Full-Bodied Wine : A Vintage Murder

by Biddy Jenkinson

  Chapter 4

  Dear Millicent, I believe I have found a residence at last. It is in Çhankaya, just vacated by the Portuguese and not advertised yet. I brought the Countess to view it immediately. A policeman's booth, empty, stood outside, shielded from anything that might be happening in the house by an overgrown hedge. The agent opened the high gates with a flourish. Cats relaxing on the lid of the rubbish bin, jumped down and disappeared into the shrubbery. The front door screamed. It must be a little too tight in the frame to make wood screech against wood at the three-quarter open point.

  'It is the Devil's house. I adore it,' Colette said, clasping her hands in rapture as we stepped from the hall into the central area of the house.

  'It is cute, this diabolical decor, all black and gold,'

  We stood on shiny black marble tiles. The panelling of varnished wood shone golden in light from cleverly positioned fittings.

  'There are no windows to the outside at this level,' I said.

  'It is true, Denis. It is built in the style of a seraglio – windows above the eye-level of a man on a camel, you know – but look at the darling little courtyard.'

  The 'darling little courtyard' was quite little, wrapped around by the house and separated from it by sheets of grubby glass.

  'Look, Denis, a sparrow!'

  Of course there was a sparrow. There are sparrows everywhere in Ankara. Sparrows and pigeons, no other birds.

  'And there is the Devil himself,' she added in a stage whisper, pointing to an upper balcony where a male figure sat in solitary state.

  'That is the owner, Mr. Muftu, a most important business man,' said the housing agent.

  The living space took the form of two large curving balconies above us. The landlord was on the upper one. He hoisted himself from the chair and began his descent. The agent withdrew. Deprived of his melodramatic setting, Mr. Muftu was quite an ordinary man, weedy, dark, paunchy, flat-footed, in his fifties. I introduced Countess Colette by her proper, Ankara, title, Mrs. Walter Brown, wife of the Ambassador of Ireland. He told her what a wonderful property she was about to view.

  'Denis, we can fit our table here.'

  Lack of suitable dining room space has forced us to reject otherwise acceptable properties.

  'Why do they do it, Denis?' the Countess laments frequently. 'Where do I seat my guests before dinner if I put the table here and where do I put my table if I seat the guests here?'

  I have stopped explaining that the traditional Turkish style of entertaining differs from ours and that there is really no reason to expect to find, ready-made, in Ankara, a house suited to the needs of the Irish Government and the taste of a French Countess.

  'Why don't they build one?' the Countess wails.

  'Parties in Government are rarely sensible at the expense of their annual budget.'I looked around uneasily for windows. At first there did not seem to be any on that floor either; the only natural light came from the deep well of the courtyard. There was a sundial in it. It could probably register midday and an hour or so on either side of it. There was, in fact, one narrow window on this first-floor balcony. I had not observed it immediately since it was hidden by a Venetian blind. I opened the slats and looked out.

  'There is space behind the house,' the Countess announced, coming to peer out. 'In Ankara one finds a house and there is an apartment block in its pocket.'

  'It will be built on,' I cautioned.

  Mr. Muftu joined us at the narrow window.

  'No building. The lots behind this house and the next door house, belong to me.'

  'Trees....' said the Countess.

  The trees were weed trees, poplars that sprout wherever they can. It was a scrubby slope, crossed by dust paths. Ankara is set in a great bowl and there is no level ground.

  'Look, Denis, there is a goat out there.'

  The goat clinched it. The Countess's ancestors milked goats in the Petit Trianon. The goat looked up and waggled its beard. The afternoon sunlight lit its strange eyes. A woman, stout, elderly, veiled, in black appeared briefly towards the top of the slope and disappeared again, moving away from us.

  'A peasant woman, with my mother's approval, is allowed to graze her goats there,' said the landlord. 'She can be removed if the Ambassador wishes.'

  'What was she picking?' I asked.

  'Wild garlic. It has been eliminated from the area around the house.'

  'The city extruded itself over the countryside,' said the Countess, with a sigh. 'One must cherish what survives. Perhaps she will sell us chèvre.'

  The Countess stood at the rail around the balcony and began to look proprietorial. I joined her at the rail and tested it. It was quite secure.

