‘Take the ash out of the stove, then black the grate. After that, you can finish the washing and Estelle can take the boys out for a play and then help me with dinner.’
Fen had got on with all the tasks and was only distracted once by James calling her to one side as she hung up the boys’ clothes on the washing line.
‘Psst.’
‘What?’ The whispers were almost stage-like.
‘I’m still alive.’
Fen rolled her eyes at James and threw a peg at him.
‘I suppose I should say that I hope you stay that way…’
‘Ha,’ James laughed at her. ‘But there is always tonight. The trap is set.’
‘James, I am a bit worried about all of this.’ Fen finished hanging a small shirt on the line and crossed her arms. ‘I mean, how will you defend yourself if you’re knocked unconscious or something?’
‘Ah, so, I’ve thought of that. I’m afraid that’s where you come in.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you’ve got to help me, be my eyes, as I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to do some West-End-worthy acting to lure the killer in.’
Fen stared at the Englishman and shook her head, not to say no, but to indicate her doubts over the plan. ‘I can’t see how I can be your shadow all evening, or all night, without it tipping off the suspicions of the killer. I mean, if you were thinking of doing someone in, seeing their bodyguard next to them might put you off.’
‘Not sure I’d go as far as to say you look like a bodyguard.’ James ducked as another peg flew through the air at him.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Well, I should imagine we only have tonight to get through. I said Coulber would be here tomorrow and hinted that between us we knew who the killer is, so that gives us a narrow window of opportunity.’
‘Or at least it gives the murderer one.’ Fen thought for a bit and then said, ‘When Arthur and I used to do our crosswords together, it was always the most satisfying bit when a clue fitted in with the letters you already had – so that if the answer was murderer and you already had the D and an R… Well, it was just very pleasing.’
‘And this is relevant, how?’
‘We have those letters, in the form of our clues. Look here,’ Fen knelt down on the cobbles and turned the now empty wicker laundry basket over to create a rudimentary table. On it she placed the two pieces of fabric and the piece of paper with German writing on it. ‘Hang on a tick!’ She bade James stay where he was and ran off to where one of the old trees grew in the courtyard. Soon enough, she was back and crouching by the upturned basket again. ‘This twig can represent the bayonet that I found out here in the courtyard.’
‘Right, I see.’ James leant back and rubbed his chin. ‘Pop two of those clothes pegs on, Fen, they can represent the candlesticks stuck in the wine press.’
‘Will do,’ Fen reached behind her and did as James asked. ‘Plus, there’s this little ceramic bowl that I found in the vineyard. I don’t know if it means anything, but, well, here it is.’ She added the shards to the collection. They both looked down at the ragtag bunch of items on the upturned bottom of the basket. ‘So, who matches all these clues?’
They both considered the objects. James was the first to speak. ‘Well, the fabric suggests to me that it’s one of the ladies of the house.’
‘Ah, but I’ve already rather sneakily checked Estelle’s aprons and they’re all present and correct. And Sophie doesn’t seem to wear white like this, not that I’ve seen anyway.’
‘Fair enough. Next we have the bayonet.’
‘Clément’s, by his own admission.’
‘And the candlesticks?’
‘Well, obviously the church’s, and it could explain why Father Marchand was killed? Maybe he knew who had stolen them,’ Fen voiced the theory. ‘And you’re the one who told me to “look to the church” when you were arrested. I forgot to ask what you meant by that.’
‘I don’t know really. I just have a feeling Marchand knew more about what might have gone on during the occupation. I can’t shake it, but I think he was killed to stop someone being exposed.’
‘A thief? Surely a thief would be fairly secure in hoping they would be forgiven, asked to say a few Hail Marys and then set free. I don’t think stealing from the church should be a motive to murder the priest.’
‘No, but collaborating with the Germans is now a capital offence.’ James held his finger up and then looked around him. His eyes alighted on a squashed daisy among the grasses and he added it to the basket table. ‘The dead flowers. Thrown towards the mourners at Pierre’s funeral. And maybe something to do with whoever has been corresponding in German.’ He pointed to the letter signed by the mysterious S.
