Fen chuckled too as she helped Benoit out of his tangled sheets. Something brightly coloured on his bed caught her eye, however, and it took quite a lot of restraint to keep her attention on the small boys rather than investigate it immediately. Their cries of needing ‘a peepee’ kept her on mission though, so she shepherded them to the bathroom and then helped wash their faces in the cold water of the jug and basin that was on their chest of drawers. Once both boys were dressed and looking vaguely acceptable, she ushered them out of the room, finally taking the chance to look behind her back towards Benoit’s bed. There it was, she was sure of it. The same quilt that she’d seen hanging at the window of the winery. Its geometric shapes and bright blues and reds so recognisable.
‘Jean-Jacques, Benoit, go downstairs, I’ll be there in one minute!’ She didn’t care if her call down the landing alerted Sophie or Estelle to the fact that she was in the boys’ bedroom, she just had to check to see if the quilt had a piece missing. In the act of making the small boy’s bed, she pulled the quilt fully off the sheets and held it up. As she flapped it out and laid it flat across the bed, she saw, clear as day, a small tear on one of the corners and the exact same shape of material missing as she had right then at that moment in her own pocket.
Fen was about to leave when Benoit popped his head back around the door.
‘Hungry!’
‘Yes, yes. Benoit, can I ask you something?’ Fen was thinking on her feet again. The boy nodded. ‘Is this quilt always on your bed?’
‘Yes.’ He thought for a bit. ‘My special blanket from Weenfluffer.’
‘I see. Well, let’s be off with us downstairs, we can’t keep Jean-Jacques from his breakfast.’ Fen walked towards Benoit and was a little surprised, but incredibly touched, when the young boy reached his chubby hand up to take hers, and then led her authoritatively down the landing towards the stairs.
Clément had been seated at the table when she’d got downstairs with the two boys and they’d made the old man smile, briefly at least, as they’d clambered onto his lap and demanded stories from their grandfather. Much like the meal the night before, breakfast was a sombre affair, and Fen was pleased to leave the children and Clément in the dark, tomb-like kitchen once she’d eaten and head out to the mist-covered vines. The day was going to be a warm one, she decided, as she watched the vines gradually appear once the sun burned off the morning dampness.
Autumn always was her favourite season, and not just because she celebrated her birthday in September. It was the perfect season, with no expectations of having to be sunny, and there was no risk of chilblain-catching cold or the seemingly endless wait for spring. No, autumn simply did what it did well, and today looked like it was going to be one of those days, with the smell of woodsmoke lingering in the air, the leaves in the trees catching their first tints of gold and yellow and the bees buzzing around harvesting their own local treasure.
Fen worked through until midday, when Estelle appeared with her lunch and something for Hubert and the other workers who weren’t heading home for a brief rest.
‘Thank you for getting the boys dressed this morning,’ Estelle said, and Fen wondered if that was a look of sheepishness. ‘I overslept, but then you should have woken me!’
Fen didn’t know whether to accept her thanks or apologise so did both and the nursery maid moved on, serving the other workers with their bread and cheese.
When she’d finished eating, and had gulped down fresh water from the tap at the end of the vines, Fen adjusted her headscarf and braced herself for talking, once more, to Hubert.
‘I don’t understand how you think you can help him.’ Hubert shrugged in a very Gallic way as he inhaled the smoke from his stubby Gauloises cigarette.
Fen had been worried he might say that, but carried on, trying to ignore the deep cream colour of his stained teeth. ‘It’s not help as such, rather support. It must be terrible for him in that cell and I think we both know he wouldn’t have committed that murder.’
Hubert stared at Fen, making her feel distinctly uncomfortable, and she wondered if he did actually agree with her. Luckily, he spoke before the situation got too awkward.
‘He was with us, side by side with Marchand and the Bernards in the war. I agree, he is not the murderer, but don’t get your hopes up that you’ll get him out.’
