Strange Images of Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  Château du Diable, Tuesday

  The morning began too early for Joe.

  He lay still for a few moments collecting his thoughts and wondering where on earth he was. The lingering taste in his mouth of Havana cigars and the certainty that he’d drunk rather too much of ‘the true, the blushful Hippocrene, with beaded bubbles winking at the brim’, the night before brought back the memory.

  Keats! He blamed the poet Keats for his condition. Now there was a minstrel who could stir up emotions and loosen inhibitions in a few superbly chosen words.

  Joe considered Orlando Joliffe jointly charged. Just as the earthernware jugs of wine had been brought in at dinner, Orlando had risen to his feet, made a toast and given the company a verse of ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. It ought to have been embarrassing. There should have been shuffling of feet and surreptitious glances exchanged. But the combination of Keats’ sublime words and Orlando’s confident light baritone swept all before them:

  ‘O for a draught of vintage that hath been

  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

  Tasting of Flora and the country green,

  Dance and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!’

  Wine poured from a jug with a generous hand into clay beakers of antique design couldn’t possibly do much damage. This morning Joe discovered his mistake. It had been a pure incitement to drunkenness!

  Clattering feet, banging doors and rattling water cisterns were followed a moment later by a peremptory tap on his door. The dashing figure of Nathan Jacoby entered at once, bearing a disarming grin and a cup of tea. Earl Grey by the scent.

  ‘I come in peace!’ he announced. ‘Seven o’clock! Rise and shine! Orlando said this would be guaranteed to get your motor started. Urgh! Can you really drink this? I’ll put it on the night stand. There’s coffee brewing downstairs if you’re interested. Fresh bread’s come up from the village. All available in the refectory.’

  He made his way over to the small high window and flung the shutters open, blinding Joe with daylight and a stream of fresh morning air. ‘Come and take a look at this!’

  Joe shrugged into his dressing gown and wandered over. He breathed in gratefully, enjoying the sound of a late cockerel crowing away in the distance and the sight of the hills rolling in a myriad of green interlocking spurs towards the horizon. ‘Earth hath not anything to show more fair …’ he commented and found that he meant it.

  ‘Look, I’m going out with my camera today with young Frederick, one of the painters—the fresco bloke. We’ve hired a car. Plenty of space for you if you’d care to come along.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I introduced myself. I went to watch him at work after lunch yesterday. Good-looking young bloke from London … preparing to express himself on several square metres of damp plaster. Intimidating! At which end do you start?’

  ‘A dying art, he tells me. There’s only a handful of artists in Europe who know how to do it. I can paint a bit,’ Nathan admitted, ‘… the only reason some of the company are prepared to put up with me … but I’d never have the dash and sheer courage to embark on something like that. He’s twisted my arm to take him out to the Val des Fées. Silly name for a spectacular sight. Outcrops of ochre—iron-stained rock and soil … colours ranging from creamy white to darkest blood red. Rather eerie and hellish to my mind … But it seems to have a fascination for young Fred. Back home we’d call it Death Creek or Bushwacker’s Gulch or something like that. Here it’s called the Valley of the Fairies! The village houses are mostly painted with the ochre they extract and—you might guess—painters go wild for the colours. The Mont Sainte Victoire at sunset—well, you just have to express it in the local pigments, don’t you? Young Fred had the idea to chip bits off the rocks himself, pound and grind and prepare his own paints. Mmm … He ends up buying them ready prepared by Messrs Mathieu in the village droguerie like everyone else!’

  ‘And uses them to wonderful effect! He showed me his sketchbook. I saw some terrific ideas for the finished painting. Expressing scenes from local history in colours straight out of the ground—it has a certain appeal. Though I can’t immediately see what financial allure it might have for the lord? Fixed to the wall as it is—it must remain quite unsellable.’

  ‘Even the lord makes his personal choices. There are several items I know of that’ll never see the light of day outside this château. We’re never given the tour of his own private collection but it’s rumoured that he has one. Must be worth a fortune—he’s been collecting for years. Look—why don’t you come with us to the ochre valley? We’re starting out straight after breakfast.’

