The Splendour Falls

by Susanna Kearsley

  For a brief moment I thought I caught the faintest glimmer of distaste in Madame Chamond’s normally immaculate expression. “It is a shock for all of us.”

  “It just doesn’t seem real, does it?” Garland went on, unable to leave the wound unprobed. “I mean, one minute you’re talking to someone, and the next…” Her eyes moved to the low round table at her side, and her train of thought was interrupted. “Isn’t that Paul’s book?” She reached to grasp Ulysses. I’d had to pull it from the pocket of Paul’s jacket to get at the cigarettes.

  Garland didn’t ask how the book had come to be there. She simply turned it over, with a sigh. “I guess he’ll never finish this, now. Not that it really matters. Poor Paul, I can’t believe—”

  “For God’s sake, Garland.” Jim Whitaker leaned back against the window wall, and rubbed his forehead with a weary hand. “Just shut up.” He spoke the words quietly, as though he had exhausted all his energy. To my surprise, it worked. Garland actually stopped talking, but her jaw compressed with irritation and I knew she’d give him hell come morning.

  I held out my hand. “I’ll take that, please.”

  She handed the book over in silence with a small uncaring sniff and, rising, said good night to us and left.

  Jim sighed, a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “Truly sorry.” And pushing himself to his feet, he followed his wife out into the hall.

  With downcast eyes I trailed my fingers across the lettering of the book’s cover, blinking hard. Not that it really matters, Garland had said. But it did matter. It had mattered to Paul. I saw again his flashing smile, and heard his cheerful voice telling me: “It’s kind of become an obsession. I won’t be able to rest until I’ve finished the damn thing.”

  Madame Chamond leaned forward, concerned. “You haven’t touched your brandy. Would you prefer another drink?”

  “No, that’s all right.” I looked out the window again, at the darkening sky. The sun was gone. Yom Kippur had begun. A time for fasting, Paul had told Thierry—for remembering the dead. “I really don’t want anything. I think I’ll just sit up for a while on my own.”

  My hostess looked in silence from my face to the book, and back again, pressed my shoulder with a gentle hand and rose with the grace of a dancer, leaving me alone in the quiet bar. I heard her talking to someone in the entrance hall, and then I heard the lower timbre of Neil’s voice, and then they both moved on and there was only silence.

  My fingers found the turned-down corner on the page where Paul had stopped. The book wanted concentration, so I curled myself against the seat and did my best.

  I sat there all night, reading.

  At four o’clock the dustmen rumbled in the darkness round the square, but I paid them no heed. The first pale streaks of dawn had just begun to split the steel-gray sky when I finally closed the worn covers of the book and lowered it to my lap. It was done, now. Finished. I spoke the word again, out loud, though there was no one there to hear me: “Finished.” No more labors for Ulysses, no more voyages to make. Paul, wherever he had gone to, could find rest.

  I felt the warmth of tears upon my face, and my body ached with a hollow weariness that was almost more than I could bear, but I felt better, all the same.

  Wiping the wetness from my cheeks, I turned my head. Outside the window, the three pink petals clung and trembled on the bowing geranium, the only spot of color in that gray and dreary morning. The wind was rising from the distant river, chasing the wall of cloud before it. It caught a handful of dry twisted leaves and sent them scuttling across the deserted fountain square. It caught the lone geranium as well, and set the pale pink petals dancing.

  And as I sat there watching, one by one they, too, were torn away, swirling past my window out of sight, until only the stripped and naked stem remained.

  Chapter 25

  That morning in the presence room I stood…

  I had met death before, in different forms—I knew quite well the pattern of my grieving. First came shock, and then the tears, and then a bitter anger, followed by a softer grief that time would wear away. As I stood alone now on the steps to the château, looking down on the spot where Paul had died, I felt the anger come creeping up inside me. The Jews might call it a sin, being angry on their Day of Atonement, but I welcomed the emotion. It was something real, at least—something warm and hard and tangible, where before there had been nothing, only numbness.

  Someone had washed the step, since yesterday. A crumpled mass of yellow leaves lay rotting in the crease between the stone steps and the wall, and except for a few spots of darker color in their midst everything was as it had been before. It might have been imagined, what I’d seen here yesterday afternoon, and Paul himself might never have existed.

  “It isn’t fair,” I said. There was no one there to hear me. It was too early yet for anyone to be wandering about. Back at the hotel, the kitchen staff would be only just beginning now to set the breakfast tables and brew the first pot of morning coffee. I was thankful not to be there. It would have only made me angrier still, to watch the daily routine unfold with all its petty rituals, as if nothing had happened. It had to be that way, of course, I knew that—but understanding something didn’t make it easier.

  It was strange, I thought. On a different level, I’d faced the same grim tangle of emotions when my parents had divorced, five years ago. I’d grieved then, too. But where that loss had deadened me, killed dreams and hope together, losing Paul had sparked some part of me to burning life.

  Don’t get involved. It had become my motto, almost, that small phrase. Safer not to care too much, and better not to love at all than risk a disappointment. But with Paul, I thought, how could one help but care?

