The Splendour Falls

by Susanna Kearsley

  Climbing the barrier proved simple enough, no different than climbing a stile back home, but the stairs were a different matter. They were irregular in shape, some only several inches high while others fell two feet or more, and my fingers scrabbled in the dust and chips of rock to find a firmer handhold as I made my slow descent. Paul, who had clearly done this before, went down like a mountain goat, his steps sure and even. I was more ungainly, and brought the dust with me, a great whoofing cloud of it that swirled on even after I had stopped to join Paul on the narrow ledge at the bottom of the stairs.

  “This,” he said, “is the sacred part.” His hushed voice sounded hollow, like the echo round an indoor swimming pool. Intrigued, I braced one hand against the paper-cool stone and leaned forward for a proper look.

  The water was there, as he had promised. Clear, holy water, pale turquoise in the glare of an electric light that hung from the stone arch overhead. It was, Paul told me, a Merovingian well, meaning it dated back to the time of the Franks—older, he thought, than Sainte Radegonde herself. The shaft sank deep and straight and true; several meters deep, I would have said, and yet the water was so amazingly clear that I could see the scattering of pebbles at the bottom.

  “You can even see the footholds,” Paul said, pointing, “that the well-diggers used to climb out again, after they’d struck water.” The footholds ran like a makeshift ladder, straight to the bottom of the well—small, even squares the width of one man’s boot, gouged in the yielding yellow stone.

  I sighed, and the surface of the water shivered. “Well,” I said, “at least we know that Harry isn’t anywhere down here.”

  “A cheerful thought,” Paul smiled. “But you’re right, it’d be pretty hard to hide something in that water. Even a King John coin.” He flipped a tiny half-franc piece into the well to demonstrate, and we watched until it came to rest upon the bottom, clearly visible. “Here, make a wish,” Paul told me, handing me another coin.

  He sounded just like my father, when he said that. For a moment I was five years old again and standing at the rim of the fountain in the courtyard of our house in Italy. But then I caught my own reflection in the water of the well, and the child vanished. I shook my head. “I don’t have anything to wish for.”

  “Everyone has something to wish for. Besides, how often do you get a chance to make a wish in holy water?”

  “No, honestly, you needn’t waste your money…”

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re a terrible cynic?” He grinned and closed his eyes. “OK, never mind. I’ll make a wish for you. There,” he said, and tossed the second coin into the waiting well. It hit the water with a satisfying plunk. End over end my unknown wish tumbled, glittering, and landed close to Paul’s one on the smooth and level bottom.

  “So what did I wish for?” I asked, curious.

  “Bad luck to tell,” he reminded me. Turning, he offered me his hand to help me up the stairs again. “Right,” he said, “let’s give this place a proper search, and see what we can find.”

  We found a treasure trove of slightly dusty artifacts displayed in every crevice of the caves. We found a smaller chamber at the tunnel’s end, where someone evidently lived from time to time. “There’s a caretaker in the summer,” Paul informed me, “on and off. I think she stays up here.” But no one had been staying here recently. The bed was stripped, the cupboards empty, and dust lay thickly settled on the floor, marked by no sign of footprints save our own. We found a working wine press tucked in one high corner of the largest cave.

  What we didn’t find, of course, was anything that Harry might have left. There wasn’t so much as a chewing-gum wrapper or a shred of tissue dropped in that bright, winding underground maze. I was, by turns, relieved and disappointed. Relieved because I hadn’t turned up any evidence that Harry was in trouble, disappointed because I hadn’t turned up any evidence that Harry was here at all. There was only that blasted coin.

  Paul poked at the donation saucer as we paused before the simple altar on our way back out. “Is this where you found the King John coin?”

  My face flamed with embarrassment, but I didn’t bother to deny it. The problem with Paul, I thought, was that he was too damn clever. He had a quiet but persistent way of finding out the truth. “Yes. I… I put in a donation of my own,” I added, as if that made my theft acceptable, but Paul didn’t seem to be listening.

