the silence, Léonie knew there was no one there. She frowned. It was unlike Pascal not to do what he said he would. And although Marieta was easily flustered, she was reliable as a rule.
Or perhaps she came and has given up waiting?
Léonie rattled the gates and found them locked. She felt a burst of ill temper and then frustration as she stood a moment, hands on her hips, considering her situation.
She did not wish to have to walk the entire perimeter to enter by the front gates. She was fatigued from her morning’s experiences and the demands of the walk up the hill.
There must be some other way into the grounds.
Léonie could not believe the small outside staff Isolde kept could possibly maintain the boundaries of so large a property in perfect condition. She was slightly built. She was certain if she looked hard enough, she would find an opening wide enough for her to slip through. From there, it would be a simple matter to find her way back to familiar paths.
She looked to left and right, trying to decide which way was likely to best serve her purpose. In the end, she reasoned that the sections in the greatest state of disrepair were likely to be furthest from the house. She turned to the east. If the worst came to the worst, she would simply follow the line of the boundary all the way around.
She walked briskly, peering through the hedge growth, pulling at briars and avoiding the vicious tangle of blackberry bushes, looking for any sort of break in the wrought-iron railings. The section immediately surrounding the gate was secure, but as she remembered from their first arrival at the Domaine de la Cade, the sense of dereliction and abandonment intensified the further she walked.
She had not been searching for more than five minutes when she did come across an interruption in the fencing. She removed her hat, crouched down and, breathing in deeply, slipped through the narrow opening with a sense of relief. Once through, she picked the thorns and foliage from her jacket, brushed the mud from the hem of her skirts, then stepped forward with renewed energy, pleased to be not far from home.
The land here was steeper, the canopy overhead darker and more oppressive. It was not long before Léonie realised that she was on the far side of the beech woods, and that if she were not careful, her route would take her past the site of the sepulchre. She frowned. Was there another way?
There was a crisscross of small tracks, rather than one clear path to follow. All the clearings and copses looked the same. Léonie had no way of plotting her course other than to rely on the sun shining high above the canopy of leaves, but that was an unreliable guide deep in the shadows. But, she told herself, provided she kept walking forward then she would come upon the lawns and the house soon enough. She just had to hope that she would bypass the sepulchre.
She set off across the slope, on a vague track that led to a small clearing. Suddenly, through a break in the trees, she saw the parcel of woodland on the opposite bank of the River Aude within which stood the group of stone megaliths Pascal had previously pointed out to her. Then she realised with a jolt that all the diabolic place-names around about were visible from the Domaine de la Cade: the Devil’s Armchair, the étang du Diable, the Horned Mountain. She scanned the horizon. And so, too, was the point at which the rivers La Blanque and La Salz met, a spot known locally, Pascal had told her, as le bénitier.
Léonie forced herself to suppress the image of the twisted body of the demon and his malevolent blue eyes interposing itself into her mind. She hurried on, striding out across the uneven ground, telling herself how absurd it was to be disturbed by a statue, by a picture in a book.
The hillside rose sharply. The quality of the surface beneath her boots changed and soon she found herself walking over bare earth rather than bracken or pine cones, bordered by bushes or trees but empty of them. It was like a strip of brown paper torn at right angles out of the green landscape.
Léonie stopped and looked ahead. Above her was a steep wall of hillside, like a barrier set across her path. Directly over her head was a natural platform, almost like a bridge arching over the patch of ground on which she stood. She suddenly realised she was standing in a dry riverbed. Once, a torrent of water, thundering down from one of the ancient Celtic springs higher up in the hills, had forged this deep depression through the hillside.
Monsieur Baillard’s words came back to her.
Concealed where the river runs dry, in a place where once the ancient kings were buried.
Léonie cast her eyes about her, searching for anything out of the ordinary, looking at the shape of the land, the trees, the undergrowth. Her attention was drawn by a shallow depression in the ground and, beside it, a flat grey stone, just visible beneath the tangled skirts and roots of a wild juniper bush.
She walked over to it and crouched down. She reached in, pulled at the knotted undergrowth and peered into the damp green space around the roots. Now she could see that there was a ring of stones, eight in all. She thrust her hands into the foliage, staining the tips of her gloves with green slime and mud, trying to see if anything was hidden beneath them.
The largest was quickly dislodged. Léonie sat back on her heels, resting it in her lap. There was something painted upon the surface in black tar or paint, a five-pointed star set within a circle.
In her eagerness to discover if she had stumbled upon the place where the Tarot cards were concealed, Léonie put the stone to one side. Using a piece of wood, she dug around each of the others in turn, piling the earth alongside. She saw a fragment of heavy material concealed in the mud and realised that the stones were holding it in place.
She continued digging, using the piece of fallen timber like a shovel, scraping against stones and shards of tile until she was able to pull the material free from the earth. It was covering a small hole. Excited, she jabbed at it, trying to loosen what was buried beneath, scraping the mud and worms and black beetles away, until she hit something solid.
A little more, and she could see she was looking at a plain wooden casket with metal handles at each end. Fixing her filthy gloves on the clasps, she pulled. The ground was reluctant to yield, but Léonie wrenched and twisted until, finally, it gave up its treasure with a wet, sucking sound.
Breathing hard, Léonie dragged the box out of the depression to an area of dry ground, and placed it on top of the cloth. She sacrificed her gloves to rub the surface clean and slowly opened the wooden lid. Inside the chest was another container, a metal strongbox of the kind in which M’man kept her most valuable possessions.
She removed the strongbox, closed the chest and placed the metal one on top. It was fitted with a tiny padlock, which, to Léonie’s surprise, hung open. She tried to raise the lid, inching it up fraction by fraction. It creaked, but gave easily enough.
The light was dim beneath the trees and whatever was inside the strongbox was dark. As her eyes adjusted, she thought she could make out a package wrapped in some dark fabric. No doubt it was of the right size and proportion to be the deck of cards. She wiped her clammy palms on her clean, dry petticoats, then carefully folded back the corners of the fabric.
She was looking at the reverse side of a playing card, larger than those she was accustomed to. The back was painted a rich forest green, decorated with a swirling pattern of silver and gold filigree lines.
Léonie paused, gathering her courage. She exhaled, then counted to three in her head, and turned over the top card.
A strange image of a dark man, attired in a long red tasselled robe and sitting upon a throne on a stone belvedere, looked up at her. The mountains in the distance seemed familiar. She read the inscription at the bottom: Le Roi des Pentacles.
She looked more closely, realising the figure of the King was familiar. Then it came to her. It was the image of someone the priest called upon to banish the demon from the sepulchre and who had begged her uncle to destroy the deck of cards. Bérenger Saunière.
Surely this was proof, as Monsieur Baillard had told her but half an hour previously, that her uncle had not taken his advice.
‘Madomaisèla. Madomaisèla Léonie?’
Léonie spun round in alarm at the sound of her name being called.
‘Madomaisèla?’
It was Pascal and Marieta. Evidently, Léonie realised, she had been so long absent that they had come out to find her. Quickly she wrapped the cards up once more. She wanted to take them with her, but there was nowhere at all she could conceal them about her person.
With great reluctance, but seeing no alternative since she did not wish anyone to know what she had found, she put the cards back inside the inner box, then the box into the chest, which she slid back into the hole. Then she stood up and started to kick the earth back with the already muddy soles of her boots. When it was nearly done, she dropped her stained and spoiled gloves into the ground too and covered them over.
She had to trust to the fact that no one had discovered the deck previously and were therefore not likely to now. She would return, under cover of dark, and take the cards when it was discreet and safe to do so.
‘Madomaisèla Léonie!’
She could hear the panic in Marieta’s voice.
Léonie retraced her steps, climbed on to the platform and ran back down the woodland path in the direction from which she had come, towards the sound of the servants’ voices. She struck out into the woods themselves, leaving the path so as not to give any hint of her starting point. Finally, when she thought she had put enough distance between herself and the treasure, she stopped, caught her breath, and then called out.
‘I am here,’ she cried. ‘Marieta! Pascal! Over here.’ Within moments, their concerned faces burst through the opening in the trees. Marieta stopped dead, unable to hide her surprise or worry at the condition of Léonie’s garments.
‘I mislaid my gloves.’ The spontaneous lie rising easily to her lips. ‘I was obliged to go back to search for them.’
Marieta looked hard at her. ‘And did you find them, Madomaisèla?’ she said.
‘Sadly, I did not.’
‘Your clothes.’
Léonie looked down at her muddy boots, her stained petticoats and skirts streaked with mud and lichen. ‘I mistook my step and slipped on the damp ground, that is all.’
She could see Marieta doubted the explanation, but the girl wisely held her tongue. They walked back to the house in silence.
CHAPTER 74
Léonie barely had time to wash the dirt from under her fingernails and change her clothes before the bell for luncheon sounded.
Isolde joined them in the dining room. She was delighted with what Léonie had brought for her from the town and managed to eat a little soup. After they had finished, she requested Léonie keep her company. Léonie was pleased to do so, although whilst they were talking and playing cards, her thoughts were elsewhere. She was plotting both how to return to the woods and retrieve the cards. Also, how to engineer another visit to Rennes-les-Bains.
The remainder of the day passed peacefully. The skies clouded over at dusk and there was a flurry of rain down in the valley and over the town, but the Domaine de la Cade was little disturbed.
The following morning, Léonie slept later than usual.
As she emerged on to the landing, she saw Marieta carrying the letter tray across the hall to the dining room. There was no reason whatsoever to presume that Monsieur Constant could somehow have acquired her address and written to her directly. Indeed, her fear was the opposite – that he had forgotten about her altogether. But because Léonie lived in a perpetual fog of longing and romantic possibility, she easily imagined troublesome and awkward circumstances.
So without the least hope of there being a letter from Carcassonne addressed to her, at the same time she found herself flying down the stairs with the sole intention of intercepting Marieta. She feared to see – and yet, in contradiction, hoped to see – the coat of arms familiar from the card Victor Constant had presented to her in the church and which she had committed to memory.
She pressed her eye close to the crack between wood and jamb, at the moment that Marieta opened the door from the inside and emerged with the empty salver.
They both squealed in surprise.
‘Madomaisèla!’
Léonie pulled the door shut to stop their noise drawing Anatole’s attention.
‘I do not suppose you happened to observe if there were any letters from Carcassonne, Marieta?’ she said.
The maid gave her an enquiring look. ‘Not that I noticed, Madomaisèla.’
‘You are certain?’
Marieta now looked mystified. ‘There were the usual circulars, a letter from Paris for Sénher Anatole, and a letter apiece for your brother and for Madama that came up from the town.’
Léonie gave a sigh of relief, tinged with disappointment.
‘Invitations, I dare say,’ Marieta added. ‘Very fine-quality envelopes they were, and addressed in a most elegant hand. A distinguished family crest also. Pascal said they were hand-delivered. Strange fellow in an old cloak.’
Léonie grew still. ‘What colour was the cloak?’
Marieta looked at her with surprise. ‘I’m sure I don’t know, Madomaisèla. Pascal did not say. Now, if you will excuse me …’
‘Of course.’ Léonie stood back. ‘Yes, of course.’
She hesitated on the threshold for a moment, uncertain as to why she should suddenly be so anxious about going into her brother’s company. It was her guilty conscience that made her think the letters might have anything whatsoever to do with her, nothing more. Wise counsel, she knew, but still she felt uneasy.
She turned away and ran lightly back up the stairs.
11
CHAPTER 75
Anatole sat at the breakfast table, staring blindly at the letter.
His hand shook as he lit a third cigarette from the stub of his second. The air in the closed room was thick with smoke. There were three envelopes on the table. One – unopened – had a Paris postmark. The other two bore an embossed crest of the type that adorned the display cases of Stern’s plate-glass windows. A sheet of writing paper with the same aristocratic family emblem lay on the empty plate in front of him.
The truth was that Anatole had known that such a letter, one day, would find him. However much he had tried to reassure Isolde, ever since the attack in the Passage des Panoramas back in September he had expected. The taunting communication they had received in the hotel in Carcassonne a week past had merely confirmed that Constant knew of the hoax and – worse – had hunted them down.
Although Anatole had attempted to make light of Isolde’s fears, everything she had told him about Constant had led him to fear what he might do. The pattern of Constant’s illness and the nature of it, his neuroses and paranoias, his ungoverned temper, all spoke of a man who would do anything to be revenged upon the woman he believed had wronged him.
Anatole looked down again at the formal letter in his hand, exquisitely insulting whilst being perfectly polite and proper. It was a formal challenge by Victor Constant to a duel to be fought tomorrow, Saturday 31st October, at dusk. Constant elected they should fight with pistols. He would leave it to Vernier to propose some appropriate plot of land within the Domaine de la Cade – private land, so that their illegal combat would pass unobserved.
He concluded by informing Vernier that he was at the Hôtel de la Reine in Rennes-les-Bains and awaiting his confirmation that he was a man of honour and would accept the challenge.
Not for the first time, Anatole regretted the impulse that had stayed his hand at the Cimetière de Montmartre. He had felt Constant’s presence in the graveyard. It had taken all of his strength not to turn round and shoot him there, in cold blood, and hang the consequences. When, this morning, he had opened the letter, his first thought had been to go to town and confront Constant in his lair.
But such an ungoverned response would not end the matter.
For some time, Anatole sat silently in the dining room. His cigarette burnt down and he lit another, but he felt too consumed with lethargy to smoke it.
He would need a second for the duel, someone local, obviously. Perhaps he could ask Charles Denarnaud? He at least had the virtue of being a man of the world. Anatole thought he might be able to prevail on Gabignaud to attend in his capacity as a medical man. Although he was certain the young doctor would baulk at the request, he did not think he would refuse him. Anatole had been obliged to take Gabignaud into his confidence about the situation between him and Isolde, for the sake of Isolde’s condition. He thought the doctor would agree, therefore, for her sake if not for his own.
He tried to persuade himself of a satisfactory outcome. Constant wounded, forced to shake his hand, calling the feud to an end. But, somehow, he could not. Even if he was the victor, he was by no means convinced that Constant would abide by the rules of engagement.
Of course he had no alternative but to accept the challenge. He was a man of honour even if his actions this past year had been far from honourable. If he did not fight Constant, nothing would ever change. Isolde would live under an intolerable strain, always waiting for Constant to strike. So would they all. The man’s appetite for persecution, if this letter was anything to judge by, showed no signs of abating. If he refused to meet him, Anatole knew Constant’s campaign against them – against everyone close to them – would intensify.
In the past days, Anatole had heard gossip from the servants’ hall that there were stories about the Domaine de la Cade circulating in the town. Disturbing suggestions that the beast that had so terrorised the neighbourhood in Jules Lascombe’s day had once more returned. It had made no sense to Anatole that such scandal should be resurrected and he had been inclined to dismiss it. Now he suspected Constant’s hand behind the malicious rumours.
He screwed the paper tight in his fist. He would not have his child grow up in the knowledge that his father was a coward. He had to accept the challenge. He had to shoot to win.
To kill.
Anatole drummed his fingers on the table. He was not short of courage. The problem lay in the fact that he was far from being an assured shot. His skill lay with rapier and foil, not pistol.
Anatole pushed that thought to one side. He would address that, with Pascal and perhaps with the assistance of Charles Denarnaud, in due course. At this instant, there were more immediate decisions to be taken, not least the question of whether or not he should confide in his wife.
Anatole extinguished another cigarette. Might Isolde somehow find out about the duel for herself? Such news might bring on a relapse and threaten the health of the baby. No, he could not tell her. He would ask Marieta not to mention this morning’s post.
He slipped the letter addressed to Isolde in Constant’s hand, the mirror of his own, into the breast pocket of his jacket. He could not hope to conceal the situation for long, but he could protect her peace of mind for a few hours more.
He wished he could send Isolde away. He gave a resigned smile, aware that there would be no possibility of persuading her to quit the Domaine de la Cade without adequate explanation. And since that was the one thing he could not furnish her with, there was no future in that train of thought.
Less simple to resolve was whether or not he should confide in Léonie.
Anatole had come to realise Isolde was right. His attitude to his little sister was based more on the child she had once been than the young woman she had become. He still thought her impetuous and often childish, unable or unwilling to hold her temper in check or guard her tongue. Against that was her undoubted affection for Isolde and the solicitous way in which, over the past few days since their return from Carcassonne, she had cared for her aunt.
Anatole had resolved to speak to Léonie over the course of last weekend. He had intended to tell her the truth, from the beginning of his love affair with Isolde to the situation in which they now found themselves.
Isolde’s fragile health had delayed matters, but now the receipt of the challenge had brought the pressing need for the conversation to the fore. Anatole tapped his fingers on the table. He decided he would confide the story of his marriage this morning. Depending upon Léonie’s reactions, he would either tell her of the challenge or not, as seemed appropriate.
He got to his feet. Taking all the letters with him, he strode across the dining room into the hall and rang the bell.
Marieta appeared.
‘Will you invite Mademoiselle Léonie to join me in the library at midday? I would like to talk to her in private, so if she could keep the matter to herself? Please impress upon her, Marieta, the importance of that. Also, there is no need to mention the letters received this morning to Madame Isolde. I will appraise her of them myself.’
Marieta looked puzzled, but did not question his orders.
‘Where is Pascal at present?’
To his surprise, the maid blushed. ‘In the kitchen, I believe, Sénher.’
‘Tell him to meet me at the rear of the house in ten minutes, ’ he instructed.
Anatole returned to his room to change into outdoor clothes. He wrote a curt and formal reply to Constant, blotting the ink, then sealed the envelope to make it safe from prying eyes. Pascal could deliver the response this afternoon. Now the only thought in his mind was how, for Isolde’s sake and for that of their child, he could not afford to miss.
The letter from Paris remained unopened in his waistcoat pocket.
Léonie paced up and down her bedroom, turning over in her mind why Anatole had requested to see her at noon, and privately. Could he have discovered her subterfuge? Or that she had dismissed Pascal and returned alone from the town?
The sound of voices below her open window drew her attention. She leaned out, both hands on the stone sill, to observe Anatole striding across the lawns with Pascal, who was carrying a long wooden box in both hands. It looked much like a pistol case. Léonie had never observed such equipment in the house, but she supposed her late uncle had possessed such weapons.
Perhaps they are going to hunt?
She frowned, realising that could not be the case. Anatole was not dressed for hunting. Besides, neither he nor Pascal were carrying shotguns. Only pistols.
Dread suddenly swooped down upon her, all the more potent for being unnamed. She snatched her hat and jacket, and pushed her hurrying feet into outdoor shoes, intending to follow him.
Then she checked her step.
Too often Anatole accused her of acting without thinking. It went against her nature to sit idle and wait, but what good would it do to go after him? If his purpose was quite innocent, then her trailing him like some tame dog would at the very least vex him. He could not intend to be long, having fixed an appointment with her at noon. She glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf. Two hours away.
She threw her hat upon the bed and kicked off her shoes, then looked around the chamber. She would do better to stay put and find some entertainment to pass the time before the rendezvous with her brother at midday.
Léonie looked at her painting equipment. She hesitated, then went to the bureau and began to unpack her brushes and papers. This would be the ideal opportunity to continue her sequence of illustrations. She had but three left to complete.
She fetched water, dipped her brush, then began to sketch with black ink the outlines of the sixth of the eight tableaux from the wall of the sepulchre.
Card XVI: La Tour.
CHAPTER 76
In the private drawing room on the first floor of the Hôtel de la Reine in Rennes-les-Bains, two men were seated in front of a fire lit to take the edge off the damp morning. Two servants, the one Parisian, the other Carcassonnais, stood behind at a respectful distance. From time to time, when they thought their master was not watching, they darted mistrustful glances at one another.
‘You think he will seek your service in this matter?’
Charles Denarnaud, his face still flushed from the quantity of excellent brandy consumed last evening at dinner, drew deeply on his cigar, puffing until the sour, expensive leaves caught. There was an expression of complacency on his mottled face. He tilted his head back and blew a white ring of smoke up to the ceiling.
‘Sure you won’t join me, Constant?’
Victor Constant held up his hand, his angry skin hidden beneath gloves. He felt unwell this morning. The anticipation of the hunt being almost at an end was playing on his nerves.
‘You are confident Vernier will petition you?’ he repeated.
Denarnaud heard the iron in Constant’s voice and sat up straight. ‘I do not think I have mistaken the man,’ he said quickly, aware he had caused offence. ‘Vernier has few associates in Rennes-les-Bains, certainly no others with whom he is on such terms as to request such a service and in such a matter. I am certain he will make representation to me. The timings involved do not allow him the opportunity to send further afield.’
‘Quite,’ Constant said drily.
‘My guess would be that he will approach Gabignaud, one of the resident doctors in the town, to be the medical man present.’
Constant nodded. He turned to the servant standing closest to the door.
‘The letters were delivered this morning?’
‘Yes, Monsieur.’
‘You did not make yourself known to the household?’
He shook his head. ‘I passed them into the hands of a footman to be taken in with this morning’s post.’
Constant thought a moment. ‘And no one is aware you are the source of the stories circulating?’
He shook his head. ‘I have simply dropped a word or two in the ears of those most likely to repeat them, that the beast raised by Jules Lascombe has again been sighted. Spite and superstition have done the rest. The storms are seen as evidence enough that all is not well.’
‘Excellent.’ Constant gestured with his hand. ‘Return to the grounds of the Domaine and observe what Vernier does. Report at dusk.’
‘Very good, Monsieur.’
He backed towards the door, pulling his blue Napoleonic cloak from the back of the chair as he did so, then slid out into the overcast street.
As soon as Constant heard the sound of the door closing, he stood up.
‘I wish the matter resolved quickly, Denarnaud, and with the minimum of attention. Is that clear?’
Surprised at the abrupt end to the interview, Denarnaud struggled to his feet.
‘Of course, Monsieur. Everything is in hand.’
Constant clicked his fingers. His manservant stepped forward, holding out a drawstring bag. Denarnaud could not help but take a step back in disgust at the man’s troubled skin and complexion.
‘This is half of what you are promised,’ said Constant, handing across the money. ‘The remainder will follow once the business is concluded and to my satisfaction. You understand me?’
Denarnaud’s voracious hands closed round the purse.
‘You will confirm I am not in possession of any other weapon,’ Constant said in a cold, hard voice. ‘You are quite clear on this.’
‘There will be a pair of duelling pistols, Monsieur, each with a single shot. Should you be carrying another instrument, I will fail to find it.’ He gave an ingratiating smile. ‘Although I cannot believe such a man as you, Monsieur, would fail to hit your target on the first attempt.’
Constant looked contemptuous at the craven flattery.
‘I never miss,’ he said.
12
CHAPTER 77
‘Damn and blast it to hell,’ Anatole shouted, kicking the ground with the heel of his boot.
Pascal walked over to the makeshift shooting gallery he had set up in the clearing in the woods ringed by wild juniper bushes. He set up the bottles again in a row, then returned to Anatole and reloaded the pistol for him.
Of the six shots, two had gone wide, one had hit the trunk of a beech tree and two the wooden fencing, dislodging three bottles through the vibration. Only one had hit its target, although just nicking the base of the thick glass bottle.
‘Try again, Sénher,’ Pascal said quietly. ‘Keep your eye steady.’
‘That’s what I’m doing,’ Anatole muttered with ill-temper.
‘Raise your eye to the target, then drop it again. Imagine the shot as it travels down the barrel.’ Pascal stepped away. ‘Steady, Sénher. Take your aim. Don’t rush.’
Anatole raised his arm. This time he imagined that, instead of a bottle that once had held ale, it was Victor Constant’s face in front of him.
‘Now,’ said Pascal softly. ‘Hold steady, hold steady. Fire.’
Anatole hit it full square. The bottle shattered, exploding in a shower of glass like a cheap firework. The sound ricocheted off the trunks of the trees, sending birds flapping in alarm from their nests.
A tiny puff of smoke slipped from the end of the barrel. Anatole blew across the top, then turned with his eyes glinting with satisfaction to face Pascal.
‘Good shot,’ the servant said, his broad, impassive face for once the mirror to his thoughts. ‘And . . . when is this engagement?’
The smile faded from Anatole’s face. ‘Tomorrow at dusk.’
Pascal walked across the glade, the twigs cracking underfoot, and lined up the remaining bottles once again. ‘Shall we see if you can hit a second time, Sénher?’
‘God willing, I shall only have to do it once,’ Anatole said to himself under his breath.
But he permitted Pascal to reload the pistol and keep him at it, until every last bottle had been struck and a smell of powder, gunshot and old ale hung in the air of the wooded clearing.
CHAPTER 78
At five minutes before midday, Léonie quit her chamber and walked along the passageway and down the main staircase. She appeared composed and the mistress of her emotions, but her heart was beating like a toy soldier’s tin drum.
As she crossed the tiled hall, her heels seemed to strike ominously loudly, or so it seemed, in the silent house. She glanced down at her hands and noticed there were flecks of paint, green and black, on her nails. She had, during the course of her anxious morning, completed the illustration of La Tour, but she was not satisfied with it. However lightly she had flecked the leaves on the trees or tried to colour the sky, there was an unnerving and brooding presence that spoke through the strokes of her brush.
She walked passed the glass display cases that led to the door of the library. The medals, curiosities and mementos barely registered on her mind, so absorbed was she in anticipating the interview to come.
On the threshold, she hesitated. Then she lifted her chin high, raised her hand, and knocked sharply upon the door with more courage than she felt.
‘Come.’
At the sound of Anatole’s voice, Léonie opened the door and stepped inside.
‘You wished to see me?’ she said, feeling as if she had been summoned before the magistrates’ bench rather than into the company of her beloved brother.
‘I did,’ he said, smiling at her. The expression on his face and the look in his brown eyes relieved her, although she realised that he too was anxious. ‘Come in, Léonie. Sit down.’
‘You are scaring me, Anatole,’ she said quietly. ‘You seem so grave.’
He put his hand on her shoulder and steered her to a chair with a tapestry seat. ‘It is a serious matter about which I wish to speak to you.’
He pulled out the chair for her to sit, then walked some distance off and turned to face her, hands behind his back. Now Léonie noticed he was holding something between his fingers. An envelope.
‘What is it?’ she said, her spirit lurching at the thought that her worst fears might be about to be realised. What if Monsieur Constant had, by some skill and effort, acquired the address and written directly to her. ‘Is it a letter from M’man? From Paris?’
A strange look came over Anatole’s face, as if he had just remembered something that had slipped his mind, but it was quickly covered.
‘No. At least, yes, it is a letter, but it is one I have myself written. To you.’
Hope sparked inside her chest that all might yet be well. ‘To me?’
Anatole smoothed his hand over his hair and sighed. ‘It is an awkward situation in which I find myself,’ he said quietly. ‘There are . . . matters of which we must speak, but now that the moment is here, I find myself humbled, tongue-tied in your presence.’
Léonie laughed. ‘I cannot see how that could be,’ she said. ‘You would not be embarrassed in front of me, surely?’
She had intended her words to tease, but the very sombre expression on Anatole’s face froze the smile on her lips. She leapt out of her chair and ran over to him.
‘Whatever is it?’ she demanded. ‘Is it M’man? Isolde?’
Anatole looked down at the letter in his hand. ‘I have taken the liberty of committing the confession to paper,’ he said.
‘Confession?’
‘Contained within is information that I should – that we should – have shared with you some time ago. Isolde would have done so, but I believed I knew best.’
‘Anatole!’ she cried, shaking his arm. ‘Tell me.’
‘It is better you read it in private,’ he said. ‘There is a situation that has arisen, far more serious, which requires my immediate attention. And your help.’
He slipped his arm out of Léonie’s small hand, and pushed the letter at her.
‘I hope you can forgive me,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I shall wait outside.’
Then, without further word, he strode across the room to the door, jerked it open, and was gone.
The door rattled shut. Then the silence rushed back.
Bewildered by what had just taken place, and distressed by Anatole’s evident anguish, Léonie looked down at the envelope. Her own name was printed in black ink in Anatole’s elegant, romantic hand.
She stared at it, fearful of what might be inside, then ripped it open.
Vendredi, le 30 octobre
Ma chère petite Léonie –
Always, you accused me of treating you like a child. Even when you were still in ribbons and short skirts and I struggling with my lessons. This time, the charge is fair. For tomorrow evening at dusk, I shall be in the clearing in the beech woods preparing to face the man who has made every attempt to ruin us.
If it does not fall out in my favour, then I do not wish you to be left without explanation to all those questions you would surely ask of me. Whatever the outcome of the duel, I wish you to know the truth of the matter.
I love Isolde with my heart and soul. It was she at whose graveside you stood in March, a desperate attempt for her – for us – to seek safety from the violent intentions of a man with whom she had a brief, ill-judged liaison. To dissemble her death and her burial seemed the only way for her to escape from the shadow under which she lived
Léonie reached out and found the back of the chair. Carefully, she sat herself down upon it.
I admit that I expected you to uncover our deception. During those difficult spring months and the early summer, even while the attacks upon me in the newspapers continued, at every turn, I expected you to tear off the mask and denounce me, but I played my part too well. You, who are so true of heart and purpose, why would you doubt that my pinched lips and haggard eyes were the consequences not of dissipation but of grief?
I must tell you that Isolde never wished to deceive you. From the moment we arrived at the Domaine de la Cade and she made your acquaintance, she had faith that your love for me – and she hoped in time that this same love would extend to her as a sister – would allow you to put moral considerations aside and support us in our deception. I disagreed.
I was a fool.
As I sit writing this, on what might be the eve of my last day upon this earth, I admit that my greatest fault was moral cowardice. One fault, among many.
But these have been glorious weeks here, with you and Isolde, in the peaceful paths and gardens of the Domaine de la Cade.
There is more. A final deception, for which I pray you can find it in your heart if not to forgive, at least to understand. In Carcassonne, while you explored the innocent streets, Isolde and I were married. She is now Madame Vernier, your sister by the bonds of law as well as affection.
I am also to be a father.
But on that same happiest of days, we learned that he had discovered us. This is the true explanation for our abrupt departure. It is too the explanation for Isolde’s decline and fragility. But it is clear that her health cannot withstand the assaults upon her nerves. The matter cannot remain unresolved.
Having discovered the deception of the funeral, somehow he has hunted us, first to Carcassonne, and now to Rennes-les-Bains. It is why I have accepted his challenge. It is the only way to settle the issue for good.
Tomorrow evening, I will face him. I seek your help, petite, as I should have sought it many months previously. I have great need of your service, to keep the particulars of the duel from my beloved Isolde. Should I not return, I commend the safety of my wife and child to you. The house is secure in possession.
Your affectionate and loving brother
A –
Léonie’s hands dropped into her lap. The tears she had struggled to keep at bay began to roll silently down her cheeks. She wept for the pity of it, for the deception and the misunderstandings that had kept them apart. She cried – for Isolde, for the fact that she and Anatole had deceived her, that she had ever deceived them – until all her emotion was spent.
Then her thoughts sharpened. The reason for Anatole’s untimely expedition from the house this morning was now explained.
In a matter of days, hours, he could be dead.
She ran to the window and threw the casement wide. After the brilliance of the early morning, the day was now overcast. Everything was still and damp beneath the ineffective rays of the weak sun. An autumn fog was floating over the lawns and gardens, shrouding the world in a deceptive calm.
Tomorrow at dusk.
She looked at her reflection in the tall library window, thinking how strange it was that she could appear the same, yet be so utterly changed. Eyes, face, chin, mouth, all in the same place as they had been but three minutes earlier.
Léonie shivered. Tomorrow was Toussaint, the Eve of All Saints. A night of terrible beauty, when the veil between good and ill was at its slightest. It was a time when such events could take place. A time, already, of demons and evil deeds.
The duel must not be allowed to go ahead. It was down to her to prevent it. So dreadful a charade could not be permitted to continue. But even as the thoughts raced furiously around her head, Léonie knew it was no use. She could not deflect Anatole from his chosen course of action.
‘He must not miss his target,’ she muttered under her breath. Ready to face him now, she went to the door and pulled it open.
Her brother was standing outside in a fug of cigarette smoke, the anguish of the waiting minutes while she had been reading carved clearly upon his face.
‘Oh, Anatole,’ she said, throwing her arms around him.
His eyes filled with tears. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered, allowing himself to be held. ‘I am so very sorry. Can you forgive me, petite?’
13
CHAPTER 79
Léonie and Anatole spent much of the rest of that day in one another’s company. Isolde rested in the afternoon, giving them time together to talk. Anatole was so bowed down by the burden of anticipation and how circumstances had conspired against him that Léonie felt herself the older sibling.
She alternated between rage at having been so deceived, and for so many months, and affection for the evident love he had for Isolde and the lengths he had gone to protect it.
‘Did M’man know of the deception?’ she challenged several times, haunted by the memory of herself standing beside an untenanted casket in the Cimetière de Montmartre. ‘Was I the only one not party to the hoax?’
‘I did not confide in her,’ he replied. ‘Although I believe she understood that there was more to the matter than met the eye.’
‘No death,’ she said quietly. ‘And the clinic? Was there a child?’