‘Estelle told me about this. Flowers, I mean, they’re a symbol, a sort of code. Wearing the Tricolore, albeit in the colours of your clothes, was a sign of resistance. And women would give red, white and blue flowers, or receive them, to make a sort of point.’
‘So someone could have been suggesting that one of the mourners at that funeral was, what? A dead patriot? A terrible gardener?’ James paused in case another peg came his way, but Fen was lost in concentration. He continued on a more serious note: ‘Not exactly a damning piece of evidence, is it, when you think of it. Dead flowers on a warm autumn day, at a funeral.’
‘No,’ Fen agreed. Then a thought occurred to her. ‘Something else Estelle told me is that one of the chemicals used in the winery – and I presume one that she used to steal to return to Pascal – is blue fining.’
James looked at her sternly. ‘Blimey. Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known that?’
‘Only since this morning, when Estelle took me to her stash of stolen trinkets in the chemical cupboard. And it’s annoying me, as I know I’ve heard of it somewhere before…’
‘It’s another form of cyanide.’
‘What?’ Fen looked up at James. Suddenly the collection of clues looked no more serious than a children’s game, not now they had concrete proof that there was cyanide in the winery. Then it came to her. ‘Of course, Pascal had a leaflet on poisonous gases from the last war. We talked about Prussic acid, which was hydrogen cyanide.’
‘Well, blue fining isn’t quite that bad, it’s a different compound. And this doesn’t help us narrow it down; Estelle, Sophie and Hubert, probably even Clément, could all access that cupboard.’
‘At least it makes the discovery of your capsule very circumstantial.’
James took in a deep breath and let out an audible sigh. ‘Yes, at least there’s that. Tell you what though, Arthur was right: it will be damn satisfying when we fit it all together!’
‘Until then, we need to disable you in some way. Some public way, in readiness for tonight.’
‘I don’t much fancy a cosh to the head…’
‘And I don’t fancy being hauled in front of the beak for doing it to you either. No, I was thinking more subtle than that. You see, rather than me stand bodyguard over you all night, you need to be the one who’s alert and awake, but without the murderer knowing. If you’re sure that the murderer will act tonight, then I have an idea…’
Dinner that night was a sombre affair. Everyone seemed to have a bone to pick with someone else. Sophie was upset that James had trodden mud into the floor and had still obviously not given up on her initial accusation that he had killed Marchand. Hubert was cross that the juice pressing had taken longer than it should and kept asking James where he had been. Fen knew he’d snuck back to the house to talk to her but had to reassure Estelle and Sophie that she’d been working all afternoon. It was only Clément who praised his daughter-in-law and Estelle for the food they had managed to rustle up, including another fruit crumble, this time using a windfall of plums from the trees by the church.
‘I think Jean-Jacques and Benoit deserve our thanks tonight for dodging the wasps and bees to save us these delicious fruits.’ Their grandfather smiled at them and the boys
glowed with the praise.
‘And thank you to Fen for teaching me the recipe,’ Sophie generously credited her, before turning back to wipe some mushed fruit off her younger son’s face.
‘I think I’ve sprained a muscle,’ James chipped in, changing the direction of the conversation.
Fen knew this was her prompt. ‘Will it hurt you all night? Will you be able to sleep?’
‘I’m not sure. The mattress is hard enough at the best of times.’
‘Well, forgive me for not providing you with goose down and silk!’ Sophie interrupted, obviously taking James’s criticism personally.
Fen rescued the situation. ‘James, two birds and all that, why don’t you take one of my sleeping draughts? It’ll knock you right out until morning.’
‘Do you mind? I’d appreciate that, thank you.’ James set about his fruit with gusto, and Fen wondered where on earth he’d learnt such hammy acting. Still, the stage was set and someone else around that table had been given their cue.