  “Damn,” I whispered.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, looking down at the unspeaking stone. I had no way of telling time. The sky, I thought, grew faintly brighter, but the sun stayed tucked behind its veil of clouds and the wind on my face promised rain. After what seemed a minor lifetime I raised my eyes and, turning, climbed the final flight of steps up to the road.

  The château bell began to strike the hour and I turned to watch it ringing, a small black swaying silhouette high in the narrow wedge-shaped tower that loomed at the bend of the road. Seven times the bell rang out; the last note hung and quivered on the morning air.

  It wasn’t difficult to find the place where Paul had been sitting. The wall here was indeed the perfect height for sitting on, its broad top capped with rougher stone. There was a sign here, slightly dented, warning people that the road ahead was not for common use. Paul must have sat beneath that sign for some time. Three spent cigarettes lay clustered at the base of the wall, their frayed ends showing that he’d stubbed them out against the stone, as was his habit. He had sat here, and smoked, and then…

  I forced myself to take the short step forward, to the wall, and gazed down at the sheer relentless drop to the hard steps below. It was more difficult to look at than I’d thought. I took a hasty step back from the low wall, shoving my hands in my pockets in a gesture that was unconsciously defensive. I was wearing Paul’s red jacket over yesterday’s rumpled clothes, and although I’d left Ulysses in the bar, the left-hand pocket still held something firm and full of angles. My fingers brushed it, recognized it. Cigarettes. There couldn’t be too many left, after my self-destructive binge last night. I drew them from my pocket now, not because I craved one but because a tiny thought was troubling me.

  If Paul had left his cigarettes behind, forgotten for the moment in the pocket of his coat, then how had he smoked three here yesterday afternoon? He might, I thought, have simply bought another packet, but then he would have bought the same brand, surely? It was a popular French brand, sold at every corner store—a longish cigarette with a plain white paper filter and the brand name stamped in simple black. I’d never seen Paul smoke a different type.


  And yet here before me was the evidence—the three spent ends on the pavement had dark spotted yellow filters. I picked one up to look, but there was no clear name or logo visible. Not only were the cigarettes a stranger’s brand, but there were no match stubs anywhere. Paul had always used matches, and I thought it unlikely he’d have bought himself a lighter all of a sudden. Not impossible, of course, but decidedly unlikely.

  Which meant, to me, that someone else had given Paul those cigarettes; that someone else had held the lighter for him. That no matter what the witnesses had said to the police, Paul hadn’t been alone here yesterday, not all the time. He hadn’t been alone.

  Knowing this myself was one thing; telling it to the police was quite another. In my mind I could already hear the quiet tolerance, the kind but oh, so firm dismissal by the weary young inspector. If only someone else could speak for me, instead—someone with a bit more clout, and knowledge of the system. The Chamonds, perhaps, or maybe even…

  I bit my lip. What was it that Armand Valcourt had said to me in Martine’s gallery? “The price one pays for influence is isolation.” Influence…

  The bell below me in the town began to chime the hour, a tardy echo of the older peal from the château. With thoughtful eyes I raised my head again to look along the steeply rising road.

  ***

  If François thought the hour an early one for visitors, he gave no indication of it. “You may wait here,” he said, politely. “He will not be long.”

  I thanked him and he withdrew, leaving me alone in the quiet room. This was not the glittering sitting room into which I’d been shown on my first visit to the Clos des Cloches. The windows here were thickly curtained, and the room itself was small. It appeared to be a study of sorts, or an office, with richly paneled walls and shelves for books. A writing desk stood angled in one corner, and on its surface, neatly dusted, a row of framed photographs stood waiting for inspection.

  The photographs were all of Lucie, at different ages, solemn and smiling. There was no one else. I moved closer to examine them, brushing the glass of one with wondering fingertips. My mind drifted back, I don’t know why, to the argument I’d overheard last Saturday, between Armand and Martine. “What do you know of love?” she’d taunted him. Lord, I thought, how could she ask that, having seen these photographs?

  Behind me the door to the study opened and closed again, quietly. I spun round, hands laced nervously behind my back, to face him.

  He’d obviously been dragged from the course of his morning routine. His hair was damp from the shower, and he hadn’t finished buttoning his shirt, but I fancied he looked more presentable than I did. He, at least, had slept. The memory of that sleep still lingered round his heavy-lidded eyes, and the way he looked at me was unconsciously intimate.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, speaking French from instinct. “I shouldn’t have bothered you, this early.”

  “It is no problem.” He fastened the last few shirt buttons. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “My friend is dead.” To my dismay, I felt the tears come burning up behind my eyes. I blinked them back, determined not to cry, but Armand saw them anyway. He stepped quickly away from the door, muttering a soft recrimination that was, I gathered, directed at himself.

  “I didn’t think,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was the young boy yesterday, who fell, yes? I didn’t realize—” He broke off, stiffly. “It must be very difficult.”

  I nodded dumbly, and took the chair he offered me. He didn’t sit behind the desk, but pulled a second chair across the carpet, facing mine, and sat so that his knees were only inches from my own. His dark eyes gently searched my face. “You have not slept.”