‘No. Another lie to shore up our deception.’
It was only in the quiet moments, when Anatole had momentarily taken his leave of her, that Léonie allowed back the trepidation of what the following day might bring. He would say little of his enemy, suffice that he had damaged Isolde greatly in the short time they had been acquainted. Anatole did admit that the man was a Parisian and that he had clearly been successful in unpicking the false trail laid for him and tracked them to the Midi. However, he professed to be at a loss as to how he had made the leap from Carcassonne to Rennes-les-Bains. Nor would he utter his name.
Léonie listened to the story of the obsession, the desire for revenge that drove their enemy – the attacks upon her brother in the columns of the newspapers, the assault upon his person in the Passage des Panoramas, the efforts to which he was prepared to go to ruin both Isolde and Anatole – and heard the real fear behind her brother’s words.
They did not discuss the outcome should Anatole miss his target. Pressed by her brother, Léonie gave her word that, should he fail in his task and be unable to protect them, she would find some immediate way of leaving the Domaine de la Cade under cover of night with Isolde.
‘He is not a man of honour, then?’ she said. ‘You fear he will not abide by the rules of engagement?’
‘I fear he will not,’ he replied gravely. ‘Should things go ill tomorrow, I would not wish Isolde to be here when he comes to find her.’
‘He sounds a devil.’
‘And I, a fool,’ said Anatole quietly, ‘for thinking it could end in any other way than this.’
Later that evening, after Isolde had retired for the night, Anatole and Léonie met in the drawing room to agree on a plan of campaign for the following day.
She disliked being party to a deception – especially having been the victim of such concealment herself – but she accepted that, in her condition, Isolde could not know of what was to happen. Anatole tasked her with occupying his wife so that, at the appointed hour, he and Pascal could slip away. He had sent word to Charles Denarnaud inviting him to be his second, a request that had been accepted without hesitation. Dr Gabignaud, an unwilling participant, was to provide medical assistance should it be required.
Though she nodded with apparent acquiescence, Léonie had not the slightest intention of abiding by Anatole’s wishes. She could not contemplate sitting idly in the drawing room, watching the hands of the clock make their slow march, knowing that her brother was engaged in such a combat. She knew she would have to find some way of passing off responsibility for Isolde between the hours of dusk and nightfall, although she could not yet conceive of how this might be achieved.
But she gave no indication of her intended disobedience, in either word or deed. And Anatole was so absorbed in his fevered plannings that he did not think to doubt her compliance.
When he, too, retired for the night, quitting the drawing room with a single candle to light his way to bed, Léonie remained behind for some time, thinking, deciding how to arrange things for the best.
She would be strong. She would not permit her fears to master her. All would be well. Anatole would wound or kill his enemy. She refused to entertain an alternative.
But even as the hours of night slipped by, she was aware that wishing would not make it so.
CHAPTER 80
SATURDAY 31ST OCTOBER
The Eve of All Saints came in with a chill and pink dawn. Léonie had barely slept, so felt the weight of the passing minutes pressing down upon her. After breakfast, where neither she nor Anatole could manage to eat much, he spent the morning time closeted with Isolde.
As she sat in the library, she could hear them laughing, whispering, planning. Isolde’s joy at her brother’s company made Léonie’s awareness of how easily such happiness might be snatched away the more painful.
When she joined them for coffee in the morning room, Anatole raised his head, his gaze for an instant unguarded. His anguish, the dread, the misery laid bare in his eyes made her turn away, for fear her countenance would give him away.
After lunch, they passed the afternoon in playing cards and reading stories aloud, thereby contriving to delay Isolde’s afternoon rest, as Léonie and Anatole had previously planned. It was not until four o’clock that Isolde declared her intention to withdraw to her chamber until supper. Anatole returned some quarter of an hour later with sorrow etched in lines upon his face.
‘She is sleeping,’ he said.
They both looked out at the apricot sky, the last vestiges of sun flecked bright behind the clouds. Léonie’s strength finally deserted her. ‘It is not too late,’ she cried. ‘There is still time to call it off.’ She grabbed hold of his hand. ‘I beg you, Anatole, do not go through with this.’
He put his arms around her and drew her to him, enveloping her in the familiar scent of sandalwood and hair oil.
‘You know I cannot refuse to meet him now, petite,’ he said softly. ‘It will never end else. Besides, I would not have my son grow up believing his father a coward.’ He squeezed her tighter. ‘Nor, indeed, my courageous and steadfast little sister.’
‘Or daughter,’ she said.
Anatole smiled. ‘Or daughter.’
The sound of footsteps on the tiled floor made them both turn.
Pascal stopped at the bottom of the stairs, holding Anatole’s greatcoat over his arm. The expression on his face betraying how little he wished to be part of the matter.
‘It is time, Sénher,’ he said.
Léonie held on tightly. ‘Please, Anatole. Please, do not go. Pascal, do not let him go.’
Pascal looked on with sympathy as Anatole, gently, prised her fingers from his sleeve.
‘Look after Isolde,’ he whispered. ‘My Isolde. I have left a letter in my dressing room, should things . . .’ He broke off. ‘She must not want for anything. Neither she, nor the child. Keep them safe.’
Léonie watched, dumb with despair, as Pascal helped him into his coat, then the two men walked briskly to the front door. On the threshold, Anatole turned. He raised his hands to his lips.
‘I love you, petite.’
There was a rush of damp evening air, then the door shuddered to a close behind them and they were gone. Léonie listened to the muffled crunch of their boots upon the gravel until she could hear them no more.
Then the truth of it hit her. She sank on to the bottom step, rested her head on her arms, and sobbed. From the shadows beneath the stairs, Marieta crept out. The girl hesitated, then, deciding to forget herself, sat down on the step beside Léonie and put her arm around her shoulder.
‘It will be all right, Madomaisèla,’ she murmured. ‘Pascal will not let any harm come to the master.’
A wail of grief, of terror, of hopelessness burst out from between Léonie’s lips, like the howl of a wild animal caught in a trap. Then, remembering how she had promised not to wake Isolde, she muted her tears.
Her fit of weeping quickly subsided. She felt light-headed, curiously empty of emotion. She felt as if there was something caught in her throat. She rubbed her eyes hard with the cuff of her sleeve.
‘Is my . . .’ She paused, suddenly realising that she no longer knew quite how she should refer to Isolde. ‘Is my aunt still sleeping?’ she asked.
Marieta got to her feet and smoothed down her apron. The look on her face suggested that Pascal had confided the whole business to her.
‘Do you wish me to go and see if Madama has woken?’
Léonie shook her head. ‘No, let her be.’
‘Can I fetch you something? A tisane, perhaps.’
Léonie also stood up. ‘No, I will be perfectly fine now.’ She gave a smile. ‘I am sure you have more than enough to occupy you. Besides, my brother will need refreshment when he returns. I would not have him wait.’
For a moment, the eyes of the two girls met.
‘Very good, Madomaisèla,’ Marieta said in the end. ‘I shall make certain the kitchen is prepared.’
Léonie remained a while in the hall, listening to the sounds of the house, satisfying herself that there were no witnesses to what she was about to do. When she was certain all was quiet, she ran quickly up the stairs, running her hand along the mahogany banister rail, and lightly along the passageway towards her room.
To her confusion, she could hear noises coming from Anatole’s chamber. She froze, mistrusting the evidence of her own ears, having seen him depart the house half an hour previously and in the company of Pascal.
She was on the point of continuing when the door flew open and Isolde all but fell into her arms. Her blond hair was loose and her shift open at the neck. She looked quite deranged, as if shocked out of sleep by some demon or ghost. Léonie could not help but notice the raw, red scarring at her throat, and averted her gaze. Her shock at seeing her elegant, controlled and self-possessed aunt in the throes of such hysteria made her voice sharper than intended.
‘Isolde! Whatever is it? What has happened?’
Isolde was twisting her head from side to side, as if in violent disagreement, and waving a piece of paper in her hand.
‘He has gone! To fight!’ she cried. ‘We must prevent it.’
Léonie turned cold, realising Isolde had laid her hands prematurely on the letter that Anatole had left for her in his dressing room.
‘I could not sleep, so I went to find him. Instead, I found this.’ Isolde stopped abruptly and looked Léonie in the eye. ‘You knew,’ she said softly, her voice suddenly calm.
For a fleeting instant, Léonie forgot that even as she spoke, Anatole was striding through the woods to fight a duel. She tried to smile as she reached out and took Isolde’s hand.
‘I know of the steps you have taken. The marriage,’ she said quietly. ‘I wish I could have been there.’
‘Léonie, I wish . . .’ Isolde paused. ‘We wished to tell you.’
Léonie put her arms around her. In an instant, their roles reversed.
‘And that Anatole is to be a father?’ Isolde said, almost whispering.
‘That too,’ Léonie said. ‘It is the most wonderful news.’
Isolde suddenly pulled away. ‘But you knew of this duel also?’
Léonie hesitated. She was on the point of evading the question, but then stopped. There had been enough dishonesty between them. Too many destructive lies.
‘I did,’ she admitted. ‘The letter was delivered by hand yesterday. Denarnaud and Gabignaud have accompanied him.’
Isolde went white. ‘By hand, you say,’ she whispered. ‘So he is here then. Even here.’
‘Anatole will not miss his mark,’ Léonie said with a conviction she did not feel.
Isolde put her head up and pushed her shoulders back. ‘I must go to him.’
Taken by surprise at her abrupt change of mood, Léonie fumbled for a response.
‘You cannot,’ she objected.
Isolde took not the slightest bit of notice. ‘Where is the contest to take place?’
‘Isolde, you are unwell. It would be foolish to attempt to follow him.’
‘Where?’ she said.
Léonie sighed. ‘A clearing in the beech woods. I do not know precisely where.’
‘Where the wild juniper grows. There is a clearing there where my late husband would sometimes go to practise.’
‘It may be. He said nothing more.’
‘I must dress,’ Isolde said, slipping from Léonie’s clasp.
Léonie had no choice but to follow. ‘But even if we leave now, and we find the precise location, Anatole left with Pascal more than half an hour ago.’
‘If we go now, we may yet stop it.’
Not wasting time with her corset, Isolde pulled on her grey walking dress and outdoor jacket, pushed her elegant feet into boots, her fingers falling over one another as she laced each hook and eye haphazardly, then ran towards the stairs, Léonie on her heels.
‘Will his opponent abide by the result?’ Léonie suddenly asked, hoping for a different answer to the one with which Anatole had earlier furnished her.
Isolde stopped and looked up at her, despair in her grey eyes.
‘He is . . . he is not a man of honour.’
Léonie grasped her hand, seeking reassurance as much as to give comfort, as another question came into her mind. ‘When is the child due?’
For a moment, Isolde’s eyes softened. ‘All being well, June. A summer baby.’
As they stole through the hall, it seemed to Léonie that the world had taken on a harsher hue. Things once familiar and precious – the polished table and doors, the pianoforte and tapestried stool, within which Léonie had placed the music taken from the sepulchre – seemed to have turned their back on them. Cold, dead objects.
Léonie reached down the heavy garden cloaks from the hooks inside the entrance, handed one to Isolde, wrapped the other around herself, then pulled open the door. Chill dusk air slipped around her legs like a cat, wrapping itself round her stockings, her ankles. She took the lighted lamp from the stand.
‘At what time is the engagement due to take place?’ Isolde asked in a quiet voice.
‘Dusk,’ Léonie replied. ‘Six o’clock.’
They looked up at the sky, a deep and darkening blue above them.
‘If we are to be there in time,’ Léonie said, ‘we must hurry. Quick, now.’
14
CHAPTER 81
‘I love you, petite,’ Anatole repeated to himself, as the front door juddered shut behind him.
He and Pascal, holding a lantern aloft, walked in silence to the end of the drive, where Denarnaud’s carriage was waiting for them.
Anatole nodded at Gabignaud, whose expression revealed how little he wished to be a part of the proceedings. Charles Denarnaud clasped Anatole’s hand.
‘The principal and the doctor in the back,’ Denarnaud announced, his voice clear in the chill dusk air. ‘Your man and I will ride at the front.’
The hood was up. Gabignaud and Anatole climbed in. Denarnaud and Pascal, looking uncomfortable in such company, faced them, balancing the long wooden pistol case on their lap between them.
‘You know the appointed place, Denarnaud?’ Anatole asked. ‘The glade in the beech wood to the east of the property? ’
Denarnaud leant out and gave the instructions. Anatole heard the driver flick his reins and the gig moved off, the harness and bridle rattling in the still evening air.
Denarnaud was the only one with an appetite for talk. Most of his stories involved duels with which he had been involved, close shaves all, but always ending well for his principal. Anatole understood he was trying to put him at ease, but wished he would hold his tongue.
He sat, bolt upright, looking out at the winter countryside, thinking that perhaps it was the last time he would see the world. The avenue of trees lining the drive was covered in hoar frost. The heavy fall of the horses’ hooves on the hard ground echoed around the park. The darkening blue sky above seemed to glint like a mirror, as a pale moon rose in white splendour.
‘These are my own pistols,’ Denarnaud explained. ‘I loaded them myself. The case is sealed. You will draw lots to decide whether we use these or your opponent’s.’
‘I know that,’ Anatole snapped, then, regretting that he sounded abrupt, added, ‘My apologies, Denarnaud. My nerves are on edge. I am most grateful for your careful attention. ’
‘Always worth running through the etiquette,’ Denarnaud said in a voice louder than the confined space of the carriage and the situation required. Anatole realised that Denarnaud too, for all his bluster, was nervous. ‘We don’t want any misunderstandings. For all I know, matters are conducted differently in Paris.’
‘I do not think so.’
‘You have been practising, Vernier?’
Anatole nodded. ‘With the pistols from the house.’
‘Are you confident with them? Is the sighting good?’
‘I would have had more time,’ he said.
The carriage turned and started to move across the rougher ground.
Anatole tried to picture his cherished Isolde, sleeping upon the bed with her hair fanned out on the pillow, her willowy white arms. He thought of Léonie’s bright, green, questioning eyes. And the face of a child not yet born. Tried to fix their beloved features in his mind.
I am doing this for them.
But the world had shrunk to the rattling carriage, the wooden box upon Denarnaud’s lap, the fast, nervous breathing of Gabignaud beside him.
Anatole felt the fiacre swing again to the left. Beneath the wheels, the ground became more rutted and uneven. Suddenly Denarnaud banged on the side of the carriage and shouted to the driver to take a small lane on the right.
The gig turned into the unmade track running between the trees, then emerged into a clearing. On the far side stood another carriage. With a jolt, although it was what he knew he would see, Anatole recognised the crest of Victor Constant, Comte de Tourmaline, gold upon black. Two bay horses, plumed and blinkered, were stamping their hooves upon the hard, cold ground. Beside them stood a knot of men.
Denarnaud alighted first, Gabignaud followed, then Pascal with the pistol case. Finally Anatole stepped down. Even from this distance, with their opposite numbers all dressed alike in black, he could identify Constant. With a shudder of revulsion, he also recognised the red-raw, pock-marked features of one of the two men who had set about him on the night of the riot at the Opéra in the Passage des Panoramas. Beside him, shorter and of poor appearance, a dissolute-looking old soldier in an archaic Napoleonic cloak. He, too, seemed familiar.
Anatole drew his breath. Even though Victor Constant had been in residence in his thoughts from the moment he had met and fallen in love with Isolde, the two men had not been in one another’s company since their one and only quarrel in January.
He was taken by surprise at the rage that rushed through him. He balled his hands into fists. A cool head was what was required, not an impetuous desire for revenge. But suddenly the wood seemed too small. The bare trunks of the beech trees appeared to be closing in upon him.
He stumbled on an exposed root, and nearly fell.
‘Steady, Vernier,’ murmured Gabignaud.
Anatole gathered his thoughts to him and watched as Denarnaud walked towards Constant’s party, Pascal trailing behind him carrying the pistol box across his arms as if it was a child’s coffin.
The seconds greeted one another formally, each bowing briefly, sharply, then they walked further up into the clearing. Anatole was aware of Constant’s cold eyes upon him, piercing, straight as an arrow, across the frozen earth. He noted, too, that he looked unwell.
They moved to the centre of the clearing, not far from where Pascal had set up the makeshift shooting gallery the day before, then measured the paces from where each man would take aim. Pascal and Constant’s man hammered two walking sticks into the damp ground to mark precisely the spot.
‘How are you holding up?’ Gabignaud murmured. ‘Can I fetch any—’
‘Nothing,’ Anatole said quickly. ‘I need nothing.’
Denarnaud returned. ‘I regret we lost the toss for the pistols. ’ He slapped Anatole on the shoulder. ‘It will make no difference, I am certain. It’s the aim that counts, not the barrel. ’
Anatole felt he was a man walking in his sleep. Everything around him seemed to be muffled, happening to someone else. He knew he should be concerned about the fact that he was to use his opponent’s pistols, but he was numb.
The two groups moved closer to one another.
Denarnaud removed Anatole’s greatcoat. Constant’s second did the same for him. Anatole watched as Denarnaud ostentatiously patted down Constant’s jacket pockets, his waistcoat pockets, to make sure he had no other weapons, no pocket book, no papers that might act as a shield.
Denarnaud nodded. ‘Nothing amiss.’
Anatole lifted his arms while Constant’s man ran his hands over his body to check that he too had no concealed advantage. He felt his watch fob being taken from his pocket and unchained.
‘A new watch, Monsieur? Monogrammed. Nice piece of workmanship.’
He recognised the rasping voice. It was the same man who had stolen his father’s timepiece from him during the attack in Paris. He balled his fists to prevent him striking the man down.
‘Leave it,’ he muttered viciously.
The man glanced at his master, then shrugged and walked away.
Anatole felt Denarnaud take his elbow and lead him to one of the walking sticks. ‘Vernier, this is your mark.’
I cannot miss.
He was handed a pistol. It was cold and heavy in his hand, a far finer weapon than those belonging to his late uncle. The barrel was long and polished, with Constant’s gold monogrammed initials stamped into the handle.
Anatole felt as if he was looking down upon himself from a great height. He could see a man who much resembled him, the same jet-black hair, the same moustache, the pale face and nose tipped red from the cold.
Facing him, at some paces hence, he could see a man who looked much like a man who had persecuted him from Paris to the Midi.
Now, as from a distance, came a voice. Abruptly, absurdly quickly, the business was to be concluded.
‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’
Anatole nodded. Constant nodded.
‘One shot apiece.’
Anatole raised his arm. Constant did the same.
Then the same voice again. ‘Fire.’
Anatole was aware of nothing, no sights, no sounds, no smells; he experienced a total absence of emotion. He believed himself to have done nothing, and yet the muscles in his arm contracted and his fingers squeezed, pressing the trigger, and there was a snap as the catch released. He saw the powder flare in the pan and the puff of smoke bloom on the air. Two reports echoed around the glade. The birds flew up out of the tops of the surrounding trees, their wings beating the air in their panic to be away.
Anatole lost the air in his lungs. His legs went from under him. He was falling, falling to his knees on the hard earth, thinking of Isolde and Léonie, then a warmth spread over his chest, like the soothing ministrations of a hot bath, seeping across his chilled body.
‘Is he struck?’ Gabignaud’s voice, perhaps? Perhaps not.
Dark figures gathered around him, no longer identifiable as Gabignaud or Denarnaud, just a forest of black and grey-striped trouser legs, hands encased in thick fur gloves, heavy boots. Then he heard something. A wild shrieking, his name carried in agony and despair through the chill air.
Anatole slumped sideways on to the ground. He was imagining he could hear Isolde’s voice calling to him. But, almost simultaneously, he realised that others could hear the shouting too. The crowd surrounding him parted and stood back, far enough for him to see her running towards him from the cover of the trees, with Léonie hard on her heels.
‘No. Anatole, no!’ Isolde was shouting. ‘No!’
On the instant, something else caught his attention, just outside his line of vision. His eyes were darkening. He tried to sit, but a sharp pain in his side, like the stab of a knife, caused him to gasp. He reached out his hand, but had no strength and felt himself slumping back down to the ground.
Everything started to move in slow motion. Anatole realised what was going to happen. At first, his eyes could not accept it. Denarnaud had checked the rules of engagement were met. One shot and one shot only. And yet as he watched, Constant dropped the duelling pistol to the ground, reached into his jacket and pulled out a second weapon, so small that the barrel fitted between his second and third fingers. His arm continued its upward arc, then swung to the right and fired.
A second gun when there should have been only one.
Anatole shouted, at last finding his voice. But he was too late.
Her body came to a standstill, as if hanging momentarily in the air, then was thrown backwards by the force of the bullet. Her eyes flared wide, open first with surprise, then shock, then pain. He watched her fall. Like him, down to the ground.
Anatole felt a cry rip from his chest. All around him was chaos, yelling and shouting and pandemonium. And in the centre of it all, although it could not be, he thought he heard the sound of someone laughing. His vision faded, black replacing white, stripping the colour from the world
It was the last sound he heard before the darkness closed over him.
15
CHAPTER 82
A howl split the air. Léonie heard it, but was at first unaware that the cry had issued from her own lips.
For a moment, she stood rooted to the spot, unable to accept the evidence of her own eyes. She fancied she looked at a stage set, the glade and each person captured in time with brush and paint or the shutter of a lens. Lifeless, motionless, a postcard image of their real, flesh-and-blood selves.
Then, with a kick, the world rushed back. Léonie cast her gaze into the darkness, the truth imprinting its bloody handprint upon her mind.
Isolde, lying upon the damp earth, her grey dress stained red.
Anatole, struggling to raise himself on one arm, his face creased with pain, before collapsing back to the ground. Gabignaud crouched at his side.
Most shocking, the face of their murderer. The man who Isolde so feared and Anatole so detested, revealed in plain sight.
Léonie turned cold, her courage ripped from her.
‘No,’ she whispered.
Guilt, sharp as glass, pierced her defences. Humiliation, then anger, following on its heels, swept through her like a river bursting its banks. Here, but a couple of steps away from her, was the man who had taken up residence in her private thoughts, about whom she had dreamed since Carcassonne. Victor Constant.
Anatole’s assassin. Isolde’s persecutor.
Was it she who had led him here?
Léonie raised her lamp higher until she could clearly see the crest on the side of the carriage standing some way off to the side, although she did not need confirmation that it was he.
Rage, sudden and violent and all-encompassing, swooped down over her. Insensible of her own safety, she charged out of the shadows of the trees and into the glade, running forward towards the knot of men standing around Anatole and Gabignaud.
The doctor seemed paralysed. Shock at what had transpired had stolen from him the ability to act. He lurched up, nearly losing his footing on the hardening ground, looking wildly to Victor Constant and his men, then in bewilderment at Charles Denarnaud, who had checked the guns and pronounced that the conditions for the duel had been met.
Léonie reached Isolde first. She threw herself down on the ground beside her and lifted her cloak. The pale grey material on the left side of her dress was soaked crimson, like an obscene hothouse bloom. Léonie pulled off her glove and, pushing Isolde’s cuff higher up her arm, felt for a pulse. It was faint, but there. Some slight measure of life remained. Quickly she ran her hands over Isolde’s prostrate body and realised the bullet had hit her arm. Provided she did not lose too much blood, she would survive.
‘Dr Gabignaud, vite,’ she cried. ‘Aidez-la. Pascal!’
Her thoughts leapt to Anatole. The slightest frosting of white breath around his mouth and nose in the twilight gave her hope that he too was not mortally wounded.
She stood up and took a step towards her brother.
‘I will thank you to stay where you are, Mademoiselle Vernier. You too, Gabignaud.’
Constant’s voice stopped her in her tracks. Only now did Léonie register that he was still holding his weapon raised, finger upon the trigger, ready to squeeze, and that it was not a duelling pistol. In fact, she recognised Le Protector, a gun designed to be carried in the pocket or a purse. Her mother possessed just such a weapon.
He had more shots.
Léonie was disgusted at herself, for the pretty endearments she had imagined him whispering in her ear. For how she had encouraged – with no modesty or care of her reputation – his attentions.
And I led him to them.
She forced herself to hold her nerve. She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye.
‘Monsieur Constant,’ she said, his name like poison on her tongue.
‘Mademoiselle Vernier,’ he replied, still holding the gun on Gabignaud and Pascal. ‘This is an unexpected pleasure. I had not thought Vernier would expose you to such ugliness.’
Her eyes darted to where Anatole lay on the ground, then back to Constant.
‘I am here of my own accord,’ she said.
Constant jerked his head. His manservant stepped forward, followed by the filthy soldier whom Léonie recognised as the same creature who had followed her with his impertinent eyes as she walked into the medieval Cité of Carcassonne. With despair, she realised how complete had been Constant’s planning.
The two men seized Gabignaud and pulled his arms back behind his back, throwing his lamp to the ground. Léonie heard the glass smash as the flame was extinguished with a hiss in the damp leaves. Then, before she realised what was happening, the taller of the men drew a gun from beneath his coat, put it to Gabignaud’s temple and pulled the trigger.
The force of the shot lifted Gabignaud from the ground.
The back of his head exploded, showering his executioner with blood and bone. His body twitched, jerked, then lay still.
How little time it takes to kill a man, to sever soul from body.
The thought swooped in, then out of her mind. Léonie clamped her hands to her mouth, feeling the nausea rising in her throat, then doubled over and vomited on the damp ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pascal taking a small step backwards, then another. She could not believe he was preparing to flee – she had never had doubt to question his loyalty and his steadfastness before – but what else could he be doing?
Then he caught her eye and glanced down to signal his intention.
Léonie straightened up and turned to Charles Denarnaud. ‘Monsieur,’ she said loudly, creating a diversion, ‘I am surprised to find you an ally of this man. You will be condemned when news of your duplicity is reported.’
He gave a complacent grimace. ‘From whose mouth, Mademoiselle Vernier? There is none but us here.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ commanded Constant.
‘Do you care nothing for your sister,’ Léonie challenged, ‘your family, that you would disgrace them in such a manner? ’
Denarnaud patted his pocket. ‘Money speaks louder and longer.’
‘Denarnaud, ça suffit!’
Léonie glanced at Constant, noticing for the first time how his head seemed to tremble in permanent motion, as if he had difficulty controlling his movements.
But then she saw Anatole’s foot twitch on the ground.
Was he alive? Could he be? Relief bubbled up, replaced immediately by dread. If he was yet alive, he would remain so only as long as Constant thought him dead.
Night had fallen. Though the doctor’s lamp was broken, the remaining lanterns cast uneven pools of yellow light on the ground.
Léonie forced herself to take a step towards the man she had thought she might love.
‘Is it worth it, Monsieur? Damning yourself? And for what root cause? Jealousy? Revenge? For it is certainly not for honour.’ She took another pace, a little to the side this time, hoping to shield Pascal. ‘Let me tend to my brother. To Isolde.’
She was now close enough to see the look of contempt on Constant’s face. She could not believe she had ever thought his features distinguished, noble. He seemed so evidently vile, his mouth cruel and his pupils no more than pinpricks in his bitter eyes. He repelled her.
‘You are hardly in a position to issue orders, Mademoiselle Vernier.’ He turned his head to where Isolde lay folded within her cloak. ‘And the whore. A single shot was too good for her. I would wish that she had suffered as she has made me suffer.’
Léonie met his blue eyes without flinching. ‘She is beyond your reach now,’ she said, the lie coming without hesitation to her lips.
‘You will forgive me, Mademoiselle Vernier, if I do not take your word for that. Besides, there is not a single tear on your cheek.’ He glanced at Gabignaud’s body. ‘You have strong nerves, but I do not believe you are so hard-hearted.’
He hesitated, as if preparing to deliver the coup de grâce. Léonie felt her body tense, waiting for the shot she thought must surely now find her. She realised Pascal was almost ready to act. It took great effort of will not to look in his direction.
‘In point of fact,’ Constant said, ‘in character you remind me much of your mother.’
Everything stilled, as if the world was holding its breath. White clouds, cold on the evening air, the shivering of the wind in the bare branches of the trees, the rustling of the juniper bushes. At last Léonie found her tongue.
‘What do you mean?’ she said. Each word seemed to drop like lead into the cold air.
She could sense his satisfaction. It rose from him like the stench from a tannery, acrid, pungent.
‘You still do not know what has befallen your mother?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘It has been quite the talk of Paris,’ Constant said. ‘I am told, one of the worst murders the pedestrian minds of the gendarmes of the eighth arrondissement have been obliged to deal with for some time.’
Léonie stepped back as if he had struck her. ‘She is dead?’
Her teeth started to chatter. She could hear the truth of what Constant claimed in the quality of his silence, but her mind could not let her accept it. If she did, she would falter and fall. And all the time, Isolde and Anatole both were growing weaker.
‘I do not believe you,’ she managed to articulate.
‘Ah, but you do, Mademoiselle Vernier. I can see it in your face.’ He let his arm drop, taking the gun off Léonie for an instant. She took a step backwards. Behind her, she felt Denarnaud shifting, moving closer, blocking her path. In front of her, Constant stepped towards her, quickly covering the distance between them. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Pascal crouch, snatch up the spare pistols from the box they had brought from the house.
‘Attention!’ he shouted to her.
Léonie reacted without hesitation, throwing herself down to the ground, as a shot whistled over her head.
Denarnaud fell, struck in the back.
Constant retaliated instantly, firing into the darkness but going wide of his target. Léonie could hear Pascal in the undergrowth and realised he was moving round behind Constant.
On Constant’s command, the old soldier was advancing on where Léonie lay on the ground. The other man was running towards the edge of the glade, looking for Pascal, firing at random.
‘Il est ici!’ he shouted to his master.
Constant fired again. Again the shot went wide.
Suddenly, the vibration of running feet echoed through the ground. Léonie raised her head in the direction of the noise and heard shouting.
‘Arèst!’
She recognised Marieta’s voice, calling through the darkness, and others too. She narrowed her eyes and now could make out the glow of several lanterns getting closer, larger, jolting in the darkness. Then the gardener’s boy, Emile, burst into sight on the far side of the clearing, holding a flaming torch in one hand and a stick in the other.
Léonie saw Constant take in the situation. He fired, but the boy was quicker, and stepped back behind the shelter of a beech tree. Constant raised his arm, dead straight, and fired again into the darkness. Léonie saw that his face was twisted in madness as he turned the gun and sent two bullets slamming into Anatole’s torso.
Léonie screamed. ‘No!’ she cried, crawling desperately on her hands and knees over the muddy ground to where her brother lay. ‘No!’
The servants, some eight of them including Marieta, rushed forward.
Constant delayed no longer. Tossing his coat behind him, he strode out of the glade and into the shadows, heading to where his fiacre still stood in readiness to depart.
‘No witnesses,’ he said.
Without a word, his manservant turned and fired a bullet into the old soldier’s head. For a moment, the dying man’s face was fixed in an expression of bewilderment. Then he dropped to his knees, and fell forward.
Pascal stepped out of the shadows and fired the second pistol. Léonie saw Constant stumble, his legs nearly buckling under him, but he kept walking, limping, away from the glade. Through the mayhem and chaos, she heard the slamming of the carriage doors, the rattling of the harness and the chink of the lamps as the conveyance vanished uphill into the woods, in the direction of the rear gate.
Marieta was already tending to Isolde. Léonie felt Pascal run and crouch beside her. A sob slipped from her lips. She struggled to her feet and stumbled across the last few yards to her brother.
‘Anatole?’ she whispered. Her arm tightened around his broad shoulders, shaking him, trying to wake him. ‘Anatole, please.’
The stillness seemed to deepen.
Léonie grasped the thick material of Anatole’s greatcoat and rolled him over. She caught her breath. So much blood, pooled on the ground where he had been lying, the holes in his body where the bullets had penetrated. She cradled his head in her arms and brushed his hair back from his face. His brown eyes were wide open, but the life was extinguished.
16
CHAPTER 83
After Constant had fled, the glade quickly cleared.
With Pascal’s help, Marieta led the barely conscious Isolde to Denarnaud’s carriage to take back to the house. Although the wound on her arm was not serious, she had lost a lot of blood. Léonie spoke to her, but Isolde made no answer. She allowed herself to be led, but she seemed to know no one, recognise nothing. She was yet in the world, but removed from it.
Léonie was cold and shivering, her hair and clothes infused with the stench of blood and gunshot and damp earth, but she refused to leave Anatole’s side. The gardener’s boy and ostlers from the stables constructed a makeshift bier with their coats and the wooden handles of the weapons with which they had driven off Constant and his men. They carried Anatole’s prostrate body on their shoulders back across the grounds, torches burning fiercely in the cold black air. Léonie followed behind, a solitary mourner at an unannounced funeral.
Behind them was fetched Dr Gabignaud. The dogcart would be sent to bring the bodies of the old soldier and the traitor Denarnaud.
News of the tragedy that had overtaken the Domaine de la Cade had spread by the time Léonie regained the house. Pascal had dispatched a messenger to Rennes-le-Château to inform Bérenger Saunière of the catastrophe and to request his presence. Marieta had sent to Rennes-les-Bains for the services of the local woman who sat with the dying and laid out the dead.
