‘Well — what did you make of the Inspector?’ Joe asked affably when they settled once again in the car.
‘I liked him,’ she said. ‘Good-looking and he has lovely teeth. I wasn’t happy to see you making such a fool of him. Are you always as devious as this?’
‘What on earth can you mean?’
‘Stop it, Joe! Come off it! I’ve a jolly good mind to tell Aunt Lydia that you’ve set me up as some sort of apprentice Mata Hari. She won’t be pleased! “The child doesn’t speak French” indeed! How could you know he was going to make a phone call the minute you had your back turned?’
‘Did he? Well, I never! I wonder who he rang with such urgency?’
‘Two calls actually. You were gone a very long time. The first was to a superior, judging by his respectful tone.’ Her face lit with mischief. ‘He was passing on his first impressions of the English policeman. I understood most of it. . dur à cuire. . would that be flattering? He warned whoever it was at the end of the wire that he should not consider attempting bribery. He judged you unsusceptible to that sort of thing. I was longing to tell him you’re really about as straight as a corkscrew! But, dumbly, I just had to listen to this ill-informed judgement. The second was to the doctor at the mental hospital confirming the appointment and asking him to spruce up the patient and make him look as attractive a proposition as he could.’
‘Spruce him up? Huh! They seem to think I’m going to sign a form or two, pop this man into the back seat and drive him straight back home to Blighty.’
‘Yes, I think so. And if that’s what’s going to happen, you might as well put in for the bribe, don’t you think? I couldn’t hear the doctor’s response but he didn’t seem to like the suggestion. The Inspector was getting exasperated with him.’
‘Always useful to know these things. Look, I think before we check into the hotel, I’ll buy you a hot chocolate. Or a lemonade? Both? There’s a chocolatier over there. And we can pore over the maps and work out my best route to the hospital. I imagine you’d rather stay behind and have a rest? I’ll tell the receptionist to watch out for you and send you up some dinner. I’m sure that’ll be all right.’
‘Joe?’
‘Absolutely not! A mental institution is no place for a young girl. Don’t even think of it!’
‘Not in the least, Commander! Don’t concern yourself. It is nothing but a delight to welcome such a fresh young presence inside these drab walls. Better than a bunch of flowers!’ The director twinkled gallantly at Dorcas and hurried to draw up a chair for her. ‘And may I assure the young lady that she will witness no scenes of a distressing nature during your visit?’
From the reports, Joe had pictured a dour, earnest and competent clinician in a long white coat. He was surprised and intrigued by the figure who had come himself to the main door of the hospital to greet them. Impeccably dressed in a grey suit and formal stiff collar, Patrice Varimont was short and bustling, radiating energy and good humour. His dark hair was parted precisely in the centre and controlled by a touch of pomade, his cravat was pinned down by a discreet regimental tie-pin. Joe noticed that all the workers they passed on their way up to his office, medical and civilian, quickened their pace on catching sight of him and murmured a respectful salute before hurrying on.
Varimont settled behind the desk in his well-ordered room, rearranged a neat pile of folders and smoothed down one side of his trim moustache and then the other. He glanced at a wall clock. ‘Five o’clock! Perfect timing! We ’ll have English tea.’ And, without a signal given, the door opened to admit an orderly carrying a tray. ‘One more cup please, Eugène.’
Eugène nodded and went off at the double to fetch it.
When the doctor was happy with the parade of crockery and the timing of the brew, he invited Dorcas to officiate and, while she busied herself happily with this familiar task, he launched at once into the case.
‘Before I take you to see the patient, a briefing, I think? Tell me, to save our time, what you already know of our poor unfortunate.’
Joe outlined his knowledge, rather underplaying the extent of it and claiming no acquaintance with the medical aspects of shell-shock. ‘I am here, sir,’ he summarized, ‘to explore the implications of your recent revelations regarding the man’s country of origin. To try to answer the question, “Is he English?” No more than that. If he proves to be such, arrangements will be made to convey him to a suitable establishment over the Channel and the onus will then be on the English authorities to assign an identity. Tell me — apart from the language used during the nightmare — are there any other indications that he may be something other than French? Many races took part in the war.’
