Strange Images of Death djs-8 Read online

  ‘Quite right, young man!’ said the lord. ‘There are very few who remark on that. It’s been forgotten over the years. In the Middle Ages, all married ladies wore their hair under a coiffe. It was the mark of a virtuous wife. Which would lead one to wonder what on earth the lady Aliénore is doing lying on display with her golden hair spread all about her pillow, looking for all the world like a Venetian woman of easy virtue.’

  ‘It would seem a heartless sort of tribute to pay to your dead wife, sir,’ Joe commented since he seemed to be waiting for a response. ‘And double-edged, since any onlooker of the day would have known exactly how to interpret it. Her husband was, thereby, shaming himself into the bargain. And it was uncomfortable to have the horns of the cuckold pinned on you by public opinion in those days.’

  ‘The tomb would have been assembled here after his death. It’s my theory that he no longer cared about his own reputation in his determination to ruin hers for ever more,’ the lord suggested. ‘Perhaps he left the whole image behind as an awful warning. To future generations. Here’s the just reward for infidelity-an early death.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Jacquemin asked. ‘Is it known?’

  ‘Not for certain. It’s said she died in childbirth. Nothing unusual in that, many women of the time did. But her husband was a crusader. Here history deserts us and we must speculate. If he returned from two or three years’ absence in the Holy Land to find his wife in a delicate condition … Well, you can imagine. Neither she nor the child would have survived his wrath. And there would have been few to blame him. It was of paramount importance to keep the line of descent pure. A man could keep mistresses openly under his own roof and produce illegitimate children by the score but his wife had to be of proven virtue, her offspring undeniably those of her husband.’

  He shrugged with sudden impatience. ‘But this is very ancient history. What concerns me is the fate of this poor creature who has been persuaded? — inveigled? — forced? — into mocking the effigy of Aliénore and suffering her death. All over again … All over again,’ he muttered. ‘It never ends. Why would it? The poisoned chalice is constantly refilled and always overflowing. And always men are seduced by the gilded beauty of the container and swallow down the noxious contents with a smile of gratitude.’

  Silmont began to breathe raggedly. Fatigue and dejection seemed to be overcoming his determination to be of assistance. He bit his lips, fighting a shaft of pain. He ran his right hand through his sparse hair and patted his forehead with a handkerchief. But it was to the trembling left hand that Joe’s sharp eyes were drawn. The whole arm from shoulder to fingers was beginning to shake and Silmont made a clumsy attempt to push the offending hand into his pocket to keep it still. A palsy? Epilepsy? Or the warning sign of something more serious? He was showing all the symptoms of a heart condition.

  It was Jacquemin who offered release. Suddenly alarmed, he clicked into action. He suggested that he should accompany the lord over to the main body of the castle, make a few telephone calls to alert the police in Avignon and have the morgue arrange for the corpse to be collected for post-mortem examination. Following these procedures, he would check the armoury for the missing dagger. He would leave Joe and Martineau to replace the wooden skirting around the tomb and take a further look at the scene in case something had been missed … a fingerprint … a footprint in the dust …

  ‘Look, Jacquemin,’ said Joe apologetically, ‘I’m hardly prepared for this. In London, I always have my murder bag with me … gloves … fingerprint kit … I’m on holiday, halfway down south to the coast. I haven’t-’

  ‘Nor I! I’m halfway up north to Brittany,’ snapped Jacquemin, uneasy at being caught out. ‘Um … Martineau?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. I put one on the back seat. Never travel without, Commander. I think the contents will be familiar to you … we use graphite powder and camel hair-’

  Their professional murmurs were interrupted by an uncontrolled shriek.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’ screamed Silmont. ‘Fools! Numb-skulls!’ he raved. ‘While you’re all on your knees in the mouse-droppings, playing with your fingerprint dust, the man behind this goes about his business laughing at you! Can’t you see beyond the dots and the brushstrokes? Get the whole picture in focus? This trollop spent some hours here, befouling the last resting place of my ancestor-but in whose bed did she spend her last night alive?’

  He stood, shaking with rage, his charge of electric energy directed at Jacquemin.