Madame Saint-Loup arrived with a small boy, carrying a large cotton bag, twice his size. When Léonie, remembering herself, tried to agree rates with the woman, she was informed that costs had been met already by her neighbour, Monsieur Baillard. His kindness, so generously given, brought tears to Léonie’s numbed eyes.
The bodies were placed in the dining room. Léonie watched in mute disbelief as Madame Saint-Loup filled a china bowl with water from a glass bottle she had brought with her.
‘Holy water, Madomaisèla,’ she muttered in response to Léonie’s unasked question. Into it she dipped a sprig of boxwood, then lit two scented candles, one for each, and began to recite her prayers for the dead. The boy bowed his head.
‘Peyre Sant, Holy Father, take this thy servant …’
As the words washed over her, a mixture of old and new traditions, Léonie felt nothing. There was no moment of grace descending, no sense of peace in Anatole’s passing, no light entering the soul and drawing together in a common circle. There was no consolation, no poetry to be found in the old woman’s offerings, only a vast and echoing loss.
Madame Saint-Loup stopped. Then, gesturing to the boy to pass a pair of large-bladed scissors from her bag, she began to cut away Anatole’s blood-sodden clothes. The cloth was matted and filthy with the forest and his jagged wounds, and the process was painstaking and difficult.
‘Madomaisèla?’
She handed Léonie two envelopes from Anatole’s pockets. The silver paper and black crest of the letter from Constant. The second, with a Parisian postmark, was unopened. Both were edged in rust-red, as if a border had been painted across the thick weave of the paper.
Léonie opened the second letter. It was formal and official notification from the gendarmerie of the 8th arrondissement informing Anatole of their mother’s murder, on the night of Sunday 20th September. No criminal had yet been apprehended for the crime. The letter was signed by an Inspector Thouron and had been forwarded via a number of addresses before finally finding Anatole in Rennes-les-Bains.
The letter requested him to make contact at the earliest convenience.
Léonie screwed the page in her chilled fist. She had not doubted for a moment Constant’s cruel words, thrown at her in the glade but an hour previously, but only now, with the black and white official words, did she accept the truth of the matter. Her mother was dead. And had been for more than a month.
This fact – that her mother had been unmourned and unclaimed – twisted at Léonie’s bereaved heart. With Anatole gone, such matters would fall to her. Who else was there?
Madame Saint-Loup began to clean the body, wiping Anatole’s face and hands with such tenderness that it pained Léonie to witness it. Finally she pulled out several linen sheets, each yellowing and criss-crossed with black looped stitching, as if they had done service many times before.
Léonie could no longer bear to watch.
‘Send word when Abbé Saunière comes,’ she said, quitting the room and leaving the woman to the grim process of sewing Anatole’s body into his shroud.
Slowly, as if her legs were weighted down by lead, Léonie climbed the stairs and made for Isolde’s chamber. Marieta was at her mistress’ side. A doctor Léonie did not recognise, in a high black top hat and a modest tipped collar, had arrived from the village, accompanied by a matronly nurse in a white starched apron. Resident staff from the thermal spa, they too had been engaged by Monsieur Baillard.
As Léonie entered the room, the doctor was administering a sedative. The nurse had rolled up Isolde’s sleeve and he pushed the needle of the thick silver syringe into her thin arm.
‘How is she?’ Léonie whispered to Marieta.
The maid gave a small shake of her head. ‘She struggles to stay with us, Madomaisèla.’
Léonie stepped closer to the bed. Even to her untrained eyes, it was clear how Isolde hovered between life and death. She was gripped by a fierce, consuming fever. Léonie sat down and took her hand. The sheets beneath Isolde became sodden and were changed. The nurse laid strips of cold linen cloth across her blazing forehead that cooled her skin for no more than a moment.
When the doctor’s medicine took effect, heat turned to cold and Isolde’s frame shook beneath the covers, as one afflicted with St Vitus’ dance.
Léonie’s feverish flashbacks to the violence she had witnessed were kept at bay by her fears for Isolde’s health. So, too, the weight of loss threatening to overwhelm her if she thought too hard. Her mother, dead. Anatole, dead. Isolde’s life and that of her unborn child hanging in the balance.
The moon rose in the sky. The Eve of All Saints.
Shortly after the clock had struck eleven, there was a knock at the door and Pascal appeared.
‘Madomaisèla Léonie,’ he said in hushed tones. ‘There are . . . men here to see you.’
‘The priest? Abbé Saunière is here?’ she queried.
He shook his head. ‘Monsieur Baillard,’ he said. ‘And, also, the police.’
Taking her leave of the doctor, and promising Marieta she would return as soon as she could, Léonie quit the chamber and quickly followed Pascal along the passageway.
At the top of the staircase, she halted and looked down at the collection of black top hats and greatcoats in the hall. Two wore the uniform of the Parisian gendarme, a third a shabby provincial version of it. In the forest of dark and sombre clothes, a pale suit on a lean figure.
‘Monsieur Baillard,’ she cried, running down the stairs and taking his hands in hers. ‘I am so glad you are here.’ She looked at him. ‘Anatole …’
Her voice broke. She was unable to pronounce the words.
Baillard nodded. ‘I have come to pay my respects,’ he said formally, then lowered his voice so that his companions could not overhear. ‘And Madama Vernier? How goes it with her?’
‘Badly. If anything, the state of her mind is of more concern to the doctor at present than the consequences of her wound. Although it is important to ensure her blood does not become infected, the bullet only nicked the inside of her arm.’ Léonie stopped abruptly, only now realising what Monsieur Baillard had said. ‘You knew they were married?’ she whispered. ‘But I did not … How—’
Baillard put his finger to his lips. ‘This is not a conversation to be had now and in such company.’ He threw her a smile, then raised his voice. ‘By happenstance, Madomaisèla Léonie, these gentlemen and I found ourselves travelling the drive to the Domaine de la Cade. A coincidence of timing. ’
The younger of the two officers removed his hat and stepped forward. He had black smudged rings under his eyes, as if he had not slept for days.
‘Inspector Thouron,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘From Paris, the commissariat of the eighth arrondissement. My condolences, Mademoiselle Vernier. And I regret I am also the bearer of bad news. Worse still, it is old news. For some weeks, I have been seeking your brother to inform him – indeed, you yourself also – that—’
Léonie withdrew the letter from her pocket. ‘Do not distress yourself, Monsieur l’Inspecteur,’ she said dully. ‘I know of my mother’s death. This arrived yesterday, albeit by a most circuitous route. Also, this evening, Vic—’
She broke off, not wishing to speak his name.
Thouron’s eyes narrowed. ‘You and your late brother have been most difficult to locate,’ he said.
Léonie was aware of a quickness and intelligence behind the dishevelled appearance and exhausted features.
‘And in the light of the . . . tragedy of this evening, it leads me to wonder if perhaps the events of Paris a month ago and what happened here tonight are in some way connected? ’
Léonie darted a glance at Monsieur Baillard, then at the older man standing beside Inspector Thouron. His hair was flecked with grey and he had the strong, dark features characteristic of the Midi.
‘You have not introduced me, as yet, Inspector Thouron, to your colleague,’ she said, hoping to delay a little longer the formal interview.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘This is Inspector Bouchou of the Carcassonne gendarmerie. Bouchou has been assisting me in locating you.’
Léonie looked from one to the other. ‘I do not understand, Inspector Thouron. You sent a letter from Paris, yet have come in person also? And you are here tonight. How is this?’
The two men exchanged a look.
‘May I suggest, gentlemen,’ Audric Baillard said quietly, but in a tone of authority that invited no disagreement, ‘that we continue this conversation in some more private setting?’
Léonie felt the touch of Baillard’s fingers on her arm and realised a decision was required of her.
‘There is a fire in the drawing room,’ she said.
The small group crossed the chequerboard hall and Léonie pushed open the door.
The memory of Anatole held within the drawing room was so strong that she faltered. In her mind’s eye, she saw him standing before the fire, his coat tails held up to let the heat of the flames warm his back, his hair glistening. Or by the window, a cigarette wedged deep between his fingers, talking to Dr Gabignaud the night of the supper party. Or leaning over the green baize card table, watching while she and Isolde played vingt-et-un. He seemed to have written himself into the fabric of the room, although Léonie had never known it until this second.
It was left to Monsieur Baillard to invite the officers to take a seat and to steer her to a corner of the chaise longue, where she sat, as if half asleep. He remained standing behind her.
Thouron explained the sequence of events, as they had pieced them together, of the night of her mother’s murder on 20th September, the discovery of the body, and the small steps the investigation had taken to lead them to Carcassonne, and from there to Rennes-les-Bains.
Léonie heard the words as if they were coming from a long way away. They did not penetrate her mind. Even though it was her mother of whom Thouron spoke – and she had loved her mother – the loss of Anatole had set a wall of stone around her heart that allowed no other emotion to enter. There would be time enough to grieve for Marguerite. For the gentle and honourable doctor too. But for now, nothing but Anatole – and the promise she had made to her brother to protect his wife and child – had any purchase in her mind.
‘So,’ Thouron was concluding, ‘the concierge admitted he had been paid to pass on any correspondence. The maid in the Debussy household confirmed that she too had seen the man loitering around the rue de Berlin in the days leading up to and after the . . . the incident.’ Thouron paused. ‘Indeed, had it not been for the letter your late brother wrote to your mother, I cannot see how we would have found you yet.’
‘Have you identified the man, Thouron?’ enquired Baillard.
‘By sight only. An unfortunate looking individual. A raw and angry complexion, with little or no hair on a blistered scalp.’
Léonie started. Three pairs of eyes looked to her.
‘Do you know him, Mademoiselle Vernier?’ Thouron asked.
An image of him holding the muzzle of his gun to Dr Gabignaud’s temple and pulling the trigger. The explosion of bone and blood staining the forest floor.
She took a deep breath. ‘He is Victor Constant’s man,’ she said.
Thouron exchanged another look with Bouchou. ‘The Comte de Tourmaline?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It is the same man, Constant, Tourmaline. He goes under either name depending on the circumstances or the company he is keeping.’
‘He gave me his card,’ she said in a hollow voice. ‘Victor Constant.’
She felt the reassuring pressure of Audric Baillard’s hand upon her shoulder. ‘Is the Count of Tourmaline a suspect in this matter, Inspector Thouron?’ he enquired.
The officer hesitated, then, clearly deciding that there was no benefit to concealment, he nodded. ‘And he too, we discovered, had travelled from Paris to the Midi, some days after the late Monsieur Vernier.’
Léonie did not hear. All she could think about was the way her heart had leapt when Victor Constant took her hand. How she had kept his card safe, deceiving Anatole. How, in her imagination, she had allowed him into her company by day and into her dreams at night.
She had led him to them. Because of her, Anatole lay dead.
‘Léonie,’ Baillard asked softly. ‘Was Constant the man from whom Madama Vernier fled? With whom Sénher Anatole duelled this evening?’
Léonie forced herself to reply. ‘It was he,’ she said in a dead voice.
Baillard walked across the room to the small round drinks table and poured Léonie a glass of brandy, then came back.
‘From your expressions, gentlemen,’ he said, pressing the glass into her cold fingers, ‘I think this man is known to you.’
‘He is,’ Thouron confirmed. ‘Several times his name came up in the enquiry, but never with evidence enough to associate him with the crime. He appears to have nursed a vendetta against Monsieur Vernier, a clever and sly campaign, until these last weeks, when he has become less careful.’
‘Or more arrogant,’ put in Bouchou. ‘There was an incident at a . . . house of recreation in the quartier Barbès in Carcassonne, which left a girl badly disfigured.’
‘We believe his increasingly erratic behaviour is, in part, due to the aggressive acceleration of his . . . illness. It has begun to affect his brain.’ Thouron broke off and mouthed the word so that Léonie would not hear. ‘Syphilis.’
Baillard came round from behind the settee and sat down beside Léonie.
‘Tell Inspector Thouron what you know,’ he said, taking her hand.
Léonie raised the glass to her lips and took another drink. The alcohol burned her throat, but it killed the sour taste in her mouth.
What need for concealment now?
She began to talk, holding nothing back, detailing everything that had happened – from the burial in Montmartre and the attack in the Passage des Panoramas, to the moment she and her beloved Anatole disembarked the courrier publique in the Place du Pérou and the bloody events of this evening in the woods of the Domaine de la Cade.
March, September, October.
Upstairs, Isolde was still held captive by the brain fever that had overtaken her on the instant she saw Anatole fall.
Images, thoughts glided in and out of her mind. Her eyes flickered half-open. For a fleeting, joyful moment, she thought herself lying in Anatole’s arms with the flickering light of the candle reflected in his brown eyes, but the vision faded. The skin began to slip from his face, revealing the skull beneath, leaving only a death’s head of bone and teeth and black holes where his eyes had been.
And always the whisperings, the voices, Constant’s malicious silver tones insinuating themselves into her overheated brain. She felt herself tossing and turning upon the pillow, trying to rid the echo from her head, but succeeding only in making the cacophony louder. Which the voice, which the echo?
She dreamed she saw their son, crying for the father he had never known, separated from Anatole as if behind a sheet of glass. She cried out to them both, but no sounds came from her lips and they did not hear her. When she reached out, the glass shattered in a myriad sharp pieces and she was left touching skin as cold and unyielding as marble. Statues only.
Memories, dreams, premonitions. A mind shaken loose from its moorings.
As the clock ticked down the minutes to midnight, the witching hour, the wind began to whistle and howl and rattle the wooden frames of the windows of the house.
A restless night. Not a night to be abroad.
17
PART X
The Lake October 2007
CHAPTER 84
WEDNESDAY 31ST OCTOBER 2007
When Meredith woke again, Hal was gone.
She put out her hand to the empty space in the bed where he had slept beside her. The sheet was cold, but the soft smell of him on the pillow and the impression where his head had rested remained.
The shutters were closed and it was dark in the room. Meredith looked at the time. Eight o’clock. She guessed Hal didn’t want the maids to see him and had gone back to his own room. Her hand stole to her cheek, as if her skin held the recollection of where his lips had kissed her goodbye, even if she could not remember.
For a while, she lay burrowed deep in the covers, thinking about Hal, thinking about the feel of him beside her, within her, the emotions she had allowed to come flooding out last night. From Hal, her thoughts drifted to Léonie, the girl with the copper hair, her other night-time companion.
I cannot sleep.
The words Meredith remembered from her dream, heard and yet not spoken. The sense of pity, of restlessness, the fact that Léonie wanted something of her.
Meredith slipped out of bed. She pulled on a pair of thick socks to keep her feet warm. Hal had forgotten his sweater, lying in a heap by the chair where he had tossed it last night. She held it to her face, breathing in the scent of him. Then she put it on, way too big and baggy, and found some sweats.
She looked at the portrait. The photograph of the sepia soldier, great-great-grandfather Vernier, was tucked into the corner of the frame where she’d put it last night. Meredith felt the tug of possibility. The mismatched ideas that had been massing in her mind had settled during the course of the night.
The obvious first step was to find out if Anatole Vernier had been married, although it was easier said than done. She also needed to find out how he and Léonie Vernier were connected to Isolde Lascombe. Had they lived in the house in 1891, around the time the photograph had been taken, or were they just visitors that fall? As her online detective work yesterday had reminded her, ordinary people didn’t just appear on the internet. You had to trawl through genealogy sites, you needed names and dates and towns of birth and death to even have a chance of getting the information.
She booted up the computer and logged on. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to find there was nothing more from Mary, but she fired off another email to Chapel Hill, filling her in on the last twenty-four hours and asking if she could check out a couple more things. She said nothing about Hal. She said nothing about Léonie. No sense giving her cause to worry. She signed off, promising to keep in touch, and pressed SEND.
A little cold and realising she was thirsty, Meredith went through to the bathroom to fill the kettle. While she was waiting for the water to boil, she ran her eyes along the spines of the books on the shelf above the bureau. Her attention was caught by one entitled Diables et Esprits Maléfiques et Phantômes de la Montagne. She took it out and opened it. The flyleaf told her it was a new edition of an earlier book by a local author, Audric S. Baillard, who had lived in a village in the Pyrenees, Los Seres, and died in 2005. There was no date of original publication, but it was obviously a local classic. According to the reviews on the back, it was considered the definitive text on Pyrenean mountain folklore.
Meredith glanced down the index and saw the book was divided into stories by region – Couiza, Coustaussa, Durban, Espéraza, Fa, Limoux, Rennes-les-Bains, Rennes-le-Château, Quillan. The illustration gracing the section on Rennes-les-Bains was a black and white photograph of the Place des Deux Rennes taken around 1900, when it was known as the Place du Pérou. Meredith smiled. It seemed so familiar. She could even pick out the exact spot, beneath the spreading branches of the platanes, where her ancestor had stood.
The kettle whistled and clicked off. She poured a sachet of hot chocolate into a cup, stirred in two sugars, then took the drink and the book to the chair at the window and began to read.
The stories in the collection were similar from place to place – myths of demons and devils, generations, even millennia old, a linking of folklore with natural phenomena: the Devil’s Armchair, the Horned Mountain, the Devil’s Lake, all the names she’d come across already on the map. She flicked back to the imprint page again, checking there really was no clue to when the book had first been published. The information wasn’t there. The latest story she noticed was from the early 1900s, although given that the author had only died a couple of years ago, she assumed he had gathered the stories more recently.
Baillard’s style was clear and sparse, giving the factual information with the minimum of embellishment. With excitement, Meredith discovered that there was a whole section on the Domaine de la Cade. The property had come into the hands of the Lascombe family during the Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts fought between Catholics and Huguenots from 1562 to 1568. Ancient families had fallen, replaced by parvenus rewarded for their loyalty to either the Catholic House of Guise or the Calvinist House of Bourbon.
She read quickly. Jules Lascombe had inherited the property on the death of his father, Guy Lascombe, in 1865. He had married an Isolde Labourde in 1885, and died without issue in 1891. She smiled at another piece of the puzzle falling into place, looking over at the ageless Isolde, Jules’ widow, behind the glass of the portrait. Then it occurred to her that she hadn’t noticed Isolde’s name on the Lascombe-Bousquet family tomb in Rennes-les-Bains? Meredith wondered why not?
Something else to check out.
She dropped her eyes back to the page. Baillard moved to the legends associated with the Domaine. There had been, for many years, rumours of a terrifying and vicious wild beast that terrorised the countryside around Rennes-les-Bains, attacking children and land workers on isolated farms. The distinguishing feature of the attacks was claw marks, three wide gashes across the face. Unusual marks.
Meredith stopped again, thinking of the injuries sustained by Hal’s father while his car lay in the river gorge. And the defaced statue of Mary set on the Visigoth pillar in the approach to the church in Rennes-le-Château. Hard on its heels, the memory of a fragment of her nightmare came back to her – the image of a tapestry hanging on a poorly lit stair. The sensation of being chased, claws and black fur touching her skin, sliding over her hands.
Un, deux, trois, loup.
And back to the graveyard in Rennes-les-Bains and the recollection of one of the names on the war memorial to the dead of World War I: Saint-Loup.
Coincidence?
Meredith stretched her arms above her head, trying to get rid of the cold and the early morning stiffness and her memories of the night, then dropped her eyes back to the page. There were many deaths and disappearances between 1870 and 1885. A period of relative calm followed, then there was an intensification of rumours from the autumn of 1891 onwards and a growing belief that the creature – a demon in local folklore – was harboured within a Visigoth sepulchre that lay within the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade. There were deaths – unattributed attacks – intermittently over the next six years, then the attacks came to an abrupt end in 1897. The author didn’t actually say so, but he implied that the end of the terror was connected to the fact that parts of the house were ruined by fire and the sepulchre destroyed.
Meredith closed the book and curled up tight in the chair. She sipped her hot chocolate as she tried to marshal her thoughts, realising what was bugging her. How weird was it that in a work devoted to folklore and legend, there was no reference to the Tarot deck? Audric Baillard must have heard about the cards during his research. The deck was not only inspired by the local landscape and printed by the Bousquet family, but also fell within the exact period of time covered by the book.
A deliberate omission?
Then, suddenly, she felt it again. A chill, a density in the air that had not been there before. The sense of there being someone there, not far away, not in the room, but close by. Fleeting, an imprint only.
Léonie?
Meredith stood up, finding herself drawn to the window. She unfastened the long metal catch, pulled back the two tall panes of glass, and pushed open the shutters, letting them fall back against the wall. The air was cold on her skin and made her eyes water. The tops of the trees were swaying, whistling and sighing as the wind wound itself around the ancient trunks, through the tangle of leaf and bark. The air was restless, carrying the memory of the echo of the music within it. Notes drifting on the breeze. The melody of the place itself.
As Meredith cast her eyes over the grounds spread out before her, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked down and saw a lithe, graceful figure in a long cloak with the hood pulled up over its head, emerge from the lee of the building.
It seemed to her that the wind was gathering force, racing now through the arched opening cut into the high box hedge that led to the wild meadows and rough grass beyond. Distant as it was, she could just make out the white crests as it sent the water of the lake lapping against the edge and up over on to the grass.
The outline, the impression, the figure kept to the shadows, skimming beneath the rising gaze of the pale sun, which darted in and out of the thin strata of clouds that chased across the pink sky. She seemed to glide over the damp grass, covered with the slightest sheen of dew. Meredith caught the smell of earth, of autumn, of damp soil, of burned stubble, of bonfires. Of bones.
She watched in captivated silence as the figure made its way – her way, Meredith felt sure – to the far side of the ornamental lake. For a moment it stopped and stood on a small promontory overlooking the water. Meredith’s vision seemed to narrow right in, impossibly close, like a camera close up. She imagined the hood falling back from the girl’s face. It was pale and perfectly symmetrical, with green eyes that once had glinted as clear as emeralds. Shade without colour. The skein of tumbling curls fell, like twists of beaten copper, transparent in the morning light, over the slim shoulders of her red dress and down to her narrow waist. Shape without form. She seemed to hold Meredith’s gaze with her own, reflecting back at her her own hopes and fears and imaginings.
Then she slipped away into the woods.
‘Léonie?’ Meredith whispered into the silence.
For a while longer she kept vigil at the window, staring at the place on the far side of the lake where the figure had stood. The distant air was still. Nothing stirred in the shadows.
Finally she pulled back inside and shut the window.
A few days ago – no, hours even – she would have been freaked out. Would have feared the worst. Would have looked at her reflection in the mirror and seen instead Jeanette’s face staring out at her.
Not now.
Meredith couldn’t account for it, but everything had changed. Her mind felt totally clear. She was fine. She wasn’t frightened. She wasn’t going crazy. The sightings, the visitations were a sequence, like a piece of music. Beneath the bridge in Rennes-les-Bains – water. On the Sougraigne road – earth. Here in the hotel – particularly in this specific room, where her presence was strongest – air.
Swords, the suit of air, represented intelligence and intellect. Cups, the suit associated with water, the emotions. Pentacles, the suit of earth, of physical reality, of treasure. Of the four suits, only fire was missing. Wands, the suit of fire, energy and conflict.
The story is in the cards.
Or maybe the quartet was completed in the past and not the present. In the fire that had destroyed much of the Domaine de la Cade more than a hundred years ago?
Meredith went back to the replica deck Laura had given her, turning over each card in turn and staring again at the images, as she had done last night, willing them to give up their secrets. As she laid them out, one by one, she set her thoughts free. She thought of what Hal and her had talked about on the way to Rennes-le-Château, of how the Visigoths buried their kings and noblemen, with their treasure, in hidden graves rather than graveyards. Secret chambers below the river, diverting its course for long enough to excavate the site and prepare the burial chamber.
If the original deck had survived the fire, hidden safe within the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade, then where more secure than an ancient Visigoth burial site? The sepulchre itself, according to Baillard’s book, dated back to that same period. If there were a river in the grounds, it would be the perfect hiding place. In plain view, yet totally inaccessible.
Outside, finally, sunlight split through the clouds.
Meredith yawned. She felt dizzy through lack of sleep, but she was buzzing with adrenalin. She glanced at the clock. Hal had said Dr O’Donnell was coming at ten, but that was still an hour away.
Plenty of time for what she had in mind.
Hal was standing in his bedroom in the staff quarters thinking of Meredith.
After he’d helped her get back to sleep after her nightmare, he’d found himself wide awake. Not wanting to disturb her by turning on the light, in the end he’d decided to slip away and back to his own room to go over his notes before the meeting with Shelagh O’Donnell. He wanted to be prepared.
He glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock. An hour to wait before he saw Meredith again.
His windows, on the top floor, looked out to the south and to the east, giving him an uninterrupted view over the lawns and the lake at the back, and the kitchen and service areas to the side. He watched one of the porters throw a black refuse bag into the bin. Another was standing, his arms crossed to keep out the chill, smoking a cigarette. His breath puffed white clouds into the clear morning air.
Hal sat down on the sill, then got up and walked across the room to get some water, then changed his mind. He was too nervous to settle. He knew he shouldn’t get his hopes up that Dr O’Donnell was going to turn out to have all the answers. But he still couldn’t help himself believing that she would at least be able to give him some information about the night his dad died. She might remember something that would force the police to treat it as a suspicious death rather than a traffic accident.
He ran his fingers through his hair.
His thoughts strayed back to Meredith again. He smiled. Maybe, when it was all over, she wouldn’t mind if he went to visit her in the States. He brought himself up short. It was ridiculous to be thinking along such lines after only a couple of days, but he knew. He hadn’t felt so strongly about a girl for a long time. Ever.
And what was to stop him? No job, an empty flat in London. He might as well be in America as anywhere. He could do whatever the hell he liked. He’d have money. He knew his uncle would buy him out.
If Meredith would like him there.
Hal stood at his high window watching the life of the hotel go on silently below. He flexed his arms above his head and yawned. A car was driving slowly up the long drive. He watched as a tall, thin woman with cropped dark hair got out, then walked tentatively up the front steps.
Moments later, the phone on his bedside table rang. It was Eloise in reception, telling him his guest had arrived.
‘What! She’s nearly an hour early.’
‘Shall I ask her to wait?’ Eloise asked.
Hal hesitated. ‘No, it’s fine. I’ll be right down.’
He dragged his jacket from the back of the chair, then rushed down two flights of narrow service stairs. At the bottom, he paused to slip his arms into his jacket and to make a call from the staff phone.
Meredith put Hal’s pale brown sweater over her blue jeans and long sleeved T-shirt, pushed her feet into her boots, then grabbed her denim jacket, a scarf and a pair of woolly gloves, figuring it would still be cold outside. Her hand was already on the door handle when the phone rang.
She rushed to answer. ‘Hi, you,’ she said, experiencing a kick of pleasure at the sound of Hal’s voice.
But his reply was sharp and to the point. ‘She’s here.’
18
CHAPTER 85
‘Who? Léonie?’ Meredith stammered, her thoughts short-circuiting for a moment.
‘Who? No, Dr O’Donnell. She’s already here. I’m in reception now. Can you come down and join us?’
Meredith threw a glance at the window, realising that her expedition to the lake would have to wait a little while longer.
‘Sure,’ she sighed. ‘Give me five.’
She peeled off her extra layers, replaced Hal’s sweater with a red crewneck of her own, brushed her hair, then let herself out of her room. As she emerged on to the landing, she paused to look down on the chequerboard entrance hall. She could see Hal talking with a tall, dark-haired woman she kind of recognised. It took a moment to place her, then she remembered. The Place des Deux Rennes the night she arrived, leaning against the wall, smoking.
‘How about that,’ she muttered to herself.
Hal’s face lit up as she approached.
‘Hi,’ she said, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, then offering her hand to Dr O’Donnell. ‘I’m Meredith. Sorry to keep you waiting.’
The woman’s eyes narrowed, clearly having trouble placing her.
‘We exchanged a couple of words the night of the funeral,’ Meredith said, helping her out. ‘Outside the pizzeria in the square?’
‘We did?’Then her face relaxed. ‘That’s right.’
‘I’ll get us coffee brought to the bar,’ Hal said, leading the way. ‘It will be quiet enough for us to talk there.’
Meredith and Dr O’Donnell followed him through, Meredith asking the older woman polite questions to break the ice. How long she’d lived in Rennes-les-Bains, what her connection with the area was, what she did for a living? Usual sort of stuff.
Shelagh O’Donnell answered easily enough, but there was a nervous tension behind everything she said. She was very thin. Her eyes were constantly in motion and she repeatedly rubbed her fingertips against her thumb. Meredith placed her at not more than early thirties, but she had the lined skin of someone older. Meredith could see why the police might not have taken her late-night observations seriously.
They sat at the same table in the corner that they had occupied the previous evening with Hal’s uncle. The atmosphere was very different in the daytime. It was hard to summon the memory of wine and cocktails from the night before given the smell of beeswax polish and fresh flowers on the bar and a stack of boxes waiting to be unpacked.
‘Merci,’ Hal said, as the waitress put the tray of coffee in front of them.
There was a pause while he poured. Dr O’Donnell took hers black. As she stirred in her sugar, Meredith noticed the same red scars on her wrists she’d seen first time round, and wondered what had happened to cause them.
‘Before anything,’ Hal said, ‘I want to thank you for agreeing to see me.’
Meredith was relieved he sounded calm, collected and rational.
‘I knew your father. He was a good man, a friend. But, I’ve got to tell you, I really don’t have anything more I can tell you.’
‘I understand,’ Hal replied, ‘but if you could just bear with me while I run through things. I appreciate the accident was more than a month ago, but there are things about the investigation I’m not happy with. I was hoping you might be able to tell me a little about the actual night. I think the police said you thought you had heard something? ’
Shelagh darted her eyes to Meredith, then to Hal, then away again. ‘They’re still saying Seymour went off the road because he was drunk?’
‘That’s what I find hard to accept. I just can’t see Dad doing that.’
Shelagh picked at a thread on her pants. Meredith could see how nervous she was.
‘How did you meet Hal’s father?’ she said, hoping to give her a bit of confidence.
Hal looked surprised at her interruption, but Meredith gave a tiny shake of the head, so he let her run with it.
Dr O’Donnell smiled. It transformed her face and, for a moment, Meredith could see how attractive she would be if she were less beaten down by life.
‘That night in the square, you asked me what bien-aimé meant.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, Seymour was just that. Someone everyone liked. Everyone respected him, too, even if they didn’t really know him. He was always polite, courteous to waiters, shopkeepers, treated everybody with respect, unlike …’ She broke off. Meredith and Hal exchanged a look, both thinking the same thing – that Shelagh was comparing Seymour to Julian Lawrence. ‘He wasn’t here much, of course,’ she continued quickly, ‘but I got to know him when …’
She paused and messed with a button on her jacket.
‘Yes?’ encouraged Meredith. ‘You got to know him when . . . ?’
Shelagh sighed. ‘I went through a . . . difficult time in my life a couple of years back. I was working on an archaeological dig not far from here, in the Sabarthès mountains, and got drawn into something. Made some bad decisions.’ She paused. ‘The long and the short of it is, things have been difficult since then. My health’s not so good, so I can only manage a few hours a week, doing a little valuation work at the ateliers in Couiza.’ She stopped again. ‘I came to Rennes-les-Bains to live about eighteen months ago now. I have a friend, Alice, who lives in a village not far from here, Los Seres, with her husband and daughter, so it was a logical place to come.’
Meredith recognised the name. ‘Los Seres is where the author Audric Baillard came from, right?’
Hal raised his eyebrows.
‘I was reading a book of his earlier. Up in my room. One of your dad’s vide-grenier bargains.’
Now he smiled, obviously pleased she’d remembered.
‘That’s the man,’ Shelagh said. ‘My friend Alice knew him well.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘I met him too.’
Meredith could see from the look on Hal’s face that the conversation had brought something back to him, but he didn’t say anything.
‘The point is, I had been having problems. Drinking too much.’ Shelagh turned to Hal. ‘I met your dad in a bar. In Couiza actually. I was tired, I’d probably had one too many. We got talking. He was kind, a little worried about me. Insisted he drive me back to Rennes-les-Bains. Nothing dodgy about it. Next morning, he turned up and took me back to Couiza to pick up my car.’ She paused. ‘Never mentioned it again, but after that, he always popped in when he was over here from England.’
Hal nodded. ‘So you don’t believe he would have got behind the wheel if he was in no state to drive?’
Shelagh shrugged. ‘I can’t say for certain, but no, I just can’t see it.’
Meredith still thought they were both a little naïve. Plenty of people said one thing and did another, but Shelagh’s evident admiration and respect for Hal’s father impressed her all the same.
‘The police told Hal that you think you heard the accident, but didn’t realise what it was until the next morning,’ she said gently. ‘Is that right?’
Shelagh raised her coffee cup to her mouth with a shaky hand, took a couple of sips, then put it back in the saucer with a rattle.
‘To be honest, I don’t know what I heard. If it was connected at all.’
‘Go on.’
‘Definitely something, not the usual screech of brakes, or tyres when people take the bend too fast, but just a kind of rumbling, I guess.’ She paused. ‘I was listening to John Martyn, Solid Air. It’s pretty mellow, but even so I wouldn’t have heard the sound outside if it hadn’t been in the pause between the end of one track and the start of the next.’