‘I won’t, but would you allow me to visit him this afternoon? I don’t think they’ll let me in if I wait until this evening – they might even ship him off to the gallows before then!’ Fen hoped that wasn’t true, but the thought of James doing the hangman’s jig had been one of the worries that had plagued her sleep last night.
‘Fine, fine.’ He took another deep inhalation before flicking the stub away from the vines and grinding it with his foot.
Fen thought it best not to tarry and instead to take the win of Hubert agreeing she could leave. She nodded a goodbye and took herself back to the château to change out of her work clothes.
‘I have evidence of his innocence,’ Fen was standing on one side of the counter in the old gendarmarie, a rather officious junior officer was on the other. She’d been arguing with him for over half an hour and it was like pushing water – or wine – up a hill. He point-blank refused to listen to her.
‘The evidence was found and logged already, mademoiselle, and the prisoner is awaiting relocation to Beaune for the court session.’
‘But I can prove it wasn’t him. How can a murderer be a murderer if a second murder happens in almost the same place when the murderer is behind bars? Unless you’re telling me that your cells here are as flimsy as your Vichy government!’
Fen wondered if she’d gone too far, insulting the Frenchman like that, and in the distance, down the corridor, she was sure she heard a faint laugh.
‘Mademoiselle, I assure you our cells are strong and firm, as if presided over by Pétain himself!’
Nice recovery, Fen thought to herself, relieved that she hadn’t just been banged up for contempt or some such.
She pressed on with her advantage. ‘Then how could Captain Lancaster be the murderer of Father Marchand,’ she stopped to cross herself, hoping this would endear her to the Catholic police officer, ‘if he couldn’t have murdered Pierre Bernard?’
‘But Monsieur Bernard,’ he crossed himself, ‘wasn’t murdered. He was the victim of an unfortunate accident.’
‘I say he,’ Fen crossed herself again, ‘was. And, what’s more, I have proof.’
‘Proof?’
‘Yes. Sort of.’
The Frenchman snorted in the way only the French can.
‘I have this.’ Fen triumphantly pulled the piece of quilt out of her pocket. ‘I found it in the hinge of the ladder in the fermentation room and I believe it belongs to a quilt – a rather nice one actually – that I saw hanging at the ventilation window of that same room on the morning of the murder.’
‘The death,’ the policeman corrected her and then crossed himself.
Fen rolled her eyes.
‘I believe it was murder,’ she paused and almost made the sign again herself, but then thought all of this crossing was getting quite silly. ‘And I believe that the same person, whomsoever they may be, was the perpetrator. You see both men were poisoned, in a fashion, and both the murders took place in or around the château, so they have to be linked. Stands to reason then that if Captain Lancaster has been locked up in your cells, he can’t have killed Pierre Bernard… and therefore not Father Marchand either.’
The policeman merely shook his head and handed the piece of quilt back to Fen. ‘Please, mademoiselle, take your haberdashery home with you and do not waste any more of my time.’
Fen sighed, knowing she was defeated and took the scraps from him. ‘Fine, monsieur, but I will prove to you I am right.’
She did her best French-style huff, learnt during her Parisian schooldays, and turned on her heel, head high. But inside she felt utterly defeated as she headed out into the autumn sunshine, uns
ure of what to do next.
Fen walked back to the château and found herself alone in the vast kitchen when she returned. The house was eerily quiet. The two young boys were nowhere to be seen and, of course, their mother was very possibly taken to her bed, both with grief and injury. Poor Sophie, Fen thought. Her husband, her brothers-in-law. It must feel like her family is dropping all around her.
Fen helped herself to a drink from the flagon of well water that always stood full by the great stone sink, then thought about the puzzle in front of her. Two deaths, one innocent man locked up for one of them, but the other couldn’t have been an accident, could it?
‘What would Arthur do?’ Fen wondered out loud to herself and was surprised when a quiet voice answered her rhetoric question.
‘He would have spoken to Father Marchand.’
‘Monsieur Bernard!’ Fen turned in time to see the elderly man carefully sit himself down in one of the wheel-back armchairs, the one at the head of the table. He laid his large hands on the wooden tabletop and lowered his head.