  'Don't say so to the landlord, Denis, but I really think you have found our residence. Guests can sit on the ground level and mount the stairs to dine. I go to look at the bedrooms.'

  I leaned against the rail, looked down into the well of the house and suffered what I can only presume to be an attack of vertigo. I lost peripheral vision, began to sweat and feel weak. Then I saw the ghost. It was daylight outside. I do not believe in psychic phenomena. Yet my eyes penetrated the ground floor of the house. I saw dark, sparkling water and a figure in black with outstretched hands and feet, floating face downwards. I felt myself tumbling down into the black pit through a well of whirling golden railings. I can honestly say, Millicent, that not even during the most racking bouts of dysentery have I felt so ghastly.

  'My dear Denis, whatever is the matter with you? You look terrible.'

  The Countess laid her hand on my arm and broke the spell. I recovered sufficiently to leave the railing and ask if the bedroom space was to her liking.

  'Denis, it is a harem. The bedrooms are magnificent. Each has a large black marble bath and gilt fittings.'

  'Italian,' added the landlord.

  'In the bedrooms, Denis, all the windows are up high. It is an introverted house. Walter will feel like a Sultan.'

  Walter Brown masquerading as a Sultan is not easy to imagine. He is not given to flamboyance. How he persuaded Countess Colette to become Mrs. Brown is a mystery.

  'Could some of the windows be enlarged?' I asked, expecting immediate consent, tardy and reluctant execution.

  'Nothing can be changed,' said Mr. Muftu. 'The house was designed by my father. All things are in balance.'

  We returned to the balcony. I leaned over again and looked down. The ground floor gleamed golden. No sensation. No vertigo. No holograph of a black floating figure. I remembered the wild and wonderful tripe and garlic soup I had eaten for lunch, blamed my digestion for the hallucination, and resolved to take more wine, as a disinfectant, in future.

  'Is there a basement?' I asked.

  'There is a wonderful swimming pool in the basement. Madame will love it.'

  'Walter will put it to good use,' said the Countess.

  There were stairs to the basement from beside the kitchen. The agent switched on lights. The pool was large. There was no body in it. The tiles were black but, by a trick of light, the surface of the water was liquid gold. The Countess drew in her breath in a whistle of approval. The owner switched on more lights, illuminating a dated American-style, 'wet' bar with furniture around it.

  'Those stairs over there, where do they go?' I asked, pointing to a flight of steps on the other side of the pool.

  'Up to the garden and the kapici's, the janitor's, room. Underneath them is the gas heating and the laundry and over there is for storage.'

  The heating plant showed no signs of leakage.

  'The buanderie,' said the Countess peeking into the laundry. She shook the dust off a long black garment left hanging there.

  'Fundamentals! Just what I need.'

  She decided that the storage space could be a wine cellar.

  'We will put my wine here just as soon as you rescue it from Turkish Customs. It is not right that I should have to buy my own Château Fontenoy wine at an inflated price in Ankara.'

&n
bsp; 'Tell that to the Turks,' I murmured under my breath.

  I climbed the steps to the kapici's room which had been used by the Portuguese driver. There was a delicately drawn blue eye, with an ironical expression, on the door. Yesterday's newspaper was on the table.

  'You kept him on as watchman?'

  'No.'

  I unlocked the door into the garden and found myself close to the side-wall of the Italians' house. Poplars have grown up between the houses. Whatever they do to the foundations, they provide a pleasant screen.

  'No security on this side or at the back.'

  'There is always a guard outside.'

  'All that ironwork and gates in the front, and nothing at the back and sides....'

  'It is a secure area. All the residences are here. The Italian military attaché is next door.'

  'The Barbellinis are dear friends of mine,' said the Countess.

  Aside, to me, she added, 'He is a fascist and she is a neurotic.'

  'It would be a condition of our Department that the grounds are secure,' I told the landlord.

  'I would like Walter to see this one,' said the Countess, 'It has potential.'

  'I don't like it.'

  'Why on earth not, Denis, my child?'

  'The drains are bad.'

  She sniffed and said there was no smell.

  'The pool makes the whole place damp.'

  'Think how pleased Walter will be to be able to go round and round his own little pool every day, instead of having to share the hotel pool with sharks.'

