Strange Images of Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  They entered carefully and waited for the door to swing shut behind them.

  The cool beauty of the space was unchanged at first sight and Nathan stood still absorbing it, enchanted. But Joe was looking for details. ‘Look here! Poor child! He must have been terrified out of his wits but he showed some style! Little soldier indeed! He made himself a bivouac.’ He bent and examined the rough nest behind the door. ‘Look—here’s his bed.’ A base of kneeling cushions had been assembled to form a mattress and an old velvet curtain had served as blanket. An inch of yellow fluid in the bottom of a nearby glass flower vase told its tale of night-time emergency. A discarded clog had been put to use to bang on the door and accounted for the dull thuds that had alerted them. Sick at heart, Joe thought of the child hammering through the night, the sounds masked by the infernal wind.

  ‘Deserves a medal!’ Nathan commented. ‘But listen—if someone was here, he’s not here any longer, would you say? Impressive place! Fourteenth-century?’

  ‘Probably earlier. Twelfth, according to the guidebook. But with fourteenth-century additions and improvements. The Counts of Provence worshipped here when they were being entertained at the castle. It’s said that the father of Eleanor of Aquitaine attended mass here. William of Touraine, gallant knight, poet and—they say—the first troubadour.’ Joe’s response was mechanical, all his thoughts centring on Marius and his ordeal, eager to be done with this inspection and go and get the boy’s story from him.

  ‘Can we take a look at Sir Hugues now?’ Nathan asked, making his way over to the monument.

  They stood in stricken silence staring at the table-top tomb.

  There they were, two figures lying side by side, the lord and his lady.

  The figure on the right, the armoured knight, his feet resting on the crouching lion, remained as impressive as at Joe’s first sighting, but it was the pallid beauty of the figure at his side which seized and held the men’s attention. Her delicate hands were peacefully folded below her breast, her slippered feet rested once again on her greyhound. The knight had lain here in this quiet place carved in white stone for over six hundred years. His lady was of flesh and blood and was newly dead.

  The peaceful couple were framed by a canopy of sunlit stone. Hugues de Silmont lay in plate armour, gauntleted hands resting on his chest, helmeted head encircled by a jewelled wreath. At his left hip, on a richly sculpted baldric, was carved a slender dagger of Spanish design with an ornate gilded hilt. A misericord. His features were serene; as the sunlight slid across his face, he seemed almost to smile.

  At first sight his lady appeared no less serene. Closed eyes, a dreaming face, her pallor a match for his alabaster. Her long fair hair had been arranged to frame her face before spilling in waves over the edge of the tomb. The white dress she was wearing had been carefully draped and folded.

  The two onlookers could not take their eyes from the head of the dagger, sunk very slightly to the left and, very precisely, into the heart. The dagger at the knight’s side and the dagger in the woman’s heart were identical.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Joe could feel his companion’s shock through the hands that grasped his arm for support. After a few minutes of rigid stillness, Nathan’s whole body began to tremble but he could not take his eyes away.

  It was Nathan who spoke first. ‘What is this? Some kind of sick joke? It’s not real … Joe!’ He turned an anguished face on him. ‘Are you in on this? Is she dead or is she acting? Tell her—okay, okay! I’m sorry! And I’m knocked for six! She can get up now …’

  Joe’s pained silence swept away his attempt at self-delusion.

  Joe placed a restraining hand on Nathan’s shoulder and stepped forward himself towards the tomb. He went swiftly through the familiar gestures to establish that the girl was indeed lifeless and shook his head.

  Nathan groaned. ‘She is dead, isn’t she? Do you see it? That dagger? Isn’t that …?’ A quivering finger pointed to the dagger in the woman’s breast and moved on to point at the stone dagger in the knight’s belt.

  In a calming policeman’s voice, Joe answered: ‘You’re right. It’s the same thing. The carved one is a representation of a vicious stabbing blade, designed to penetrate plate armour with a short underhand stroke. A misericord. The word means compassion, pity. Such blades were often used on the battlefield to put dying soldiers out of their misery. What kind of sick trickery is this? The carved dagger and the wrought metal one in the heart are identical!’

  ‘Sick is right,’ Nathan murmured. ‘She’s on display. Some bugger’s left her here to be … viewed. Joe, we’re being used! We’re an invited audience. We’ve been set up to witness this horror.’