‘What time was this?’
‘About one or thereabouts. I got up and looked out of the window, but I couldn’t see anything at all. It was completely dark, completely quiet. I just assumed the car had gone past. It was only in the morning when I saw the police and ambulance down at the river that I wondered.’
Hal’s face made it clear he didn’t know where Shelagh was going with this. Meredith, however, did.
‘Wait up,’ she said, ‘let me get this straight. You’re saying you looked out and there were no headlights. Right?’
Shelagh nodded.
‘And you told the police this?’
Hal was looking from one to the other. ‘I’m not sure I see why this is so significant.’
‘It might not be,’ Meredith said quickly. ‘It’s just weird. First, even if your father was way over the limit – I’m not saying he was – would he really be driving with no lights ?’
Hal frowned. ‘But if the car went over the bridge into the water, they could have been smashed.’
‘Sure, but from what you said earlier, it wasn’t particularly badly damaged.’ She carried on. ‘Also, according to what the police told you, Hal, Shelagh heard a screech of brakes, et cetera, right?’
He nodded.
‘Except Shelagh’s just told us that’s precisely what she didn’t hear.’
‘I still don’t—’
‘Two things. First, why is the police report inaccurate? Second – and, I admit, this is speculation – if your father did lose control on the bend and went over, surely there would have been (a) more noise and (b) something to see. I can’t believe all the lights would have blown.’
Hal’s expression started to change. ‘Are you suggesting the car might have been rolled over the edge? Rather than driven?’
‘It’s an explanation,’ Meredith said.
For a moment they stared at each other, their roles reversed. Hal sceptical, Meredith building a case.
‘There is something else,’ Shelagh put in. They both turned to her, for a moment almost having forgotten she was there. ‘When I turned in, maybe a quarter of an hour later, I heard another car on the road. Because of earlier, it made me look out.’
‘And?’ said Hal.
‘It was a blue Peugeot, heading south in the direction of Sougraigne. It only occurred to me in the morning that this was after the accident, about one thirty by then. If they’d come through the town, the driver couldn’t have failed to see the car crashed into the river. Why didn’t they notify the police then?’
Meredith and Hal looked at one another, thinking of the car parked round the back in the staff lot.
‘How could you be sure it was a blue Peugeot?’ Hal asked, keeping his voice level. ‘It was dark.’
Shelagh flushed. ‘It’s the exact same type and model as my car. Everyone’s got one round here,’ she said defensively. ‘Besides, there’s a streetlamp outside my bedroom window.’
‘What did the police say when you told them?’
‘They didn’t seem to think it was important.’ She glanced at the door. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to make a move.’
She stood up. Meredith and Hal did the same.
‘Look,’ he said, pushing his hands into his pockets, ‘I know this is a terrible imposition, but is there any way I could persuade you to come to the police station in Couiza with me? Tell them what you’ve just told us.’
Shelagh started to shake her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’ve already made a statement.’
‘I know. But if we went together . . .’ he persisted. ‘I’ve seen the accident report and most of what you’ve told me isn’t in the file.’ He pushed his fingers through his mop of hair. ‘I’ll run you over there?’ He fixed her with his blue gaze. ‘I just want to get to the bottom of it. For my dad’s sake.’
From the anguished expression on her face, Meredith could see how hard Shelagh was finding it. She clearly wanted nothing to do with the police. But her affection for Hal’s father won out. She gave a sharp nod.
Hal sighed with relief. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you so much. I’ll pick you up at, say, twelve. Give you the chance to get things sorted. Is that convenient?’
Shelagh nodded. ‘I have a couple of urgent errands to run this morning – it’s why I was early coming up here – but I’ll be home by eleven.’
‘Right you are. And home is?’
Shelagh gave her address. They all shook hands, a little awkward in the circumstances, then made their way back to the lobby. Meredith headed back to her room, leaving Hal to walk Dr O’Donnell to her car.
Neither of them heard the sound of another door – the door separating the bar from the offices at the back – click shut.
19
CHAPTER 86
Julian Lawrence was breathing fast. His blood was pounding in his temples. He strode into his study, slamming the door behind him so hard that the reverberation made the glass in the bookcases rattle.
He rummaged in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and lighter. His hand was shaking so badly, it took several attempts to light it. The commissaire had mentioned someone had come forward, an Englishwoman called Shelagh O’Donnell, but that she hadn’t seen anything. The name had rung a bell, but he’d let it go. Since the police didn’t seem to take her seriously, it hadn’t seemed important. They told him she was an ivrogne, a drunk.
When she’d turned up at the hotel this morning, even then he hadn’t put two and two together. The irony was that he’d slipped into the office at the back of the bar to listen to the conversation between her, Hal and Meredith Martin only because he had recognised her from one of the antique dealerships in Couiza. He had jumped to the conclusion that Ms Martin had invited her here to discuss the Bousquet Tarot.
Having listened in, he realised why O’Donnell’s name was familiar. In July 2005, there’d been an incident at an archaeological dig site in the Sabarthès mountains. Julian couldn’t remember the exact details, but several people had been killed, including a well-known local author whose name escaped him. None of that mattered.
What did matter was that she had seen his car. Julian was sure it would be impossible to prove it was his, rather than any one of many identical vehicles, but it might be just enough to tip the balance. The police hadn’t treated O’Donnell seriously as a witness before but, if Hal kept pushing it, they might.
He couldn’t believe O’Donnell had associated the Peugeot with the Domaine de la Cade yet, otherwise she would hardly have come up here this morning. But he couldn’t risk her making the connection.
He would have to do something. Yet again, his hand was being forced, just as it had been with his brother. Julian glanced up at the painting on the wall above his desk: the old Tarot symbol, offering infinite possibilities, while he felt increasingly trapped.
On the shelf below it were objects he had found during his excavations of the estate. He had been slow to accept that the ruined sepulchre was just that, a few old stones, nothing else. But he had turned up one or two items. An expensive, although damaged, timepiece bearing the initials AV, and a silver locket with two miniatures inside, both taken from graves he’d discovered by the lake.
This was what he cared about, the past. Finding the cards. Not sorting out the problems of the present.
Julian went to the tantalus on the sideboard and poured himself a brandy to steady his nerves. He drained it down in one, then glanced at the clock.
Ten fifteen.
He took his jacket from the back of the door, put a mint in his mouth, grabbed his car keys and headed out.
CHAPTER 87
Meredith left Hal talking on the phone, trying to fix the meeting at the commissariat in Couiza before going to call for Dr O’Donnell as promised.
She kissed him on the cheek. He raised a hand, mouthed that he’d see her later, then went back to his one-sided conversation. Meredith paused to ask the nice receptionist if she knew where she might borrow a shovel. Eloise made no reaction to this odd request, simply suggested that the gardener should be working in the gardens and might be able to help.
‘Thank you. I’ll ask him,’ Meredith said, then wrapped her scarf around her neck and went through the glass doors on to the terrace. The early morning mist had almost burnt away, although the grass was glistening with a silver dew. Everything was bathed in a copper and gold light, set against a chill sky flecked with pink and white clouds.
There was already a heady smell of Hallowe’en bonfires in the air. Meredith breathed it in, the smell of fall taking her back to her childhood. She and Mary religiously carving faces in pumpkins for lanterns. Getting her trick-or-treat costume ready. She usually went out with her friends dressed as a ghost, a white bedsheet with two holes cut for the eyes and a scary mouth painted on in black marker.
As she ran lightly down the steps to the gravel path, she wondered what Mary was doing right now. Then she pulled herself up. Only a quarter after five back home. Mary would still be asleep. Maybe she’d call her later to wish her happy Hallowe’en.
The gardener was nowhere to be seen, but his barrow was there. Meredith looked around, in case he was coming back, but saw nothing. She hesitated, then took the small trowel lying on the top of the leaves, tucked it in her pocket, and struck out across the lawns towards the lake. She’d bring it back as soon as she could.
It was an odd sensation, but she felt she was following in the footsteps of the figure she’d seen on the lawns earlier.
Seen? Imagined?
She found herself glancing back at the façade of the hotel, at one point stopping to figure out which was her window, and whether she could possibly have seen what she thought she had from such a long way off.
As she completed the path around the left-hand side of the lake, the ground began to rise. She climbed up a grassy slope to a small promontory that overlooked the water, straight across to the hotel. It seemed crazy, but she was convinced this was precisely where she had seen the figure standing earlier.
Imagined.
There was a curved stone bench, in the shape of a crescent moon. The surface glistened with dew. Meredith wiped it with her gloves, then sat down. As always, by deep water, thoughts of Jeanette rushed into her mind, and the way she had chosen to end her life. Walking into Lake Michigan with her pockets weighted down with stones. Like Virginia Woolf, Meredith had learnt years later at high school, although she doubted her mother had known that.
But as Meredith sat looking out over the lake, she surprised herself by feeling peaceful. She was thinking of her birth mother, but it wasn’t accompanied by the usual feelings of guilt. No thumping heart, no rush of shame, no regret. This was a place of reflection, to be calm and private.
The rattling of the crows in the trees, the higher-pitched twitterings of thrushes in the thick, high box hedge at her back, isolated from the house by the expanse of water, yet still in plain view.
She lingered a while longer, then decided to carry on walking. Two hours earlier, she had been frustrated not to be able to rush out and start looking for the ruins of the sepulchre. Given how Shelagh O’Donnell had been in the hotel, she figured Hal would have his hands full. She didn’t expect him back much before one.
She pulled out her cell and checked she had a signal, then put it away. He could call if he needed to get in touch with her.
Careful not to slip on the wet grass, she made her way back down to the level ground close to the side of the lake and took stock of her surroundings. In one direction the path led around the lake and back towards the house. In the other, a more overgrown track went into the beech woods.
Meredith took the left-hand path. Within minutes, she was deep into the trees, winding through the dappled sunlight. The track led to a crisscross of interconnecting paths, all pretty similar. Some led uphill, others seemed to slope down towards the valley. She was intending to track down the ruins of the Visigoth sepulchre, then working out from there, looking for a place where the cards could be hidden. Anything too obvious and they would have been found years ago, but she figured it was as good a place to start as any.
Meredith set off down a path that led to a small clearing. After a few minutes, the hillside dipped away sharply. The ground beneath her feet changed. She braced her legs, taking it slowly on the slippery stones and gravel, jolting down, dislodging pine cones and fallen twigs, until finally she found herself standing on some kind of natural platform, almost like a bridge. And underneath, intersecting it at right angles, was a strip of brown earth leading down through the green woodland all around it.
In the distance through a break in the trees, Meredith could pick out on the far hill a cluster of stone megaliths, grey amongst the wooded green, possibly the same ones Hal had pointed out to her on their way to Rennes-le-Château.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
She realised that from here, pretty much all the natural landmarks Hal had mentioned – the Fauteuil du Diable, the bénitier, the étang du Diable – were visible. More than that, from this one spot, all the locations used as backdrops to the cards were also evident.
The sepulchre dated back to Visigoth times. So it stood to reason there might be other Visigoth burial sites within the grounds? Meredith looked around. And this, to her inexpert eye at least, looked much like a dry riverbed.
Trying to keep her excitement in check, she looked around for a way down. There wasn’t an obvious one. She hesitated, crouched, and manoeuvred herself round, then lowered herself over the edge. For a moment, there was nothing, as she hung suspended in the air on her elbows. Then she let herself go, dropping for a fraction of a heart-stopping second, until her feet found the ground.
She took the impact in her knees, then straightened up and started to make her way down. It looked like the bed of a winterbourne at the end of a dry summer, but slick with light autumn drizzle. Meredith, working hard not to slip on the loose stones and film of wet topsoil, cast her eyes about her for anything out of the ordinary.
At first, there seemed no break in the undergrowth, all tangled and dripping with dew. Then, a little further, just before the track took another sharp dive down like a helterskelter at a fairground, Meredith noticed a shallow depression. She moved closer until she could make out a flat grey stone, peeking out from beneath the tangled roots of a spreading juniper bush, with its scratchy needle-like leaves and green and purple fruit. The depression wasn’t big enough to be a grave itself, but the stone didn’t look like it had been put there by chance. Meredith got out her cell and took a couple of photos.
She put her cell away, then reached in and pulled at the knotted undergrowth. The thin branches were strong and wiry, but she succeeded in pulling them far enough apart to peek into the damp green space around the roots.
She felt a spark of adrenalin. There was a ring of stones, eight in all. The pattern set a memory chasing in her mind. She narrowed her eyes, then realised the shape of the stones echoed the crown of stars on the image of La Force. And now that she was standing here, she could see the landscape right here was especially reminiscent in colour and tone of that depicted on the card.
With growing anticipation, Meredith thrust her hands into the foliage, feeling the green slime and mud seeping through the tips of her cheap woollen gloves, and dragged clear the biggest of the stones. She wiped the surface clean, then gave a sigh of satisfaction. Painted in black tar or paint was a five-pointed star set within a circle.
The symbol for the suit of pentacles. The treasure suit.
She took a couple more photos, then put the stone to one side. She pulled the stolen trowel from her pocket and started to dig, scraping against stones and shards of unfired clay tiles. She pulled out one of the larger pieces and examined it. It looked like a roof tile, although she wondered how such a thing was buried out here, so far from the house.
Then the metal head of the trowel hit something substantial. Concerned not to damage anything, Meredith put the trowel to one side and finished the job by hand, burrowing at the mud and worms and black beetles, pulling off her gloves and letting her fingers be her eyes.
Finally she felt a piece of heavy material, a waxed cloth.
She pushed her head under the leaves to look and peeled the corners back to reveal the beautiful lacquered lid of a small chest, with a crisscross of mother-of-pearl inlay. It looked like a jewellery case or a lady’s workbox, pretty and clearly expensive. On the top were two initials in dull corroded brass.
LV.
Meredith smiled. Léonie Vernier. It had to be.
She went to open the lid, then hesitated. What if the cards were inside? What would it mean? Did she even want to see them?
In a rush, she felt the solitude press down upon her. The sounds of the wood that had been so gentle, so reassuring, now seemed oppressive, threatening. She pulled her phone from her pocket, checked the time. Maybe she should give Hal a call? The desire to hear another human voice – his voice – stabbed at her. She thought better of it. He wouldn’t want to be disturbed in the middle of his meeting with the police. She hesitated, then sent an SMS, and straight away regretted it. Displacement activity. And the last thing she wanted was to come over all needy.
Meredith looked back down at the box in front of her.
The story is in the cards.
She wiped her palms, greasy with exertion and anticipation, once more on her blue jeans. Then finally, slowly, she opened the lid. The box was full of spools of thread, ribbons and thimbles. The inside of the padded lid was studded with needles and pins. With grimy fingers, raw from the cold and the digging, Meredith removed some of the cotton reels, burrowing through felt and cloth, as she had previously dug through the earth and dirt.
Then there they were. She saw the top card with the same green back, the delicate patterns of tree branches threaded through in gold and silver, although the colour was chalkier, clearly painted by hand with a brush rather than made by a machine. She ran her fingers over the surface. A different texture, rough not smooth. More like parchment than the modern plastic-coated reproduction deck.
Meredith made herself count to three, summoning the courage to turn the top card over.
Her own face stared up at her. Card XI. La Justice.
As she gazed at the hand-painted image, once more she was aware of whispering inside her head. Not like the voices that had hounded her mother, but gentle and soft, the voice she had heard in her dream, carried on the air slipping between the branches and trunks of the autumn trees.
Here, in this place, time moves away towards eternity.
Meredith stood up. The most logical move now would be to take the cards and go back to the house. Study them properly in the comfort of her own room, with all her notes, access to the internet, the reproduction deck to hand to compare them with.
Except now she could hear Léonie’s voice again. In the turning of a moment, the whole world seemed to have shrunk to this one place. The smell of the earth in her nostrils, the grit and soil under her nails, the dampness that seeped from the earth and into her bones.
Except this is not the place.
Except something was calling her on deeper into the woods. The wind was getting louder, more forceful, carrying something more than just the noises of the forest. Music heard but not heard. She could pick out a faint melody in the rustling of the fallen leaves, the tapping of the bare branches of the beech trees a little further off.
Single notes, a mournful melody in a minor key, and always the words in her head leading her on to the ruined sepulchre.
Aïci lo tems s’en, va res l’Eternitat.
Julian left the car unlocked in the parking area on the outskirts of Rennes-les-Bains, then walked quickly down to the Place des Deux Rennes, diagonally across the square, and into the small side street where Dr O’Donnell lived.
He loosened the tie at his neck. There were patches of sweat under his arms. The more he’d thought about the situation, the more his concerns had grown. He just wanted to find the cards. Anything that prevented that or delayed it was intolerable. No loose ends.
He hadn’t thought about what he was going to say. He just knew that he could not allow her to go with Hal to the commissariat.
Then he turned the corner and saw her, sitting cross-legged on the low wall that separated the terrace of her property from the deserted public footpath that led along the river. She was smoking and pushing her hands through her hair, talking on a mobile phone.
What was she saying?
Julian stopped, suddenly dizzy. Now he could hear her voice, a grating accent, all flat vowels, the one-sided conversation muffled by the pounding of the blood in his head.
He took a step closer, listening. Dr O’Donnell leaned forward and with sharp stabbing movements extinguished a cigarette in a silver ashtray. Certain words leapt out at him.
‘I’ve got to see about the car.’
Julian put his hand out to steady himself against the wall. His mouth felt dry, like dried fish, unpleasant and sour. He needed a drink to take away the taste. He looked round, no longer thinking straight. There was a stick lying on the ground, half sticking out of the hedge. He picked it up. She was still talking, on and on, telling lies. Why wouldn’t she stop talking?
Julian lifted the stick and brought it down, hard, upon her head.
Shelagh O’Donnell cried out in shock, so he hit her again to stop her making any noise. She fell to her side on the stones. Then there was silence.
Julian dropped the weapon. For a moment, he stood dead still. Then, horrified, disbelieving, he kicked the stick back into the hedge and started to run.
20
PART XI
The Sepulchre November 1891-October 1897
CHAPTER 88
DOMAINE DE LA CADE
SUNDAY 1ST NOVEMBER 1891
Anatole was buried in the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade. The spot chosen was the little promontory overlooking the valley at the far side of the lake, in the green shade, close by the crescent stone bench where Isolde often sat.
Abbé Saunière officiated at the meagre ceremony. Léonie – on the arm of Audric Baillard – Maître Fromilhague and Madame Bousquet were the only mourners.
Isolde remained under constant watch in her chamber, unaware even that the funeral was taking place. Locked within her silent and suspended world, she did not know how fast or how slowly time was passing, if indeed time had ceased or if all experience was contained in the chime of a single minute. Her existence had shrunk to the four walls of her head. She knew light and dark, that sometimes the fever burned in her and sometimes the cold tore at her, but also that she was trapped somewhere between two worlds, shrouded in a veil she could not draw aside.
The same group paid their respects a day later to Dr Gabignaud in the graveyard of the parish church in Rennes-les-Bains, this time the congregation swelled by the people of the town who had known and admired the young man. Dr Courrent gave the address, praising Gabignaud’s hard work, his passion, his sense of duty.
After the burials, Léonie, numb with grief and the responsibilities thrust suddenly on her young shoulders, withdrew to the Domaine de la Cade and ventured little out. The household fell into a joyless routine, day after endless day the same.
In the bare beech woods, snows fell early, blanketing the lawns and the park in white. The lake froze and lay a mirror of ice beneath the lowering clouds.
A new medical recruit, Gabignaud’s replacement as Dr Courrent’s assistant, came daily from the town to monitor Isolde’s progress.
‘Madame Vernier’s pulse is fast tonight,’ he said gravely, packing away his equipment into his black leather bag and unhooking his stethoscope from his neck. ‘The severity of grief, the strain upon her due to her condition, well, I fear for the full restoration of her faculties the longer this state persists.’
The weather deepened in December. Blustery winds drove in from the north, bringing with them hail and ice that assaulted the roof and windows of the house in waves.
The Aude valley was frozen in misery. Those without shelter, if fortunate, were taken in by their neighbours. Oxen starved in the fields, their hooves caught in the mud and ice, rotting. The rivers froze. The tracks were impassable. There was no food, for man nor beast. The tinkling bell of the sacristan rang out over the fields as Christ was carried through the countryside to grace the lips of another dying sinner, over paths concealed and made treacherous beneath snow. It seemed that all living things would, one by one, simply cease to exist. No light, no warmth, like candles blown out.
In the parish church of Rennes-les-Bains, Curé Boudet preached masses for the dead and the bell tolled out its mournful passing note. In Coustaussa, Curé Gélis opened his doors and offered the cold flagstones of the presbytery floor to the homeless as shelter. In Rennes-le-Château, Abbé Saunière preached of the evil stalking the countryside and urged his congregation to seek salvation in the arms of the one true church.
At the Domaine de la Cade, the staff, although shaken by what had taken place and their part in the matter, remained steadfast. In Isolde’s continuing indisposition, they accepted Léonie as mistress of the house. But Marieta grew alarmed as sorrow stole from Léonie her appetite and rest, and she grew thin and pale. Her green eyes lost their shine. But her courage held. She remembered her promise to Anatole that she would protect Isolde and their child and was determined not to let down his memory.
Victor Constant stood accused of the murder of Marguerite Vernier in Paris, the murder of Anatole Vernier in Rennes-les-Bains and the attempted murder of Isolde Vernier, formerly Lascombe. There was also a prosecution pending arising out of the attack on the prostitute in Carcassonne. It was suggested – and accepted without further investigation – that Dr Gabignaud, Charles Denarnaud and a third comrade in the sorry business – had been killed on the orders of Victor Constant, even if it had not been his finger on the trigger.
The town disapproved of the news that Anatole and Isolde had married in secret, more at the haste of it rather than the fact that he was the nephew of her first husband. But it seemed that, given time, the arrangements at the Domaine de la Cade would come to be accepted.
The log pile against the scullery wall diminished. Isolde showed little sign of recovering her mental faculties, although the baby grew and flourished inside her. Day and night, in her chamber on the first floor of the Domaine de la Cade, a good fire crackled and spat in the hearth. The hours of sunlight were short, barely warming the sky before dark fell over the land once again.
Enslaved by grief, Isolde stood yet at a crossroads between the world from which she had taken temporary leave and the undiscovered country beyond. The voices that were with her always whispered to her that if she fared forwards she would find those she loved waiting for her in sunlit glades. Anatole would be there, bathed in gentle, welcoming light. There was nothing to fear. In moments of what she believed were grace, she longed to die. To be with him. But the spirit of his child wishing to be born was too strong.
On a dull and soundless afternoon, with nothing to mark it from those days that had come before or those that were to follow, Isolde felt sensation return to her delicate limbs. At first, it was her fingers. So subtle as to be almost mistaken for something else. An automatic response, not one of purpose. A tingling at the tips and beneath her almond-shaped nails. Then, a twitching of her pale feet beneath the covers. Then, a pricking on the skin at the base of her neck.
She moved her hand and the hand obeyed.
Isolde heard a noise. Not, this time, the ceaseless whispering that was always with her, but the normal, domestic sound of a chair leg against the floor. For the first time in months, it was not distorted or amplified or subdued by time or light, but knocking on her consciousness without refraction.
She sensed someone leaning over her, the warmth of breath on her face.
‘Madama?’
She allowed her eyes to flutter open. She heard the intake of breath, then feet running and a door flung open, shouting in the passageway, coils of sound winding up from the hall below, growing in intensity, growing in certainty.
‘Madomaisèla Léonie! Madama s’éveille !’
Isolde blinked at the brightness. More noise, then the touch of cold fingers taking her hand. Slowly she turned her head to one side and saw her niece’s thoughtful young face looking down at her.
‘Léonie?’
She felt her fingers being squeezed. ‘I am here.’
‘Léonie . . .’ Isolde’s voice faltered. ‘Anatole, he …’ Isolde’s convalescence was slow. She walked, raised a fork to her mouth, slept, but her physical progress was unsteady and the light had gone from her grey eyes. Grief had detached her from herself. Everything she thought and saw, felt and smelt touched chords of painful remembrance.
Most evenings, she sat with Léonie in the drawing room talking of Anatole, her slim white fingers resting on her growing stomach. Léonie would listen while Isolde recited the whole story of their love affair, from the instant of their first meeting, to the decision to grasp at happiness and the hoax at the Cimetière de Montmartre, the short-lived joy of their intimate wedding in Carcassonne on the eve of the great storm.
But however many times Isolde told the story, the ending remained the same. A once-upon-a-time, a fairytale romance, but cheated of its happy ending.
The winter passed, at last. The snow melted, although by February a crisp frost still covered the morning in sharp whiteness.
At the Domaine de la Cade, Léonie and Isolde remained locked together in their sorrow, bereaved, watching the shadows on the lawns. They had few visitors, save for Audric Baillard and Madame Bousquet, who, despite having lost the estate on Jules Lascombe’s marriage, proved to be both a generous friend and a kind neighbour.
Monsieur Baillard, from time to time, brought news of the police hunt for Victor Constant, who had disappeared from the Hôtel de la Reine in Rennes-les-Bains under cover of dark on the night of the 31st October and had not been seen since in France.
The police had enquired for him in the various health spas and asylums specialising in treating men of his condition, but met with no luck. Attempts were made by the state to seize his considerable assets. There was a price on his head. Even so, there were no sightings, no rumours.
On the 25th March, by unhappy coincidence the anniversary of the Isolde’s false burial in the Cimitière de Montmartre, Léonie received an official letter from Inspector Thouron. He informed her that since they believed Constant had fled the country, perhaps over the border into Andorra or Spain, they were scaling down the manhunt. He reassured her that the fugitive would be arrested and guillotined should he ever return to France and hoped, therefore, that Madame and Mademoiselle Vernier would feel no alarm that Constant would concern them further.
At the tail-end of March, when inclement conditions had kept them inside for some days, Léonie found herself taking up her pen to write to Anatole’s former friend and neighbour, Achille Debussy. She knew he was now going under the name of Claude Debussy, although she could not bring herself to address him so.
The correspondence both filled an absence in her confined life and, more important for her fractured heart, helped keep a link with Anatole. Achille told her what was happening in the streets and boulevards she and Anatole had once called home, gossip about who was in conflict with whom, all the petty rivalries at the Académie, the authors in favour or disgraced, the artists fighting, the composers snubbed, the scandals and the affairs.
Léonie did not care for a world that was now so distant, so closed to her, but it reminded her of conversations with Anatole. Sometimes, in the old days, when he returned home after a night out with Achille at Le Chat Noir, he would come into her room, throw himself into the old armchair at the foot of her bed, and she, with her covers drawn up to her chin, would listen to his stories. Debussy wrote mostly of himself, covering page after page with his spidery writing. Léonie did not mind. It took her thoughts away from her own predicament. She smiled when he wrote of his Sunday morning visits to the church of Saint-Gervais to listen to the Gregorian chant with his atheistic friends, sitting with their defiant backs to the altar, thereby offending both the congregation and the officiating priest.
Léonie could not leave Isolde and, even had she been free to travel, the thought of returning to Paris was too painful. It was too soon. At her request, Achille and Gaby Dupont made regular visits to the cimitière de Passy in the 16th arrondissement to lay flowers on the grave of Marguerite Vernier. The tomb, paid for by Du Pont as a last act of generosity, was close to that of the painter Edouard Manet, Achille wrote. A peaceful, shaded spot. Léonie thought her mother would be content to lie among such company.
The weather changed as April came in, arriving like a general upon the battlefield. Aggressive, loud, bellicose. Squalls of scudding clouds skated across the peaks of the mountains. The days grew a little longer, the mornings a little lighter. Marieta got out her needles and threads. She put generous pleats into Isolde’s chemises and let out the panels on her skirts to accommodate her changing shape.
Purple, white and pink valley flowers pushed tentative shoots through the crusted rim of the earth, raising their faces to the light. The smatterings of colour, like dabs of paint dripped from a brush, grew stronger, more frequent, vibrating in the green of the borders and the paths.
May tiptoed shyly in, hinting at the promise of longer summer days to come, of dappled sunlight on still water. In the streets of Rennes-les-Bains, Léonie often ventured to visit Monsieur Baillard or met with Madame Bousquet to take afternoon tea in the salon of the Hôtel de la Reine. Outside the modest townhouses, canaries sang in cages now hung out of doors. The lemon and orange trees were in blossom, their sharp scents filling the streets. On every corner, early fresh fruits brought over the mountains from Spain were sold from wooden carts.
The Domaine de la Cade was suddenly glorious beneath an endless blue sky. The bright June sun struck the gleaming white peaks of the Pyrenees. Summer, at last, had come.
From Paris, Achille wrote that Maître Maeterlinck had granted permission to set his new drama, Pelléas et Mélisande, to music. He also sent a copy of Zola’s La Débâcle, which was set during the summer of 1870 and the Franco-Prussian War. He enclosed a personal note saying he knew it would have been of interest to Anatole, as it was to him, as sons of convicted Communards. Léonie struggled with the novel, but appreciated the sentiment that had caused Achille to make her so thoughtful a gift.
She did not allow her thoughts to return to the Tarot cards. They were tied up with the grim events of Hallowe’en, and although she could not persuade the Abbé Saunière to talk to her of those things he had seen or done in the service of her uncle, she remembered Monsieur Baillard’s warnings that the demon, Asmodeus, walked the valleys when times were troubled. Although she did not believe such superstitions, or so she told herself, she did not wish to risk provoking a recurrence of such terror.
She packed away her incomplete set of drawings. They were too painful a reminder of her brother and her mother. Le Diable and La Tour were left unfinished. Nor did Léonie return to the glade ringed with the wild juniper. Its proximity to the clearing where the duel had taken place, where Anatole had fallen, made her heart crack. Too much so to contemplate ever walking that way.
Isolde’s pains started early on the morning of Friday 24th June, the feast day of Saint John the Baptist.
Monsieur Baillard, with his hidden networks of friends and comrades, secured the services of a sage-femme from his native village of Los Seres. Both she and the lying-in nurse arrived in good time for the birth.
By lunchtime, Isolde was considerably advanced. Léonie bathed her forehead with cold cloths and opened the windows to let into the chamber the fresh air and the scent of the juniper and honeysuckle from the gardens below. Marieta dabbed her lips with a sponge soaked in sweet white wine and honey.
By teatime, and without complications, Isolde had been delivered of a boy, in good health and with an impressive pair of lungs.
Léonie hoped that the birth would mark the beginning of Isolde’s return to full health. That she would become less listless, less fragile, less separate from the world around her. Léonie – indeed the whole household – expected that a child, Anatole’s child, would bring with it the love and purpose Isolde so needed.
But a black shadow descended over Isolde some three days after the birth. She made enquiries as to her son’s condition and welfare, but was struggling to save herself from falling into the same distant, stricken state that had afflicted her in the immediate aftermath of Anatole’s murder. Her tiny son, so much the mirror of his father, served more to remind her of what she had lost than give reason to continue.
The services of a wet nurse were employed.
As the summer progressed, Isolde showed no signs of improvement. She was kindly, did her duty by her son when called upon to do so, but otherwise lived in the world of her mind, persecuted endlessly by the voices in her head.
Where Isolde was distant, Léonie fell in love with her nephew without reservation or condition. Louis-Anatole was a sunny-natured baby, with Anatole’s black hair and long lashes, rimming startling grey eyes, inherited from his mother. In the delight of the child’s company, Léonie forgot, sometimes for hours at a time, the tragedy that had overtaken them.
As the fearsomely hot July and August days marched on, from time to time Léonie would awake in the morning with a sense of hope, a lightness in her step, before she remembered and the shadows fell over her again. But her love and her determination to keep any harm from coming to Anatole’s son helped her to recover her spirits.
21
CHAPTER 89
Autumn 1892 tipped into spring 1893, and still Constant did not return to the Domaine de la Cade. Léonie allowed herself to believe he was dead, although she would have been grateful for confirmation of it.
August of 1893 was, like the previous year, as hot and dry as the African deserts. The drought was followed by torrential inundations throughout the Languedoc, washing away sections of land on the plains, revealing long-hidden caves and cachettes beneath the mud.
Achille Debussy remained a regular correspondent. In December he wrote with Christmas greetings and to tell Léonie that the Société Nationale was to present in concert a performance of L’Après-Midi d’un Faune, a new composition intended as the first of a suite of three pieces. As she read his naturalistic descriptions of the faun in his glade, Léonie was put in mind of the clearing within which she had, two years before, discovered the deck of cards. For an instant she was tempted to retrace her steps to the spot and see if the Tarot was still there.
She did not do so.
Rather than the boulevards and avenues of Paris, her world continued to be bounded by the beech woods to the east, the long driveway to the north, the lawns to the south. She was sustained only by the love of one little boy and her affection for the beautiful but damaged woman for whom she had promised to care.