  “There’s got to be an explanation.” That was the physicist talking. He furrowed his brow and stared hard at the plate of jumbled coins. “There’s got to be. We just aren’t looking at this from the right angle.”

  He was still standing there, thinking, when the faint sound of the noonday bells came drifting up from the town below and broke the peaceful silence of the chapelle. There was nothing more for us to do here, I decided. I tugged at Paul’s sleeve. “Come on, Sherlock, time for lunch.”

  “Yeah, OK.” He glanced at his watch. “I guess I ought to check the laundry, anyway, before Simon gets back. Thierry’s probably shrunk everything beyond recognition by now.”

  His gloomy fears turned out to be unfounded. From the pristine pile of folded shirts and jeans that met us in the hotel’s entrance lobby, it appeared that Thierry had done quite an expert job.

  He flashed his quick disarming smile and ran his thumb along a trouser crease. “I cannot take the credit,” he confessed. “I gave the clothes to Gabrielle for washing.”

  Paul raised his eyebrows. “Gabrielle?”

  “The girl who does reception this week. Me, I am not good at washing things.”

  He’d never have to worry about it, I thought, as long as he could aim a smile like that at a member of the opposite sex. It was a difficult smile to resist. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy for Gabrielle—small wonder she was so confused, sometimes. “You don’t play fair,” I said to Thierry.

  “Comment?”

  “She means you take advantage,” Paul explained. “Is Simon back yet?”

  “No, he is still with the Whitakers, I think.” Again the grin. “It has been quiet here, today.”

  Paul turned from the front desk and looked a question at me. “You sick of my company, yet?”

  “Of course not. Why?”

  “Feel like having a drink or something? I know I could use one.” Paul glanced back at Thierry. “The bar is open, isn’t it?”

  “Of course. You have had a nice time, sightseeing?”

  “Very nice.” Paul smiled. “But don’t forget, now, it’s a—”

  “—secret,” Thierry finished. “Do not worry, I am good at keeping secrets. If I had a franc for every secret in this hotel,” he said, grinning, “I would not be needing to work.”

  But he condescended to serve us anyway, before vanishing once more into the back rooms. Paul sipped his beer and leaned an elbow on the stack of freshly laundered clothes, which he’d set carefully beside him on his customary window seat. Behind his shoulder I could see the concrete planter outside, with its single pink geranium. It made a pitiful splash of color against the shadowed backdrop of the busy fountain square.

  Paul reached for his cigarettes and offered me the packet. “Want one?”

  “What? Oh, no thanks.” Smiling, I shook my head. “No, I gave up smoking, years ago. Last night was just a momentary lapse.”

  “A momentary lapse that saved my butt,” he pointed out. He lit one for himself and settled back. “So, what’s our next move?”

  I gave a faint, defeatist shrug. “I don’t know. I’m rather tired of thinking about Harry, actually.”

  “So take a break,” was his advice, “and drink your drink.”

  It was, I decided, sound advice from one so young. I leaned back in my chair and sighed. But I couldn’t let it drop entirely. “What did Martine Muret’s ex-husband do for a living, do you know?”

  Paul smiled at my obstinacy. “He
was unemployed, I think. Simon actually met the guy once, he might know. Simon didn’t like Muret—thought he was a real jerk. He was drunk, you know, when he fell over that railing. That’s how he died. And I guess he gave Martine a hell of a rough time when they were married. He didn’t hit her or anything, I don’t think, but he was… well, he was pretty rude. Embarrassing. The kind of guy who likes to play the big shot, you know?”

  Like Jim and Garland in reverse, I thought. No wonder Martine hadn’t been upset by her ex-husband’s death. To her, it must have been almost a deliverance.

  Close by, a car door slammed and Paul craned his neck to peer out of the window, beyond my line of vision, toward the hotel’s front entrance. “So much for our quiet drink,” he said, stubbing out his half-smoked cigarette.

  “Why? Are they back already?”

  “Do you know,” he mused, his dark eyes twinkling, “I think I’ll just slip round to Christian’s and give him back that key.”

