Strange Images of Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  In one swift movement, Martineau produced from his pocket a small silver flask. He held it out tentatively to Silmont.

  ‘A little cognac sometimes helps in these circumstances, sir,’ he murmured.

  Silmont accepted it with a grateful nod and downed a gulp, breathed heavily, and took another.

  Joe was trying to identify the strong emotion that was racking the lord. Shock? Distress? Both elements were present but there was something more, it seemed to Joe, something bitter he was trying to repress. Anger, perhaps? He could not wrest his eyes from the form of Estelle. Finally, a little colour returned to his face and he found his voice. ‘I’m sorry to show such weakness of spirit, gentlemen. I am physically not what I once was but that can be no excuse. I will just say that the shock of seeing a young girl who is … was … known to me in these circumstances is overwhelming. And the weapon! Do you see the dagger? It’s mine. The bloody nerve of the man! She’s been done to death with a misericord from my own collection. I have two on display in the armoury. We’ll go over and take a look. I think we’ll find there’s only one remaining. You know—it’s the element of parody that is ultimately distressing. None of you will have seen the original sculpture of my ancestress … This young woman has been done up to resemble the original.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Joe, ‘in my pocket I have a guidebook to the region. It has an illustration of the carving as it was. Perhaps …?’

  ‘Yes. By all means. Show it to the officers.’

  ‘Great heavens!’ Jacquemin was intrigued and offended. ‘Someone’s gone to quite a lot of trouble to make the girl look exactly like … what’s her name? … Aliénore. Anyone can see there’s a superficial similarity between the women but it takes more than a chance resemblance to trigger a man into going to all this bother, I’d have thought? All artistically arranged, you’d say. A crime of placement rather than passion? Is that what we’re looking at? Something studied?’

  ‘The shoes, the dress … the hair,’ Joe agreed. ‘Good Lord! I hope we’re not being treated to an expression of the latest “-ism” … necroplasticism, perhaps?’ he heard himself say and instantly regretted it. Jacquemin didn’t strike him as being receptive to word-play or remarks of a fanciful nature. And now he would have him marked down as a facetious English lightweight.

  The Commissaire turned his double-barrelled gaze on Joe for a moment. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ he said and then turned his attention back to the tomb top with its deathly offering. ‘You should see what they get up to in Paris in the name of art! Necrophilia, necromontage, necroplasticism … could well be the latest thrill. I’ll keep an eye out. And let’s admit, Sandilands, to this extent, whoever this sensation-seeker is—he’s succeeded! I, for one, am ready to admit I’ve spent rather longer transfixed by this display before us than I ever have by the Mona Lisa. Read what you like into that!’

  ‘Don’t you think, sir, it would take more than a flight of fancy and stage management to produce this?’ Martineau dared to object. ‘It would take a rush of energy … an outburst from a dam of pent-up hatred.’

  ‘You’re right, my boy,’ said the lord. ‘Look—let me show you something which may cast some light on what you’ve just said. A motive for murder which has remained alive and strong through the centuries. Will one of you give me a hand? I need to move this wooden superstructure, here on the side abutting the tomb.’

  Martineau stepped forward and seized the wooden boards where the lord indicated and began to lever up the structure. Joe hurried to assist.

  ‘I discovered this when I was a very young man. I had fallen completely in love with Aliénore—everyone did. A strange thing to say of a lifeless effigy but—she was deeply alluring.’ He paused to cast a bleak look at the pile of rubble which had once been a glorious work of art. ‘Throughout my guardianship I’ve kept her in excellent condition. The image was originally decorated, you know. The locks of hair were gilded, her shoulder cape painted blue—a formula we have never been able to recreate—the jewels, though paste, gleamed convincingly. Miss Makepeace has been studying and advising. And restoring. Beautifully. And all to end like this …’

  He tore his eyes away from the stone shards and resumed: ‘Aliénore’s husband employed the very best talent to carve her likeness, I would say the work of an artist brought in from Italy. A man whose style makes the leap from Gothic to modern before his time. The workmanship was worthy of a man of the calibre of Giovanni Pisano, the Tuscan artist. If you ever looked on the stately beauty of his Madonnas you would see the same sweetness and humour, the same human individuality. I made myself an expert on medieval carving, the better to appreciate her quality. I can tell you that the second figure, that of Sir Hugues himself, was done by a different and less skilled hand. I am assuming that the lady was portrayed by someone who knew her well in life. Or possibly someone who was allowed to work for his initial sketches from the sight of her dead body.