Fen walked over to where he had sat down and pulled out the chair next to him. She desperately wanted to know more about how Clément knew Arthur, but also knew that this was a man, a father, who had not long lost his third son.
‘Monsieur Bernard, Clément… I’m so sorry for your loss.’ She hoped she didn’t sound too awkward, comforting people was never her strong suit, and she’d not known what to say to him at all the night before as they’d sat in silence, chewing over supper. Now, though, she placed both of her hands over one of his and sat like that for a while until Clément could reply.
‘Your Arthur was a brave man.’
‘Was…’ Fen’s heart broke all over again. ‘You knew him?’
‘He was here. With James and—’
‘The Baker Street Irregulars…’
‘Yes.’
The two of them, both wrapped up in their own grief, sat in silence for a while.
‘I don’t know what James has told you…’
‘Barely anything, Clément.’
‘He takes a long time to trust people. Perhaps that’s why he’s still alive.’ He paused and drew his hand away from Fen’s. ‘Arthur was known as Setter. He was a marvellous agent. Sabotaging communication lines with nothing but an old pair of secateurs…’ the old man almost laughed at the memory. It came out as a cough instead.
‘Our local network of Resistance fighters had been noticed by the British command and Baker Street saw fit to send us help. The British agents hid here in plain sight, as vineyard workers, all of them speaking perfect French and keeping their heads down, but all the while sending communiqués back to London and sabotaging the occupiers whenever they could.’ He sighed and took his handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose. Fen hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath while he’d been talking and the anticipation of what he might say next was almost too much to bear. The old man carried on talking as she quietly exhaled.
‘Arthur was the radio man and intercepted messages about the Gestapo’s orders to steal the relic from our church. He and Marchand were determined not to let it go, but instead of a gunfight, they fooled the Nazis by swapping the real one for a fake and hiding the true relic here.’ Clément’s eyes were full of sadness as he stopped speaking.
‘Go on, please,’ urged Fen, though in truth she wasn’t sure if she was ready yet to hear what might come next.
‘One night we were raided. The Gestapo had been tipped off, by the Weinführer we think, and they came and arrested Arthur and ransacked the house. They found the relic,’ he nodded to the fireplace, ‘hidden up there behind a loose stone.’
‘He was arrested…’ The colour had drained from Fen’s face and she felt a chill come over her. Why was it only Arthur who was in their sights that night? Where had his so-called friend and colleague been? ‘And James?’ She asked Clément, her voice almost a whisper.
‘He wasn’t here that night.’
‘Where was he?’ Suddenly Fen wondered if she’d been wrong about James. Why hadn’t he been by Arthur’s side? But Clément leant over to her, tears in his eyes.
‘He was burying my sons with Marchand,’ he pulled back and crossed himself.
‘I’m so sorry, Clément.’ So that was why… ‘And Arthur?’ She was desperate for him to continue; she needed to know if there was any hope at all of finding him still alive.
‘He was meant to be planning a safe route out for the relic and creating another decoy. He was setting a clue in a letter in his room upstairs. But the Nazis arrived and dragged him away. There was nothing we could do. Guns to our heads… They would have killed us too.’ His expression implored her to understand. ‘We never found the letter and I don’t know if he swapped the relic for the second decoy…’ the old man paused. ‘We have to assume not. And we never saw him again. I heard from Marchand a few days later that Arthur had been taken to Dijon… and shot.’
At that last word, Fen choked, the emotion that she’d been trying to restrain throughout their conversation suddenly erupting from her throat, her grief spilling over as she rammed her hands over her mouth, trying to stop her gasps, stop her heart from coming right out and beating its last on the kitchen table.
‘There, there,’ Clément, himself the one so recently bereaved, was up and out of his chair, his arm around her. ‘He was a brave, brave man.’
Fen couldn’t reply to say ‘I know’, all she could do was weep.