Louis-Anatole became a favourite with the town and the household, who nicknamed him pichon, little one. He was mischievous, but always charming. He was full of questions, more like his aunt than his dead father, but capable of listening also. As he grew taller, he and Léonie walked the pathways and woods of the Domaine de la Cade. Or else he was taken fishing by Pascal, who also taught him to swim in the lake. From time to time, Marieta would permit him to scrape the mixing bowl and lick the wooden spoon when she had been cooking – raspberry soufflé, chocolate puddings. He would balance on the old three-legged stool set hard against the rim of the kitchen table, one of the maid’s crisp white aprons reaching down to his ankles, and Marieta, standing behind him to be sure he didn’t fall, would teach him to knead dough for bread.
When Léonie took him to visit in Rennes-les-Bains, his favourite treat was to sit at the pavement café which Anatole had so loved. With his tumbling curls, white ruffed shirt and nut-brown velvet trousers drawn tight at the knee, he sat with his legs hanging down from the high wooden stool. He drank cherry syrup or freshly pressed apples, and ate chocolate creams.
On his third birthday, Madame Bousquet presented Louis-Anatole with a bamboo fishing rod. The following Christmas, Maître Fromilhague sent a box of tin soldiers to the house and presented the compliments of the season to Léonie.
He was a regular visitor, too, to the house of Audric Baillard, who told him stories of medieval times and the honour of the chevaliers who had defended the independence of the Midi against the northern invaders. Rather than plunge the boy into the pages of sooty history books gathering dust in the library of the Domaine de la Cade, Monsieur Baillard brought the past to life. Louis-Anatole’s favourite story was the siege of Carcassonne in 1209 and the brave men, women, even children little older than he who had fled to the hidden villages of the Haute Vallée.
When he was four years old, Audric Baillard gave him a replica of a medieval battle sword, its hilt engraved and carved with his initials. Léonie purchased for him from Quillan, with the assistance of one of Pascal’s many cousins, a small copper pony, chestnut with a thick white mane and tail and a white flash on its nose. For the duration of that hot summer, Louis-Anatole was a chevalier, fighting the French or victorious at the joust, knocking tin cans from a wooden fence set up by Pascal for the purpose on the rear lawns. From the drawing room window, Léonie would watch, remembering how, as a little girl, she had watched Anatole run and hide and climb trees in the Parc Monceau with much the same sense of awe and envy.
Louis-Anatole also showed a marked talent for music, the money wasted on keyboard lessons for Anatole in his youth paying dividends in his son. Léonie engaged a piano teacher from Limoux. Once a week, the professor would rumble up the long drive in the dog cart, with his white neckerchief and pinned stocks and untrimmed beard, and for two hours would drill Louis-Anatole in five-finger exercises and scales. Each week, as he took his departure, he would press Léonie to make the boy practise with glasses of water balanced upon the backs of his hands to keep the touch. Léonie and Louis-Anatole would nod and, for a day or two following, he would attempt to do so. But then the water would spill, soaking Louis-Anatole’s velvet breeches or staining the wide hems of Léonie’s skirts, and they would laugh and play noisy duets instead.
When he was alone, often the boy would tiptoe to the piano and experiment. Léonie would stand on the landing at the top of the stairs, unobserved, and listen to the gentle, haunting melodies his child’s fingers could create. Wherever he started, most frequently he would find his way to the key of A minor. And then Léonie would think of the music she had stolen so long ago from the sepulchre, concealed still in the piano stool, and wonder if she should take it out for him. But fearing the power of it and its actions upon the place itself, she stayed her hand.
Throughout this time, Isolde lived in a twilight world, drifting through the rooms and the passageways of the Domaine de la Cade like a wraith. She spoke little, she was kind to her son and much loved by the servants. Only when she looked into Léonie’s emerald eyes did something deeper spark inside her. Then, for a fleeting second, grief and memory would blaze in her eyes, before a cloak of darkness came down over them once more. Some days were better than others. On occasion, Isolde would emerge from her shadows, like the sun coming out from behind the cloud. But then the voices would start once more and she would clasp her hands over her ears and weep, and Marieta would gently lead her back to the privacy and half-light of her chamber until better times returned. The periods of peace grew shorter. The darkness around her grew deeper. Anatole was never far from her mind. For his part, Louis-Anatole accepted his mother as she was – he had never known her any different.
All in all, it was not the life Léonie had imagined for herself. She would have wished for love, for a chance to see more of the world, to be herself. But she loved her nephew and pitied Isolde and, determined to keep her word to Anatole, did not waver in her duty.
Copper autumns gave way to chill white winters, when the snow lay thick upon the tomb of Marguerite Vernier in Paris. Green springs gave way to blazing golden skies and scorched pasture, and the briars grew tangled around the more modest grave of Anatole overlooking the lake at the Domaine de la Cade.
Earth, wind, water and fire, the unchanging pattern of the natural world.
Their peaceful existence was not to last for much longer. Between Christmas and the New Year of 1897, there was a succession of signs – omens, warnings even – that things were not right.
In Quillan, a chimneysweep’s boy fell and broke his neck. In Espéraza, fire broke out in the hat factory, killing four of the Spanish female workers. In the atelier of the Bousquet family, an apprentice became trapped in the hot metal printing press and lost all four fingers on his right hand.
For Léonie, the general disquiet became specific when Monsieur Baillard came to give her the unwelcome news that he was obliged to quit Rennes-les-Bains. It was the time of local winter fairs – in Brenac on 19th January, Campagne-sur-Aude on the 20th and Belvianes on the 22nd. He was to pay his visits to those outlying villages, then make his way higher into the mountains. His eyes veiled with concern, he explained that there were obligations, older and more binding than his unofficial guardianship of Louis-Anatole, which he could delay no longer. Léonie regretted his decision, but knew better than to question him. He gave his word that he would return before the feast day of St Martin in November, when the rents were collected.
She was dismayed that his séjour was to be of so many months’ duration, but she had learned long ago that Monsieur Baillard would never be deflected from any purpose once a decision had been made.
His imminent departure – and the unexplained reasons for it – reminded Léonie once more of how little she knew of her friend and protector. She did not even know for certain how old he was, although Louis-Anatole had declared that he must be at least seven hundred years old to have so many stories to tell.
Mere days after Audric Baillard’s departure, scandal erupted in Rennes-le-Château. The Abbé Saunière’s restoration of his church was all but completed. In the early cold months of 1897, the statuary ordered from a specialist supplier in Toulouse was delivered. Among them was a bénitier – a stoup for holy water – resting on the shoulders of a twisted demon. Voices were raised in objection, vociferous, insisting that this and many other of the statues were unsuitable for a house of worship. Letters of protest were sent to the Mairie and to the Bishop, some anonymous, demanding that Saunière be brought to account. Demanding, too, that the priest be no longer permitted to dig in the graveyard.
Léonie had not known about the night-time excavations around the church, nor that Saunière was said to spend the hours between dusk and dawn walking the nearby mountainside, looking for treasure, or so it was rumoured. She did not involve herself in the debate nor in the growing tide of complaint against a priest she had considered devoted to his parish. Her unease came from the fact that certain of the statues were so precisely a match for those within the sepulchre. It was as if someone was guiding Abbé Saunière’s hand and, at the same time, working to cause trouble against him.
Léonie knew that he had seen the statues in her late uncle’s time. Why, some twelve years after the event, he should choose to replicate images that had caused such harm before, she did not understand. With her friend and guide Audric Baillard absent, there was no one with whom she could discuss her fears.
The discontent spread down the mountain to the valley and Rennes-les-Bains. Suddenly there were whisperings that the troubles that had beset the town some years back had returned. There were rumours of secret tunnels running between Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains, of Visigoth burial chambers. Allegations that, as before, the Domaine de la Cade was the refuge of a wild beast started to gather force. Dogs, goats, even oxen were attacked, by wolves or mountain cats that appeared to be afraid neither of the traps nor the hunters’ guns. It was an unnatural creature, or so the rumours spread, not one governed by the normal laws of nature.
Although Pascal and Marieta tried hard to keep the gossip from reaching Léonie’s ears, some of the more malicious stories pierced her consciousness all the same. The campaign was subtle, no allegations were made out loud, so it was not possible for Léonie to answer the mounting drizzle of complaint directed against the Domaine de la Cade and the household.
There was no way of identifying the source of the spiteful rumours, only that they were intensifying. As winter went out and a cold and wet spring arrived, the allegations of supernatural occurrences at the Domaine de la Cade grew more frequent. Sightings of ghosts and demons, it was said, even of satanic rituals conducted under cover of night in the sepulchre. It was a return to the dark days of Jules Lascombe’s time as master of the house. The bitter and the jealous pointed to the events of Hallowe’en 1891 and claimed the ground was restless. Seeking retribution for past sins.
Old spells, ancient words in the traditional language, were scratched on rocks at the roadside to ward off the demon that now, as before, stalked the valley. Pentagrams were daubed in black tar on stones at the roadside. Votive offerings of flowers and ribbon were left at unmarked shrines.
One afternoon, when Léonie was sitting with Louis-Anatole in his favourite spot beneath the platanes in the Place du Pérou, a phrase sharply uttered caught her attention.
‘Lou Diable se ris.’
When she returned to the Domaine de la Cade, she asked Marieta what the words meant.
‘The devil is laughing,’ she reluctantly translated.
Had Léonie not known that such a thing was impossible, she would have suspected the hand of Victor Constant in the rumours and gossip. She chastised herself for such thoughts.
Constant was dead. The police thought so. He had to be dead. Otherwise why would he have let them be for nearly five years, only to return now?
22
CHAPTER 90
CARCASSONNE
When the heat of July had turned the green pastures between Rennes-le-Château and Rennes-les-Bains to brown, Léonie could bear her confinement no longer. She stood in need of a change of scene.
The stories about the Domaine de la Cade had intensified. Indeed, the atmosphere on the last occasion she and Louis-Anatole went down into Rennes-les-Bains had been so unpleasant that she had resolved not to visit for the foreseeable future. Silence or suspicious glances, where once there had been greetings and smiles. She did not wish Louis-Anatole to witness such unpleasantness.
The occasion Léonie chose for the excursion was the fête nationale. As part of the celebrations of the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille more than one hundred years before, there was to be a display of fireworks in the medieval citadel of Carcassonne on the 14th day of July. Léonie had not set foot in the city since the short-lived and painful visit with Anatole and Isolde, but for her nephew’s sake – it was a belated treat for his fifth birthday – she put her misgivings to one side.
She was determined to persuade Isolde to accompany them. Her aunt’s nerves had been worse of late. She had taken to insisting that there were people following her, watching her from the far side of the lake, that there were faces under the water. She saw smoke in the woods even when no fires were set. Léonie did not wish to leave her, even in Marieta’s capable hands, for so many days unaccompanied.
‘Please, Isolde,’ she whispered, stroking her hand. ‘It would do you good to be away from here for a while. To feel the sun on your face.’ She squeezed her fingers. ‘It would mean so much to me. And for Louis-Anatole. It would be the best birthday gift you could give him. Come with us, please.’
Isolde looked up at her with her deep grey eyes, that seemed both to carry great wisdom and, yet, to see nothing.
‘If you wish it,’ she said in her silvery voice, ‘I will come.’ Léonie was so astonished that she flung her arms around Isolde, startling her. She could feel how thin Isolde was beneath her clothes and corset, but she put it out of her mind. She had never expected Isolde to acquiesce and so was delighted. Perhaps it was a sign that her aunt was, at last, ready to look to the future. That she would start to get to know her beautiful son.
It was a small party that set out by train to Carcassonne.
Marieta was watchful of her mistress. It fell to Pascal to occupy Louis-Anatole with military tales, the current exploits of the French army in western Africa, Dahomey and the Cote d’Ivoire. Pascal talked with such relish of the deserts and the roaring waterfalls and a lost world hidden on a secret plateau that Léonie suspected he had borrowed his descriptions from the writings of Monsieur Jules Verne rather than from the pages of the newspapers. Louis-Anatole, for his part, entertained the carriage with Monsieur Baillard’s tales of the medieval knights of old. A thoroughly satisfying and bloodthirsty journey was passed by both.
They arrived at lunchtime on the 14th July and found themselves in lodgings in the lower Bastide, hard by the cathédrale Saint-Michel, far distant from the hotel where Isolde, Léonie and Anatole had stayed six years previously. Léonie passed the remainder of the afternoon sightseeing with her excited, wide-eyed nephew and permitted him to eat too much ice cream.
They returned to their rooms at five o’clock to rest. Léonie found Isolde lying on a couch at the window, looking out over the gardens of the Boulevard Barbès. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she immediately realised that Isolde did not intend to come with them to view the fireworks.
Léonie said nothing, hoping she was wrong, but when the time came to venture out for the evening spectacle, Isolde claimed she did not feel equal to the crowds. Louis-Anatole was not disappointed, for, in truth, he had not expected his mother’s company. But Léonie allowed herself an uncharacteristic stab of irritation that even on this one special occasion, Isolde could not rouse herself for her son.
Leaving Marieta to tend to her mistress’ needs, Léonie and Louis-Anatole set out with Pascal. The spectacle had been planned and paid for by a local industrialist, Monsieur Sabatier, the inventor of L’Or-Kina aperitif and the Micheline liqueur known as ‘La Reine des Liqueurs’. The display was as an experiment, but with the promise that the event would be bigger and better the following year should it be deemed a success. Sabatier’s presence was everywhere, in the promotional leaflets that Louis-Anatole collected in his small fists, souvenirs of their outing, and on posters affixed to the walls of buildings.
As daylight started to retreat, crowds began to mass on the right bank of the Aude in the quartier Trivalle, gazing up at the restored ramparts of the Cité. Children, gardeners and maids from the big houses, shop girls and boot boys all swarmed to the church of Saint-Gimer, where once Léonie had sheltered with Victor Constant. She pushed the memory from her mind.
On the left bank, they gathered outside the Hôpital des Malades, every handhold and foothold occupied. Children balanced on the wall beside the chapelle de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. In the Bastide, they gathered at the Porte des Jacobins and along the riverbank. No one knew quite what to expect.
‘Up you come, pichon,’ said Pascal, swinging the boy on to his shoulders.
Léonie, Pascal and Louis-Anatole took a position on the Pont Vieux, squeezing into one of the pointed becs – the alcoves – that overlooked the water. Léonie whispered loudly up into Louis-Anatole’s ear, as if confiding a great secret, that it was even said that the Bishop of Carcassonne had ventured from his palace to witness this great celebration of Republicanism.
As darkness fell, diners from the nearby restaurants swelled the numbers on the old bridge. The crowd became a crush. Léonie glanced up at her nephew, worrying perhaps that it was too late for him to be out and that the noise and the smell of gunpowder would be alarming, but she was delighted to see the same look of intense concentration on Louis-Anatole’s face as she remembered seeing on Achille’s when he sat at his piano composing.
Léonie smiled and realised she was increasingly able to enjoy her memories, without being overtaken by the sense of loss.
At that moment, the embrassement de la Cité began. The medieval walls were enveloped in a fury of orange and red flames, sparks and smoke of all colours. Rockets shot up into the night sky and exploded.
Clouds of acrid vapours rolled down from the hill and over the river, stinging the watchers’ eyes, but the magnificence of the spectacle more than compensated for the discomfort. The blue sky was purple, now, glowing with green and white and red fireworks as the citadel was enveloped in flame and fury and brilliant light.
Léonie felt Louis-Anatole’s small, hot hand creep on to her shoulder. She covered it with her own. Perhaps this would be a new beginning? Perhaps the grief that had dominated her life for so long now, too long, would loosen its grip and allow thoughts of a brighter future.
‘A l’avenir,’ she said under her breath, remembering Anatole.
His son heard her. ‘A l’avenir, Tante Léonie,’ he said, returning the toast. He paused, then added, ‘If I am good, may we come again next year?’
When the display was over and the crowds dispersed, Pascal carried the sleepy boy back to their boarding house.
Léonie put him to bed. Promising they would have such an adventure again, she kissed him good night and retired, leaving a candle burning, as always, to keep away the ghosts and evil spirits and monsters of the night. She was bone tired, exhausted by the excitements of the day and her emotions. Thoughts of her brother – and her guilt at the part she had played in leading Victor Constant to him – had pecked at her memory all day.
Wishing to be certain of rest, Léonie mixed herself a sleeping draught, watching while the white powder dissolved in a glass of hot brandy. She drank it slowly, then slipped between the sheets and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
A misty dawn crept over the waters of the Aude as the pale morning light gave shape back to the world.
The banks of the river and the pavements and cobbles of the Bastide were littered with pamphlets and paper. The broken tip of a boxwood walking cane, a few sheets of music trampled underfoot by the crowds, a cap detached from its owner. And everywhere Monsieur Sabatier’s leaflets.
The waters of the Aude were as flat as a looking glass, barely moving in the quiet of the dawn. The old boatman, Baptistin Cros – known to all Carcassonne as Tistou – was steering his heavy, flat barge across the still river towards the Païchérou weir. This far upriver there was little evidence of the celebrations for the fête nationale. No spent cases, no streamers or advertisements, no lingering smell of gunpowder or singed paper. His steady gaze took in the purple light that shimmered over the Montagne Noire to the north as the sky turned from black, to blue to the white of morning.
Tistou’s barge pole caught on something in the water. He turned to see what it could be, adjusting his balance with practised ease.
It was a corpse.
Slowly, the old riverman turned his barge. The water lapped close to the wooden rim of the boat, but did not spill over. He stopped momentarily. The overhead wires that linked one side of his river crossing to the other seemed to sing in the soft morning air, even though there was not a whisper of a wind.
Anchoring the craft by plunging his wooden pole deep into the mud, Tistou knelt down and peered into the water. Beneath the green surface, he could just make out the shape of a woman. She was half floating, face down. Tistou was glad. The glazed dead eyes of the drowned were hard to forget, the blue-rimmed lips and the look of surprise etched on skin as yellow as tallow. Not long in the water, Tistou thought. Her body had not yet had time to change.
The woman looked strangely peaceful, her long blond hair swaying back and forth, back and forth, like weeds. Tistou’s slow thoughts were mesmerised by the motion. Her back was arched; her arms and legs trailing gracefully down beneath her skirts, as if she was somehow attached to the river bed.
Another suicide, he thought.
Tistou braced his legs and leant forward, locking his bent knees against the thwarts. He stretched over and grabbed a fistful of the woman’s grey morning dress. Even sodden and made slimy by the river, he could feel the quality of the cloth. He pulled. The barge rocked dangerously, but Tistou had done this countless times and knew where the tipping point lay. He took a deep breath, then pulled again, clutching at the collar of the woman’s dress to get better purchase.
‘Un, deux, trois, allez,’ he said aloud, as the body slithered over the side and flopped, like a netted fish, into the damp hull of the boat.
Tistou wiped his forehead with his neckerchief, then rearranged his trademark cap on the back of his head. Unthinking, his hands drifted to his chest and he crossed himself. It was an act of instinct, not belief.
He turned the body over. A woman, no longer in the first flush of youth, but beautiful still. Her grey eyes were open and her hair had come loose in the water, but she was clearly a gentlewoman. Her white hands were soft, not those of a one who worked for her living.
The son of a draper and a seamstress, Tistou knew good Egyptian cotton when he saw it. He found the tailor’s mark – Parisian – still legible on the collar. She was wearing a silver locket around her neck, solid not plate, with two miniatures inside, of the lady herself and a young, dark-haired man. Tistou left it be. He was an honest man – not like the scavengers who worked the weirs in the centre of town, and who would strip a corpse before turning it in to the authorities – but he liked to know the identity of those he reclaimed from the water.
Isolde was quickly identified. Léonie had reported her missing at first light, the moment Marieta had woken and found her mistress gone.
They were obliged to remain for a couple of days while the formalities were observed and the paperwork signed, but there was little doubt as to the verdict: suicide while the balance of the mind was disturbed.
It was a dull, overcast and soundless July day when Léonie brought Isolde back to the Domaine de la Cade for the last time. Guilty of the cardinal sin of taking her own life, Isolde would not be allowed by the Church to rest within hallowed ground. Besides Léonie could not bear the thought of her being buried in the Lascombe family vault.
Instead, she secured the services of Curé Gélis from Coustaussa, the village with a ruined chateau midway between Couiza and Rennes-les-Bains, to conduct a private memorial within the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade. She would have approached the Abbé Saunière, but she did not think, in the circumstances – he was still suffering at the hands of his critics – that it was fair to taint him with the scandal.
At dusk on 20th July 1897, they buried Isolde beside Anatole in the peaceful patch of ground on the promontory overlooking the lake. A new, modest headstone set flat into the grass recorded their names and dates.
As Léonie listened to the murmured prayers, holding tight to Louis-Anatole’s hand, she remembered how she had already paid her respects to Isolde in a graveyard in Paris six years ago. The memory swooped down upon her, so sharp and vicious that she caught her breath. Herself standing in their old drawing room in the rue de Berlin, hands clasped before a closed casket, a single palm leaf floating in the glass bowl on the sideboard. The sickly aroma of ritual and death that had insinuated itself into every corner of the apartment, the burning of incense and candles to mask the cloying sweetness of the corpse. Except of course that there had been no corpse. And on the floor below, Achille hammering endlessly on the piano, black notes and white seeping up through the floorboards until Léonie thought she would be driven mad with his playing.
Now, as she heard the thud of earth on the wooden lid of the coffin, her only consolation was that Anatole had been spared this day.
As if sensing her mood, Louis-Anatole reached up and curled his little arm around her waist.
‘Don’t worry, Tante Léonie. I will look after you.’
23
CHAPTER 91
The private drawing room on the first floor of a hotel on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees was full of acrid smoke from the Turkish cigarettes the resident guest had smoked since his arrival some weeks before.
It was a warm day in August, yet he was dressed as for midwinter in a thick grey greatcoat and soft calfskin gloves. His frame was emaciated and his head bobbed slightly in perpetual motion, as if disagreeing with a question no one else could hear asked. With a hand that shook, he raised a glass of liquorice beer to his lips. He drank carefully through a mouth scabbed in the corners with pustules. But despite his haggard appearance, his eyes held the power to command, drilling into the souls of those observed like the sharpest jab of a stiletto.
He held up his glass.
His man stepped forward with the bottle of porter and filled his master’s glass. For a moment they made a grotesque tableau, the disfigured invalid and his grizzled servant, his scalp blistered and raw from scratching.
‘What news?’
‘They say she is drowned. By her own hand,’ the servant replied.
‘And the other?’
‘She cares for the child.’
Constant made no answer. The years of exile, the remorseless progress of the disease had left him weak. His body was failing. He could no longer walk easily. But if anything, it seemed to have sharpened his mind. Six years ago, he had been forced to act faster than he had wished. It had deprived him of the pleasure of enjoying his revenge. His interest in ruining the sister had been only for the purpose of torturing Vernier himself with the knowledge, so that mattered little to him. But the quick and clean death meted out to Vernier disappointed him still, and now it seemed he had been cheated of Isolde as well.
His precipitate flight over the border to Spain meant that Constant had not learned for some twelve months after the events of Hallowe’en 1891 that the whore had not only survived his bullet, but had lived to give birth to a son. The fact that she had escaped him again had played obsessively on his mind.
It was the desire to complete his revenge that had kept him patient these past six years. The attempts to seize his assets had almost ruined him. It had taken all the skill and immorality of his lawyers to protect his wealth and his whereabouts.
Constant had been forced to be cautious and circumspect, staying in exile on the far side of the border until all interest in him had died down. Finally, last winter, Inspector Thouron had been promoted and assigned to the investigation into the conduct of the army officer Dreyfus which was so occupying the Parisian police force. More relevant to Constant’s all-consuming desire to be revenged upon Isolde, word had reached him that Inspector Bouchou of the Carcassonne gendarmerie had finally retired four weeks past.
At last, the way was clear for Constant to return quietly to France.
He had sent his man ahead to prepare the ground in the spring. With anonymous letters to the town hall and the Church authorities, it had been easy to fan the flames of a whispering campaign against the Abbé Saunière, a priest associated particularly with the Domaine de la Cade and the events Constant knew had taken place in Jules Lascombe’s day. Constant had heard the rumours of a devil, a demon, released in the past to terrorise the countryside.
It was his paid associates who spread new rumours of a beast stalking the mountain valleys and attacking livestock. His servant travelled from village to village, rousing the crowds and spreading rumours that the sepulchre in the grounds of the Domaine de la Cade was once again the centre of occult activity. He began with the vulnerable and the unprotected, the barefooted beggars who slept out of doors or found shelter beneath the drayman’s cart, the winter shepherds in their isolation on the mountains, those who followed the Assizes from town to town. He dripped Constant’s poison into the ears of drapers and glaziers, boot boys from the big houses, cleaners and pantry maids.
The villagers were superstitious and gullible. Tradition, myth and history confirmed his calumnies. A whisper here and there that the marks were not those of an animal’s claws. That strange wailings were heard in the night. That there was a putrid stench. All evidence that some supernatural demon was come to demand retribution for the unnatural state of affairs at the Domaine de la Cade – an aunt taken in marriage by her husband’s nephew.
All three were now dead.
With invisible threads, he drew his net around the Domaine de la Cade.
And if it was true that there were attacks for which his man did not claim credit, Constant assumed these were no more than the usual litany of the savagery of mountain cats, or wolves, stalking the higher pastures and peaks.
Now, with Bouchou’s retirement, the time was right to act. He had waited too long already, and because he had done so, he had lost his chance to punish Isolde appropriately. Besides, despite the endless remedies and treatments, the mercury, the waters, the laudanum, Constant was dying. He knew he did not have long before his mind too would fail. He recognised the signs, could diagnose himself now as accurately as any quack. The only thing he now feared was the brief, final flare of lucidity, before the shadows des-cended for good.
Constant planned to cross the border at the beginning of September and return to Rennes-les-Bains. Vernier was dead. Isolde was dead. But there was still the boy.
From the pocket of his waistcoat, he pulled the timepiece stolen from Vernier in the Passage des Panoramas nearly six years ago. As the Spanish shadows lengthened, he turned it over in his decaying, syphilitic hands, thinking of his Isolde.
24
CHAPTER 92
On 20th September, the anniversary of Marguerite Vernier’s murder, another child went missing. It was the first for more than a month, taken from the bank of the river downstream of Sougraigne. The girl’s body was found close to the Fontaine des Amoureux, her face badly disfigured by claw marks, red slashes across her cheeks and forehead. Unlike the forgotten children, the dispossessed, she was the beloved youngest child of a large family with relations in many of the villages of the Aude and the Salz.
Two days later, two boys vanished from the woods not far from the Lac de Barrenc, the mountain lake supposedly inhabited by a devil. Their bodies were discovered after a week, but in such poor condition that it was not observed until some time later that they too had been savaged by an animal, their skin ripped raw.
Léonie tried not to pay attention to the coincidence of the dates. While there was still hope the children might be found unharmed, she offered the assistance of both inside and outside staff to participate in the search parties. It was refused. For Louis-Anatole’s sake, she maintained a veneer of calm, but for the first time she began to accept that they might have to leave the Domaine de la Cade, until the storm had blown over.
Maître Fromilhague and Madame Bousquet maintained it was obviously the work of wild dogs or wolves come down from the mountains. During the hours of daylight, Léonie too could dismiss the rumours of a demon or supernatural creature. But as dusk fell, her knowledge of the history of the sepulchre and the presence of the cards within the grounds made her less assured.
The mood of the town grew increasingly ugly, turning ever more against them. The Domaine became the target for petty acts of vandalism.
Léonie returned from walking in the woods one afternoon to see a cluster of servants standing around the door to one of the outbuildings.
Intrigued, she quickened her pace.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
Pascal spun round, a look of horror in his eyes, blocking her view with his wide, solid frame.
‘Nothing, Madama.’
Léonie looked at his face, then to the gardener and his son, Emile. She took a step closer.
‘Pascal?’
‘Please, Madama, it’s not for your eyes.’
Léonie’s gaze sharpened. ‘Come now,’ she said lightly, ‘I am not a child. I am certain whatever you are concealing cannot be so bad.’
Still Pascal did not move. Torn between irritation at his over-protective manner, and curiosity, Léonie reached out her gloved hand and touched him on the arm.
‘If you please.’
All eyes were on Pascal who, for a moment, remained steadfast, then slowly, stepped aside to allow Léonie sight of what he so keenly wished to hide.
The skinned corpse of a rabbit, some days old, had been impaled to the door with a heavy furrier’s nail. A swarm of flies buzzed furiously around a crude cross daubed on the wood in blood and, beneath it, words printed in black tar: PAR CE SIGNE TU LE VAINCRAS.
Léonie’s hand flew to her mouth, the stench and the violence of it making her nauseous. But she kept her composure. ‘See it is disposed of, Pascal,’ she said. ‘And, I would be grateful for your discretion.’ She looked at the assembled company, seeing her own fear reflected in their superstitious eyes. ‘All of you.’
Still, Léonie’s resolve did not waiver. She was determined not to be driven from the Domaine de la Cade, certainly not before Monsieur Baillard returned. He had said he would be back by the feast day of St Martin. She had sent letters via his old lodgings in the rue de l’Hermite, increasingly frequently of late, but had no way of knowing if any had found him on his travels.
The situation worsened. Another child disappeared. On 22nd October, a date Léonie recognised as the anniversary of Anatole and Isolde’s clandestine marriage, the daughter of a lawyer and his wife, pretty in white ribbons and ruched skirts, was taken from the Place du Pérou. The outcry was immediate.
By ill chance, Léonie was in Rennes-les-Bains when the child’s torn and ripped body was recovered. The corpse had been left beside the Fauteuil du Diable, the Devil’s Armchair, on the hills not far from the Domaine de la Cade. A sprig of wild juniper had been pushed between the bloodied fingers of the child’s hand.
Léonie turned cold when she heard, understanding how the message was left for her. The wooden cart rumbled along the Gran’Rue, followed by a ragtail cortège of villagers. Grown men, toughened by the hardship of their daily lives, wept openly.
No one spoke. Then a red-faced woman, her mouth bitter and angry, caught sight of her, and pointed. Léonie felt a frisson of fear as the accusing eyes of the town turned upon her. Looking for someone to blame.
‘We should go, Madama,’ whispered Marieta, hurrying her away.
Determined not to show how frightened she was, Léonie held her head up as she turned and made her way to where the carriage stood waiting. The murmuring was getting louder. Words shouted, abusive, ugly insults, that fell upon her like blows.
‘Pas luènh,’ Marieta urged, taking her arm.
Two days later, a burning rag, soaked in oil and goose fat, was pushed through one of the windows of the library that had been left partially open. It was discovered before any serious damage was done, but the household became even more timid, more watchful, unhappy.
Léonie’s friends and allies in the town – and Pascal and Marieta too – all tried their best to persuade her accusers that they were mistaken in believing that there was any such beast quartered within the estate, but the town had made up its narrow mind. They believed it was incontrovertible that the old devil of the mountain had returned to claim his own, as he had in Jules Lascombe’s time.
No smoke without fire.
Léonie tried not to see Victor Constant’s ever-present hand in the persecution of the Domaine, but all the same was convinced he was preparing to strike. She attempted to persuade the gendarmerie of this, she begged the Mairie, pleaded with Maître Fromilhague to intercede on her behalf, but to no avail. The Domaine stood alone.
After three days of rain, the outdoor staff put out several fires set on the estate. Arson attacks. The disembowelled corpse of a dog was left upon the front steps under cover of dark, causing one of the youngest parlourmaids to faint. Anonymous letters were delivered, obscene and explicit in their descriptions of how Anatole and Isolde’s incestuous relations had brought such terror down upon the valley.
Isolated with her fears and suspicions, Léonie understood this to have been Constant’s purpose all along, to stir up the town into a frenzy of hate against them. And she understood too, although she did not speak the words aloud, even to herself in the darkness of night, that it would never end. Such was Victor Constant’s obsession. If he was in the vicinity of Rennes-les-Bains – and she feared he was – then he could not fail to know that Isolde herself was dead. The fact that the persecution continued made it clear to Léonie that she had to get Louis-Anatole to safety. She would take what she could with her, in the hope that they would return to the Domaine de la Cade before too long. It was Louis-Anatole’s home. She would not allow Constant to deprive him of his birthright.
It was a plan easier to execute in thought than in deed.
The truth was that Léonie had nowhere to go. The apartment in Paris had long ago been let go, once General Du Pont had stopped paying the bills. Other than Audric Baillard, Madame Bousquet and Maître Fromilhague, her confined existence in the Domaine de la Cade meant she had few friends. Achille was too far away and, besides, occupied with his own concerns. Because of Victor Constant, Léonie had no immediate family.
But there was no other choice.
Confiding in no one but Pascal and Marieta, she prepared for departure. She felt certain that Constant would make his final move against them on Hallowe’en. It was not only the anniversary of Anatole’s death – and Constant’s attention to dates suggested he would wish to observe this – but as Isolde had once let slip in a moment of clarity, 31st October of 1890 was the day on which she had informed Constant that their short-lived affair must end. From that, all things had followed.
Léonie resolved that if he came on the Veille de Toussaint, he would find them gone.