  ‘My yearning to know more about her led me to study the Latin inscription running around the three sides of the tomb. Here.’ He pointed. All three men nodded.

  ‘I was puzzled. I followed the words around and came up with uxor sua—his wife — and stopped, disappointed. No date of death. No flattering phrase. Was there more hidden away around the back?

  ‘Gentlemen, there was.

  ‘I had the stone shelving, which sat awkwardly, like an afterthought, between the tomb and the wall, hacked away and, when I’d viewed and copied down the rest of the accursed lettering, unseen for centuries, I had this wooden structure built on to replace it and prevent anyone else from seeing the shameful truth.’

  With a wave of his hand, he invited them to inspect the rear of the marble tomb. By leaning over in turn, at a neckbreaking angle, they could just make out the two remaining words of tribute from Sir Hugues to his wife.

  ‘It says et meretrix,’ Joe, the last man to inspect, read out. ‘And harlot. Aliénore, wife and harlot.’

  ‘Harlot? What kind of man carves that word on his wife’s tomb?’ Jacquemin asked.

  ‘A man betrayed by the woman he loved?’ said Silmont. ‘Once I had read the shocking word and accepted that the effigy I adored was flawed, other things began to fall into place.’

  ‘Ah! The hair! I had wondered,’ said Joe. ‘My knowledge of medieval church sculpture—Provençal or otherwise—is sketchy but, from what I’ve seen, this hairdo strikes me as being a bit out of the ordinary. I’ve never seen a lady with her hair spread all about like this. Aren’t they normally tightly coiffed … you know … every lock swept up into a headdress?’

  ‘Quite right, young man!’ said the lord. ‘There are very few who remark on that. It’s been forgotten over the years. In the Middle Ages, all married ladies wore their hair under a coiffe. It was the mark of a virtuous wife. Which would lead one to wonder what on earth the lady Aliénore is doing lying on display with her golden hair spread all about her pillow, looking for all the world like a Venetian woman of easy virtue.’

  ‘It would seem a heartless sort of tribute to pay to your dead wife, sir,’ Joe commented since he seemed to be waiting for a response. ‘And double-edged, since any onlooker of the day would have known exactly how to interpret it. Her husband was, thereby, shaming himself into the bargain. And it was uncomfortable to have the horns of the cuckold pinned on you by public opinion in those days.’

  ‘The tomb would have been assembled here after his death. It’s my theory that he no longer cared about his own reputation in his determination to ruin hers for ever more,’ the lord suggested. ‘Perhaps he left the whole image behind as an awful warning. To future generations. Here’s the just reward for infidelity—an early death.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Jacquemin asked. ‘Is it known?’

  ‘Not for certain. It’s said she died in childbirth. Nothing unusual in that, many women of the time did. But her husband was a crusader. Here history deserts us and we must speculate. If he returned from two or three years’ abs
ence in the Holy Land to find his wife in a delicate condition … Well, you can imagine. Neither she nor the child would have survived his wrath. And there would have been few to blame him. It was of paramount importance to keep the line of descent pure. A man could keep mistresses openly under his own roof and produce illegitimate children by the score but his wife had to be of proven virtue, her offspring undeniably those of her husband.’

  He shrugged with sudden impatience. ‘But this is very ancient history. What concerns me is the fate of this poor creature who has been persuaded?—inveigled?—forced?—into mocking the effigy of Aliénore and suffering her death. All over again … All over again,’ he muttered. ‘It never ends. Why would it? The poisoned chalice is constantly refilled and always overflowing. And always men are seduced by the gilded beauty of the container and swallow down the noxious contents with a smile of gratitude.’