  He had dropped the formal manner of address, and used the more familiar “tu” instead of “vous.” It was not a change that the French made lightly, signifying as it did a deepening of one’s relationship. At any other time I might have noticed, and been flattered, but today it scarcely registered.

  “No,” I said, “I couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts.”

  “I understand. Myself, I’ve worried many times about Lucie playing near that wall. I was afraid that such an accident might happen.”

  “But it wasn’t an accident, that’s just it.” I took a breath and squared my shoulders. “Someone pushed him.”

  He stared, incredulous. “What?”

  “I…I’m not sure who did it, but I think I do know why, only the police wouldn’t listen. They were very polite, and all that, but they wouldn’t listen.” My voice was bitter, laced with more emotion than I’d heard in it for years. “Somebody pushed Paul.”

  He studied me. “You saw this happen?”

  “No.”

  “Then how can you be sure?”

  I sighed, and looked away. “It’s a long story.”

  “I have time.” He smiled, faintly. “Have you eaten, yet?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Well, I have not. So I will find François, and while I eat my breakfast you will tell me this long story of yours. All right?”

  It didn’t take as long as I’d imagined, after all. I’d finished talking by the time he pushed his plate away. We had moved into the sitting room, to the same dining table where we’d shared our first meal on Saturday. Across the table from me, Armand lit a cigarette in contemplative silence. He smoked a yellow-filtered brand, I noticed. But then, so did half the population of France.

  “Your cousin is in danger, you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” I answered honestly. “I only know that Paul was trying to help me find him. And now Paul’s dead.”

  “Like Didier.” He lowered his gaze to the tablecloth in brow-knit concentration. “So this is why you asked so many questions about Didier, last time we met.”

  “Yes.”

  “You might have told me then, that you were worried for your cousin.”

  “It’s not the sort of thing one drops on strangers, is it?” I replied. “And anyway, you seemed so sure that Didier could not have known Harry.”

  “I’m not perfect,” he said quietly. “And I’d hardly call us strangers, you and I.” He lifted his eyes, then, and I met them squarely, aware that in the hard pale light of day I must look something less than human. “You have told this to the police, you said?”

  “Every word.”

  “And they did not think it serious.”

  “Yes, well,” I shrugged, “that’s why I’ve come to you. I thought, perhaps, if you could talk to them, a man of your standing…”

  His mouth twisted. “You overestimate my influence, I think.”

  “Then you won’t help?”

  “I didn’t say that.” He turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. “François.”

  The older man appeared around the doorway with such alacrity that I didn’t wonder Armand’s wife had thought François the classic flawless butler come to life. “Yes, Monsieur?”

  “Would you telephone to the police station, and tell them that I wish to speak to…” He paused to look at me. “This, policeman that you met, was he young? A tall young man, dark-haired? Inspector Fortier, then, François. I’ll wait until he’s on the line.”

  “Thank you,” I said, as François quietly left the room. “You’re very kind.”

  “You’re very young,” he told me, smiling. Leaning forward, he reached across the table and smoothed a wayward strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s nothing to do with kindness.”

  A small cough sounded in the doorway behind us, and Armand lowered his hand from my face, turning. “Inspector Fortier is not there,” said François, “but there is a Chief Inspector Prieur who would be pleased to speak with you.”

  “Prieur.” Armand searched his memory for the name. “He is not local, surely?”

  “No, Monsieur. He says he comes from Paris.”r />
  “Oh, yes?” Armand pushed back his chair. “Thank you, François, I will use the telephone in my study.”

  He wasn’t gone long. When he came back he didn’t sit; he lit another cigarette and sent me a self-deprecating shrug. “You did not need me, after all. Inspector Fortier seems to share your doubts. He has begun a full investigation and he’s out now looking for your gypsy friend, to ask him questions.”

  “You’re joking.”

  He assured me that he never joked. “And I will look myself for this gypsy, so you may stop worrying so much and try to get some rest.” He glanced at his watch. “I will drive you back to your hotel. But first, I must make one more phone call, a business call—it may take some minutes. Will you be all right if I leave you here with François?”

  “I’ll be quite all right.”

  “Good.” He smiled, a slow and charming smile that warmed his shadowed eyes. “I won’t be long.”

  In the silence that followed his departure, while the pressing weight I’d felt earlier slowly eased with the relief of burdens shared, François moved forward to clear away the remains of Armand’s breakfast, his eyes concerned and watchful on my tired face. “I’m very sorry, Mademoiselle.”

  I knew what he meant. “Thank you.”

  “Death is always difficult, but the death of the young…” He sighed, and set the dishes on the sideboard. “There is no justice in it.”

  “No.”

  He slanted a look down at my empty plate. “You do not wish a cup of coffee, Mademoiselle?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “A piece of toast?”

  I shook my head. There was no easy way to explain that I couldn’t eat, that I was fasting for Paul, so I simply said: “I’m just not very hungry.”

  “I know, it’s very difficult, but the dead, they are beyond our care. It is to life that we must turn our energy.” He fixed me with a philosophical eye. “You must still sleep, and guard your health. And you must eat.”