  “Coward,” I teased him. But he just laughed, and winked, and ducked like lightning through the back door as the returning tour party from Fontevraud descended upon the Hotel de France in a blur of sound and motion.

  ***

  The transatlantic line hummed thick with static, and it seemed an age before my father picked the phone up at his end. It was suppertime in Uruguay, and I’d obviously caught him in mid-meal. His voice at first was hard to understand.

  “Mmwamph,” he said, when I apologized for calling at this hour, and “Barrrumph-ba” was his comment after that. He cleared his throat, and coughed. “You’re still in France, then, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Still on your own?”

  “Yes. Actually, that’s why I called…” I twined the phone cord round my fingers, then in a rush of explanation told him what I’d found.

  “The King John coin? You’re sure of that?”

  I nodded, not caring that he couldn’t see the gesture. “I’ve got it right here, in my room. And I don’t think he’d have left it anywhere unless he meant to leave it, only that doesn’t make much sense, does it?” I sighed, plucking at the coverlet of my bed. “Honestly, Daddy, I don’t know what else I can do.”

  “Well, it sounds as though you’ve handled things quite sensibly.”

  “I thought I might just ring Aunt Jane—”

  “Good Heavens, no!” My father’s voice came booming down the line, emphatic. “No point getting her upset for nothing—and it may well be for nothing, knowing Harry. No, I think you’d better leave it all with me. I’ve still got friends you know, in Paris. I’ll ask some questions, stir around, see whether they can track him down. All right?”

  Which meant, I thought, he’d likely make some notes, then forget all about it before tomorrow morning. I smiled. “All right.”

  “Just leave it all with me,” he said again, in charge now, reassuring. “And Emily?”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “Don’t let it worry you too much, either, will you? Comes sailing clean through any crisis, does Harry. No point in losing sleep over him.”

  That, at least, seemed sound advice. I repeated it to myself that night as I lay restless underneath the covers of my bed, my dry eyes fixed upon the mottled shadows dancing on my ceiling. No point in losing sleep, I thought firmly, but it didn’t help.

  Close by, the bell tolled one o’clock, a solemn sound above the chuckling fountain. Through the open window swept a sudden breath of cold night air, and the shadows on my ceiling stilled their motion as the street lamps were extinguished. All the shadows, that is, except one.

  It might have been the moon, passing high among the clouds outside, that made the dim reflection on my wall, and what I heard I blamed on my imagination, or the wind. “Follow,” said the shadow, as it slipped across my bed. “Follow…”

  A sudden breath of chill air blew my window open wider, and the curtains flapped and fluttered like a wild tormented ghost. My heart leaped, frightened, to my throat, but I forced it back again. Fool, I called myself, as I rose and hugged my blanket round me. There’s nothing there.

  But just to make absolutely certain of that, I leaned across the window sill and looked down at the sleeping square.

  The black-and-white cat moved stealthily between the rustling acacias, from shadow into light and back again, carefully avoiding the spray of the glittering fountain. On soundless feet, the cat traversed the empty square and crossed to sniff the planter set beside the hotel door. My gaze followed, and fell and with a startled jolt I saw that I was not the only one awake and watching the cat.

  Neil Grantham’s hair looked white in moonlight. Ruffled by the night breeze, it was the only thing that moved. His hands lay still upon the railing of the narrow balcony, and beneath the leather jacket his shoulders were immobile, carved of stone. He didn’t seem to breathe.

  And then his head began to turn and I drew quickly back, away from the window, and the curtains drifted past me on a sigh that was not mine.

  Chapter 19

  I rose and…

  Found a still place.

  The cat came to me early next morning. How it found me I’ll never know; I’d walked some distance from the hotel to the hushed and peaceful Promenade, where the plane trees grew tall and regal by the river’s edge. But the black-and-white cat came to me nonetheless, and curled itself wearily into my lap with a wide indulgent yawn.

  He’d had a hard night, from the looks of it.