  Silmont began to breathe raggedly. Fatigue and dejection seemed to be overcoming his determination to be of assistance. He bit his lips, fighting a shaft of pain. He ran his right hand through his sparse hair and patted his forehead with a handkerchief. But it was to the trembling left hand that Joe’s sharp eyes were drawn. The whole arm from shoulder to fingers was beginning to shake and Silmont made a clumsy attempt to push the offending hand into his pocket to keep it still. A palsy? Epilepsy? Or the warning sign of something more serious? He was showing all the symptoms of a heart condition.

  It was Jacquemin who offered release. Suddenly alarmed, he clicked into action. He suggested that he should accompany the lord over to the main body of the castle, make a few telephone calls to alert the police in Avignon and have the morgue arrange for the corpse to be collected for post-mortem examination. Following these procedures, he would check the armoury for the missing dagger. He would leave Joe and Martineau to replace the wooden skirting around the tomb and take a further look at the scene in case something had been missed … a fingerprint … a footprint in the dust …

  ‘Look, Jacquemin,’ said Joe apologetically, ‘I’m hardly prepared for this. In London, I always have my murder bag with me … gloves … fingerprint kit … I’m on holiday, halfway down south to the coast. I haven’t—’

  ‘Nor I! I’m halfway up north to Brittany,’ snapped Jacquemin, uneasy at being caught out. ‘Um … Martineau?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I put one on the back seat. Never travel without, Commander. I think the contents will be familiar to you … we use graphite powder and camel hair—’

  Their professional murmurs were interrupted by an uncontrolled shriek.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’ screamed Silmont. ‘Fools! Numb-skulls!’ he raved. ‘While you’re all on your knees in the mouse-droppings, playing with your fingerprint dust, the man behind this goes about his business laughing at you! Can’t you see beyond the dots and the brushstrokes? Get the whole picture in focus? This trollop spent some hours here, befouling the last resting place of my ancestor—but in whose bed did she spend her last night alive?’

  He stood, shaking with rage, his charge of electric energy directed at Jacquemin.

  To Joe’s surprise, Jacquemin did not draw his gun or click his fingers for the handcuffs but returned a soft answer. ‘Sir, you are unwell. Is there someone you would like me to summon?’

  Silmont uttered a shout of mocking laughter. ‘Yes. There is someone you could well bestir yourself to get hold of. If it’s not too much trouble. My steward. Guy de Pacy.’

  When the lord and Jacquemin had left, Joe took the other end of the woodwork and asked conversationally: ‘Tell me, Martineau … when I came in, you mentioned that you had three victims but I think you also referred to two—was it two?—suspects?’

  Martineau laughed. ‘Oh, that was just a joke, sir, between me and the Commissaire. Didn’t realize he has no sense of humour. Though I should have known from the stories the other lads put about! Did you know, sir—no, why would you—that the Commissaire is said to have a scale model of a guillotine on his desk in his Paris office? A working model! He uses it to chop the ends off his cigars. Dramatically—in front of men he’s grilling for a capital offence.”

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Joe faintly. He ought not to be listening to gossip of this nature but relished the thought of passing on this snippet to Superintendent Cottingham when he got back. Ralph was strongly against the death penalty and would be reduced to splutters of indignation at the idea.

  ‘But I meant what I said—about the suspects, sir,’ Martineau went on. ‘We have two suspects right here in the chapel.’ He enjoyed Joe’s puzzlement for a moment then explained: ‘Suspects for a crime six hundred years old. The murder of Sir Hugues’s first wife. Ah—you didn’t know he had one? No tomb to her memory. No expensive Italian effigy. Name unknown. And—jointly charged in my book: Sir Hugues and his not so angelic wife Aliénore! You haven’t heard the story?’ The Commander’s receptive features invited the young Frenchman to delve deeper into folklore. ‘Oh, it’s a corker! Let me tell you …’

  The two men worked on together in complete harmony, their crime scene training meshing smoothly. At home, Joe would have insisted on an accompanying silence but here, in this sepulchral place, he found he was glad to hear Martineau’s tale enlivening the routine business.

  His story was drawing to a close and Joe was wondering just how much of the detail had been expanded or added by this natural storyteller when the door was flung open and Guy de Pacy stormed in. He left the door to crash shut behind him and strode to the tomb oblivious of Joe and Martineau who were on their knees logging footprints by the pile of debris.