  To Joe’s surprise, Jacquemin did not draw his gun or click his fingers for the handcuffs but returned a soft answer. ‘Sir, you are unwell. Is there someone you would like me to summon?’

  Silmont uttered a shout of mocking laughter. ‘Yes. There is someone you could well bestir yourself to get hold of. If it’s not too much trouble. My steward. Guy de Pacy.’

  When the lord and Jacquemin had left, Joe took the other end of the woodwork and asked conversationally: ‘Tell me, Martineau … when I came in, you mentioned that you had three victims but I think you also referred to two-was it two? — suspects?’

  Martineau laughed. ‘Oh, that was just a joke, sir, between me and the Commissaire. Didn’t realize he has no sense of humour. Though I should have known from the stories the other lads put about! Did you know, sir-no, why would you-that the Commissaire is said to have a scale model of a guillotine on his desk in his Paris office? A working model! He uses it to chop the ends off his cigars. Dramatically-in front of men he’s grilling for a capital offence.”

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Joe faintly. He ought not to be listening to gossip of this nature but relished the thought of passing on this snippet to Superintendent Cottingham when he got back. Ralph was strongly against the death penalty and would be reduced to splutters of indignation at the idea.

  ‘But I meant what I said-about the suspects, sir,’ Martineau went on. ‘We have two suspects right here in the chapel.’ He enjoyed Joe’s puzzlement for a moment then explained: ‘Suspects for a crime six hundred years old. The murder of Sir Hugues’s first wife. Ah-you didn’t know he had one? No tomb to her memory. No expensive Italian effigy. Name unknown. And-jointly charged in my book: Sir Hugues and his not so angelic wife Aliénore! You haven’t heard the story?’ The Commander’s receptive features invited the young Frenchman to delve deeper into folklore. ‘Oh, it’s a corker! Let me tell you …’

  The two men worked on together in complete harmony, their crime scene training meshing smoothly. At home, Joe would have insisted on an accompanying silence but here, in this sepulchral place, he found he was glad to hear Martineau’s tale enlivening the routine business.

  His story was drawing to a close and Joe was wondering just how much of the detail had been expanded or added by this natural storyteller when the door was flung open and Guy de Pacy stormed in. He left the door to crash shut behind him and strode to the tomb oblivious of Joe and Martineau who were on their knees logging footprints by the pile of debris.

  Joe looked up and, for the third time that morning, watched a man’s features working in acute distress at what he was seeing. But de Pacy did something in Estelle’s presence that the other two had not attempted. He reached out a hand to touch her cheek.

  Joe called out a warning, uncertain that the man was aware of their presence and at pains to avert for him the embarrassment of having someone witness emotion better concealed. ‘Guy! We’re over here! I say-would you mind awfully stepping back?’

  ‘Rule one in the scene of crime handbook, sir,’ explained Martineau, showing himself. ‘Don’t allow contamination of the corpse.’

  They both started at the thunder of his voice. ‘Contamination? Corpse?’ His words were infused with a deadly energy. ‘I’m not contaminating a corpse, you idiots! I’m saying farewell to a beautiful creature!’

  They stood by helpless, unable to prevent him from bending over the body and brushing the cold forehead with his lips. He murmured a few indistinct words, made the sign of th
e cross over her twice and then looked up at the policemen, his face twisted with grief.

  ‘I want him, Sandilands. I want his head; I want his guts. I want to see the light die in his eyes; I want to hear his last gasp. Find him!’

  He walked away.

  Reaching the door, he turned and called back over his shoulder: ‘And you could start your search with my cousin. The Lord Bloody Silmont!’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Did I say we had two suspects, sir?’ whispered Martineau. ‘Make that four, shall we? And two of ’em alive and kicking each other. Ouch! There goes another seriously disturbed gentleman. The steward, I think?’

  ‘Yes. Guy de Pacy. The lord’s cousin. You saw him in the kitchens attending to the child. Before he heard the news.’

  ‘Does bad temper run in the family? What an outburst!’

  ‘What was the phrase you served up to the lord earlier? The phrase he savoured? “An outpouring of pent-up hatred” or some such? That was an outpouring of emotion all right and it came from pretty deep but I wouldn’t say hatred had much to do with it, would you, Lieutenant?’

