‘My sister-in-law’s offered us a job running the restaurant in their hotel in Paris.’
‘It’s lucky your family’s in catering.’ Lucy smiled.
‘Yes.’
Their eyes met and Monique Dedoir shrugged. They both laughed for no apparent reason, but it was more the laughter of embarrassment than anything else.
‘Will you be dining with us?’
‘We’re looking forward to it,’ said Lucy, starting to talk in French, determined that despite Tim’s lack of punctuality she would practise the language. Gazing down at her watch again, she frowned.
‘Are you worried about something?’ Monique slipped helpfully into her mother tongue.
‘Sorry?’
‘Forgive me – I just thought you looked worried.’
‘I am rather.’ Lucy wanted to confide, to reach out for the woman’s sympathy. ‘Tim went out over an hour ago. He said he’d be back well before now.’ To her annoyance, Lucy found her voice was trembling. ‘Typical man! No sense of time!’
‘I saw him pass the window. As he set off,’ she added quickly.
‘You didn’t see him again?’ Lucy asked foolishly.
‘No.’
‘What direction was he taking?’
‘Pavilly.’
‘The château?’
‘It’s not far.’
‘Perhaps he went in,’ said Lucy hopefully, ‘to have a look. You know – for old times’ sake.’
‘It’s boarded up.’
‘The château’s deserted?’
‘It was burnt down just after the war. Most of it, anyway.’ Monique Dedoir’s face was inscrutable. ‘The caretaker lives in the lodge.’
‘The Germans?’
‘The French.’ She gave Lucy an ironic smile. ‘It was before we came here.’
‘An act of vandalism?’
‘I don’t think so. There was some trouble.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Some young Frenchmen were accused of collaborating with the Germans. They were executed by local people.’
‘I see.’ Lucy was nonplussed. ‘That was rather barbaric, wasn’t it?’
‘So was the Occupation.’ Monique sounded slightly impatient. Was she implying that no Englishwoman would be able to understand? Lucy had to admit that she was probably right.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You all had a terrible time.’ Fatally, Lucy knew she was giving the wrong impression and being patronizing.
Monique shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. We were in Chicago at the time.’ She paused. ‘I must congratulate you on your French. It’s good.’
Lucy hardly heard, glancing down at her watch yet again. ‘Could Tim have got lost?’
‘He might have done if he decided to come back a different way. Those small roads are confusing – even if he has been here before. There’s not a lot of variety in the landscape. That’s one of Navise’s problems. I expect you’ve noticed.’ Monique Dedoir paused. ‘I tell you what – if he’s not back in the next ten minutes, my husband will get the car out. I’d do it myself but I don’t drive.’
‘I can’t put you to all that trouble,’ Lucy protested.
‘It’s no trouble. He likes to drive and his assistant chef comes in tonight from Vernise. There’s no problem.’ Monique opened the door. ‘Give it ten minutes.’
The time crawled by, the fear inside her mounting. I should be reasonable. Logical. Practical. Less hysterical, thought Lucy. But I’m away from home for the first time since the war. I’m in a foreign place. And I’ve lost my father and now my husband. She wanted to cry again but this time like a young child. The sense of sanctuary, of the grey square and the simple room, had been replaced by alienation.
There was another knock on the door, but it was much more purposeful this time.
‘Tim?7 she cried out.
But when the door opened it was Monique Dedoir again.
‘What is it?’
‘A call. A telephone call.’
‘From Tim?’ asked Lucy wildly. Of course he must have got lost and was phoning her, feeling a fool.
‘I am sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
They looked at each other helplessly.
‘It is not your husband,’ said Monique Dedoir unhappily.
‘Who is it then?’
‘A Monsieur Latimer.’
Her heart pounding, feeling slightly sick and very bewildered, Lucy followed Monique back to the foyer and the telephone which was on the reception desk.
She picked up the receiver and almost dropped it in her agitation. ‘Hello?’
‘Lucy?’ The voice was jovial and jokingly familiar.