  Nathan whirled about, hearing a sound Joe had not detected. His gaze searched the gloomy corners of the chapel, his slight frame crouched and hunted. ‘He’s here! Where’s the devil hiding? Listen! He’s in here with us, isn’t he? Watching.’

  His rising panic was catching. Joe spoke steadily to calm him. ‘I don’t think so. That creak you just heard? Would have been the woodwork expanding or righting itself after last night’s buffeting. I think the murderer’s long gone. They do sometimes return to the scene—that’s true, in my experience—but I don’t know of one who’s waited several hours by the body expressly to enjoy the dismay and horror of the poor sods who discovered it. And she’s been dead for some hours. We’d be looking at a seriously aberrant piece of behaviour. But, then, nothing surprises me any more.’

  ‘Sheesh! How can you keep so calm? Face to face with a dead body like this? Someone you know?’

  ‘I’m not calm! I’m as distressed as you are. I’m revolted and angry. It’s just that it’s my job to stare at corpses and make them talk back to me. And, if you’ll be silent and use your keen eye for detail, Nat, she’ll start talking to you as well. She would want us to hear what she has to say. Think of this as the last thing we can do for her.’

  In an attempt to dampen the photographer’s spiralling panic, Joe began to involve him in the scene by shooting a series of questions at him. ‘Look at the wound. Focus on it. That’s the idea! Do you see much blood? Come on! Answer me!’

  Nathan focused on the spots of dried blood surrounding the blade. ‘No. I’d have expected a gush, a trail … Heart wound—you’d expect a fountain … There’s no more than a spot or two or five. All around the blade. Like a speared rose. And it’s dark brown. She bled some time ago?’

  ‘Right … “On her left breast A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops I’ the bottom of a cowslip,”’ murmured Joe. ‘That’s the sleeping Imogen in Cymbeline. But this poor girl is beyond sleeping.’

  ‘You can stand here, quoting bloody Shakespeare at a time like this?’ Nathan’s voice was strangled.

  ‘I find myself responding to the killer’s imperative—as you do. It’s a scripted craziness. An Elizabethan melodrama we’re being offered. Perhaps if we follow him in his descent to hell, we’ll catch sight of his ugly features.

  ‘Look again. What’s he telling us? The wound was placed with precision, would you say? Nathan?’

  ‘Anyone would. I’m sure I’ve never seen a heart wound before, not even a knife wound of any kind, but it does look sort of … meant … placed.’

  ‘Expertly done, I think,’ Joe confirmed. ‘And what do you make of the hair, spread out like that? And the careful draping of the dress?’

  ‘Lord knows! It’s crazy! I can only say again—sickness.’

  ‘Not crazy. I believe it’s very deliberate. Have you seen this white dress before?’

  Nathan shrugged and shook his head. ‘It looks very old. Like something an ancestor might have worn. Hey! Where is the original wife?’

  Joe pointed to the corner in which the cairn of remains still stood, the shattered head, as before, displayed on its red silk cushion.

  It triggered in Nathan the same nauseated revulsion that Joe had felt the previous day. ‘More madness! Anywhere around here a feller can be sic
k?’ murmured Nathan.

  ‘No, no! Stiff upper lip, old man!’ advised Joe. ‘Quite enough bodily fluids around here to keep the police busy. Don’t add to them. Tell you what—if you need to pop out for a breath of air, why not go and pick up your bag? You put it down outside. Go and fetch your camera gear. Have you brought a flash?’

  ‘You’re not thinking …?’

  ‘I certainly am! First thing we do these days. Photograph the scene. If you object, pass me the equipment and I’ll do it myself. We can be quite certain that the man from Marseille won’t have thought to bring a camera with him.’

  ‘No! You unfeeling bugger! I won’t do it!’ Nathan protested angrily. ‘I can’t. You’ve no idea what you’re asking. And I’m wondering just exactly when you’re going to get up the courage to speak her name. Or are you waiting for me to say it? Don’t you have to get a close friend to make the identification? I can see you’re going to do everything by the book.’