On the crisp and cold afternoon of 31st October, Léonie put on her hat and coat, intending to return to the clearing where the juniper grew wild. She did not wish to leave the Tarot cards for Constant to find, however unlikely it was that he should stumble upon them in such an expanse of woodland. For the time being, until she and Louis-Anatole could safely return – and in Monsieur Baillard’s continuing absence – she had in mind that she would give them into the safe keeping of Madame Bousquet.
She was on the point of exiting through the doors on to the terrace when she heard Marieta calling her name. With a start, she turned back to the hall.
‘I am here. What is it?’
‘A letter, Madama,’ Marieta said, holding out an envelope.
Léonie frowned. After the events of the past months, anything out of the ordinary she treated with caution. She glanced down and did not recognise the hand.
‘From whom?’
‘The boy said from Coustaussa.’
Frowning, Léonie opened it. The letter was from the elderly priest of the parish, Antoine Gélis, inviting her to call upon him this afternoon on a matter of some urgency. Since he was known to be something of a recluse – and Léonie had met him only twice in six years, in the company of Henri Boudet in Rennes-les-Bains on the occasion of Louis-Anatole’s baptism, and at Isolde’s burial – she was puzzled to receive such a summons.
‘Is there any reply, Madama?’ Marieta enquired.
Léonie looked up. ‘Is the messenger still here?’
‘He is.’
‘Bring him in, will you.’
A small, thin child, dressed in nut-brown trousers, open-necked shirt and red neckerchief, holding his cap in clenched hands, was ushered into the hall. He looked dumbstruck with terror.
‘There is no need to be frightened,’ Léonie said, hoping to put him at his ease. ‘You have done nothing wrong. I only wish to ask if Curé Gélis himself gave you this letter?’
He shook his head.
Léonie smiled. ‘Well then, can you tell me who did give you the letter?’
Marieta pushed the boy forward. ‘The mistress asked you a question.’
Little by little, hindered rather than helped by Marieta’s sharp-tongued interventions, Léonie managed to tease out the bare bones of the matter. Alfred was staying with his grandmère in the village of Coustaussa. He had been playing in the ruins of the château-fort when a man came out of the front door of the presbytery and offered him a sou to deliver an urgent letter to the Domaine de la Cade.
‘Curé Gélis has a niece who does for him, Madama Léonie,’ Marieta said. ‘Prepares his meals. Sees to his laundry. ’
‘Was the man a servant?’
Alfred shrugged.
Satisfied that she would learn nothing more from the boy, Léonie dismissed him.
‘Will you go, Madama?’ asked Marieta.
Léonie considered. There was a great deal she had to accomplish before their departure. Conversely, she could not believe that Curé Gélis would have sent such a communication without good reason. It was a unique situation.
‘I shall,’ she said, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Ask Pascal to meet me at the front of the house with the gig immediately. ’
They left the Domaine de la Cade at nigh on half past three.
The air was heavy with the scent of autumn fires. Sprigs of boxwood and rosemary were tied on the door frames of the houses and farms they passed on the way. At the crossroads, impromptu roadside shrines had sprung up for Hallowe’en. Ancient prayers and invocations scribbled on scraps of paper and cloth were laid as offerings.
Léonie knew that already in the graveyards of Rennes-les-Bains and Rennes-le-Château, indeed in every mountain parish, widows draped in black crêpe and veils, would be kneeling on the damp earth before ancient tombs, praying for deliverance of those they had loved. More so this year, with the blight that had fallen over the region.
Pascal drove the horses hard, until sweat steamed up from their backs and their nostrils flared wide in the chill air. Even so, it was almost dark by the time they had covered the distance from Rennes-les-Bains to Coustaussa and negotiated the very steep track leading up from the main road to the village.
Léonie heard the four o’clock bells ringing down the valley. Leaving Pascal with the carriage and horses, she walked through the deserted village. Coustaussa was tiny, no more than a handful of houses. No boulangerie, no café.
Léonie found the presbytery, which adjoined the church, with little difficulty. There appeared to be no signs of life inside. No lights were burning in the house that she could see.
With a growing sense of unease, she knocked on the heavy door. No one came. No one answered. She rapped again, a little louder.
‘Curé Gélis?’
After a few moments, Léonie determined to try the church instead. She followed the darkening line of the stone building around to the back. All the doors, to front and side, were locked. A guttering, dim oil lamp hung miserably from a bent iron hook.
Increasingly impatient, Léonie made for the dwelling on the opposite side of the street and knocked. After a shuffling of feet from within, an elderly woman slid back the metal grille set within a hatch in the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Good evening,’ Léonie said. ‘I have a rendezvous with Curé Gélis, but there is no answer.’
The owner of the house looked at Léonie with sullen and distrustful eyes, saying nothing. Léonie dug into her pocket and produced a sou, which the woman grabbed.
‘Ritou is not there,’ she said in the end.
‘Ritou?’
‘The priest. Gone to Couiza.’
Léonie stared. ‘That cannot be. I received a letter from him not two hours past inviting me to call upon him.’
‘Saw him leave,’ the woman said, with evident pleasure. ‘You’re the second to come calling.’
Léonie threw out her hand and stopped the woman from closing the grille, leaving no more than a fraction of light dripping from inside out on to the street.
‘What manner of person?’ she demanded. ‘A man?’
Silence. Léonie produced a second coin.
‘French,’ the old woman said, spitting out the word like the insult it was intended to be.
‘When was this?’
‘Before dusk. Still light.’
Puzzled, Léonie withdrew her fingers. The grille slammed immediately shut.
She turned away, pulling her cloak tight about herself against the onset of the night. She could only assume that in the time it had taken the boy to make the journey on foot from Coustaussa to the Domaine de la Cade, Curé Gélis had given up waiting and been unable to delay his departure longer. Perhaps he had been obliged to attend to some other urgent errand?
Increasingly anxious to return home after her wasted journey, Léonie took paper and pencil from her pocket of her cloak and scribbled a note saying how sorry she was to have missed him. She pushed it through the narrow letter-box on the presbytery wall and then hurried back to where Pascal was waiting.
Pascal drove the horses even faster on the return journey, but every minute seemed to stretch and Léonie almost cried out with relief when the lights of the Domaine de la Cade came into view. He slowed on the drive, slippery with ice, and Léonie felt like jumping down and running ahead.
When at last they stopped, she leapt out of the gig and ran up the front steps, possessed by a nameless, faceless dread that something, anything might have happened in her absence. She pushed open the door and rushed inside.
Louis-Anatole came running towards her. ‘He’s here,’ he cried.
Léonie’s blood turned to ice in her veins.
Please God, no. Not Victor Constant.
The door slammed shut behind her.
25
CHAPTER 93
‘Bonjorn, Madomaisèla,’ came a voice from the shadows. At first Léonie thought her ears were deceiving her.
He stepped out of the gloom to greet her. ‘I have been absent for too long.’
She leapt forward, her hands outstretched. ‘Monsieur Baillard,’ she cried. ‘You are most welcome, most welcome!’
He smiled down at Louis-Anatole, hopping from foot to foot beside him.
‘This young man has looked after me very well,’ he said. ‘He has been amusing me by playing the piano.’
Without waiting for further invitation, Louis-Anatole ran back across the black and red tiles, threw himself upon the piano stool and began to play.
‘Listen to me, Tante Léonie,’ he called out. ‘I found this in the piano stool. I have been learning it on my own.’
A haunting melody in the key of A minor, lilting and gentle, his small hands struggling not to split the chords. Music, at last, heard. Played, and played so beautifully, by Anatole’s son.
Sepulchre 1891.
Léonie felt tears brim in her eyes. She felt Audric Baillard’s hand take hers, his skin so dry. They stood listening, until the last chord faded away.
Louis-Anatole dropped his hands into his lap, took a deep breath, as if listening to the reverberations in the almost silence, then turned to face them with a look of pride on his face.
‘There,’ he said. ‘I have practised. For you, Tante Léonie.’
‘You have a great talent, Sénher,’ said Monsieur Baillard, applauding.
Louis-Anatole beamed with pleasure. ‘If I cannot be a soldier when I am a man, then I shall travel to America and be a famous pianist.’
‘Noble occupations, both,’ laughed Baillard. Then the smile slipped from his face. ‘But now, my accomplished young friend, there are matters your tante and I must discuss. If you will excuse us?’
‘But I—’
‘It will not be for long, petit,’ said Léonie firmly. ‘We will be sure to call for you when we are finished.’
Louis-Anatole sighed, then shrugged and, with a grin, ran off towards the kitchens calling for Marieta.
As soon as he had gone, Monsieur Baillard and Léonie went quickly into the drawing room. Under his precise and careful questioning, Léonie explained everything that had happened since he had quit Rennes-les-Bains in January, the tragic, the surreal, the mystifying, including her suspicions that Victor Constant might have returned.
‘I did write of our troubles,’ she said, unable to keep the reproach from her voice, ‘but I had no way of knowing if you had received any of my communications.’
‘Some I did, others I suspect went astray,’ he said in a sombre tone. ‘The tragic news of Madama Isolde’s death I learned only when I returned this afternoon. I was sorry to hear it.’
Léonie looked at him, seeing how tired and frail he looked. ‘It was a release. She had been unhappy for some time,’ she said quietly. She clasped her hands together. ‘Tell me, where have you been? I have missed your company greatly.’
He pressed the tips of his long, slim fingers together, as if in prayer.
‘If it had not been a matter of great personal importance to me,’ he said softly, ‘I would not have left you. But I had received word that a person . . . a person for whom I have been waiting for many, many years had returned. But …’ He paused, and in the silence, Léonie heard the raw pain behind the simple words. ‘But it was not she.’
Léonie was momentarily diverted. She had heard him talk only once before with such affection, but had received the impression that the girl of whom he spoke with such tenderness was some years dead.
‘I am not certain I understand you, Monsieur Baillard,’ she said carefully.
‘No,’ he said softly. Then a look of determination came over his features. ‘Had I known, I would not have left Rennes-les-Bains.’ He sighed. ‘But I took advantage of my journey to prepare some refuge for you and Louis-Anatole.’
Léonie’s green eyes flared wide in surprise.
‘But I only came to that decision a week ago,’ she objected. ‘Less. You have been gone for ten months. How could you have …’
He gave a slow smile. ‘I feared, long ago, that it would be necessary.’
‘But how—’
He raised his hand. ‘Your suspicions are correct, Madama Léonie. Victor Constant is indeed in the vicinity of the Domaine de la Cade.’
Léonie fell still. ‘If you have evidence, we must inform the authorities. They have refused to take my concerns seriously thus far.’
‘I have no evidence, only assured suspicions. But, I have no doubt, Constant is here for a purpose. You must leave tonight. My house in the mountains is prepared and waiting for you. I will give directions to Pascal.’ He paused. ‘He and Marieta – his wife, now, I believe – will travel with you?’
Léonie nodded. ‘I have confided my intentions to them.’
‘You may remain in Los Seres for as long as you wish. Certainly until it is safe to return.’
‘Thank you, thank you.’
With tears in her eyes, Léonie looked around the room. ‘I shall be sorry to leave this house,’ she said softly. ‘For my mother and for Isolde, it was an unhappy place. But for me, despite the sorrows that have been contained here, it has been a home.’
She stopped. ‘There is one thing I must confess to you, Monsieur Baillard.’
His gaze sharpened.
‘Six years ago, I gave you my word that I would not return to the sepulchre,’ she said quietly. ‘And I kept my promise. But as for the cards, I must tell you that, after I took my leave of you that day in Rennes-les-Bains . . . before the duel and Anatole …’
‘I remember,’ he said softly.
‘I took it upon myself to take the path home through the woods to see if I might find the cachette for myself. I wanted only to see if I might find the Tarot cards.’
She looked at Monsieur Baillard, expecting to see disappointment, even reproof, on his face. To her astonishment, he was smiling.
‘And you came upon the place.’
It was a statement, not a question.
‘I did. But I give you my word,’ Léonie said, rushing on, ‘that although I looked upon the cards, I returned them to their hiding place.’ She paused. ‘But I would not now leave them here, within the grounds. He might discover them, and then …’
As she was speaking, Audric Baillard reached into the large white pocket of his suit. He took out a square of black silk, a familiar parcel of material, and opened it up. The image of La Force was visible on the top.
‘You have them!’ Léonie exclaimed, taking a step towards him. Then she stopped. ‘You knew I had been there?’
‘Obligingly, you left your gloves as a memento. Do you not remember?’
Léonie flushed to the roots of her copper hair.
He folded the black silk. ‘I went because, like you, I do not believe these cards should be in the possession of such a man as Victor Constant. And . . .’ He paused. ‘I believe we might have need of them.’
‘You warned me against using the power of the cards,’ she objected.
‘Unless or until there was no other choice,’ he said quietly. ‘I fear that hour is at hand.’
Léonie felt her heart start to race. ‘Let us leave now, right away.’ She was suddenly horribly aware of her heavy winter petticoats and her stockings scratching against her skin. The mother-of-pearl combs in her hair, a gift from Isolde, seemed to dig into her scalp like sharp teeth. ‘Let us go. Now.’
Without warning, she found herself remembering their happy first weeks at the Domaine de la Cade – she and Anatole and Isolde – before tragedy struck. How in that long-ago autumn of 1891 it was the darkness she had feared most, impenetrable and absolute, after the bright lights of Paris.
Il était une fois. Once upon a time.
She was another girl then, innocent, untouched by darkness or grief. Tears blurred her vision and she shut her eyes.
The sound of running feet across the hall set her memories to flight. She leapt up and turned in the direction of the noise, at the precise moment the drawing room door burst open and Pascal stumbled into the room.
‘Madama Léonie, Sénher Baillard,’ he shouted. ‘There are . . . men. They have already forced their way through the gates!’
Léonie ran to the window. On the distant horizon, she could see a line of flaming torches, gold and ochre against the black night sky.
Then, closer at hand, she heard the sound of glass breaking.
26
CHAPTER 94
Louis-Anatole ran into the room, breaking free of Marieta, and threw himself into Léonie’s arms. He was pale and his bottom lip was quivering, but he tried to smile.
‘Who are they?’ he said in a small voice.
Léonie squeezed him tight. ‘They are bad men, petit.’
She turned back to the window, shading her eyes against the glass. Still some way off, but the mob was advancing on the house. Every invader held a burning torch in one hand, a weapon in the other. It looked like an army on the eve of battle. Léonie assumed they were only waiting for Constant’s signal to attack.
‘There are so many of them,’ she murmured. ‘How has he turned the whole town against us?’
‘He played upon their natural superstitions,’ Baillard replied. ‘Republican or Royalist, they have grown up hearing stories of the demon that stalks the land.’
‘Asmodeus.’
‘Different names for different times, but always the same face. And if the good people of the town profess not to believe such stories during the hours of daylight, at night their deeper, older souls whisper to them in the dark. Of supernatural beings that rip and tear and cannot be killed, of sombre and forbidden places where spiders spin their webs.’
Léonie knew he was right. A memory flashed into her mind of the night of the riot at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Then just last week, the hatred on the faces of people she knew in Rennes-les-Bains. She knew how quickly, how easily, blood lust could sweep through a crowd.
‘Madama?’ said Pascal urgently.
Léonie could see the flames darting and licking the black air, reflecting off the damp leaves of the tall sweet chestnut trees that lined the driveway. She dragged the curtain across and stepped back from the window.
‘To hound my brother and Isolde into their graves, even that seems not enough,’ she murmured. She glanced down at Louis-Anatole’s black curly head nestled against her and hoped he had not heard.
‘Can we not talk to them?’ he said. ‘Tell them to leave us alone?’
‘The time for talking has passed, my friend,’ Baillard replied. ‘There comes always a moment when the desire to act, however ill the cause, is stronger than the wish to listen.’
‘Are we going to have to fight?’ he said.
Baillard smiled. ‘A good soldier knows when to stand and face his enemies, and when to withdraw. Tonight we will not fight.’
Louis-Anatole nodded.
‘Is there any hope?’ Léonie whispered.
‘There is always hope,’ he said softly. Then his expression hardened. He turned to Pascal. ‘Is the gig ready?’
He nodded. ‘Ready and waiting in the clearing by the sepulchre. It should be far enough away to evade the attention of the mob. I have hopes I can get us out from there without being observed.’
‘Ben, ben. Good. We will go from the back, cutting across the path and into the woods, praying their target is the house itself in the first instance.’
‘What of the servants?’ Léonie asked. ‘They must leave too.’
A deep flush spread over Pascal’s broad, honest face. ‘They will not,’ he said. ‘They wish to defend the house.’
‘I do not want anyone to come to harm on our account, Pascal,’ Léonie said immediately.
‘I will tell them, Madama, but I do not think it will alter their resolve.’
Léonie could see his eyes were wet.
‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
‘Pascal, we will take care of your Marieta until we join you.’
‘Oc, Sénher Baillard.’
He paused to kiss his wife, then left the room.
For an instant, no one spoke. Then the urgency of the situation pressed down upon them once more, and everyone was jolted into action.
‘Léonie, bring only what is absolutely essential. Marieta, fetch Madama Léonie’s valise and furs. It will be a long and cold journey.’
Marieta swallowed a sob.
‘In my travelling valise, Marieta, already packed, there is a small wallet of paper, inside my workbox. Paintings, about so big.’ Léonie made the shape of a missal with her hands. ‘Take the workbox with you. Keep it safe. But bring me the wallet, will you?’
Marieta nodded and rushed into the hall.
Léonie waited until she had gone, then turned back to Monsieur Baillard.
‘This is not your battle either, Audric,’ she said.
‘Sajhë,’ he said softly. ‘My friends call me Sajhë.’
She smiled, honoured by the unexpected confidence. ‘Very well, Sajhë. You told me once, many years ago now, that it was the living not the dead who would be most in need of my services. Do you remember?’ She glanced down at the little boy. ‘He is all that matters now. If you take him, then I will know at least that I have not failed in my duty.’
He smiled. ‘Love – true love – endures, Léonie. Your brother, Isolde, your mother, they knew this. They are not lost to you.’
Léonie remembered Isolde’s words to her as they sat upon the stone bench on the promontory the day after the very first supper party at the Domaine de la Cade. She had been speaking of her love for Anatole, although Léonie had not known it at that time. A love so strong that without it Isolde’s life had been intolerable. She would have wished for such a love for herself.
‘I want you to give me your word that you will take Louis-Anatole to Los Seres.’ She paused. ‘Besides, I would not forgive myself if harm came to you.’
He shook his head. ‘It is not yet my time, Léonie. There is much I must do before I will be allowed to make that journey. ’
She darted a glance at the familiar yellow handkerchief, a silken square of colour just visible in the pocket of his jacket.
Marieta reappeared in the doorway, holding Louis-Anatole’s outdoor clothes.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Quick, now.’
The little boy obediently went to her and allowed himself to be dressed. Then, suddenly, he darted away from her and into the hall.
‘Louis-Anatole!’ Léonie called after him.
‘There is something I must fetch,’ he cried, appearing moments later with the piece of piano music in his hand. ‘We will not wish to be without music where we are going,’ he said, looking round at the grim faces of the adults. ‘Well, we would not!’
Léonie crouched down. ‘You are quite right, petit.’
‘Although,’ he faltered, ‘I do not know where it is we are going.’
Outside the house, a shout erupted. A cry to battle.
Léonie quickly stood up, feeling her nephew’s little hand slide into hers.
Fuelled by fear and the darkness and the terror of all things that were abroad in these hours of the Eve of All Saints, the men armed with fire and clubs and hunting rifles began their advance on the house.
‘And so it begins,’ Baillard said. ‘Corage, Léonie.’
Their eyes locked. Slowly, as if even now reluctant, he passed her the deck of Tarot cards.
‘You remember your uncle’s writings?’
‘Perfectly.’
He gave a slight smile. ‘Even though you returned the book to the library and led me to believe you never revisited it?’ he chided gently.
Léonie blushed. ‘I may, once or twice, have reacquainted myself with its contents.’
‘It is fortunate, perhaps. The old are not always wise.’ He paused. ‘But, you understand that your fate is tied up with this? If you choose to breathe life into the paintings you have done, if you call forth the demon, you know he will take you too?’
Fear glittered in her green eyes. ‘I do.’
‘Very well.’
‘What I do not understand is why the demon, Asmodeus, did not take my uncle.’
Baillard shrugged. ‘Evil attracts evil,’ he said. ‘You uncle did not wish to forfeit his life and fought the demon. But he was marked for ever afterwards.’
‘But what if I cannot—’
‘Enough now,’ he said firmly. ‘It will become clear, I believe, in the moment.’
Léonie took the black silk package and buried it in the capacious pocket of her cloak, then rushed to the mantelshelf above the fire and took a box of matches balanced on the corner of the marble surround.
On her tiptoes, she placed a kiss upon his forehead. ‘Thank you, Sajhë,’ she whispered. ‘For the cards. For everything. ’
The hall was dark as Léonie, Audric Baillard, Louis-Anatole and Marieta emerged from the drawing room.
In every corner, every nook, Léonie could hear or see signs of activity. The gardener’s son, Emile, now a strong and tall man, was organising the indoor staff with any weapon he could lay his hands on. An old musket, a cutlass taken from the display cases, sticks. The outdoor servants were armed with hunting rifles, rakes, spades and hoes.
Léonie felt Louis-Anatole’s shock at the familiar faces of his day-to-day life transformed. His hand tightened in hers.
She stopped and set her voice high and clear.
‘I do not wish you to risk your lives,’ she said. ‘You are loyal and brave – I know my late brother and Madama Isolde would feel the same, were they here to witness this – but this is not a fight we can win.’ She looked around the hall, taking in the familiar and less familiar faces. ‘Please, I beg you, leave now while you have the chance. Go back to your families and your children.’
No one moved. The glass of the black and white framed portrait hanging above the piano glinted, catching her eye. Léonie hesitated. The souvenir of a sunny afternoon in the Place du Pérou, so long ago: Anatole seated, Isolde and herself standing behind, all three of them content in one another’s company. For a moment, she was tempted to take the photograph with her. But mindful of the instruction to take only what was essential, she stayed her hand. The portrait remained where it had always been, as if keeping watch over the house and those in it.
Seeing there was nothing to be done, Léonie and Louis-Anatole slipped out through the glazed metal doors on to the terrace. Baillard and Marieta followed. Then, from the assembled crowd behind her, a voice rang out.
‘Good luck, Madama Léonie. And to you, pichon. We will be here when you return.’
‘Et à vous aussi,’ the little boy replied in his sweet voice.
It was cold outside. The frost nipped at their cheeks and made their ears hurt. Léonie pulled her hood up over her head. They could hear the mob on the far side of the house, still some way off, but the sound struck fear into them all.
‘Where are we going, Tante Léonie?’ Louis-Anatole whispered.
Léonie heard the fear in his voice. ‘We are going through the woods to where Pascal is waiting with the gig,’ she said.
‘Why is he waiting there?’
‘Because we do not want anyone to see us or hear us,’ she said quickly. ‘Then, still very quiet, mind, we will ride to Monsieur Baillard’s house in the mountains.’
‘Is it a long way?’
‘It is.’
The boy was quiet for a moment. ‘When will we be coming back?’ he asked.
Léonie bit her lip. ‘Think of it as a game of cache-cache. Just a game.’ She put her finger to her lips. ‘But we must hurry now, Louis-Anatole. And be very quiet, very, very quiet.’
‘And very brave.’
Léonie’s fingers went round the deck of cards in her pocket. ‘Oh yes,’ she murmured. ‘And brave.’
27
CHAPTER 95
‘Mettez le feu!’
Down by the lake, on Constant’s order, the mob – now at the rear of the house – plunged their torches into the woody base of the box hedge. Minutes passed, then the hedge began to burn, first the network of branches, then the trunks, crackling and spitting like the fireworks on the walls of La Cité. The fire rose and swayed and took hold.
Then the cold voice came again. ‘A l’attaque!’
The men came swarming across the lawns, around the water, trampling the borders. They leapt up the steps to the terrace, pushing over the ornamental planters.
Constant followed, limping, at a distance, a cigarette in his hand and leaning heavily on his stick, as if following a parade on the Champs-Elysées.
At four o’clock that afternoon – when he was certain that Léonie Vernier was already on her way to Coustaussa – Constant had had yet another slaughtered child brought home to torment its parents. His man had carried the slashed corpse on an ox-cart to the Place du Pérou where he sat waiting. It had taken little skill, even with his depleted energies, to catch the attention of the crowd. Such terrible injuries could not be inflicted by an animal, but only by something unnatural. A creature being concealed at the Domaine de la Cade. A devil, a demon.
A groom from the Domaine had been in Rennes-les-Bains at the time. The small crowd had turned on the boy, demanding to know how the creature was controlled, where it was kept. Though nothing could make him admit to the absurd tales of sorcery, this only inflamed the crowd.
It was Constant himself who suggested they storm the house to see for themselves. Within moments, the idea had taken hold and become their own. A little later, he allowed them to persuade him to organise the assault on the Domaine de la Cade.
Constant paused at the foot of the terrace, exhausted by the effort of walking. He watched the mob divide into two columns, spreading out to front and side, swarming up the stone stairs on to the terrace at the back of the house.
The striped awning that ran the length of the terrace went up first, sparked by a boy climbing up the ivy and wedging his flaming torch into the folds of material at the end. Although damp from the October air, the material caught and ignited in seconds, and the torch fell through on to the terrace. The smell of oil and canvas and fire filled the night in a cloud of choking black smoke.
Someone called out above the chaos, ‘Les diaboliques!’
The sight of the flames seemed to inflame the passions of the villagers. The first window was broken, the glass shattering at the end of a steel-capped boot. A shard became wedged in the man’s thick winter trousers, and he kicked it away. More windows followed. One by one the elegant rooms were breached by the violence of the crowd, jabbing their torches in to ignite the curtains.
Three others picked up a stone urn and used it as a battering ram on the door. Glass and metal buckled and shattered as the frame gave way. The trio dropped the urn and the mob flooded into the hall and the library. With rags soaked in oil and tar, they set fire to the mahogany shelves. One by one the books ignited, the dry paper and antique leather bindings catching as easily as straw. Crackling and spitting, the flames leapt from one shelf to the next.
The invaders ripped down the curtains. More windows were shattered, from the mounting heat and twisted metal, or smashed by the legs of chairs. With faces distorted by rage and envy, they upturned the table where Léonie had sat and first read Les Tarots and ripped the stepladder from the wall, struggling with the brass fittings. Flames licked around the edge of the rugs, then flared into full-scale fire.
The mob exploded into the chequerboard hallway. Walking slowly, throwing his legs awkwardly out before him, Constant followed them in.
The invaders met the defenders of the house at the foot of the main staircase.
The servants were heavily outnumbered, but they fought bravely. They too had suffered from the calumnies, the rumours, the gossipmongering, and were defending their honour as well as the reputation of the Domaine de la Cade.
A young footman delivered a sharp and glancing blow to a man coming towards him. Taken by surprise, the villager stumbled back, blood pouring from his head.
They all knew one another. Had grown up together, were cousins, friends, neighbours, yet they fought as enemies. Emile was brought down by a vicious kick with a steel-tipped boot from a man who once had carried him on his shoulders to school.
The shouting grew louder.
The gardeners and groundsmen, armed with hunting rifles, shot into the mob, hitting one man in the arm, another in the leg. Blood burst through split skin, arms raised to ward off the blows. But by the sheer force of numbers, the house was overwhelmed. The old gardener fell first, hearing the bone in his leg snap as a foot came down upon it. Emile lasted a little longer, until he was seized by two men and a third drove his fist time and time again into his face, until he collapsed. Men with whose sons Emile had once played. They picked him up and hurled him over the banisters. He seemed to hang in the air for a fraction of a second, then fell, head over heels, to the bottom of the stairs. He landed with his arms and legs splayed at an unnatural angle. Only a single trickle of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were dead.
Marieta’s cousin Antoine, a simple boy, but clear enough in his mind to know right from wrong, saw a man he recognised, a belt in his hand. He was the father of one of the children who had been taken. His face was twisted in bitterness and grief.
Without understanding or stopping to think, Antoine threw himself forward, hurling his arms around the man’s neck, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Antoine was heavy and he was strong, but he did not know how to fight. Within seconds he found himself on his back. He threw up his hands, but he was too slow.
The belt struck him across the face, the metal clasp of the buckle driving into his open eye. Antoine’s world turned red.
Constant stood at the foot of the stairs, holding his hand up to shield his face against the heat and soot, waiting as his man ran across the hall to report.
‘They are not here,’ he panted. ‘I have searched everywhere. It seems they left with an old man and the housekeeper some quarter of an hour ago.’
‘On foot?’
He nodded. ‘I found this, Monsieur. In the drawing room.’
Victor Constant took it in his trembling hand. It was a Tarot card, an image of a grotesque devil with two lovers chained at its feet. He tried to focus, the smoke taking his vision from him. As he looked, it seemed that the demon was moving, twisting as if under a burden. The lovers came to resemble Vernier and Isolde.
He rubbed his painful eyes with his gloved fingers, then an idea came to him.
‘When you have settled Gélis, leave this Tarot card with the body. It will confuse matters, if nothing else. The whole of Coustaussa knows the girl was there.’
The manservant nodded. ‘And you, Monsieur?’
‘Help me to the carriage. A child, a woman and an old man? I do not believe they can have gone far. In point of fact, I think it is more likely they will be hiding somewhere within the grounds. The estate is steeply wooded. There is only one place they are likely to be.’
‘And them?’The servant jerked his head in the direction of the mob.
The sounds of screaming were rising in crescendo as the battle reached its zenith. Soon the looting would begin. Even if the boy did escape tonight, there would be nothing for him to come back to. He would be destitute.
‘Leave them to it,’ he said.
28
CHAPTER 96
It was hard going in the dark once they got to the woods. Louis-Anatole was a strong boy and Monsieur Baillard, despite his age, was surprisingly fast on his feet, but all the same they made slow progress. They had brought a lamp, but it was unlit for fear of drawing the mob’s attention.
Léonie found that her feet knew the path she had so long avoided to the sepulchre. As she walked, climbing uphill, her long black cape stirred up the fallen autumn leaves, damp underfoot. She thought of all the journeys she had made around the estate – the glade with the wild juniper, the clearing where Anatole had fallen; the tombs of her brother and Isolde, side by side on the promontory on the far side of the lake – and her heart wept at the thought that she might never see any of it again. Having so long felt confined by her narrow existence, now the time had come to leave, she did not wish to go. The rocks, the hills, the copses, the wooded pathways, she felt as if each was seamed into the structure of the person she had become.
‘Are we nearly there, Tante Léonie?’ said Louis-Anatole in a small voice, after they had been travelling some quarter of an hour. ‘My boots are pinching me.’
‘Almost,’ she said, squeezing his hand. ‘Be careful not to slip.’
‘Do you know,’ he said, in a voice that gave the lie to his words, ‘I am not in the least afraid of spiders.’
They arrived at the clearing and slowed their pace. The avenue of yews Léonie remembered from her first visit seemed more knotted by time and the canopy less penetrable than before.
Pascal was waiting. Two weak lamps on the sides of the gig spluttered in the cold air and the horses stamped their metal hooves on the hard ground.
‘What place is this, Tante Léonie?’ said Louis-Anatole, curiosity for the moment driving away his fear. ‘Are we still within our grounds?’
‘We are. This is the old mausoleum.’
‘Where they bury people?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Why are Papa and M’man not buried here?’
She hesitated. ‘Because they prefer to be outside, among the trees and the flowers. They lie together by the lake, remember?’
Louis-Anatole frowned. ‘So they can hear the birds?’
Léonie smiled. ‘That’s right.’
‘Is that why have you never brought me here?’ he said, stepping forward to approach the door. ‘Because there are ghosts here?’
Léonie threw out her hand and grabbed him. ‘There is no time, Louis-Anatole.’
His face fell. ‘Can I not go inside?’
‘Not now.’
‘Are there spiders?’
‘There might be, but since you are not afraid of spiders, you would not mind.’
He nodded, but he had turned quite pale. ‘We’ll come back another day. When it is light.’
‘That is an excellent idea,’ she said.
She felt Monsieur Baillard’s hand on her arm.
‘We cannot delay any longer,’ said Pascal. ‘We must cover as much distance as we can before Constant realises we are not within the house.’ He bent down and swung Louis-Anatole into the gig. ‘So, pichon, you are ready for a midnight adventure?’
Louis-Anatole nodded.
‘It’s a long way.’
‘Further than the Lac de Barrenc?’
‘Even further than that,’ replied Pascal.
‘I shall not mind,’ Louis said. ‘Marieta will play with me?’
‘She will.’
‘Tante Léonie will tell me stories.’
The adults cast stricken glances at one another. In silence, Monsieur Baillard and Marieta climbed into the carriage, with Pascal settled on the driver’s seat.
‘Come on, Tante Léonie,’ Louis-Anatole said.
Léonie closed the carriage door with a sharp snap. ‘Keep him safe.’