‘Is that you, Martin?’ She was incredulous.
‘Thought I’d give you a buzz.’
‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘Tim gave me the number.’
‘What?’
‘Before he went off. I say – is everything OK?’
How would Tim have known the number, wondered Lucy in bewilderment. He’d never been back. Why should he have given the number to Martin without telling her?
‘Hello?’ He was shouting now.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘I’m fine. Just waiting for Tim. Where are you?’
‘Where else?’ he chortled. ‘Good old England.’
Safe old England, she thought. ‘Your voice sounds awfully near.’
‘It’s the system. They’re getting it better all the time. Except that on my end you sound faint and crackly. Where is the old devil? Chatting up the local crumpet?’
‘He thought he’d take a stroll.’
‘And why not? You know I don’t want to interrupt anything but I’ve got a confession to make.’ Martin was still exasperatingly jovial.
‘A confession?’
‘We all got a bit heavy handed about this trip, didn’t we?’
Lucy tried to sound more confident. ‘We’re having a wonderful time.’ She paused, still wondering why Tim had given Martin the number. ‘Have they found the murderer yet?’ she asked suddenly, trying to make conversation. Where are you, Tim? Would he come through the door while she was on the phone? Lucy gazed out on to the square but saw only the dog with a cut on its paw rooting in the gutter.
‘Who?’ Martin was saying.
‘The murderer. Baverstock’s,’ she replied automatically.
‘Oh, that sordid business. I’d completely put it out of my mind. He came from Hersham, didn’t he? Probably got done in by a chap from one of those council estates. Now I mustn’t hold you up any longer. Where are you dining?’
‘At the hotel.’
‘You mean –’
‘Des Arbres.’
‘Has he told you we took shelter there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even in those days – under those conditions – the grub was good. Have lots of wine and relax. I won’t phone again. Wouldn’t want to spoil a second honeymoon.’ Martin rang off, booming with laughter.
Lucy knew she was still under surveillance.
‘Everything all right, madame?’ Louis Dedoir asked in French. He was standing in the shadows of the corridor, dressed in a dark suit and a bow tie. Lucy wondered if he served the food in his own restaurant.
‘An old friend,’ she muttered.
‘Has your husband returned?’ Dedoir asked gently.
‘No, monsieur.’ She was trying to conceal the fact that she was shaking.
‘Let’s go and find him,’ he said, detecting her anxiety without being intrusive. Suddenly he seemed immensely reassuring. ‘Why do you not call me Louis? It would be more comfortable.’
The road was narrow and thickly hedged. Distant hills were on the horizon but Lucy couldn’t see fields or even farms. Occasionally a chimney loomed up and once a flinty track to a yard in which chickens scratched in front of a barn. Although she knew how near they were to towns like Honfleur, Lucy felt threatened by t
his remote and shut-off countryside that seemed so much more claustrophobic than England.
Yet now she was with Louis, some of her panic had dispersed. Obviously Tim had lost his way and must still be on one of these endless roads that seemed to go nowhere.
A flight of birds wheeled up above them and a couple of pheasants emerged from a copse. Louis blasted the horn of his battered Citroen and they scurried towards a dense hedgerow, somehow managing to squeeze through.
Louis sat squarely behind the wheel, his large hands relaxed and protective. He was such a strong bull of a man. He would find Tim for her. Nothing untoward could happen with Louis around, Lucy told herself. He represented order, predictability, the solid march of time. Soon he would be serving Tim and her a delicious dinner in his dark suit, complaining about Navise and its parochiality, the lack of guests and the likely difficulties of selling the hotel. She and Tim would half listen and then go to bed, sleeping heavily after the wine and the rich meal, to wake in each other’s arms.
Martin’s call, although initially irritating, had been reassuring as well. Fancy him climbing down like that, she thought. A twinge of irritation remained and Lucy wondered yet again why Tim had given him the hotel number without telling her. She would have to challenge him about that. Maybe in their cabalistic way Martin and Peter had forced him to comply. ‘Keep in touch, old boy,’ she could hear them saying in chorus. ‘Give us the hotel number – just in case.’ In case of what?