‘None that I can discover.’ The doctor stirred uneasily. ‘Look — he’s not a new arrival, you understand. This is not the first hospital he has fetched up at since repatriation. We are just the first ones to interest ourselves in identifying and solving his problems. He has been passed along, shedding, doubtless, any information. . clues. . clothing. . at each move. I’ve attempted to back-track but it’s hopeless. I’ve got as far as an asylum in the Ardennes in 1922. Records start there. It’s thought he was a late repatriation from Germany. They merely record him as a French soldier sent back without papers or identity. He was wearing the usual German-issue undergarments with a threadbare French army greatcoat on top. No insignia on it and, of course, it may not even have been his. The only clue — and it may be misleading — was a piece of card with German lettering on it spelling out the name “Reims”. That one word was the instigation for the original local search. Though you are aware that the net has been spread wider thanks to the publicity afforded by the national newspapers. The man is aphasic. Mute. Until the nightmare no one had ever heard his voice. A typical symptom of war neurosis.
‘It’s a sorry case, Commander, but, as I would guess you know from experience — ’ he glanced briefly at Joe’s head wound — ‘not at all unusual.’ After the slightest pause he said confidentially, ‘Can’t help noticing that your surgery was not done by the hands of an expert. Hope you don’t mind my mentioning it. If you would like to have someone unpick that, um, attempt and try again I can put you in touch with a friend in Paris who would rise to the challenge.’
Joe smiled his thanks.
The doctor pressed on. ‘Three hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen, Commander, were declared missing in combat during the four years of war. Blown to bits, vaporized, buried under tons of earth, some just wandered off quietly perhaps. Leaving behind in limbo countless grieving relatives. And these late releases from prisoner-of-war camps have cruelly led their waiting families to nurse a false hope that one day their loved one will be restored to them. People whose dear ones disappear find it genuinely impossible to believe that they will not come marching through the door at any minute. So much grief, so much yearning, and never an end to it.’
‘You touched a nerve, I think, with your appeal to the public?’
Varimont sighed and raised eyebrows to the ceiling. ‘Opened up a hornets’ nest might be more apt,’ he said. ‘Can I say I regret taking such action, I wonder?’
‘Not if you find this poor man a loving home, monsieur,’ said Dorcas. ‘If you can do that, it surely will have been worth the effort. I think it’s a noble and worthwhile thing that you are doing.’
Varimont was startled by the interruption but charmed by the sentiment. Joe was surprised too, by the ease with which Dorcas had spoken in perfectly acceptable French.
‘Mademoiselle has a slight accent of the Midi, I detect?’ said Varimont.
‘My mother is from the south, monsieur. My father is English but we always spend our summers in Provence,’ Dorcas explained.
‘The nightmare,’ Joe picked up hurriedly. ‘Has it been repeated?’
‘Yes. Once more. After the first explosion I did wonder whether to administer a barbiturate. Calm him down. But my second thought was to let it flow on and camp outside his door to catch any recurrence
from the start.’
‘And did our man have anything further to add?’
‘Look here — we could go on calling him “our man. . this poor chap”, we could even refer to him as G27 which is the number on his door, or we could call him — as I do — Thibaud.’
‘Thibaud?’
‘One of the first Counts of Champage. Very popular name hereabouts. Also the name of my great-uncle whom he much resembles.’
‘Perfect,’ said Joe. ‘Tell me what Thibaud had to say for himself.’
‘The same short scenario played and replayed. I was able to write down the words — excuse the spelling!’ He inclined his head to Dorcas, drawing her into the discussion. ‘We do not all have a facility for languages.’ He handed over a sheet from his folder and continued to talk as Joe read it.
‘His dream was accompanied by actions as well as words. He sat up on his bed with a shout of alarm then leapt up and strode about the room, gesticulating madly, quarrelling you’d say, with someone he could see very clearly but who was invisible to me, watching from the door. Then he sank to his knees and screamed out in English: “For God’s sake, man! Don’t do this! Forgive me! Forgive me!” The effect was very disturbing — very. . theatrical. Does what I’ve written make sense?’
‘Certainly does,’ said Joe. ‘This is an Englishman begging for his life.’