As she wept, she felt the strong but gentle arm of Clément help her from her seat and the old man accompanied her up the spiral staircase to her bedroom.
‘Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off,’ he suggested. ‘You’ve had a nasty shock. Plus, we could do without the salt from your tears getting into our wine.’
Fen knew Clément was trying to cheer her up and she gave him a weak smile as she turned to face him in the doorway of her room. She felt empty, and as fragile as an eggshell. She wanted to fall onto her creaking bed and never get up again.
‘Thank you, Clément.’ She grasped his hand and held it tight.
‘I’m impressed that you came all this way to find him. He was a lucky man.’
Clément’s kindness was almost too much and it was all Fen could do to nod a goodbye to him as she turned the knob on the bedroom door and let herself in. She kicked her shoes off and sat down on her bed, the creak breaking the silence. She lay down and stared up at the ceiling. Her eyes stung from crying and her throat ached from the sobs.
She closed her eyes and wanted the darkness to envelop her forever. She was attuned to the silence and if she didn’t move, her bed wouldn’t creak. There were no sounds in the room, or in the grieving house at all. She lay like that for hours, drifting in and out of sleep, her eyes adjusting to the gradually darkening room as the sun set outside. And whenever she did close her eyes and begin to fall asleep, it was Arthur’s face she saw, smiling at her, his eyes twinkling behind the thick tortoiseshell of his spectacles.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, as she finally succumbed to a deep and now dreamless sleep.
Seventeen
If you are reading this, then in all likelihood I am dead.
His words from his last letter to her repeated themselves over and over in Fen’s mind as she lay awake in the quiet of the early morning. She had let them give her hope that he might yet be alive, and she now felt an emptiness where that hope had lived inside her for so long. She lay still for a while, chasing the dust motes around in the air with her eyes, each one illuminated by the thin strips of early-morning light coming in through the shutters.
She could hear the rhythmic snoring of Estelle coming from the bed next to her. Otherwise the house was quiet and she was alone with her thoughts. She had done what she had set out to do, and yet she didn’t feel like her mission, if you could call it that, was yet complete. She thought about what Clément had said. Why would the Weinführer have tipped off the Gestapo? Who had tipped off
him? Fen thought about it a little more and gradually the emptiness inside her started to fill with a new sense of purpose. No, her mission wasn’t finished yet, not by a long shot. The difference was that now she was determined to find out who had betrayed Arthur… and if it was the same person who had a penchant for murder round here.
The sound of footsteps on the landing caught her attention and she listened as they paused outside her bedroom door. But the doorknob didn’t twist and, within moments, Fen heard the footsteps walk away down the corridor towards the staircase.
Her bed let out an almighty creak as Fen sat upright. She glanced across at Estelle and was pleased to see that she was seemingly dead to the world. There was enough light coming in through the shutters for Fen to notice a white envelope on the floor by the door. Whoever had hovered outside her bedroom door must have slipped it under.
With another hideous creak, Fen got up from her bed and walked over to the door and picked up the envelope. It was clean and new, unused. There was no postmark on it, let alone a name or address. Safe in the knowledge she wasn’t opening anything specifically addressed to Estelle, Fen slid the letter out. It was very obviously a much older and more often-read letter than the envelope had suggested, and calling it a letter was overstating the fragment of writing that Fen was holding in her slightly trembling hand.
‘What the blazes?’ Fen mumbled as she tried to grasp the meaning of what had been posted under the door. The letter was merely the bottom half of one sheet of writing paper, torn at the natural crease where it would have originally been folded. And the writing itself was in German. And, more importantly, the signature – just an initial letter – signed at the loving and really quite sentimentally emotional end, was an S.
Fen held the letter tight and crept back towards her bed. She was sure that the letter had been given to her specifically, but why? And who was S? She looked over to the bed next to hers and remembered what Benoit had called Estelle yesterday, Essie. S. Or S for her surname, Suchet.
A Dangerous Goodbye: An absolutely gripping historical mystery (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 1) Page 14