  Joe cheerfully told him he could resist the fairy charms for the moment. Duty called him to stay at home and get to know some of the other inhabitants.

  ‘Thought you’d say that. But I also came to say—remember I have a camera. One or two in fact. For different uses. Not just for pleasure and art. And one of their uses is recording evidence, you know. The Ermanox will be perfect for the job. I was wondering if I might sneak into the chapel under a corner of your blanket permission to rove about. How about it? Shall we make a foray together into the forbidden chapel and take some shots of the depredations? If you think it’s worth it? Word is that you went in there yesterday …’

  ‘I was wondering how to ask!’ said Joe. ‘I found nothing very sinister, I’m afraid, but a record would be a useful thing to have.’

  ‘That’s great! Look—the light will have gone by the time I get back from the fairy realms … morning light is much better and that place has sensational east windows. How about an early start tomorrow morning, Wednesday, before the Inspector gets himself up here from Marseille? Present him with a fait accompli?’

  ‘And yourself with an unusual photographic opportunity?’

  Nat grinned. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘You’re on!’ said Joe. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  Left alone, he stood at the window sipping his tea and reviewing his day.

  ‘The lord sees that their everyday needs are catered for,’ Estelle had told him.

  Well, this was certainly to all appearances a happy colony of worker bees, Joe had to think. He’d made full use yesterday of his leave to snoop about the castle and, after his visit to the chapel, had reconnoitred unchallenged, to his heart’s content. He’d leant over shoulders and admired half-finished works; he’d watched a lady sculptor pounding and chipping—‘No! No! The shape’s in there … I just have to reveal it …’; he’d helped Frederick Ashwell to mix and apply a coat of plaster to a wall ready to receive the fresco the lord had commissioned. He’d been impressed by the boy’s professionalism and had listened enthralled as he explained his techniques. Speed and forethought, apparently, were the watchwords. Knowing exactly what you were doing. Impossible to have second thoughts. The preliminary designs complete, the final painting had to be done at the moment the plaster reached the perfection of dampness.

  He’d decided on a tactful approach for today. He would wait until the guests were once again at lunch before he’d go, list in hand, to check on the sleeping quarters of each person Guy de Pacy had named. The only names that did not appear were those of the steward himself and his lordship. Orlando had indicated vaguely that the two men occupied rooms in two of the corner towers.

  The single men seemed content with their dormitory arrangements, bunking down on camp beds set out, suitably enough, in the old guardroom. A similar area had been allocated to the women on the floor above. Scattered on both floors were small, cell-like spaces put to the use of married couples of whom there were two and, of the others, one had been awarded to Joe and another to the Russian gentleman. Joe had protested his readiness to muck in with the other men but de Pacy had insisted he avail himself of a measure of privacy—‘in case you need to interview someone—or I need to speak to you.’

  His things had already been brought up and unpacked while he was at lunch on the first day so he’d conceded with good gra
ce and settled to enjoy his solitary state.

  Why in blazes was he staying on? He asked himself the question constantly and the same answers came back ever more strongly. Two answers.

  There had been the surprise of discovering that one of the faces around the lunch table had been familiar to him from photographs and newspaper articles he’d seen some years ago in his early days at the Yard: Earl’s Daughter lets her hair down at the Savoy with Dancing Dreamboat … Every playgirl’s favourite partner cuts a rug at Ciro’s … That sort of nonsense, he remembered. But Joe’s professional antennae had quivered at the sight of this guest who he was reasonably sure had a darker side to him than the limelit, cocktail-fired image the press displayed. He was known to the Vice Squad back home in London. But Joe’s hands were tied. There was no way he could make an accusation or even a discreet enquiry based on a piece of sketchily recalled Scotland Yard gossip.

  And yet the man’s reported proclivities were too objectionable for Joe to ignore in the circumstances. He had to ask himself whether it would be sensible at least to alert Orlando, and decided that it was more than sensible—it was essential.

  And then—the most surprising part of his day—there’d been Estelle’s strange behaviour.