‘With some success,’ said Dorcas thoughtfully, ‘as he’s still with us.’
Varimont was silent for a moment then said hesitantly, ‘Yes, you’d say so. Begging for his life. But, Commander, the odd thing is that his subsequent actions belied the words. He pleaded for mercy with those words, in perfect English as far as I am any judge, but then he acted out a quite extraordinary scene.’
The doctor got to his feet and moved to the centre of the room. The short, fastidious, suited figure should have produced the comical effect of a Charlie Chaplin movie as he launched into his mime but Joe and Dorcas watched in growing horror as the meaning of his gestures became clear.
Eyes rolling in a pantomime of rage, Varimont lifted his right foot and kicked out viciously at something (or someone) unseen three feet above the ground. With a snarl, he reached across his body and drew a sword from its scabbard with his right hand, then, holding it up in front of his face with a two-handed grip on the hilt in a hideous semblance of a priestly gesture, he plunged it downwards again and again.
Chapter Six
As they made their way along darkening corridors, following the fast-moving figure of the doctor, Joe was aware of Dorcas scurrying along at his heels, staying much closer than she would normally have done. The architecture would have detained him in other circumstances, its massive Gothic arches and stone-flagged corridors demanding attention. An ancient monastic building of some sort, he would have guessed, which, by being incorporated at a later date into the structure of the town’s defences, seemed to have survived the bombardment. Though not entirely unscathed. Distantly, he heard the hammering and shouting of a building team at work on repairs and found he was reassured by the sounds of ordinary life going on in this disconcerting place.
Varimont turned a corner and walked down a narrower corridor, pausing finally in sepulchral gloom in front of a stout oak door. Before he could insert his key in the lock Joe commented: ‘Formidable defences. You must reassure me, Varimont, that your Thibaud presents no danger to visitors.’
‘Oh, none at all. These precautions are for his protection. Be reassured, Commander. . mademoiselle. When he is not suffering a nightmare, he is calm itself. He sits, sometimes stands, looking into an internal distance. He has a slight reaction to some of his visitors. Some he obviously likes and he expresses this by reaching out to touch their arm, very briefly. Do not be alarmed should he do this, mademoiselle. It is a sign perhaps of his returning humanity.’
‘What does he do if he takes a dislike to someone?’ Dorcas thought it prudent to ask.
‘Rather embarrassing, I’m afraid! He climbs into his bed, pulls the blanket over his head and goes to sleep. Come and meet him.’
The tall slender man was sitting on his bed, under the single window, hunched and quiet. Not presented in hospital pyjamas but duly ‘spruced up’, Joe thought, in a white shirt and pressed trousers. The late afternoon sun caught his head, lighting hair that must once have been blond but was now streaked with grey. He was facing away from them and made no response to their entry or Varimont’s cheerful bellow: ‘Hello there, Thibaud old chap! And how are you doing today? Look here — I’ve brought you some visitors.’
There were chairs in the sparsely furnished room but they didn’t sit. There were brightly coloured posters on the grey walls but the visitors paid no more attention to the scenes of the Châteaux of the Loire than did the occupant of the room. They trooped in and stood awkwardly in front of the patient in a line watching him. Joe had once had to escort a terrified young lady from the cinema, passing in front of a row of people absorbed by the last reel of The Phantom of the Opera. Their faces had shown much the same expression as the one he was now studying with attention. The man’s focus was elsewhere and someone passing through his field of vision was a momentary annoyance, no more. The doctor chattered on, behaving as though his patient perfectly understood him. In the middle of a sentence and out of joint with the doctor’s speech, the man suddenly reached out and stroked his arm twice. At once, Varimont responded with the same gesture. Treating this as the establishment of some kind of communication, he drew Joe forward and introduced him.
Thibaud stared through him, his startling blue eyes expressionless, and made no movement. He must at one time have been an exceptionally handsome man, Joe thought. Even the distortion of the jaw, the pallor and the thinness of the flesh could not quite quench an impression of nobility. Joe spoke a few hearty and meaningless sentences and then floundered, running into the quicksand of indifference. Picking up Joe’s hesitation, Varimont then introduced Dorcas.