The large black battered Citroen smelt of old leather and Gauloise as it nosed through the silent roads, until the hedges gave way to a stone wall that was half-strangled with ivy.
‘The Château Pavilly.’ Louis slowed down. He sighed. ‘A disaster – a fine building destroyed by idiots.’
The Citroën crawled round to a gap in the wall that had been filled in with galvanized iron sheeting. A little further on there were gates and a small lodge with a vegetable garden.
‘The caretaker, Solange Eclave, lives there. The family still pay her to keep an eye on the ruins.’ Louis gave an angry shrug. ‘The inhabitants of these parts are atavistic. They’d destroy their own if they felt strangers had been near them. They’re like dogs, staking out their territory. We made a big mistake buying the hotel. We were both fools.’
‘I gather you don’t like Navise.’ She tried to be arch but he didn’t understand.
‘It’s not Navise. It’s the peasants who live here.’ Then, realizing he might seem too vehement, Louis resorted to polite conversation. ‘There are long-term plans to rebuild Pavilly.’ He paused. ‘Do you think your husband knew Madame Eclave? She was here during the war. Could he have gone to call on her?’
‘Perhaps,’ Lucy said hopefully. ‘They might have got talking and not noticed the time.’
‘It’s a possibility. They would have a lot to talk about.’ Then he continued hurriedly, as if the comment required an immediate explanation. ‘Madame Eclave’s husband and two other men were executed by local people during the war. They were said to have collaborated with the Nazis. The Eclaves’ farm is abandoned now, and Solange lives in the lodge. I’ll go and ask her if she’s seen your husband.’
‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked.
‘Please do. I wouldn’t worry. There’s a perfectly normal explanation for all this. I’m sure of that.’
Lucy nodded, still reassured, gathering confidence all the time.
The gravel on the drive that led up to the gates of the château was overgrown with grass and weeds, but some attempt had been made to keep the path to the lodge clear. The squat one-storey building had small windows and green shutters, and the place had a run-down look to it like the square in Navise. Paint was flaking and the stone walls were stained.
Louis went up to the front door and Lucy followed. He knocked loudly. There was silence and then he knocked again. Still no reply.
‘If this is the way your husband came he can’t have got far. No doubt, like us, he found Solange was out and has taken the other road back. I’m sure we’ll catch up with him.’
‘It’s very good of you to go to all this trouble,’ said Lucy, getting back into the dusty heat of the Citroën.
Louis didn’t reply, and as the car moved down the lane she asked curiously, ‘What does Solange do exactly – as caretaker to a ruin?’
‘The family have employed an archivist to sift through what’s left of the Pavilly documents, to try and rebuild the château on paper before plans are drawn up for the restoration. Solange helps in this task. I rather like her but, because of her husband, she’s very isolated. In fact she has become – quite ill. It’s a tragedy but Monique and I don’t know all the details. Navise looks inward. We are still outsiders.’ The Citroën turned an almost full circle and then headed down a narrow road. ‘Solange comes over to us for an occasional game of cards.’ Louis paused and then gripped the wheel harder. ‘She stayed on as caretaker on behalf of the family, and the German high command never requisitioned the château. I know she worked hard to put them off. The place is everything to her – or was. Something she aspired to. Anyway, her husband Claude spoilt all that by recruiting some local girls to have – relations with German soldiers. Of course it’s difficult to tell what collaboration really is. Is it sitting passively doing nothing while your country is occupied by the enemy? Is it obeying Nazi orders? Working with them as a bureaucrat? But the locals say Claude would do anything for money. He’d have sent his own mother to Dachau for a few francs.’ Louis paused again, clearly wondering if he had said too much or appeared too prejudiced.
Lucy, however, had only barely taken in what he had said. Why couldn’t he drive faster? Why couldn’t they find Tim?