  The drinking and the yarning and the laughter had gone on until past midnight, he remembered, and the women had defiantly stayed on at the table. When the moment arrived, he’d looked questioningly at de Pacy and wondered which of the women would take it upon herself to rise and suggest that the ladies might like to withdraw. De Pacy had grinned and, in a marked manner, had launched into a conversation with Jane Makepeace, inviting her opinion on the mental state of Vincent Van Gogh at the moment he severed his own ear. Instead of the heavy psychological diatribe Joe had feared, her crisp answer had raised a shout of laughter around the table.

  ‘Formidable woman,’ he’d commented to Estelle.

  ‘You don’t say!’ she’d drawled. ‘Forget it, Joe! You’d need steel-lined underpants to tangle with that one! She wouldn’t be interested in you.’

  Estelle had offered to walk him back up to his room after dinner and taken his arm firmly in hers. And the flourish had not gone unremarked by the crowd remaining in the hall. She was wearing a fetching midnight blue gown in a silky fabric cut on the bias. The gown clung flatteringly to her slim figure and her slim figure clung flatteringly to him. Her hair brushing his shoulder smelled heavenly—Après l’Ondée, he thought, or something equally special. She’d been scintillating and funny over dinner; a girl with further plans for her evening, he’d have said. But whom did her plans involve? She’d flirted openly with several of the men. And yet it was on Joe that her choice had fallen when she left.

  Intrigued, excited but slightly alarmed, Joe began to try to estimate the quantity of wine he’d downed at dinner and could only conclude: too much. Should he say something … issue a caution? Or hope for the best? They’d arrived at his stout oak door and he’d turned to her apologetically. ‘I say, Estelle—’ was as far as he got before she put a finger over his lips.

  ‘Shush!’ She’d made a pantomime of listening. Cheery sounds of the women settling down for the night came from their dormitory; a drunken chorus from Iolanthe rose up from the floor below and was quickly extinguished by yells of protest and possibly the application of a pillow. A child called out in its dreams and instantly fell silent.

  Reassured by what she was hearing, Estelle whispered: ‘Got a torch, Joe?’

  He took one from his pocket. ‘A torch? Never walk castle corridors without one. Er … what do you have in mind? If you’ve found the bloodstained key to Bluebeard’s lair, we’ll have to come back in the daylight. Not at my sharpest at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Can you at least stagger along to the end of this corridor? That’s all you have to do.’ She’d squeezed his arm reassuringly.

  She led him along to the end of the corridor, eased open a window and let herself through on to a flat square of roof contrived between two dormers. Joe followed to find himself on a lookout platform with a low balustrade to ward off vertigo. From up here there was a clear view over the courtyard closed off at one end by the bulk of the chapel.

  The cigarette butts underfoot explained the girl’s interest in this private little space, he guessed. He shone his torch on to the roof tiles below, lighting up several packets’ worth of mostly half-smoked ends. And a scattering of something else.

  When Estelle turned to close the window behind them, he bent quickly and gathered up two pieces of screwed-up paper and slipped them into his pocket. Unwanted love-notes? He didn’t think so. He managed in his torchlight to catch a glimpse of the name Houbigant printed on one of the flimsy pink sheets. Face powder papers? Discarded out here amongst the cigarette ends? An outlandish and unwelcome thought delayed for a moment his automatic offer of help with the window.

  ‘Sometimes, when I’ve drunk too much or if Cecily’s snoring, I can’t sleep. Especially these hot nights. So I come out here, sit on the window sill and smoke. The others can’t stand the smell of tobacco and I’m banned from doing it in the dorm. It’s rather like being back at school! I was out here the night of the full moon. It was quite magical. The moon was over there.’ She pointed behind her. ‘A huge harvest moon shining down on the courtyard. It was almost as bright as day but of course the shadows were deeper. But then it all got a bit strange. I heard some dull thuds coming from the chapel and I stood up to have a look. There were no lights on so I sat down again. I thought it must be rocks settling, woodwork contracting after the day’s heat … you know what old buildings are like. I’ve lived in some pretty decrepit places and nothing surprises me! About half an hour later I saw him.’