  Martineau shook his head in bafflement. ‘No, sir. And I’ll tell you what-he didn’t care that we saw it. That was quite a performance!’

  ‘Tell me, Lieutenant, have you ever seen a man make the sign of the cross twice over a body?’

  ‘Can’t say I have, sir. Once is usually sufficient.’

  The throb of a six-cylinder engine greeted them as they moved out into the courtyard an hour later. The Hispano-Suiza was on the move. The motor car was advancing on them, as white, as silent and as stately as a swan on a mere. Packed into the rear seat were the duenna and the ballerinas and, at the wheel, just recognizable in cap, sun goggles, driving gloves, duster coat and white scarf, was Petrovsky.

  ‘That man doesn’t leave!’ Joe snapped to Martineau and raced forward to stand, one hand raised, blocking his path to the drawbridge. The engine revved and the car gathered speed. Joe tried not to flinch as the car came inexorably on. As it surged towards him, his eyes were riveted by the aggressive emblem mounted on the bonnet. The Hispano’s silver stork was flying at him, long neck extended, ready to impale him on its lance-like beak. He was conscious of Martineau lining up by his side as the car screeched and juddered to a halt inches from their toecaps.

  Petrovsky chose to react in French: ‘What the hell are you up to? Testing out my power-assisted brakes? As you see, they’re damned efficient! Idiot! I could have killed you! Like to play this little scene again? I may succeed next time!’ he snarled.

  ‘Mr Toad, I presume? Good morning!’ Joe said, oozing English affability. ‘Mesdames!’ He switched into French and doffed an imaginary hat. ‘I must ask you to abandon whatever plans you have for the day and return to the great hall.’

  ‘Are you barmy? We were leaving this morning anyway. Appointment in Avignon. And if you think we’re going to stay on in this madhouse a moment longer, you’re way off beam!’ Petrovsky pushed up his goggles, the better to glower his disdain as he announced: ‘Now hear me, Sandilands! We’ve all been made aware by that moustachioed French fop in there of this night’s disastrous events. Events which you have signally failed to avert. As the Law seems to offer no protection, we must shift for ourselves. I have a duty of care to these ladies. I am not a man to expose them to the attentions of a murdering maniac. Now get out of my way!’

  Joe replied again in French to be sure he was being understood by driver and passengers. ‘Park your vehicle. Get out and escort your ladies back into the great hall.’

  ‘Not on your life! You’ve no authority to stop me! You’re not directing traffic in Piccadilly now, you know! This is France!’

  Without a word said, Martineau drew his gun and trained it on Petrovsky. He bellowed back, echoing exactly Joe’s words: ‘Park your vehicle. Get out and …’ And he added: ‘In the name of the French Republic on whose soil you find yourself.’

  ‘And you can bugger off, too,’ said Petrovsky with suicidal boldness, Joe thought. He could almost admire the Englishman. He would never himself have risked snarling down the barrel of a Lebel pistol held on him by the practised hand of a Marseille policeman. ‘I’m not French. You’ve no right to tell me what to do!’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ said Joe, turning to Martineau. ‘The gentleman seems to be suffering from a little ethnic and geographic confusion. Is he awaiting the attentions of a Russian officer of the law, do you suppose? We could be here some time. Perhaps I should explain in his own language?’ He addressed Petrovsky in formal copper’s English: ‘Spettisham Gregory Peters, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, subject of His Britannic Majesty, I am arresting you in English and French on behalf of the Metropolitan Police of London-’

  ‘And the Police Judiciaire of Marseille,’ Martineau inserted. ‘For the offence of resisting arrest and attempting to flee the scene of a crime in a suspicious manner,’ he added, enjoying his invention. He unhooked a pair of handcuffs from his belt and advanced on Petrovsky.

  The engine roared into life again, the noise covering a string of oaths in mixed Russian and English. But it was a last flourish. Petrovsky engaged reverse gear and the stork, robbed of its prey, flapped off backwards. Petrovsky stormed away in the direction of the great hall, leaving Martineau to reach inside and switch off the engine and Joe to extend a hand to the ladies.