  He looked, in fact, much like I felt: tired and rumpled and out of sorts. I always felt like that when I hadn’t slept well. It was an inherited curse, insomnia. My granddad had it, and my father, and they’d kindly passed it on to me, so that from time to time I found myself counting sheep into quadruple digits, while I tried to will my aching brain to stop its restless thinking. It didn’t happen often any more, but when it did it always brought me to a place like this, a quiet place where I could watch the sunrise. Things seemed less important, somehow, once the sun was up.

  Behind me, on the cliffs, the château bell sang seven times—they’d just be starting breakfast service back at the hotel. I ought to be getting back. But not just yet, I thought. Not yet. I smiled as I gently stroked the sleeping cat, and lifted vague unfocused eyes to gaze along the Promenade.

  Row facing row the plane trees stood, ghostly pale and thick with green, mute sentries from an age long past. Beneath the arching canopy of leaves a raked red gravel path invited idle footsteps, like my own, and garden benches beckoned one to pause and watch the world drift by.

  From my own bench I could see clear across the Vienne, past the jutting point of the little island to the darkly wooded shore that lay beyond. And in between, cold and still like a sheet of ice, the river breathed a veil of mist that caught and spread the dawning spears of sunlight.

  Earlier I’d watched a yellow kayak cleave that mist, dancing the current down toward the bridge. Earlier still, a woman with a dog had passed me by, her step brisk and purposeful. But now there was only me, and the cat, and the ducks chattering noisily along the riverbank.

  My mind had begun to drift idly along with the river when the cat suddenly shifted position, claws pricking through my woolen jumper. I winced, and looked to see the cause of its alarm.

  I didn’t have to look far. Four trees away a little spotted dog, nose fixed to the ground, came trotting round a metal litter bin. It was obvious that the dog hadn’t yet taken note of us, and even more obvious that it posed no immediate danger to my bristling cat—this because the dog was attached by a bright red lead to a man standing, slouched, with his back to the river, his face cast half in shadow by the flat morning light.

  The gypsy wasn’t alone. Another man had stopped beside him on the blood-red path, a tall long-limbed man with hair so fair it shone in that soft morning light like silver. The gypsy spoke, and gestured, and I saw Neil shake his head, an
d tossing back some smiling comment he came on toward me.

  “Good morning,” he greeted me. “Mind if I join you?”

  There seemed no escaping the man, I thought, despite my best efforts. I shifted to make room for him on the bench and he sat down with a decided thump, angling himself against the armrest so he could look at me. “You have a thing for cats, I take it? Or are you out to comfort every stray in Chinon?”

  “Not every stray. Just this one.”

  “Is this your chap from Saturday night, then?” He reached a careful hand to scratch the dirty black-and-white head. The cat, less nervous, subsided into my lap and stared at him through half-closed eyes. “Well, what do you know.” Neil’s own eyes crinkled at the corners. “He gets about, this one. I think I saw him prowling about last night, as well.” Withdrawing his hand, he stretched his long legs out before him, ankles crossed. “He seems rather affectionate, for a stray.”

  “Yes.” I looked up and past him, to where the gypsy and his dog still loitered. “What did that man ask you?” I wanted to know.

  “He wanted a match, that’s all. I didn’t have one.”

  I set a calming hand upon the deeply purring cat. “Spoke to you in English, did he?”

  “No, French.”

  “I thought you didn’t speak French.”

  He slanted a curious look in my direction. “I don’t, beyond the limits of my Oxford phrasebook,” he said, “but when a chap comes up to me with an unlit cigarette in his mouth and pantomimes the striking of a match, I’ve a fair idea what he’s wanting.”

  “Oh.” My gaze dropped defensively. When I raised my eyes again the path was empty. The gypsy and his dog were nowhere to be seen. I gathered the cat closer and summoned up a cheerful smile to show to Neil. “I didn’t expect to see you up and about this early,” I told him. “I thought you did your walking in the evenings.”

  “Dustmen woke me,” was his excuse. “Four o’clock in the bloody morning, they come barreling round the square like it’s a parade ground.”