  Joe waited, uncertain whether the American intended ever to address another word to him. He had pushed Joe angrily into the background and his whole attention was focused on the pale features. Finally, he whispered: ‘It’s Estelle. My friend. She’s been lying dead on a cold marble tomb this night when she should have been warm and safe in my bed.’

  He turned aside and his body began to shake with dry sobs.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nathan was standing frozen and distant, marking his disapproval of the detective’s schemes, when Joe returned with the bag of equipment.

  Understanding his revulsion, Joe was almost ready to let the moment pass unrecorded. Professional concern, however, won out over emotion, and he firmly opened the case and took out the Ermanox camera. With relief, he noted that it was the same model as the one owned by his friend Cyril Tate. News photographer and society columnist, raffish Man-About-London, Cyril had nervously agreed to Joe’s borrowing his precious camera for a weekend as a trade-off for information received.

  New and very expensive. Joe sensed the same tension he’d provoked in Cyril in every line of Nathan’s body. A true camera-fiend would rather see his lover in Joe’s hands than his camera, he thought grumpily. He affected an air of confidence to reassure the trembling Nathan and was careful to first put the safety strap around his neck. He remembered to allow for the frontal weight of the enormous lens as he adjusted his hands to fit comfortably around the black leather-covered body, his fingers finding their place at once on the buttons and levers. Aware of Nathan’s proprietorial eye on him, he set about his task. His first gesture was to remove the lens cap and automatically put it in Nathan’s waiting hand.

  ‘Widest aperture, slowest speed,’ Nathan gritted. ‘If you must. You’ll find an exposure meter and a flash attachment in the bag. First plate’s in.’

  Joe found what he needed and satisfied himself that the shots he was planning were possible. He silently made some adjustments. ‘These will be no rival for noire et blanche,’ he said awkwardly. ‘The French police will take pictures but I’d like to have our own for reference. Do you have the means of developing these?’

  ‘Anything. I’ve got a small laboratory next to my studio. The lord provides when he scents success. And he’s interested. He knows a thing or two about photography and he’s got a line to the illustrated journals. You’re standing too far away!’

  ‘For artistic perfection, perhaps,’ said Joe easily. ‘But for forensic reference, this is just about right. A locating shot. Close-ups will follow.’

  As he spoke, he peered through the viewfinder and clicked the shutter. He took an overhead shot of the body and a close-up of the wound, working his way around the three sides of the tomb. At the far end, his foot caught on a solid object. He grunted and bent to examine it.

  ‘Here’s her attaché case,’ he called to Nathan and, receiving no response, went on: ‘It’s got her red dress in it. The one she was wearing at breakfast yesterday. And here are her shoes. A pair of black espadrilles. She must have brought the change of outfit into the chapel in the case and slipped into Aliénore’s gown and ballet shoes to enact this charade. Why in hell would she do that? Better leave this for the French Inspector to investigate.’

  Nathan sighed and forced out words between his teeth. ‘Posing? She was posing! It’s what she did all the time. The outfit’s straight out of the dressing-up chest. She was planning a joke on someone. I’d have guessed—me. Well, it would have worked. I thought for a moment she was going to spring up and laugh at me.’

  ‘Did you tell her you were coming in to take some slides?’

  ‘Yes. We talked about it at lunch time.’

  ‘That may have given her the idea?’

  ‘Could have. That’s what we’re looking at, Joe—a practical joke. The sort you English like to play on each other … “What a hoot! What a jape! I say, do let’s!”’

  Joe was disconcerted to hear in his accent echoes of Estelle’s own very English voice. He ignored the man’s rudeness, sensing his emotions were turning from shock and disbelief and hardening into acceptance and recrimination in a pattern familiar to Joe. Someone was to blame and quite often it was the unfortunate policeman, being on the spot, who was the one to get it in the neck. Joe was prepared for Nathan to demand next to know how he could have let such a thing happen. But he had underestimated the American. Nathan’s mind was running on retribution directed at a deserving target.

  ‘Who, Joe? Who traded on her sense of fun to lure her into this death trap? Someone she knew. Someone we both know! Has to be. You don’t need to be a smart detective or a pathologist to see that she was stabbed while she was lying down there. I’ve got that right, haven’t I?’