  Joe looked up and, for the third time that morning, watched a man’s features working in acute distress at what he was seeing. But de Pacy did something in Estelle’s presence that the other two had not attempted. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek.

  Joe called out a warning, uncertain that the man was aware of their presence and at pains to avert for him the embarrassment of having someone witness emotion better concealed. ‘Guy! We’re over here! I say—would you mind awfully stepping back?’

  ‘Rule one in the scene of crime handbook, sir,’ explained Martineau, showing himself. ‘Don’t allow contamination of the corpse.’

  They both started at the thunder of his voice. ‘Contamination? Corpse?’ His words were infused with a deadly energy. ‘I’m not contaminating a corpse, you idiots! I’m saying farewell to a beautiful creature!’

  They stood by helpless, unable to prevent him from bending over the body and brushing the cold forehead with his lips. He murmured a few indistinct words, made the sign of the cross over her twice and then looked up at the policemen, his face twisted with grief.

  ‘I want him, Sandilands. I want his head; I want his guts. I want to see the light die in his eyes; I want to hear his last gasp. Find him!’

  He walked away.

  Reaching the door, he turned and called back over his shoulder: ‘And you could start your search with my cousin. The Lord Bloody Silmont!’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Did I say we had two suspects, sir?’ whispered Martineau. ‘Make that four, shall we? And two of ’em alive and kicking each other. Ouch! There goes another seriously disturbed gentleman. The steward, I think?’

  ‘Yes. Guy de Pacy. The lord’s cousin. You saw him in the kitchens attending to the child. Before he heard the news.’

  ‘Does bad temper run in the family? What an outburst!’

  ‘What was the phrase you served up to the lord earlier? The phrase he savoured? “An outpouring of pent-up hatred” or some such? That was an outpouring of emotion all right and it came from pretty deep but I wouldn’t say hatred had much to do with it, would you, Lieutenant?’

  Martineau shook his head in bafflement. ‘No, sir. And I’ll tell you what—he didn’t care that we saw it. That was quite a performance!’

  ‘Tell me, Lieutenant, have you ever seen a man make the sign of the cross twice over a body?’

  ‘Can’t sa
y I have, sir. Once is usually sufficient.’

  The throb of a six-cylinder engine greeted them as they moved out into the courtyard an hour later. The Hispano-Suiza was on the move. The motor car was advancing on them, as white, as silent and as stately as a swan on a mere. Packed into the rear seat were the duenna and the ballerinas and, at the wheel, just recognizable in cap, sun goggles, driving gloves, duster coat and white scarf, was Petrovsky.

  ‘That man doesn’t leave!’ Joe snapped to Martineau and raced forward to stand, one hand raised, blocking his path to the drawbridge. The engine revved and the car gathered speed. Joe tried not to flinch as the car came inexorably on. As it surged towards him, his eyes were riveted by the aggressive emblem mounted on the bonnet. The Hispano’s silver stork was flying at him, long neck extended, ready to impale him on its lance-like beak. He was conscious of Martineau lining up by his side as the car screeched and juddered to a halt inches from their toecaps.

  Petrovsky chose to react in French: ‘What the hell are you up to? Testing out my power-assisted brakes? As you see, they’re damned efficient! Idiot! I could have killed you! Like to play this little scene again? I may succeed next time!’ he snarled.

  ‘Mr Toad, I presume? Good morning!’ Joe said, oozing English affability. ‘Mesdames!’ He switched into French and doffed an imaginary hat. ‘I must ask you to abandon whatever plans you have for the day and return to the great hall.’

  ‘Are you barmy? We were leaving this morning anyway. Appointment in Avignon. And if you think we’re going to stay on in this madhouse a moment longer, you’re way off beam!’ Petrovsky pushed up his goggles, the better to glower his disdain as he announced: ‘Now hear me, Sandilands! We’ve all been made aware by that moustachioed French fop in there of this night’s disastrous events. Events which you have signally failed to avert. As the Law seems to offer no protection, we must shift for ourselves. I have a duty of care to these ladies. I am not a man to expose them to the attentions of a murdering maniac. Now get out of my way!’