‘You do not have to do this,’ Baillard said quickly. ‘Constant is a sick man. It is possible that time and the natural run of things will bring this vendetta to an end, and soon. If you wait, it might be all this will pass of its own volition.’
‘It is possible, yes,’ she replied fiercely. ‘But I cannot take that risk. It might be three years, five, even ten. I cannot allow Louis-Anatole to grow up under such a shadow, always wondering, always looking out into the darkness. Thinking there is someone out there, waiting, to cause him harm.’
A memory of Anatole looking down at the street from their old apartment in the rue de Berlin. Another, of Isolde’s haunted face gazing ever out at the horizon, seeing danger in the smallest thing.
‘No,’ she said more firmly. ‘I will not have Louis-Anatole live such a life.’ She smiled. ‘It has to end. Now, tonight, here.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You believe this too, Sajhë.’
For a moment, in the flickering light of the lamp, their eyes met. Then, he nodded.
‘I will return the cards to their ancient place,’ he said quietly, ‘when the boy is safe and there are no eyes to see me.
You may trust me with that.’
‘Tante Léonie?’ said Louis-Anatole again, a little more anxiously.
‘Petit, there is something I must do,’ she said, keeping her voice level, ‘which means I cannot come with you at this moment. You will be quite safe with Pascal and Marieta and Monsieur Baillard.’
His face crumpled as he reached out his arms to her, instinctively understanding this was more than a temporary separation.
‘No!’ he cried. ‘I don’t want to leave you, Tante. I won’t leave you.’
He threw himself across the seat and hurled his arms around Léonie’s neck. She kissed him and stroked his hair, then firmly detached herself from him.
‘No!’ the little boy shouted, struggling.
‘Be good for Marieta,’ she said, the words catching in her throat. ‘And look after Monsieur Baillard and Pascal.’
Stepping back, she slapped her hand on the side of the carriage. ‘Go,’ she cried. ‘Go.’
Pascal cracked the whip and the gig jerked forward. Léonie tried to close her ears to the sound of Louis-Anatole’s voice calling out for her, crying, getting fainter as he was carried away.
When she could no longer hear the rattle of the wheels over the hard, frosty ground, she turned and walked up to the door of the ancient stone chapel. Blinded by tears, she grasped the metal handle. She hesitated, half turning and looking back over her shoulder. In the distance was an intense orange glow, filled with sparks and clouds of smoke, grey against the black night sky.
The house was burning.
She hardened her resolve. She turned the handle, pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold into the sepulchre.
29
CHAPTER 97
The chill, heavy air rushed to meet her.
Slowly Léonie let her eyes become accustomed to the gloom. She pulled the box of matches from her pocket, opened the glass door of the lamp and held a flame to the wick until it caught.
The blue eyes of Asmodeus fixed themselves upon her. Léonie stepped further into the nave. The paintings on the wall seemed to pulsate and sway and move towards her as she walked slowly up towards the altar. The dust and grit on the flagstones scratched beneath the soles of her boots, loud in the silence of the tomb.
She was unsure what she should do first. Her hand stole to the cards in her pocket. In the other the leather wallet containing the pieces of folded paper, the paintings she had attempted – of herself, of Anatole, of Isolde – from which she had not wished to be parted.
She had, at last, admitted to Monsieur Baillard that after seeing the cards with her own eyes, she had returned to her uncle’s volume on several occasions, poring over the handwritten text, until she was word perfect. But still, despite this, a doubt remained over Monsieur Baillard’s explanation of how the vivid life contained within the cards, and the music carried on the wind, might work one upon the other to summon the ghosts who inhabited these ancient places.
Could it be so?
Léonie understood that it was not the cards alone, not the music, nor only the place, but the combination of all three within the boundaries of the sepulchre.
And if the myths were the literal truth, then she knew, even in the midst of her doubts, that there would be no way back. The spirits would claim her. They had tried once before – and failed – but tonight she would willingly let them take her if they would take Constant too.
And Louis-Anatole will be safe.
Suddenly a scratching sound, a tapping, made her jump. She cast her eyes round, looking for the source of the noise, then with a sigh of relief realised it was only the bare branches of a tree outside knocking against the window.
Putting the lamp on the ground, Léonie struck a second match, then several more, lighting the old tallow candles set in metal sconces on the wall. Drops of grease began to slide down the dead wicks, solidifying on the cold metal, but gradually each took and the sepulchre was filled with yellow, flickering light.
Léonie moved forward, feeling as if the eight tableaux within the apse were watching her every move. She found the space before the altar where, a generation and more before, Jules Lascombe had spelled out the name of the Domaine in letters upon the stone floor. C-A-D-E.
Without knowing if she was doing the right thing or the wrong, she took the Tarot cards from her pocket, unwrapped them and placed the whole deck in the centre of the square, her late uncle’s words reverberating in her head. Her leather wallet she placed beside the deck, undoing the ties but not taking the paintings out.
Through the power of which I would walk in another dimension.
Léonie raised her head. There was a moment of stillness then. Outside the chamber, she heard the wind moving through the trees. She listened harder. The smoke still rose undisturbed from the candles, but she thought she could almost discern the sound of music, thin notes, a high-pitched whistling as the wind threaded itself through the branches of beech woods and the avenue of yew trees. Then it came, slippery, in under the door, through the gaps between the lead and the stained glass of the windows.
There was a rushing of air and the sensation that I was not alone.
Léonie smiled, remembering the words on the page. She was not frightened, now, she was curious. And for a fleeting moment, as she looked up to the octagonal apse, she thought perhaps that she saw the face of La Force move. The faintest smile had come across the painted face. And for an instant, the girl looked precisely like her – like her own face she had painted into her copies of the Tarot images. The same copper hair, the same green eyes, the same direct gaze.
My self and my other selves, both past and yet to come, were equally present.
Around her now, Léonie was aware of movement. Spirits, or the cards come to life, she could not say. The Lovers, to her hopeful and willing eyes, so clearly taking on the beloved features of Anatole and Isolde. For a fleeting moment, Léonie thought she could recognise the features of Louis-Anatole shimmering behind the image of La Justice, sitting with her scales and a run of notes around the rim of her long skirts, the boy she knew contained within the outline of the woman on the card. Then, out of the corner of her eye, only for a second, the features of Audric Baillard – Sajhë – seemed to imprint themselves upon the young face of Le Pagad.
Léonie stood completely still, letting the music wash over her. The faces and the costumes and the landscapes seemed to move, to shift and shimmer like stars, revolving in the silver air as if held by the invisible current of music. She lost any sense of herself. Dimension, space, time, mass, all vanished now to insignificance.
The vibrations, the rustling of the air, the ghosts, she supposed, brushed against her shoulders and neck, skimmed her forehead, surrounded her, gentle, kind, but without ever really touching. A silent chaos was growing, a cacophony of noiseless whispering and sighing.
Léonie reached her arms out in front of her. She felt herself weightless, transparent, as if floating in the water, although her dress still hung red around her, the cloak black on her shoulders. They were waiting for her to join them. She turned over her outstretched hands and saw, quite clearly, the infinity symbol appear on the pale skin of her palms. Like a figure of eight.
‘Aïci lo tems s’en, va res l’eternitat.’
The words fell silver from her lips. Now, after waiting so long, there was no mistaking their meaning.
Here, in this place, time moves away towards eternity.
Léonie smiled and – with the thought of Louis-Anatole behind her, her mother and brother and aunt before her – she stepped forward into the light.
The jolting over the rough ground had caused him great discomfort, opening several of the sores on his hands and on his back. He could feel the pus seeping through the bandages.
Constant descended from the carriage.
He poked the ground with his walking stick. Two horses had stood here – and recently. The wheel ruts suggested only one carriage and appeared to lead away from, rather than towards, the sepulchre.
‘Wait here,’ he instructed.
Constant felt the curious force of the wind insinuating itself between the tightly knit trunks of the avenue of yews that led to the door of the tomb. With his free hand, he held his greatcoat tight around his throat against the strengthening currents of air. He sniffed. His sense of smell was almost gone, but he could just pick out an unpleasant odour, a peculiar mixture of incense and the malodorous scent of rotting seaweed on the shore.
Though his eyes were watering with the cold, he could see there were lights burning inside. The thought that the boy might be hiding there powered him forward. He strode ahead, paying no attention to the rushing sound, almost like water, nor to the whistling, like wind chasing down the telegraph wires or the vibrating of the metal track as a train approaches.
It was almost like music.
He refused to be diverted by whatever tricks Léonie Vernier might or might not be attempting, with the light or smoke or sound.
Constant approached the heavy door, turned the handle. At first, it did not shift. Assuming it was bolted or furniture had been piled up as a barricade, he nonetheless tried again. This time, all at once, it opened. Constant almost lost his balance and half stepped, half fell into the sepulchre.
Straight away he saw her, standing with her back to him in front of a small altar set within an eight-sided apse. Indeed, she was making no attempt to conceal herself. Of the boy, there was no sign.
His chin jutting forward, his eyes darting to left and right, Constant processed up the nave, his stick tapping on the flagstones as his feet fell awkwardly from step to step. There was an empty plinth just inside the door, jagged on the top as if the statue had been torn from it. Familiar plaster saints, set around the walls behind the modest rows of empty pews, marked his passing as he drew nearer to the altar.
‘Mademoiselle Vernier,’ he said sharply, irritated by her inattention.
Still she did not move. Indeed, she seemed unaware of his presence.
Constant stopped and looked down at the pile of cards strewn on the stone floor before the altar. ‘What absurdity is this?’ he said, and stepped into the square.
Now Léonie turned to face him. The hood fell from her face. Constant threw up his diseased hands to shield his eyes from the light. The smile slipped from his lips. He did not understand. He could see the girl’s features, the same direct gaze, the hair now tumbling loose as it had been in the portrait he had stolen from the rue de Berlin, but she was transformed into something other.
As he stood there, captivated and blinded, she began to change. The bones, the sinews, the skull beneath the skin started to push through.
Constant screamed.
Something swooped down upon him and the silence he had not recognised as silence was broken in a cacophony of shrieking and howling. He clamped his hands over his ears, to stop the creatures from entering into his head, but his fingers were pulled away by talons and claws, even though not a mark was laid upon him.
It seemed as if the painted figures had stepped down from the wall, each now transformed into a dark version of their fairer selves. Nails turned to talons, fingers to claws, eyes to fire and ice. Constant buried his head in his chest, dropping his stick as he curled his arms over his face to protect himself. He fell to his knees, gasped for breath as his heart began to lose its rhythm. He tried to move forward, out of the square on the ground, but an invisible force, like an overwhelming wind, kept pushing him back. The howling, the vibrating of the music was getting louder. It seemed to come from outside as well as in, echoing inside his head. Splitting open his mind.
‘No!’ he shouted.
But the voices were increasing in volume and intensity. Uncomprehending, he looked for Léonie. He could no longer see her at all. The light was too bright, the air around shimmering with incandescent smoke.
Then, behind him, or rather from beneath the very surface of his skin, came a different noise. A scraping, like the claws of a wild animal, grating along the surface of his bones. He flinched and jerked, crying out in agony, then fell to the floor in a rushing of air.
And suddenly, crouched on his chest, with a reek of fish and pitch, was a demon, gaunt and twisted, with red leathery skin, a horned brow and strange, penetrating blue eyes. The demon that he knew could not exist. Did not exist. Yet the face of Asmodeus was looking down upon him.
‘No!’ His mouth opened in one final howl, before the devil took him.
Instantly, the air in the sepulchre was still. The whisperings and sighings of the spirits grew fainter until at last, there was silence. The cards lay scattered on the ground. The faces upon the wall became flat and two-dimensional once more, but their expressions and attitudes had shifted subtly. Each bore an unmistakable resemblance to those who had lived – and died – in the Domaine de la Cade. Like Léonie’s paintings.
Outside in the clearing, Constant’s manservant cowered from the wind, the smoke and the light. He heard his master scream, once, then again. The inhuman sound kept him too petrified to move.
Only now, when all had fallen quiet and the lights within the sepulchre had steadied, did he summon the courage to come out of his hiding place. Slowly, he approached the heavy door and found it slightly ajar. His tentative hand encountered no resistance.
‘Monsieur?’
He stepped inside. ‘Monsieur?’ he called again.
A draught, like an exhalation, emptied the sepulchre of smoke in a single, cool breath, leaving the place lit by the lamp on the wall.
He saw the body of his master immediately. He was lying face down on the ground, in front of the altar, a deck of playing cards scattered all about him. The servant rushed forward and rolled his master’s emaciated form on to its back, then recoiled. Across Constant’s face were three deep and red gashes, like the savage marks of a wild animal.
Like claws. Like the marks he had carved on the children they had killed.
The man crossed himself mechanically and leant forward to close his master’s wide, horrified eyes. Then his hand stopped as he noticed the rectangular card lying across Constant’s chest, over his heart. Le Diable.
Had it been there all along?
Uncomprehending, the servant’s hand went to his pocket where he could swear he had placed the card his master had instructed him to leave with the body of Curé Gélis in Coustaussa. The pocket was empty.
Had he dropped it? What other explanation could there be?
There was a moment of recognition, then the manservant staggered back from his master’s body and started to run down the nave, past the unseeing eyes of the statues, out of the sepulchre, away from the grimacing face on the card.
In the valley below, the midnight bell began to toll.
30
PART XII
The Ruins October 2007
CHAPTER 98
DOMAINE DE LA CADE
WEDNESDAY 31ST OCTOBER 2007
‘Dr O’Donnell,’ Hal shouted again.
It was ten past twelve. For more than fifteen minutes he’d been waiting outside Shelagh O’Donnell’s house. He’d tried knocking. Neither of her neighbours was in, so he’d gone for a walk and come back, started knocking again. Still, nothing.
Hal was certain he was in the right place – he’d checked the address several times – and he didn’t think she could have forgotten. He was trying to keep positive, but it was becoming more of a challenge with every second that passed. Where was she? The traffic was bad this morning, so maybe she’d got held up? Maybe she was in the shower and hadn’t heard him?
The worst-case scenario – and, he had to admit, the most likely – was that Shelagh had thought better of going with him to the police. Her dislike of authority was clear and Hal could easily see her losing what little nerve she had without him and Meredith there to back her up.
He pushed his fingers through his mop of hair, took a step back and looked up at the shuttered windows. The house stood in the middle of a pretty row next to the River Aude, overlooking the water, shielded on one side from the walkway by a fence of green angle-iron and split bamboo canes. It occurred to him that he might be able to see into the garden from the back. He followed the line of the buildings, then doubled back on himself. It was hard to tell which house was which from the back, but he matched the colour wash of the walls – one house was painted pale blue, another a thin yellow – until he was confident he knew which was Shelagh O’Donnell’s property.
There was a low wall at right angles to the hedge. Hal walked closer to get a glimpse of the terrace. Hope sparked in his chest. It looked as if there was someone there.
‘Dr O’Donnell? It’s me, Hal Lawrence.’
There was no answer.
‘Dr O’Donnell? It’s a quarter past twelve.’
She appeared to be lying face down on the small terrace next to the house. It was a sheltered spot and the sun was surprisingly warm for the tail-end of October, but it was hardly sunbathing weather. Perhaps she was reading a book; he couldn’t see. But whatever she was doing, he thought with irritation, she had clearly decided to ignore him – to pretend he wasn’t there. His view was obscured by a pair of unkempt planters.
‘Dr O’Donnell?’
His phone vibrated in his pocket. His mind only half on it, he pulled it out and read the message.
‘Found them. Sepulchre now. xx.’
Hal stared blankly at the words on the screen, then his brain flipped into gear and he started to smile, understanding Meredith’s message.
‘At least someone’s having a productive morning,’ he muttered, then went back to the matter in hand. He wasn’t going to let it drop. After all the effort he’d put in to persuading the commissaire to see them this morning, he wasn’t going to let Shelagh duck out.
‘Dr O’Donnell!’ he called out again. ‘I know you’re there.’
He started to wonder. Even if she had changed her mind, it was odd that she was taking no notice at all. He was making enough noise. He hesitated, then pulled himself up and climbed over the wall. There was a heavy stick lying on the terrace, half pushed under the hedge. He picked it up, then noticed there were marks at the top.
Blood, he realised.
He ran across the terrace to where Shelagh O’Donnell was lying motionless. One look was enough to see she’d been hit, and more than once. He checked her pulse. She was still breathing, although she didn’t look great.
Hal pulled the phone from his pocket and dialled for an ambulance with shaking fingers.
‘Maintenant!’ he shouted, after he’d given the address three times. ‘Oui, elle souffle! Mais vite, alors!’
Hal disconnected. He rushed into the house, found a blanket draped over the back of the sofa, ran back outside. He laid it carefully over Shelagh to keep her warm, knowing he shouldn’t attempt to move her, then went back into the house and out the front door into the street. He felt guilty about what he was about to do, but he couldn’t wait around in Rennes-les-Bains for the paramedics. He had to get back.
He hammered on the neighbour’s door. When she answered, he told the startled woman what had happened, asked her to stay with Dr O’Donnell until the ambulance arrived, then bolted to his car before she had a chance to object.
He fired up the engine and put his foot on the accelerator. There was only one person who could be responsible. He had to get back to the Domaine de la Cade. And find Meredith.
Julian Lawrence slammed the car door and charged up the front steps of the hotel.
He shouldn’t have panicked.
There were beads of sweat running down his face and soaking into the collar of his shirt. He stumbled into reception. He needed to get to his study and calm down. Then work out what to do.
‘Monsieur? Monsieur Lawrence?’
He swung round, his vision a little blurred, to see the receptionist waving at him.
‘Monsieur Lawrence,’ Eloise started, then broke off. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he snapped. ‘What is it?’
She recoiled. ‘Your nephew asked me to give you this.’
Julian covered the space in three strides and snatched the paper from Eloise’s outstretched hands. The note was from Hal, curt and to the point, wanting to set up a meeting between them at two o’clock.
Julian screwed the paper in his fist. ‘What time did he leave this?’ he demanded.
‘About ten thirty, Monsieur, just after you went out.’
‘Is my nephew in the hotel now?’
‘I believe he went to Rennes-les-Bains just before noon to collect the visitor who was with him earlier. To my knowledge, he hasn’t yet come back.’
‘Was the American girl with him?’
‘No. She went out into the gardens,’ she replied, glancing at the doors to the terrace.
‘How long ago was this?’
‘At least one hour, Monsieur.’
‘Did she say what she was doing? Where she was going? Did you hear anything between her and my nephew, Eloise? Anything?’
Her growing alarm at his manner showed in her eyes, but she answered calmly.
‘No, Monsieur, although …’
‘What?’
‘Before she went out to the gardens she asked if she might borrow a – I don’t know the English word – une pelle.’
Julian started. ‘A spade?’
Eloise leapt back in alarm as Julian smacked his hands down on the desk, leaving two damp palm prints on the counter. Ms Martin would hardly ask for a spade if she didn’t intend to dig. And she had waited until she knew he had left the hotel.
‘The cards,’ he muttered. ‘She knows where they are.’
‘Qu’est-ce qu’il y a, monsieur?’ said Eloise nervously. ‘Vous semblez—’
Julian didn’t answer, just turned on his heel, strode across the hall and threw open the door to the terrace, sending it slamming back against the wall.
‘What shall I say when your nephew comes back?’ Eloise called after him.
From the small window at the back of reception, she watched him stride away. Not down to the lake, as Madame Martin had done earlier, but in the direction of the woods.
31
CHAPTER 99
There was an avenue of yew trees straight ahead and the echo of an old path. It seemed to lead nowhere, but as Meredith looked closer, she could see the outline of foundations and a few broken stones on the ground. There was once a building here.
This is the place.
Holding the box containing the deck of cards, she walked slowly towards where the sepulchre had once stood. The grass was damp under her feet, as if it had recently rained. She could feel the abandonment and isolation of the place through the soles of her muddy boots.
Meredith bit back her disappointment. A few blocks, the remains of an outer wall, otherwise just empty space. Grass as far as the eye could see.
Look closer.
Meredith looked into the space. Now she saw that the surface was not entirely flat. With a little imagination, she realised she could just about work out the footprint of the sepulchre. A patch of ground, maybe twenty feet long by ten feet wide, like a sunken garden. Clutching the handles of the box a little tighter, she stepped forward. Only as she was doing so did Meredith realise she’d lifted her foot.
As if stepping over a threshold.
Straight away, the light seemed to change. To grow denser, more opaque. The roaring of the wind in her ears was louder, like a high repeated note or the buzz along telephone wires in the breeze. And she could detect the slightest scent of incense, the heady smell of damp stone and ancient worship hanging in the air.
She put the box down, then straightened up and looked around. Some trick of the air made a soft mist rise from the damp soil. Then pinpricks of light began to appear, one by one, hanging suspended around the periphery of the ruin, as if some invisible hand was lighting a set of tiny candles. As each halo of light connected to the rest, they gave shape to the vanished walls of the sepulchre. Through the veil of thin cloud, Meredith thought she saw the outline of letters on the ground – C-A-D-E. As she stepped forward, the surface beneath her boots felt different too. No longer earth and grass, but hard, cold flagstones.
Meredith knelt down, oblivious to the wet seeping through the knees of her jeans. She took out the deck and shut the lid. Not wishing to spoil the cards, she took off her jacket and laid it, inside out, across the workbox. She shuffled the cards, as Laura had showed her in Paris, then cut the deck into three separate piles with her left hand. She put them back together – middle, top, bottom – and placed the entire deck face down on her makeshift table.
I cannot sleep.
Meredith could not possibly attempt a reading for herself. Every time she read through the notes she’d made, she was more confused by the meanings than before. She just intended to turn the cards – perhaps eight, respecting the relationship of the music with the place – until some pattern emerged.
Until, as Laura promised, the cards told the story.
She drew the first card and smiled to see the familiar features of La Justice. Despite the shuffling and cutting of the cards, it was the same card that had been on the top when she found the deck in the cachette in the dry riverbed.
The second card was La Tour, a card of conflict and threat. She placed it beside the first, then drew again. The clear blue eyes of Le Pagad looked up at her, one hand pointing to heaven and one to earth, the infinity symbol above his head. It was a slightly menacing figure, neither clearly good, nor clearly bad. As she stared, Meredith started to think she knew his face, although she could not yet recognise him.
Card four made her smile again: Le Mat. Anatole Vernier, in his white suit, boater and walking stick in hand, as painted by his sister. La Prêtresse followed him, Isolde Vernier, beautiful and elegant and sophisticated. Then Les Amoureux, Isolde and Anatole together.
Card seven was Le Diable. Her hand hovered over the card a moment, watching while the malevolent features of Asmodeus took shape before her eyes. The demon, the personification of the terrors and mountain hauntings related by Audric S. Baillard in his book. Stories of evil, past and present.
Meredith knew now, from the sequence she had drawn, what the last card would be. Each of the dramatis personae were here, portrayed in the cards Léonie had painted, yet modified or somehow transformed to tell a specific story.
With the smell of the incense in her nose and the colours of the past fixed in her imagination, Meredith felt time slipping away. A continuous present, everything that had come before and everything that was yet to come, joined in this act of the laying out of the cards.
Things slipping between past and present.
She touched the final card with the tips of her fingers and, without even turning it over, Meredith felt Léonie step out of the shadows.
Card VIII: La Force.
Leaving it still unturned, she sat back on the ground, not feeling the cold or the wet, and looked at the octave of cards laid out on the box. Then she realised the images were starting to shift. She found her eye drawn to Le Mat. At first it was just a spot of colour that had not been there before. A speck of blood, almost too small to see, growing larger, blossoming, red against the white of Anatole’s suit. Covering his heart. For a moment, the painted eyes seemed to hold her in his gaze.
Meredith caught her breath, appalled yet unable to tear herself away, as she realised she was watching Anatole Vernier die. The figure slipped slowly to the bottom of the painted ground, revealing the mountains of Soularac and Bézu visible in the background.
Desperate not to see more, yet at the same time feeling she had no choice, a movement on the adjacent card drew her. Meredith turned to La Prêtresse. To start with, the beautiful face of Isolde Vernier looked calmly up at her from card II, serene in a long blue dress and white gloves that emphasised her long, elegant fingers, her slim arms. Then her features started to change, the colour shifting from pink to blue. Her eyes widened, her arms seemed to glide above her head, as if she was swimming, floating.
Drowning.
The echo of Meredith’s own mother’s death.
The card seemed to become darker, as Isolde’s skirts billowed in the water around stockinged legs, shimmering silk in the opaque green underwater world, slimy fingers slipping the ivory shoes from her feet.
Isolde’s eyes fell shut, but as they did, Meredith saw that the expression shining out of them was release, not fear, not the horror of drowning. How could that be? Had her life become such a burden to her that she wanted to die?
She glanced to the end of the row, at Le Diable, and smiled. The two figures imprisoned at the feet of the demon were no longer there. The chains hung empty around the base of the plinth. Asmodeus was alone.
Meredith gave a deep breath. If the cards could speak the story of what had happened, what of Léonie? She reached out, but still could not bring herself to turn the last card. She was desperate to know the truth. At the same time, she feared the story she might see in the shifting images.
She tucked her nail under the corner of the card, closed her eyes and counted to three. Then she looked.
The face of the card was blank.
Meredith rose up on her knees, not trusting the evidence of her own eyes. She picked it up and turned it over, then back again.
The card was still blank, completely white; not even the greens and blues of the Midi landscape remained.
At that moment, a sound broke into her reflections. A broken twig, the crunch of stones knocked out of place on the path, the sudden beating of a bird on the wing as it flew up out of the tree.
Meredith stood up, half glancing behind her, but could see nothing.
‘Hal?’
A hundred thoughts flashed into her mind, none of them reassuring. She pushed them out. It had to be Hal. She’d told him where she was going. No one else knew she was here.
‘Hal? Is that you?’
The footsteps were getting nearer. Someone walking fast through the woods, the swish of displaced leaves, the crack of twigs underfoot.
If it was him, why wasn’t he answering? ‘Hal? This isn’t funny.’
Meredith didn’t know what to do. The smart thing would be to run, not stick about waiting to figure out what the person wanted.
No, the smart thing is not to over-react.
She tried to tell herself it was just another guest out for a walk in the woods, like her. All the same, she moved quickly to pack away the cards. Now she noticed that several others were blank. The second card she’d drawn, La Tour, and Le Pagad was empty too.
With fingers made clumsy by nerves and the cold, she snatched at the cards to pick them up. She had the sensation of a spider running over her bare skin. She flicked at her wrist to get it off but there was nothing there, although she could still feel it.
There was a different smell now too. No longer the scent of fallen leaves and damp stone or the incense she’d imagined a few minutes earlier, but the stink of rotten fish or the sea on some stagnant estuary. And the smell of fire; not the familiar autumn bonfires down in the valley, but hot ash and acrid smoke and burning stone.
The moment passed. Meredith blinked, suddenly pulled herself back. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a movement. There was some kind of animal, its fur black and matted, moving low through the undergrowth. Circling the glade. Meredith froze. It looked the size of a wolf or a wild boar, even though she didn’t know if they still even had wolves in France. It seemed to spring from leg to leg. Meredith clutched the box tighter. Now she could make out obscenely misshapen front legs, and leathery, blistered skin. For a second, the creature turned its piercing blue gaze on her. She felt a sharp pain in her chest, as if the point of a knife had been jabbed into her, then the creature turned away and the pressure on her heart was released.
Meredith heard a loud noise. She looked down and saw the scales of justice slip from the hand of the figure on card XI. She heard the clatter as the brass dishes and iron weights fell to the stone floor of the painting and scattered.
Coming to get you.
The two stories had merged, as Laura had predicted they would. The past and the present, brought together by the cards.
Meredith felt the short hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and realised that while she had been staring into the woods, trying to see what was out there in the gloom of the forest, she had forgotten the threat from the opposite direction.
It was too late to run.
Someone – something – was already behind her.
32
CHAPTER 100
‘Give me the cards,’ he said.
Meredith’s heart leapt into her mouth at the sound of his voice.
She spun round, clutching the cards tight, then instantly recoiled. Always immaculate whenever she had seen him before, in Rennes-les-Bains and in the hotel, now Julian Lawrence looked wrecked. His shirt was open at the neck and he was sweating heavily. There was the sour smell of brandy on his breath.
‘There’s something out there,’ she said, the words bursting out of her mouth before she had a chance to think. ‘A wolf or something, I’m telling you. I saw it. Outside the walls.’
He stopped, confusion clouding his desperate eyes. ‘Walls? What walls? What are you talking about?’
Meredith glanced. The candles were still flickering, sending shadows outlining the shape of the Visigoth tomb.
‘Can’t you see them?’ she asked. ‘It’s so clear. The lights shining where the sepulchre used to be?’
A sly smile moved across his lips. ‘Ah, I see what you’re doing,’ he said, ‘but it won’t work. Wolves, animals, ghosts, all highly diverting, but you’re not going to stop me from getting what I want.’ He took another step closer. ‘Give me the cards.’
Meredith stumbled back a pace. For a moment, though, she was tempted. She was on his property, she was digging up his grounds without permission. She was the one in the wrong, not him. But the look on his face turned her blood cold. Piercing blue eyes, his pupils dilated. Fear trickled down her spine when she thought of how isolated they were, miles from anywhere, in the woods.
She needed to keep some kind of leverage. She watched cautiously as he glanced around the clearing.
‘Did you find the deck here?’ he said. ‘No, I dug here. It wasn’t here.’
Until now, Meredith hadn’t bought into Hal’s theories about his uncle. Even if Dr O’Donnell was right, and it had been Julian Lawrence’s blue car on the road just after the accident, she could just about believe he might not have stopped to help. But now none of it seemed so crazy.
Meredith took a step back. ‘Hal will be here any moment,’ she said.
‘And what difference does that make?’
She glanced around, trying to figure out if she could run. She was much younger, much fitter than him. But she didn’t want to abandon Léonie’s workbox on the ground. And even if Julian Lawrence thought she was just trying to scare him with talk of wolves, she knew she had seen something, some predator, skulking around the edges of the clearing just before he had arrived.
‘Give me the cards and I won’t hurt you,’ he said.
Meredith took another step back. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t think it matters whether you believe me or not,’ he said, then, like a light being switched, he suddenly lost his temper and roared, ‘Give them to me!’
Meredith stumbled further back, clutching the cards to her. Then she smelt it again. Stronger than before, a stomach-churning stench of rotting fish and an even more pervasive smell of fire.
But Lawrence was completely oblivious to everything but the cards she was holding. He just kept walking towards her, getting closer and closer, holding out his hand.
‘Get away from her!’
Both Meredith and Lawrence spun round in the direction of the voice, as Hal came running out of the woods, shouting, heading straight for his uncle.
Lawrence twisted round and charged to meet him, drew back his arm and caught him under the jaw with his right fist. Taken by surprise, Hal went down, blood exploding from his mouth and nose.
‘Hal!’
He kicked out at his uncle, striking him on the side of the knee. Lawrence stumbled, but he didn’t go down. Hal struggled to get up, but although Julian was older and much heavier, he knew how to fight and had used his fists more often than Hal. His reactions were quicker. He gripped his hands together and brought them down with combined force on the back of Hal’s neck.
Meredith dashed to the workbox, threw the cards inside, slammed the lid, then ran back to where Hal lay unconscious on the ground.
Julian has nothing to lose.
‘Pass me the cards, Ms Martin.’
There was another gust of wind, carrying the smell of burning. This time, Lawrence smelt it too. Confusion flared briefly in his eyes.
‘I’ll kill you if I have to,’ he said, in so casual a tone that it made the threat all the more believable. Meredith didn’t reply. Now the flickering candlelight she had imagined on the walls of the sepulchre was turning to leaping orange and gold and black flames. The sepulchre was starting to burn. Black smoke was enveloping the clearing, licking over the stones. Meredith imagined she could hear the crackle and spit of the paint on the plaster saints as they started to scorch. The glass in the windows exploded outwards as the metal frames buckled.
‘Can’t you see it?’ she shouted. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening? ’
She saw alarm flood across Lawrence’s face, then a look of pure horror leap into his eyes. Meredith turned round, but she was too slow to see it clearly. Something rushed past her, some kind of animal with black, matted fur, a strange jerking movement, and leapt.
Lawrence screamed.
Meredith watched in horror as he fell, trying to propel himself backwards on the ground, and then arching his back like a grotesque crab. He threw up his arms, as if wrestling with some invisible creature, striking out at the empty air, screaming that there was something ripping at his face, his eyes, his mouth. His hands were clawing at his own throat, tearing at the skin, as if trying to free himself from the grasp of a hand.
And Meredith heard the whispering, a different voice, deeper and louder than Léonie’s, reverberating inside her head. She didn’t recognise the words, but she understood the meaning.
Fujhi, poudes; Escapa, non.
Flee you may, escape you cannot.
She saw the fight go out of Lawrence and he fell back to the ground.
Silence immediately descended on the glade. She looked around. She was standing on a bare patch of grass. No flames, no walls, no smell of the grave.