Twenty-Five
By the time the church bell had clanked its way through ten chimes, the château was in silence and Fen lay in bed concentrating on trying to hear anything beyond her own breath. She could make out the light scratch of the woollen blanket catch slightly on the rough wood of the bed, but beyond that; nothing.
She had gone to bed that night having made a show of giving James one of her sleeping draughts. She’d given him one of the sachets in the kitchen, having run up to her room to fetch it, and he’d poured a glass of water from the large jug by the sink. He hadn’t drunk it there and then so they’d made a small commotion on the first-floor landing, so that everyone knew he had taken it. What he’d actually done was throw the contents of his glass out of one of the tower’s windows and substituted his drugged water with Fen’s. She quickly replaced hers with water from the bathroom.
That had been a few hours ago and Fen lay now, wide awake with adrenalin coursing through her body – she felt like a stoat or ferret, trying not to twitch as the fox circles.
Then she heard it. The faintest of noises from the bed next to her. Estelle was stirring and slowly getting out of bed. Fen lay still, scared to even open her eyes in case some moonbeam escaped through the shuttered windows and showed her up. Instead she pretended to sleep and monitored Estelle’s movements with her ears alone. She was dressing, or so it sounded, as she was opening and closing her drawers and the large armoire doors. Then the unmistakable sound of the doorknob turning, its heavy click as the catch slid away from its surround and into the door.
Fen counted to ten, slowly, trying to calm her breaths as well as give Estelle time to get along the corridor before she tailed her.
Eight… nine… ten… Fen breathed out and slowly raised herself up and out from under her blankets, careful not to let the bedsprings announce her movement too much to the world. She decided against putting any socks on, surmising she’d be more sure-footed and agile without, but she paused to pull her navy wool jumper on over her nightgown. She didn’t want to look like a ghost wandering about the château, but without pulling on trousers, she’d have to hope that the jumper would camouflage her enough against the dark of the night.
As Fen skirted along the edge of the landing, a clock somewhere in the house chimed the hour, only a few minutes behind the church bell. It stopped as she got to the stone spiral stairs and tiptoed up them to the top floor of bedrooms, where she now expected to see Estelle trying to kill James.
Much to her shock, there was no sign of Estelle at all and James’s door was still very much closed. Fen reached it and bent down, pressing her ear against the wood to try and hear something. There was nothing at all coming from the inside of the room. In a sudden panic, fearing she was too late and James had fallen prey to his own trap, Fen pushed open the door into the room.
It was pitch black in there and Fen, with no prior knowledge at all of how the room was laid out, was blinder than a mole in a hole. She closed the door behind her and walked forward, but in so doing sprung what appeared to be a tripwire and a tinkling bell was now ringing over James’s bed. Fen yelped as a force was thrust against her, pinning her to the wall. A torch light was suddenly shone in her face.
‘You!’ James said, but not letting her go at all. ‘I thought I could trust you?’
‘It’s not me, you idiot!’ Fen flustered, pulling at the strong arm that had her pinned against the wall, closing the air off at her throat. ‘Stop, get off! It’s Estelle!’
‘What?’ James pulled away.
Fen appeared to deflate as she collapsed slightly against the wall. ‘I was following Estelle. I thought I was too late, I…’ Fen couldn’t help it, but tears sprang to her eyes. Tears of frustration that she’d ruined the trap so carefully set and so hastily ruined, by her.
‘I’ve not seen her.’ James held out a hand to Fen and helped her stand upright. ‘There’s not been a soul here all night.’
‘Where has she gone then? I thought I heard her dressing.’
‘Doesn’t take an overcoat to slip upstairs and kill someone.’
‘I suppose so. Oh James, I’m so sorry, I’ve ruined everything.’
‘Shhh. Hear that?’
They both stood motionless and James turned his torch off but not before illuminating the bed quickly to show Fen that he’d actually made a dummy out of straw and sacking, to look like he was still fast asleep.