To both men’s surprise, she stepped forward without hesitating to stand directly in front of him. She made no attempt to speak. She put out a hand and gently stroked his cheek in greeting. Then she reached into her pocket and produced a rose-pink biscuit, one of the biscuits they bake in Reims to nibble with their champagne, Joe noticed. She must have brought it with her from the cake shop, he thought, as there had been no such confection on offer in the director’s office.
They watched as she snapped it in two, releasing a seductive scent of vanilla and a cloud of icing-sugar, and, murmuring, offered half to Thibaud. Joe felt Varimont, standing close by him, tense as his patient turned his head slightly. He allowed her to open his hand and then close it again over the biscuit. Dorcas carefully moved his hand towards his mouth and he began to eat. Having swallowed the first half, he opened his hand and stretched it out. Dorcas gave him the second half and he crunched his way through that too, to her evident satisfaction. When he’d finished, she tenderly whisked a crumb from his chin, crooning to him in a language Joe had not heard before.
And then Joe heard the doctor gasp in surprise. Thibaud turned to her and looked at her as though he saw her at last and he smiled. A smile of utter sweetness and childlike pleasure. And, swallowing his emotion, Joe acknowledged that of the many smiles that would be directed at Dorcas in the coming years, this was the one above all she would remember. A hand came out again, hesitantly, and reached for her shiny black head. He stroked her hair gently twice.
Standing once again outside Thibaud’s room, Joe detained the director before he could lock the door. ‘A moment, sir. That was all very interesting and involving but in no way does our encounter begin to address the problem of your patient’s nationality. I wonder, would you permit me. .?’
He outlined his plan and the director nodded in agreement. ‘Can’t do any harm and may tell us something. Carry on, Commander.’
Joe opened the door again and checked that the man had, as expected, settled back into his slumped posture, sideways on the bed, face turned a
way from the door.
In a loud and convincing rendering of an English sergeant major’s voice, he barked out an order.
‘Atte-e-e-nSHUN! On your feet, laddie! Stand by your bed!’ More parade ground commands followed and each was received blankly, with not the slightest twitch of a muscle. Joe went to stand directly in front of him and snapped off a smart salute. ‘Reporting for duty, SIR!’ This time the voice was that of an officer. Impossible for a trained soldier of any rank not to offer the reciprocal salute.
Not one joint of one finger moved in response. Joe looked keenly at the man’s features, awake to the slightest shifting expression.
And, finally, Joe’s efforts were rewarded. At last the face began to twitch. His nostrils flared. His upper lip trembled. His mouth opened. Thibaud gave a wide yawn, collapsed on to his bed and pulled the blanket over his head.
Chapter Seven
Joe waited until he was navigating his course with certainty back across the city before he spoke to Dorcas.
‘So — the doctor’s efforts “will have been worth it” eh? And where, pray, did you learn to juggle the future perfect tense with such confidence, miss?’
He was aware that his question sounded ponderous but he was keen to hear her answer.
She left a silence just long enough to reprove him for his condescension. ‘Well, it could have been — if I’m allowed to use a conditional perfect without incurring disapproval — in the stables of the Vicomte de Montcalme last year. Indeed, I do remember now that it was.’
‘Oooh! Hoity-toity! If you’re going to talk to me like an offended duchess — or worse, her lady’s maid — I’m going to throw you out on to the cobbles right now. Are you going to elaborate on that throwaway remark?’
‘I don’t know where you get your information about me but you must have noticed that my father is a gentleman. He may well be a painter and an English eccentric but I can tell you that these qualities make him very acceptable to aristocratic or rich people who live in the south. He can paint in whatever daubist style is fashionable but what you may not know is that he’s a jolly good portrait painter in a traditional way. His productions are “lively and perceptive”, people say — and I’d add, more importantly, flattering. Last summer he was painting the Vicomte de Montcalme and I used to go along with him and play. . ride,’ she corrected herself hastily, ‘with the Vicomte’s children. Two sons and a daughter. The oldest boy, Félicien, was my special friend. He’ll be seventeen now. I’m quite good at copying accents, which is a help. Orlando’s been summoned back again to do an equestrian portrait of the Vicomtesse. I can’t wait to see them all again!’
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