  'The rent exceeds our budget.'

  'Mr. Muftu will reduce it.'

  'We haven't seen the kitchen.'

  'Let us examine the kitchen. Pierre will want to know all about it.'

  We trooped upstairs again.

  It was a perfunctory examination. Countess Colette never spends time in the kitchen. She has, in her château, a collection of family retainers of whom she speaks frequently and with such familiarity that I can only guess whether she is referring to family or servants. Among them is an excellent young cook, Pierre Dufié, son of an excellent old cook, Pierre Dufié. Young Pierre travels with the Countess and telephones his father for advice on professional matters. Other Irish Ambassador's wives, catering with the assistance of jobbing cooks, make snide remarks about the Countess. They might love her if she were either a penniless French aristocrat or a nouveau-rich American widow but the combination of aristocratic confidence and dollars is too much for their sensibilities. You will like her, Millicent. If you can see your way to giving in a little to her, initially, I am sure you will get along together quite well. Her first husband, the American, made his fortune in popcorn.

  'Jean-Luc will adore all this white marble,' she said, running her finger along the counter top.The sink was scarcely larger than a mixing bowl.

  'Why are the Portuguese giving up this house?' I asked the landlord.

  'His Excellency returned to Portugal. He had heart trouble.'

  It was said with such unease that I decided to ring Alberto, my opposite number in the Portuguese Embassy and find out why the house was not being retained for his successor. It occurs to me that some residual phenomena of an uncanny nature in the place might have triggered the Ambassador's heart attack. The idea appeals to me.

  Nobody likes to be the only one to have seen a ghost. I went back to the same place at the railing and looked down. I saw nothing, but depression swept through me.'Is there an echo here?' I asked the Countess.

  'Denis, you dismay me. Can you imagine poor Walter's after- dinner speeches in duplicate?'

  'Hello.'

  Not alone was there no echo, there was a surprising lack of resonance, given the absence of furniture, the hard surfaces. Her voice, normally high-pitched, fell, flat and dead, into the well.

  'Hello,' answered a voice from below. The landlord came in from the hall having gone down the back stairs.

  'It is only the Devil,' whispered the Countess.

  'We have several other properties to view,' I told him as we left.

  'It is a wonderful house, unique, designed by Mr. Muftu's father,' said the agent as he led us away.

  'The location is not ideal,' I said to the Countess. 'It will be said, with significance, that the Ambassador of Ireland lives beside the Italian Military Attaché.'

  Her chin came up and her eyes flashed. The owner of Château Fontenoy considers that she sets all standards herself. I returned to the office. The Countess rang me shortly afterwards to say that she had shown her cousin, M. d'Aubine, the house.

  'Félix approves,' she said. 'He saw it exactly as I did, though he thinks the cave too small.'

  'Did he, too, see it as "The Devil's House"?'

  'Naturally. Have you not noticed, Denis? Félix is Lucifer. He felt perfectly at home. When I was younger, I believed that he had invisible horns. Even now he can give me a frisson. It is time he married and became respectable. Middle-aged men should be solid, sensible and trustworthy, just like Walter – if only to be a foil to their wives.'

  I must have betrayed surprise because she laughed and said, 'Félix I adore, and don't trust. Walter I trust and mock.

  'But M. d'Aubine is your agent. How can you have an agent you don't trust?'

  'Félix is devoted to Château Fontenoy. In business matters I trust him absolutely.'

  I'd love to know, Millicent, what she means when she says she doesn't trust Félix and trusts Walter. Her talk of devils I find unsettling. She may be responding subconsciously to the unpleasantness I felt in the house.

  'M. d'Aubine cannot play Lucifer in the residence,' I told her. ' You have already nominated the landlord in the role.'

  'There are at least three devils in the Devil, Denis. Nature works in symmetries. The landlord can be Satan. We must find a third.'

  I changed the conversation by telling her that Customs would not release her wine since there is no precedent for importation of a foreign wine, by its own manufacturer, for personal use in Turkey. She told me what she thought of the delay.

  'I remember the name of the third devil,' she said, as she left. 'Beelzebub. Pierre will make a good Beelzebub. He is demonic when guests are late for dinner.'