  The Russian girls swore at him in Russian and hopped out, disdainfully ignoring his hand. The duenna caught Joe’s eye and began to shake with giggles. With the grace of a prima ballerina she rested her fingers on his hand and floated down from the motor car. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘How good it is to encounter a gentleman at last in this uncivilized place.’

  Joe was startled to hear that her accent was pure Provençal.

  It is difficult to fill a room with panic when that room is three storeys high and large enough to accommodate hundreds, but the twenty or so people assembled were doing their best. Some, mainly the men, were sitting around the table in noisy conference, banging fists on the boards to underline the points they were making, spluttering denials and accusations, arguing and demanding. The women seemed to have gathered into two or three small groups, seated on cushions they had carried over nearer to the central table. Predictably the loudest and most hysterical voice was that of Cecily. Joe sighed wearily to hear the ‘I told you all so … Well, if one will make oneself a target … Wouldn’t it just be Estelle who gets herself murdered? Silly girl! And who’s going to tell us the name of the next victim? He should allow the women to leave at once!’ Joe rather thought she was repeating this for his benefit.

  He looked about him, mentally calling the roll. He caught the sleeve of Mrs Tulliver, the lady sculptor, as she passed. ‘Gillian-where are the children?’

  ‘The French policeman sent them off into quarantine in the playroom and asked Jane Makepeace to stay with them. Have you heard? The Commissaire won’t let anyone leave until he’s made an arrest! We’re all to bring down blankets and sleep here in the hall tonight. Can you imagine? All mucking in together! Sweating and snoring! Ugh! He says airily that it’s no more than we would have done as a matter of course in the Middle Ages. It’s all right for him! He’s staying at the Hôtel de la Poste. But poor little Estelle-what a terrible, terrible thing. I, for one, shall sleep with my chisel under my pillow tonight.’

  As he turned away, she called after him. ‘Oh, Joe-the Frenchman’s looking for you. He’s set up shop in de Pacy’s office-just commandeered it! He said anyone sighting you was to send you straight along there.’

  Joe and Martineau presented themselves at the steward’s office to find two footmen had been ordered to stand, in a state of some puzzlement, on either side of the doorway. Joe raised his shoulders and spread his hands in a comic gesture and, encountering no opposition, knocked and entered. He found Jacquemin comfortably installed. The large central table had been cleared and held only a telephone and the contents of Jacquemin’s briefcase. Two chairs had be
en fetched and ranged on the side of the table facing the Commissaire.

  ‘Come in-sit down! You took your time. Progress report! Avignon aware. Pathologist and medical conveyance on way. Also small back-up squad of gendarmerie. They’re perfectly happy at the Préfecture to work with us and offer us access to their facilities. Fingerprinting, blood analysis and so on. They’re all tooled up for that sort of thing. As they get about ten times more state funding to work with than the Police Judiciaire-so they ought!’

  ‘The lord, sir?’ asked Martineau. ‘Is he …?’

  ‘Safely confined to his apartment. Valet in attendance counting out his pills and mopping his forehead. I took it upon myself to order up a nurse from Avignon. She’ll arrive with the squad. Now-anything more to report from the scene?’ His question was put to Martineau.

  ‘Prints, sir. On the tomb-we’ve marked the position on a sketch. Footprints likewise. In the dust near the remains of the statue. Oh-Monsieur de Pacy entered to pay his respects. We weren’t quick enough to stop him. He may have left prints.’

  ‘I’d expect to find that gentleman’s dabs everywhere about the place. He’s going to be the first to give me a sample. Now-got your kit, Lieutenant? We can get started on that lot out there. You print them and I’ll interview.’

  Jacquemin cleared his throat and turned his attention to Joe. ‘Which brings me to a consideration of your position in all this, Sandilands. Two thirds of the cast list appear to be English. I shall need some professional help with the interpretation.’

  It was reluctantly stated and his tone bordered on the ungracious. Joe’s reply was succinct: ‘I understand the circumstances and whatever linguistic, cultural or forensic skills I possess are, of course, available to the Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘Good. That’s settled then. I’ll see that you’re suitably deputized should it become necessary. And let’s not forget-’ his eyes became one degree less frosty-‘that technically we are both subordinate to the Lieutenant here.’