  ‘Him?’

  Estelle began to tremble and instinctively Joe threw a comforting arm around her shoulders and tucked her shawl more closely about her. The girl felt small-boned and about as substantial as gossamer in his arms but her voice when she replied was throaty and determinedly bold.

  ‘Him? It? A ghost. At least that’s what I thought I saw. Yes, really! That was my first thought.’

  ‘Can you describe it?’

  ‘Dark grey. Solid shape. It could have been male or female. I saw it very clearly. It was wearing a long hooded robe, just as you might expect, and moving along soundlessly. Coming from the chapel towards me. Like this … Head down, hands together in front …’ She demonstrated. ‘Not skulking or trying to hide. Floating along as though it did this every night. Perhaps it does …’

  ‘Were you able to make out a face?’

  Again Estelle quivered. ‘It was hidden by the hood as it came towards me but, without breaking stride, it suddenly looked up in my direction. This is the sickening bit, Joe. It had no face. Where you’d expect to see features there was nothing but a white space. It was a faceless monk.’

  ‘It looked up at you? Are you quite certain about that?’

  ‘Yes. Almost as though I’d called out to him. I hadn’t. I made no noise at all. I didn’t move and he couldn’t have seen me in the shadows. He had no eyes, in any case.’

  ‘Listen, Estelle. I have to ask—could this … um … sighting have been a nightmare? Or a hallucination with a physical cause? Alcohol? Other stimulating and vision-inducing substances?’

  He could hardly speak more plainly.

  She answered in kind. ‘Ah. Yes. Know what you mean! Was I squiffy? Sensible question and I’ll tell you straight up—no! I couldn’t have been more clear-headed,’ she finished convincingly and then ruined her impression of unquestionable sobriety by adding: ‘On that occasion.’

  ‘And, having had time to mull it over, are you still thinking it was a ghost you saw?’

  ‘Lord, no! I’m thinking it was something much more sinister. Something human was coming back indoors. He was one of us. And he felt it necessary to hide his identity. Has he put the cloak away in his wardrobe to use again later? Was he sitting there at the lunch table listening to Padraic’s account o
f his exploits?’

  ‘I’m wondering why you didn’t speak publicly of this earlier?’ Joe asked quietly, sure that he knew the answer.

  ‘And be labelled some sort of crackpot? Spread panic? You saw for yourself how eager they all are to invent a bogeyman! There are children here, Joe. They’re having the time of their lives, roaming about the place completely unafraid. I’m not going to be the one to take away their confidence, to give them nightmares. These innocent years pass too quickly. Mine came to a sudden end when I was seven.’

  She dashed on, not wanting to hear a comment from him: ‘And I’ve learned when it’s best to keep quiet. I wanted you to talk to me first—before you heard my strange experience. To get to know me a little. I’m not a fanciful storyteller. I wanted to see you ankle-deep in my cigarette ends on the spot where I saw what I saw, so that you’d understand that I wasn’t inventing anything.’

  Joe peered over the edge, taking a measure of the distances involved. He glanced up at the pennant flying from the watchtower. Bending, he picked up a cigarette end, rubbed it between his fingers and sniffed. ‘Untipped, heavy-duty stuff! French tobacco, if I’m not mistaken? Estelle—tell me—what sort of cigarettes are these?’

  ‘Well, you’re right. They’re Gauloises. I like the strong taste. I started to smoke them because only men seemed to—defiance, you know. I like breaking down barriers. Shocking the prudes. And then I got to like them. Anything else seems insipid now.’

  ‘And were you actually smoking a cigarette at the time? At the time of the sighting, I mean.’

  Estelle had frowned in concentration. ‘No. I’d just put one out. He couldn’t have glimpsed a light. But I see why you’re asking. Strong scent, too.’ She gulped and turned large eyes on Joe. ‘He’s sniffed me out, our effigy smasher, hasn’t he? He knows who I am. He knows I was watching him.’