  Joe nodded. ‘The lack of vertical blood trail down the dress would indicate that you are correct. What blood there was has ponded in the chest area. If I could bring myself to do it, I’d lift her skirt and check for post-mortem discoloration. There’s always gravitation of the blood to the lowest point of the body—it shows up as a reddish-blue bruising. She was, I think, killed right there where she now lies. But—again—I’m keeping my hands off what is the French Inspector’s scene.’

  ‘She knew him. Trusted him. You didn’t know Estelle! I tell you she’d have fought like a hell cat if she’d thought she was in danger. Scratched him to pieces! Look at her hands … no, no … I understand. I won’t get too close. No sign of fending off an attack, is there?’

  ‘Not as far as I can make out. They’ll need to take samples from under her fingernails.’

  ‘He’s over there, isn’t he? In the hall, finishing his breakfast … Still in bed, exhausted after his night’s activity? But what did he say to her?’ Nathan blundered on, his voice rising to a shrill note of disbelief as he worked through the implications of the grisly scenario. ‘To make her do this? Did he kill her somewhere else and arrange her up here for a laugh?’

  Joe saw a flash of panic twist his features. ‘Good God, Joe! You don’t suppose …? Oh, no! I couldn’t bear it!’

  ‘No immediately obvious sign of a sexual attack—at least a physical one,’ said Joe. ‘But I have to tell you, Nat, I’m not going to pursue the possibility. Not now. That really must be left to the proper authority, properly equipped. I can just say—I think it highly unlikely. No. Whatever our perpetrator had in mind, I don’t think it was rape.’

  With a groan, Nathan moved forward at last to pull the camera clumsily from Joe’s grasp. ‘Let me have it. You’re useless! I’ll finish for you. And develop the plates. It’s all I can do for her now, isn’t it? You’ve got to find him, Joe. We’ve got to find the bastard.’

  It was with difficulty that Joe persuaded Nathan to leave the chapel and return with him to the house. He explained that he was anxious to speak to the child Marius before too many well-meaning souls had put ideas of their own into his head. He was, if not the key to all this horror, at least the witness of it and they would advance faster and further towards catching Estelle’s killer by getting his informa
tion. Joe was only surprised that the child had himself escaped the murderous attentions. He’d been shut in here with a killer and his victim. He was small for his age, his neck could have been snapped like a chicken’s and the sole witness removed in a second.

  ‘How strong are you feeling, Nat?’ Joe asked. ‘Steady enough to go back into the hall and break the news?’

  Nathan nodded.

  ‘Look, I ought by rights to isolate you and make certain you don’t spread this story around. But I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to keep the lid on for five minutes in the circumstances. And all things considered, if it’s going to come out, I’d rather it came out straight. From you. You know what this bunch are like for speculation. Will you just say Estelle is dead and in the chapel which remains out of bounds to all? Can you manage to avoid going into details, do you think?’

  Nathan agreed. ‘What’ll you do now, Joe? What can you do?’

  Joe grimaced. ‘Hands tied, I’m afraid! At home I’d ring for a squad, establish a scene of crime set-up, arrange interviews … As it is, we’ll just have to wait for the French spearhead to arrive, all unwitting.’

  Joe made his way into the kitchen through the side door, not knowing what he should expect, certain only that it would be an unpleasant scene.

  To his surprise, all was calm and orderly. All kitchen activity had been suspended and the staff were standing around, an attentive chorus backing up the main players. Dorcas was close by, he was relieved to note. Centrally placed on a chair that had been brought in from the dining room, Madame Dalbert sat holding her little son on her lap. Marius was no longer yelling. He was sitting, pink and vastly recovered from his ordeal, staring with fascination at the steward who had arrived to take charge.

  De Pacy was on his knees in front of Marius. Joe almost looked for a gift of frankincense, myrrh or gold in his hand but he was holding out for the child’s inspection a Limoges china bowl with a silver spoon standing up in it. The cherub was showing an interest in the contents. A kitchen boy thoughtfully came to take the bowl from de Pacy and held it steadily, allowing the steward to dig in with his good hand and tentatively offer up a spoonful of strawberry ice-cream. Marius’s eyes flicked in astonishment from the anxious face of the commanding officer on a level with his own and back to the silver spoon. Joe tensed. Would the child put back his head and howl or accept the offering? Marius made the right decision. He opened up his mouth like a baby cuckoo.