Quietly they stood and, once again, Fen did all she could to control her breathing. Her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, there was enough moonlight coming in through the gaps in the shutters for her to vaguely make out solid objects, like the bed with its dummy in it. Then there it was, the click of the handle and the slow opening of the door, which by pure luck now, both Fen and James were hiding behind.
A ghostlike figure, its whiteness almost glowing in the barest of moonbeams, moved across the room towards the bed. The faux James was obviously doing its job and this new intruder didn’t actually touch the supposedly somnolent body. Instead the figure leant over the glass of water that sat on the bedside cabinet and gently stirred in a powder.
As the figure turned towards them, James flicked on the torch and shone the beam directly at the intruder. The blinking, scowling face looking back at them was that of Sophie Bernard.
Twenty-Six
‘Get out of my way!’ Sophie screamed as she tried to push past James and out of the room.
‘Not so fast, madame!’ He grasped her by the shoulders and pushed her down onto the bed, where she sat awkwardly with the scarecrow James underneath her.
‘What were you doing?’ demanded Fen, who felt useless without any sort of weapon, so instead used the light from the torch to find the oil lamp and matches and lit it so that she and James could clearly see that it was their landlady and employer who was caught in their trap.
‘What’s going on here?’ A sleepy Hubert appeared at the door, wiping the sleep from his eyes with his big, farmer’s hands.
‘We’ve caught the murderer, Hubert,’ James confidently told him, but before he could answer, Hubert was being begged and pleaded with by Sophie.
‘Oh Hubert, Hubert, it is not me, it is them! It is these English ghouls who have come into our home and our family and destroyed everyone we love. They have set me up, they are plotting to kill me!’ The words spilled out of her like a gush of wine from a barrel.
‘Calm down, Sophie, I am still half asleep.’
‘Then wake up to this!’ she screeched, and launched herself at him.
In the nick of time, Fen saw the flash of steel as Clément’s old bayonet caught the light of the oil lamp. Reacting as fast as she could, she launched herself at Sophie and caught her off balance so that they both crashed against the thin plaster wall of the bedroom.
The shock woke Hubert up properly, realising that he had just been saved from a nasty injury.
Fen felt dazed and the only thought going through her head was Where is that blade?
> Suddenly she felt it, the thin steel tip pressing into her side as Sophie stood above her, about to thrust the long, sharp bayonet into Fen.
‘No!’ roared James, who dropped his torch and bore down on the woman, now revealed beyond doubt to be the murderer. He pulled her off Fen just as the blade was easing itself through the thick blue wool of her hand-knitted jumper.
Thank you, Mrs B, Fen sent a little prayer Sussex-ward, grateful as she thought of Mrs B sitting in her armchair knitting in that dear farmhouse.
‘Are you hurt, mademoiselle?’ Hubert was kneeling next to her as James pinned down Sophie on the bed.
‘Yes,’ Fen gingerly probed where the bayonet had begun to penetrate her skin. ‘But it’s not too bad I think. It doesn’t smart as much as falling in a ditch, so I’m all right.’
‘D’accord, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Fen let Hubert whisper his apology, finally, and pull her upright and she sat, knees up to her chest, back resting against the wall as another person appeared at the door.
‘What’s this commotion?’ The booming voice of the patriarch, Clément Bernard accompanied him into the room. ‘James? Hubert? Explain yourselves.’
‘Dear Papa, help me!’ Sophie started the pleading again, but in unison James, Hubert and Fen all said, ‘Oh shut up.’
‘I laid a trap,’ James started the explanation, still pinning down the scowling Sophie. ‘I said very publicly that I was due to see Father Coulber tomorrow and discuss the murders and, thanks to Fen, I let everyone believe that I would be drugged up to my eyeballs tonight, dead to the world, if you will.’
‘What’s that got to do with Sophie?’
Fen could tell that Clément wasn’t at all happy with the fact that his daughter-in-law was tied up in this.
‘We’ve just caught Sophie in the act, trying to poison me.’
A Dangerous Goodbye: An absolutely gripping historical mystery (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 1) Page 21