Hal was stirring, raising himself up on one elbow. He put his hand to his face, then held out his palm, sticky with blood.
‘What the hell happened?’
Meredith ran over and put her arms around him. ‘He hit you. Put you out for a while.’
Hal blinked, then turned his head to where his uncle lay on the ground. His eyes widened. ‘Did you . . . ?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t touch him. I don’t know what happened. One minute he was . . .’ She stopped, not knowing how she could possibly describe to Hal what she’d seen.
‘Heart attack?’
Meredith bent down beside Julian. His face was chalk white, tinged with blue around his lips and nose.
‘He’s still alive,’ she said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket and tossing it to Hal. ‘Call. If the paramedics are fast.’
He caught it but made no move to dial. She saw the look in his eye and knew what he was thinking.
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Not like this.’
He held her gaze for a moment, his blue eyes flickering with hurt and the possibility of paying his uncle back for what he’d done. A magician, with power over life and death.
‘Make the call, Hal.’
For a moment more, the decision hung in the balance. Then she saw his eyes cloud over and he came back to himself. Justice, not revenge. He began to punch in the number.
Meredith crouched down beside Julian, no longer terrifying, but pathetic. His palms lay exposed to the air. There was a strange red mark on each, much like a figure of eight. She put her hand on his chest, then she realised. He was no longer breathing.
Slowly, she straightened up. ‘Hal.’
He glanced over at her. Meredith just shook her head. ‘It’s too late.’
33
CHAPTER 101
SUNDAY 11TH NOVEMBER
Eleven days later, Meredith stood on the promontory overlooking the lake, watching as a small wooden casket was lowered into the ground.
It was a small party. Herself and Hal, now the legal owner of the Domaine de la Cade, together with Shelagh O’Donnell, still bearing the evidence of Julian’s attack on her. There was also the local priest and a representative from the Mairie. After some persuasion, the town hall had given permission for the service to go ahead on the grounds that the site could be identified as the place where Anatole and Isolde Vernier were buried. Julian Lawrence had plundered the graves, but not disturbed the bones.
Now, after more than a hundred years, Léonie could finally be laid to rest beside the bodies of her beloved brother and his wife.
Emotion caught in Meredith’s throat.
In the hours after Julian’s death, Léonie’s remains had been unearthed in a shallow grave beneath the ruins of the sepulchre. It looked, almost, as if she had simply lain down on the ground to rest. No one could account for the fact she had not been found before, given the extensive excavations that had been carried out on the site. Nor why her bones had not been scattered in all that time by wild animals.
But Meredith had stood at the foot of the grave and seen how the colours of the earth beneath Léonie’s sleeping body, the copper hues of the leaves above her and the faded fragments of material that still clothed her body and kept her warm, matched the illustration on one of the Tarot cards. Not the replica deck, but the original. Card VIII: La Force. And, for an instant, Meredith imagined she saw the echo of tears upon her cold cheek.
Earth, air, fire, water.
Caught up in the formalities and endless French red tape, it had so far been impossible to find out precisely what had happened to Léonie on the night of 31st October 1897. There had been a fire at the Domaine de la Cade, that much was on record. It had broken out around dusk and, in the course of a few hours, destroyed part of the main house. The library and the study were the worst damaged. There was also evidence that the fire had been started deliberately.
The following morning, All Saints’ Day, several bodies were recovered from the smouldering ruins, servants who – it was presumed – had found themselves trapped by the flames. And there were other victims, men who didn’t work on the estate, from Rennes-les-Bains itself.
It was not clear why Léonie Vernier had chosen – or been forced – to remain behind when other inhabitants of the Domaine de la Cade, her nephew Louis-Anatole among them, fled. There was also no explanation of why the fire had spread so far, so fast, and destroyed the sepulchre too. The Courrier d’Aude and other local newspapers of the time made mention of the high winds that night, but even so, could they have bridged the gap between the house and the Visigoth tomb in the woods?
Meredith knew she would figure it out. In time, she’d fit all the pieces together.
The rising light glanced off the surface of the water, the trees, and the landscape that had held its secrets for so long. A breath of wind whispered across the grounds, through the valley. The priest’s voice, clear and timeless, called Meredith back to the present.
‘In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’
She felt Hal take her hand.
Amen. So be it.
The Curé, tall in his heavy black felt cloak, smiled at her. The tip of his nose was red, she noticed, and his kind brown eyes glittered in the chill air.
‘Mademoiselle Martin, c’est à vous, alors.’
She took a deep breath. Now the moment had come, she was suddenly shy. Reluctant. She felt Hal squeeze her fingers, then gently let her go.
Struggling to keep her emotions in check, Meredith stepped forward to the edge of the grave. From her pocket, she took two items recovered from Julian Lawrence’s study, a silver locket and a gentleman’s fob watch. Both were simply inscribed with initials and a date: 22 octobre 1891, commemorating the marriage of Anatole Vernier to Isolde Lascombe. Meredith hesitated, then crouched down and dropped them gently into the ground where they belonged.
She glanced up at Hal, who smiled and gave the slightest nod. She took another deep breath, then pulled out an envelope: the piece of music, Meredith’s treasured heirloom, carried by Louis-Anatole across the water from France to America, and down the generations to her.
It was hard to let it go, but Meredith knew it belonged with Léonie.
She looked down at the small slate plaque set into the ground, grey against the grass:
LÉONIE VERNIER.
22 AOUT 1874 – 31 OCTOBRE 1897.
REQUIESCAT IN PACEM.
Meredith let the envelope go. It twisted, then spiralled down, down through the still air, a flash of white slowly falling from her black-gloved fingers.
Let the dead rest. Let the dead sleep.
She stepped back, hands clasped in front of her, her head bowed. For a moment, the small group stood in silence, paying their final respects. Then Meredith nodded to the priest.
‘Merci, Monsieur le Curé.’
‘Je vous en prie.’
With a timeless gesture, he seemed to draw in all those gathered on the promontory, then turned and led the small party back down the hill and round the lake. As they struck out across the lawns, glinting with early morning dew, the rising sun was reflected like flames in the windows of the house.
Meredith suddenly stopped.
‘Can you give me a minute?’
Hal nodded. ‘I’ll just see them settled inside, then come back for you.’
She watched as he walked away, up on to the terrace, then she turned back to look across the lake. She wanted to linger a while longer.
Meredith pulled her coat tight around her. Her toes and fingers were numb and her eyes were stinging. The formalities were over. She didn’t want to leave the Domaine de la Cade, but she knew it was time. This time tomorrow, she’d be on her way back to Paris. The day after, Tuesday 13th November, she’d be on a plane above the Atlantic on her way home. Then she’d have to figure out where the hell to go from there.
Work out if she and Hal had a future.
Meredith looked across the sleeping waters, flat as a mirror, to the promontory. Then, beside the old stone seat, Meredith thought she saw a figure, a shimmering, insubstantial outline in a white and green dress, tapered at the waist, full at the hem and arms. Her hair hung loose around her, shining copper in the sun’s cold rays. The trees behind her, silver with hoar frost, glinted like metal.
Meredith thought she heard the music once more, although she wasn’t sure if it was inside her mind or from deep within the earth. Like notes on manuscript paper, but written upon the air.
She stood in silence, waiting, watching, knowing it would be the last time. There was a sudden glint on the water, a refraction of the light perhaps, and Meredith saw Léonie raise her hand. A slim arm silhouetted against the white sky. Long fingers encased in black gloves.
She thought of the Tarot cards. Léonie’s cards, painted by her more than a hundred years ago to tell her story and that of the people she had loved. In the confusion and chaos of the hours immediately after Julian’s death on Hallowe’en – while Hal had been at the commissariat and calls were going backwards and forwards between the hospital, where Shelagh was being treated, and the morgue where Julian’s body had been taken – Meredith had quietly, and without any fuss, replaced the cards in Léonie’s sewing box and returned it to the ancient hiding place in the woods.
Like the piece of piano music, Sepulchre 1891, they belonged in the ground.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the middle distance, but the image was fading.
She’s leaving.
It was the desire for justice that had kept Léonie here until the full story was told. Now she could rest in peace in the quiet ground she had loved so well.
She felt Hal come up and stand beside her. ‘How’s it going?’ he said softly.
Let the dead rest. Let the dead sleep.
Meredith knew he was struggling to make sense of things. For the past eleven days they had talked and talked. She had told him everything that had happened, leading up to the moment when he burst into the clearing, minutes behind his uncle – about Léonie, about her Tarot reading in Paris, about the obsession stretching back more than a hundred years that had taken so many lives, about the stories of the demon and the music of the place, about how she felt she had somehow been drawn to the Domaine de la Cade. Myths, legends, facts, history, all jumbled up together.
‘I’m good. Just a little cold.’
Meredith kept her eyes fixed on the middle distance. The light was changing. Even the birds had stopped singing.
‘What I still don’t understand,’ Hal said, pushing his hands deep into his pockets, ‘is why you? I mean, obviously there’s the family connection with the Verniers, but even so …’
He trailed off, not sure where he was going.
‘Maybe,’ she said quietly, ‘because I don’t believe in ghosts.’
Now she was no longer aware of Hal, of the cold, pale purple light spreading through the valley of the Aude. Only of the face of the young girl on the other side of the water. Her spirit was fading into the backdrop of the trees, the frost, slipping away. Meredith kept her eyes centred on the one spot. Léonie was almost gone now. Her outline was shifting, sliding, slipping away, like the echo of a note.
Grey, to white, to nothing.
Meredith raised her hand, as if to wave, as the shimmering outline faded finally to absence. Slowly, she lowered her arm.
Requiescat in pacem.
Until, finally, all was silence. All was space.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Hal said again. He sounded worried.
She nodded slowly.
For a few minutes more, Meredith stood staring into the empty space, unwilling to break the connection with the place. Then, she took a deep breath, then reached for Hal. He felt warm, solid flesh and blood.
‘Let’s head back,’ she said.
Hand in hand, they turned and walked across the lawns towards the terrace at the back of the hotel. Their thoughts were running down very different paths. Hal was thinking of coffee. Meredith was thinking of Léonie. And how much she was going to miss her.
34
CODA
Three Years Later
SUNDAY 31ST OCTOBER 2010
‘Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. My name is Mark and it’s my great honour to welcome Ms Meredith Martin to our bookstore tonight.’
There was a burst of enthusiastic, if sparse, applause, then a hush descended over the tiny independent bookstore. Hal, sitting in the front row, smiled encouragement at her. Standing at the back, her arms folded, was her publisher, who gave the thumbs-up sign.
‘As many of you know,’ the manager continued, ‘Ms Martin is the author of the acclaimed biography of the French composer Claude Debussy, which came out last year to rave reviews. However, what you may not know …’
Mark was an old friend, and Meredith had a horrible feeling he was going to start way back, taking the audience all the way through elementary school, through high school to university, before he even got on to the subject of the book.
She let her mind wander, running down familiar paths. She thought about everything that had happened to bring her to this point. Three years of research, evidence, checking and double-checking, trying to fit together the pieces of Léonie’s history at the same time as struggling to finish and deliver her biography of Debussy on time.
Meredith never did figure out if Lilly Debussy had visited Rennes-les-Bains, but the two stories collided pretty early on in a more exciting way. She discovered that the Verniers and the Debussys had been neighbours in the rue de Berlin in Paris. And when Meredith visited Debussy’s grave in the Cimitière de Passy in the 16th arrondissement, where Manet and Morisot, Fauré and André Messager were also buried, she had found, hidden in a corner of the cemetery beneath the trees, the tomb of Marguerite Vernier.
The following year, back in Paris with Hal, Meredith paid a visit to lay flowers on the grave.
As soon as she’d delivered the biography in the spring of 2008, Meredith had concentrated full time on researching the Domaine de la Cade and how her family had emigrated from France to America.
She started with Léonie. The more Meredith read about Rennes-les-Bains and the theories surrounding Abbé Saunière and Rennes-le-Château, the more convinced she was that Hal’s opinion that it was all part of a smokescreen to draw attention away from what had happened at the Domaine de la Cade was right. She was inclined to think that the three corpses discovered in the 1950s in the garden of Abbé Saunière’s home in Rennes-le-Château were connected to the events of 31st October 1897 in the Domaine de la Cade.
Meredith suspected that one of the bodies was that of Victor Constant, the man who murdered Anatole and Marguerite Vernier. Records showed Constant had fled to Spain and been treated in several clinics for third-stage syphilis, but that he had returned to France in the fall of 1897. The second might have been Constant’s manservant, who was known to have been among the mob that attacked the house. His body had never been found. The third was harder to account for. A twisted spine, abnormally long arms, a person of no more than four feet in height.
The other event that caught Meredith’s attention was the murder of Curé Antoine Gélis of Coustaussa, some time during the same night in October 1897. Gélis was a recluse. On the surface, his death seemed unconnected with the events at the Domaine de la Cade, apart from the coincidence of the date. He had been attacked first with his own fire tongs, then an axe lying in the grate of the old presbytery. The Courrier d’Aude reported there were fourteen wounds to his head and multiple skull fractures.
It was a particularly savage and apparently motiveless murder. The killers were never found. All the local newspapers of the time carried the story and the details were much the same. Having killed the old man, the murderers laid out the body, crossing the old man’s hands across his chest. The house had been searched and a strongbox forced open, but it was said by a niece who looked after him to be empty anyway. Nothing appeared to have been taken.
When Meredith researched a little deeper, she discovered two details buried deep in one of the newspaper reports. First, that on the afternoon of Hallowe’en, a girl matching the description of Léonie Vernier visited the presbytery in Coustaussa. A handwritten note was recovered. Second, that a Tarot card had been left pushed between the fingers of the dead man’s left hand.
Card XV: Le Diable.
When Meredith had read that, recalling what had happened in the ruins of the sepulchre, she thought she understood. The devil, through his servant Asmodeus, had taken his own.
As for who had placed Léonie’s sewing box and the original cards in their hiding place beneath the winterbourne, that remained unresolved. Meredith’s heart imagined Louis-Anatole creeping back into the Domaine de la Cade under cover of night and replacing the cards where they belonged in memory of his aunt. Her head told her it was more likely to have been a man called Audric Baillard, whose role in the story she’d not yet figured out to her own satisfaction.
The genealogical information was more straightforward to pin down. With the assistance of the same lady in the town hall in Rennes-les-Bains, who turned out to be both resourceful and extremely efficient, during the summer of 2008 and early fall, Meredith had put together Louis-Anatole’s history. The son of Anatole and Isolde, he had grown up in the care of Audric Baillard in a small village in the Sabarthès mountains called Los Seres. After Léonie’s death, Louis-Anatole had never returned to the Domaine de la Cade and the estate had been allowed to go to ruin. Meredith assumed Louis-Anatole’s guardian was the father, maybe even grandfather, of the Audric S. Baillard who had written Diables et Esprits Maléfiques et Phantômes de la Montagne.
Louis-Anatole Vernier, together with a family servant, Pascal Barthes, had enlisted in the French army in 1914 and seen active service. Pascal was much decorated, but did not survive the war. Louis-Anatole did and, when peace was declared in 1918, he made his way to America, officially signing over the abandoned Domaine de la Cade to his Bousquet relations. To start with, he paid his way playing piano on the steamboats and in vaudeville. Although Meredith couldn’t prove it, she liked to think he might have at least crossed paths with another vaudeville performer, Paul Foster Case.
Louis-Anatole settled outside Milwaukee, in what was now Mitchell Park. It had been pretty easy to uncover the next chapter of the story. He fell in love with a married woman, a Lillian Matthews, who became pregnant and had a daughter, Louisa. Soon after, the affair ended and Lillian and Louis-Anatole appeared to have lost touch. There was no evidence of contact between father and daughter that Meredith could find, although she hoped Louis-Anatole might have followed his daughter’s progress from a distance.
Louisa inherited her father’s musical talent. She became a professional pianist, in the concert halls of 1930s’ America rather than on the steamboats of the Mississippi. After her debut concert, at a small venue in Milwaukee, she found a package waiting for her at the stage door. It contained a single photograph of a young man in uniform and a piece of piano music: Sepulchre 1891.
On the eve of World War II, Louisa became engaged to a fellow musician, a violinist whom she’d met on the concert circuit. Jack Martin was highly strung and volatile, even before his experiences in a Burmese prisoner-of-war camp ruined him. He returned to America, addicted to drugs, suffering hallucinations and nightmares. He and Louisa had a daughter, Jeanette, but it was clearly a tough situation and when Jack disappeared from the scene in the 1950s, Meredith imagined Louisa had not been sorry.
Three years of painstaking research, and she’d made it right up to date. Jeanette had inherited the beauty, the talent, the character of her grandfather, Louis-Anatole, and her mother, Louisa, but also the fragility, the vulnerability of her French great-grandmother Isolde and her father, Jack.
Meredith looked down at the back cover of the book, resting in her nervous lap. A reproduction of the photograph of Léonie, Anatole and Isolde, taken in the square in Rennes-les-Bains in 1891. Her family.
Mark, the store manager, was still talking. Hal caught her eye, and mimed zippering his mouth shut.
Meredith grinned. Hal had moved to America in October 2008, the best birthday present Meredith could have had. The legal side of things down in Rennes-les-Bains had been complicated. Probate had taken a while and there had been problems with ascertaining exactly why Julian Lawrence had died. Not a stroke, not a heart attack. There were no visible signs of any trauma whatsoever, apart from some unexplained scarring on the palms of his hands. His heart had just stopped beating.
Had he survived, it was unlikely he would have faced charges for either the murder of his brother or the attempted murder of Shelagh O’Donnell. The circumstantial evidence in both cases was persuasive, but the police were reluctant to reopen the inquest into Seymour’s death in the circumstances. Shelagh had not seen her attacker and there were no witnesses.
There was, however, clear evidence of fraud and that Julian Lawrence had been skimming the profits and borrowing against it for years to fund his obsession. Several valuable Visigoth artefacts, all illegally obtained, were recovered. In his safe were charts showing his detailed excavations of the grounds and notebook after notebook of scribblings about a particular deck of Tarot cards. When Meredith was questioned, in November 2007, she admitted she had a replica copy of the same deck, but that the originals were believed to have been destroyed in the fire of 1897.
Hal had sold the Domaine de la Cade in March 2008. There was no money in the business, only debts. He had settled his ghosts. He was ready to move on. But he had stayed in touch with Shelagh O’Donnell, who now lived in Quillan, and she told them that an English couple, with two teenage children, had taken over and had successfully transformed the business into one of the leading family hotels in the Midi.
‘So, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Ms Meredith Martin.’
There was an explosion of riotous clapping, not least, Meredith suspected, because Mark had finally finished talking.
She took a deep breath, composed herself, and stood up.
‘Thank you for that generous introduction, Mark,’ she said, ‘and it’s great to be here. The genesis of this book, as some of you know, comes from a trip I made while I was working on my biography of Debussy. My research took me to a delightful town in the Pyrenees called Rennes-les-Bains, and, from there, into an investigation of my own family background. This memoir is my attempt to lay the ghosts of the past to rest.’ She paused. ‘The heroine of the book, if you like, is a woman called Léonie Vernier. Without her, I wouldn’t be here today.’ She smiled. ‘But the book is dedicated to Mary, my mother. Like Léonie, she’s one amazing lady.’
Meredith saw Hal hand Mary, who was sitting between him and Bill in the front row, a tissue.
‘It was Mary who introduced music into my life. It was she who encouraged me to keep asking questions and to never close my mind to any possibility. It was she who taught me to always stick with it, however hard things got. Most important,’ she grinned, lightening the tone a little, ‘and especially appropriate tonight, I guess, it was Mary who showed me how to make the best pumpkin Hallowe’en lanterns ever!’
The gathering of family and friends laughed.
Meredith waited, now excited as well as nervous, until silence fell over the room once more. She lifted the book and began to read.
This story begins in a city of bones. In the alleyways of the dead. In the silent boulevards and promenades and impasses of the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, a place inhabited by tombs and stone angels and the loitering ghosts of those forgotten before they are even cold in their graves.
As her words floated out over the audience, becoming part of the mass of stories to be told that Hallowe’en night, the comfortable sounds of the old building were Meredith’s accompaniment. Chairs creaking on the wooden floorboards, the spluttering of the old water pipes in the roof, the blare of horns from cars in the street outside, the coffee percolator wheezing in the corner. From the bar next door, the strains of a piano coming through the walls. Black and white notes winding through the skirting, the floorboards, the hidden spaces between floor and ceiling.
Meredith slowed down as she came to the end of her reading.
For in truth, this story begins not with the absence of bones in a Parisian graveyard, but with the deck of cards.
With the Vernier Tarot.
There was a moment of silence, and then the applause began.
Meredith realised she’d been half holding her breath, and exhaled with relief. As she looked out at her friends, her family, her colleagues, for a fraction of a second, there in the shifting of the light, she imagined she saw a girl with long copper hair and bright green eyes, standing at the back of the room, smiling.
Meredith smiled back. But when she looked again, there was no one there.
She thought of all the ghosts that touched her life. Marguerite Vernier in the Cimitière de Passy. Of the cemetery in Milwaukee, close to the point where the three rivers met, where her great-grandfather Louis-Anatole Vernier – soldier of France, citizen of America – had been laid to rest. Of Louisa Martin, pianist, her ashes scattered to the winds. Her birth mother, buried on the shores where the sun set over Lake Michigan. But most of all, she thought of Léonie, sleeping peacefully in the ground of the Domaine de la Cade.
Air, water, fire, earth.
‘Thank you,’ Meredith said, as the applause died down. ‘And thank you all very much for coming.’
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AUTHOR’S NOTE ON THE VERNIER TAROT
The Vernier Tarot is an imaginary deck, designed for Sepulchre, painted by artist Finn Campbell-Notman and based on the classic Rider Waite deck (1910).
Experts cannot agree on the antique origins of the Tarot – Persia, China, Ancient Egypt, Turkey, India – all have claims. But the format of the cards we associate now with Tarot is usually accepted to date from mid-fifteenth century Italy. There are hundreds of decks – and more come on to the market every year. The most popular continue to be the Marseille Tarot, with its distinctive bright yellow, blue and red illustrations, and the narrative Universal Waite deck, devised in 1916 by the English occultist Arthur Edward Waite and with illustrations by the American artist Pamela Colman Smith. The deck used by Solitaire in the James Bond film Live and Let Die, painted by the artist Fergus Hall, drew strongly from the Universal Waite Tarot.
For those wishing to find out more about Tarot, there are plenty of books and websites. The best all-round guide is Rachel Pollack’s The Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot, published by Element (1999).
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have been extremely fortunate to have the support, advice, and practical help of so many people during the course of writing Sepulchre. It goes without saying that any mistakes, in fact or interpretation, are mine.
My agent Mark Lucas continues to be not only a superb editor and a good friend, but also the purveyor of multicoloured Post-it notes – this time, red! Thanks, too, to everyone at LAW for their hard work and support, especially Alice Saunders, Lucinda Bettridge and Petra Lewis. Also, Nicki Kennedy for her enthusiasm, Sam Edenborough and the team at ILA; and Catherine Eccles, friend and fellow Carcassonnais, at Anne Louise Fisher.
In the UK, I’m lucky to be published by Orion. It all started with Malcolm Edwards and the incomparable Susan Lamb. With Sepulchre, publisher Jon Wood (super-energetic), editor Genevieve Pegg (super-efficient and calm) and copy-editor Jane Selley have worked tirelessly and made the whole process, from start to finish, huge fun! Also, thank you to the often unsung heroes and heroines in production, sales, marketing, publicity and beyond – in particular Gaby Young, Mark Rusher, Dallas Manderson, Jo Carpenter and everyone at LBS.
In the US, I’d like to thank George Lucas and my wonderful editor at Putnam, Rachel Kahan. Also, at Droemer in Germany, Annette Weber; at Lattès in France, Phillipe Dorey and Isabelle Laffont.
A special thank you to author and composer, Greg Nunes, who helped with the Fibonnaci passages and who composed the beautiful piece of music, Sepulchre 1891, which appears in the book and on the audio version. I’m also very grateful to Finn Campbell-Notman and the art department at Orion for the eight Vernier Tarot cards.
My gratitude to Tarot readers and enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic, who were generous with their advice, suggestions and experiences – I would especially like to thank Sue, Louise, Estelle and Paul; Mysteries in Covent Garden; Ruby (aka the novelist Jill Dawson) for doing a reading for Meredith; as well as those who prefer to remain anonymous.
In France, thanks to Martine Rouche and Claudine l’Hôte-Azema in Mirepoix; to Régine Foucher in Rennes-les-Bains; to Michelle and Roland Hill for giving me sight of the diary; to Madame Breithaupt and her team in Carcassonne; and to Pierre Sanchez and Chantal Billautou for all the practical help over the past eighteen years.
A huge thank you to friends, especially Robert Dye, Lucinda Montefiore, Kate and Bob Hingston, Peter Clay-ton, Sarah Mansell, Tim Bouquet, Cath and Pat O’Hanlon, Bob and Maria Pulley, Paul Arnott, Lydia Conway, Amanda Ross, Tessa Ross, Kamila Shamsie and Rachel Holmes. Special mention must go to the Rennes-les-Bains research gang of Maria Rejt, Jon Evans and Richard Bridges, all of whom have spent more time than they might have wanted at that pizzeria!
Most of all, my love and gratitude to my family, most particularly my fabulous parents, Richard and Barbara Mosse, and my mother-in-law, Rosie Turner, who keeps everything on track.
Our daughter, Martha, is always happy and enthusiastic, upbeat and supportive, never doubting the book would get finished. Felix spent months and months walking the Sussex Downs, brainstorming ideas, making plot suggestions, offering editorial insights and ideas – without his input, Sepulchre would be a very different book.
Finally, as always, Greg. His love and faith, providing everything from editorial and practical advice to all that backing up of files and food night after night, makes all the difference to everything. As it always has.
Pas à pas . . . every step of the way.
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Praise for Kate Mosse
Sepulchre
‘Mosse’s gifts for historical fiction are considerable … Mosse does what good popular historical novelists do best – make the past enticingly otherworldly, while also claiming it as our own’ Independent
‘The Labyrinth author is back with another brilliantly absorbing story . . . Richly evocative and full of compelling twists and turns’ Red
‘The latest from the author of best-selling Labyrinth, this adventure will keep you engrossed’ Eve
‘Better than Labyrinth!’ Simon Mayo Book Show
‘Ghosts, duels, murders, ill-fated love and conspiracy . . . addictively readable’ Daily Mail
‘A sure, deft momentum . . . the secrets begin to slip out thick and fast’ Daily Express
‘The best of the Brits . . . a ghoul thriller . . . Where Mosse really wins is in the writing department. She’s the real role model there’ Mirror
‘Sepulchre is a compulsive, fantastical, historical yarn. Mosse’s skill lies in the precise nature of her storytelling’ Observer
‘[Mosse is] a powerful storyteller with an abundant imagination’ Daily Telegraph
‘Her narrative lyricism, beautifully drawn female characters and deft journey from the past to the present day are also a cut above’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Try this if you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code but fancy something a bit more meaty’ News of the World
Labyrinth
‘Labyrinth might be described as the thinking woman’s summer reading, chick lit with A levels . . . Mosse wears her learning so lightly . . . In this she is reminiscent of those twin goddesses of popular historical fiction, Jean Plaidy and Mary Renault’ Guardian
‘Labyrinth is a reader’s Holy Grail, mixing legend, religion, history, past and present in a heart-wrenching, thrilling tale. Eat your heart out, Dan Brown, this is the real thing’
Val McDermid
‘A lovely, intelligent novel of discovery and loss, generous in its historical scope and intimate in its tender details’
Nicci Gerrard
‘This year’s gripping romp . . . Mosse’s novel is always intelligently written . . . Labyrinth will fulfil everyone’s expectations for it, not least because of Mosse’s passion for the subject matter and her narrative verve’ Observer
‘Labyrinth has all the ingredients of a summer blockbuster’
Daily Mail
‘Skilfully blending the lives of two women – separated by 800 years, yet united by a common destiny – Labyrinth is a time-slip adventure story steeped in the legends, secrets, atmosphere and history of the Cathars, Carcassonne and the Pyrenees’ Daily Express
‘An elegantly written time-slip novel set in France. There’s medieval passion and modern-day conspiracy, all revolving around three hidden books’ Independent
‘Vast and engrossing’ Scotsman
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About the Author
Kate Mosse is the author of five previous books, including the international bestseller Labyrinth. Translated into 37 languages and published in 40 countries, it also won the 2006 Richard and Judy Best Read award and was chosen as one of Waterstone’s Top 25 Novels of the past 25 years. Sepulchre will also be published in 37 languages in 40 countries. The Co-founder & Honorary Director of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction and the Orange Broadband Award for New Writers, Kate lives with her family in West Sussex and Carcasonne. Find out more at www.sepulchre.co.uk.
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40
PRELUDE
March 1891
WEDNESDAY 25TH MARCH 1891
This story begins in a city of bones. In the alleyways of the dead. In the silent boulevards, promenades and impasses of the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, a place inhabited by tombs and stone angels and the loitering ghosts of those forgotten before they are even cold in their graves.
This story begins with the watchers at the gates, with the poor and the desperate of Paris who have come to profit from another’s loss. The gawping beggars and sharp-eyed chiffonniers, the wreath makers and peddlers of ex-voto trinkets, the girls twisting paper flowers, the carriages waiting with black hoods and smeared glass.
The story begins with the pantomime of a burial. A small paid notice in Le Figaro advertised the place and the date and the hour, although few have come. It is a sparse crowd, dark veils and morning coats, polished boots and extravagant umbrellas to shelter from the unseasonable March rain.
Léonie stands beside the open grave with her brother and their mother, her striking face obscured behind black lace. From the priest’s lips fall platitudes, words of absolution that leave all hearts cold and all emotion untouched. Ugly in his unstarched white necktie and vulgar buckled shoes and greasy complexion, he knows nothing of the lies and threads of deceit that have led to this patch of ground in the 18th arrondissement, on the northern outskirts of Paris.
Léonie’s eyes are dry. Like the priest, she is ignorant of the events being played out on this wet afternoon. She believes she has come to attend a funeral, the marking of a life cut short. She has come to pay her last respects to her brother’s lover, a woman she never met in life. To support her brother in his grief.
Léonie’s eyes are fixed upon the coffin being lowered into the damp earth where the worms and the spiders dwell. If she were to turn, quickly now, catching Anatole unawares, she would see the expression upon her beloved brother’s face and puzzle at it. It is not loss that swims in his eyes, but rather relief.
And because she does not turn, she does not notice the man in grey top hat and frock coat, sheltering from the rain under the cypress trees in the furthest corner of the cemetery. He cuts a sharp figure, the sort of man to make une belle parisienne touch her hair and raise her eyes a little beneath her veils. His broad and strong hands, tailored in calfskin gloves, rest perfectly upon the silver head of his mahogany walking stick. They are such hands as might circle a waist, might draw a lover to him, might caress a pale cheek.
He is watching, an expression of great intensity on his face. His pupils are black pinpricks in bright, blue eyes.
The heavy thud of earth on the coffin lid. The priest’s dying words echo in the sombre air.
‘In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’
He makes the sign of the cross, then walks away.
Amen. So be it.
Léonie lets fall her flower, picked freshly in the Parc Monceau this morning, a rose for remembrance. The bloom spirals down, down through the chill air, a flash of white slowly slipping from her black-gloved fingers.
Let the dead rest. Let the dead sleep.
The rain is falling more heavily. Beyond the high wrought-iron gates of the cemetery, the roofs, spires and domes of Paris are shrouded in a silver mist. It muffles the sounds of the rattling carriages in the Boulevard de Clichy and the distant shrieks of the trains pulling out from the Gare Saint-Lazare.
The mourning party turns to depart the graveside. Léonie touches her brother’s arm. He pats her hand, lowers his head. As they walk out of the cemetery, more than anything Léonie hopes that this may be an end to it. That, after the last dismal months of persecution and tragedy, they might put it all behind them.
That they might step out from the shadows and begin to live again.
But now, many hundreds of miles to the south of Paris, something is stirring.
A reaction, a connection, a consequence. In the ancient beech woods above the fashionable spa town of Rennes-les-Bains, a breath of wind lifts the leaves. Music heard, but not heard.
Enfin.
The word is breathed on the wind. At last.
Compelled by the act of an innocent girl in a graveyard in Paris, something is moving within the stone sepulchre. Long forgotten in the tangled and overgrown alleyways of the Domaine de la Cade, something is waking. To the casual observer it would appear no more than a trick of the light in the fading afternoon, but for a fleeting instant, the plaster statues appear to breathe, to move, to sigh.
And the portraits on the cards that lie buried beneath the earth and stone, where the river runs dry, momentarily seem to be alive. Fleeting figures, impressions, shades, not yet more than that. A suggestion, an illusion, a promise. The refraction of light, the movement of air beneath the turn of the stone stair. The inescapable relationship between place and moment.
For in truth, this story begins not with bones in a Parisian graveyard, but with a deck of cards.
The Devil’s Picture Book.