‘That’s all I really know. Solange never discusses her husband’s death or the local animosity.’
‘You say she’s ill?’ asked Lucy.
‘Nothing physical. It’s all to do with her mind. Something went wrong. But the family doesn’t seem to be aware of her problems and believe she’s doing an excellent job for them. I’m sure she is.’
‘They overlooked her husband’s activities then?’
‘A good reliable honest caretaker can make anyone overlook anything,’ Louis replied. ‘They’re very hard to find. Of course the irony is the local people burnt the château down because they thought Solange had been up to the same tricks as Claude.’ He sighed and began to drive slightly faster. Lucy was relieved, scanning the dense hedgerows for a sighting of Tim. ‘Nevertheless, the Goutins still kept her on. They rely on Solange a great deal.’
Louis steered the Citroën down a narrow lane which had become a tunnel of trees. On either side the banks were torn by great sinewy roots. Very little light was able to penetrate, and moss, lichen and sallow toadstools grew amongst the spreading tentacles.
‘Is this the only way back?’
‘Unless he went across the fields. But there are no footpaths.’ Louis was driving slowly again now, gazing around him, as if Tim might be concealed somewhere amongst the roots. A rabbit ran across their path and narrowly avoided being mashed to a pulp under the Citroën’s wheels. ‘The law of trespass,’ said Louis, ‘is very important here. Territorial rights are sacred. That’s why the Occupation was such a terrible imposition.’
‘You’re sure there’s no other way back?’ said Lucy, ignoring his digression, her agitation mounting.
‘Yes.’
‘How far is Navise from here?’
‘A mile or so.’ He seemed less reassuring now and she had the odd feeling that Louis had shrunk in bulk and was sitting less solidly behind the wheel.
‘I expect your husband will have returned by now,’ he said with a self-conscious laugh.
‘No doubt,’ she replied woodenly.
But when they got back, Tim wasn’t there. He had now been missing for more than two hours and the Hôtel des Arbres had all the aura of a jail with Lucy a prisoner on parole. Now she was back to face her warders.
Monique Dedoir was in the foyer,
exuding a calm common sense which Lucy couldn’t share.
‘He must be in the vicinity. You have explored all possible routes?’ Monique eyed Louis critically, as if she suspected him of not being sufficiently conscientious.
‘Unless he went beyond the château,’ he began guiltily.
‘You didn’t check?’
‘I’ll go back and see.’
‘You can’t go out again,’ Lucy protested, but knew she wanted him to. She was still trying to convince herself that there was some simple explanation, but failed completely, renewed panic surging at being back at the shabby hotel without Tim.
Louis Dedoir hurried out of the foyer, back to the Citroën parked in the sun-soaked square outside, no doubt anxious to get away from the accusation of a duty not done.
‘I’ll go up to my – our – room,’ said Lucy. She had the unsettling sensation that this woman knew what she was thinking and was putting her down as a panicky fool.
‘I wouldn’t,’ she replied briskly. ‘Come and have an aperitif with me. I’m sure Louis will find your husband and there will be a perfectly ordinary explanation. This is all just a muddle. Please call me Monique.’
What kind of muddle, wondered Lucy as she followed her through a door at the back of the reception desk and into a small, neat office that, like their room, had a view of the garden.
‘Please sit down.’ She went over to a cabinet and produced a bottle of St Raphaë. ‘This is good. You’ll join me?’
Lucy nodded, apprehension tightening her stomach.
As Monique poured the aperitif into two glasses, she asked, ‘Do you have children, madame?’
‘No. We haven’t started a family yet.’ The words rushed out too defensively.
‘Ours are grown up. Henri is a lawyer in Lille and Sylvain is at university in Montpelier, reading architecture. No grandchildren. Not yet.’ Monique smiled her spare smile. ‘Was your husband a well man?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Or do you consider me interfering?’
Lucy didn’t. It would be a relief to talk about Tim.
‘He had this breakdown after the war.’
The Men Page 8
