Strange Images of Death Read online

  Not quite defenceless.

  The watcher smiled and looked to the west in the direction of the mighty Rhône. Distance, even from this vantage point, hid the gleaming towers of the fortress across the river from Avignon, but the image was easily and comfortingly conjured up: a white stronghold glowing against an ethereally blue sky, straight from the pages of a Book of Hours. And, farther yet, Tarascon, Les Baux, Carcassonne, Aigues Mortes. Defences against barbaric invasion.

  And here was another northern barbarian at the gate, preparing to cross over.

  There were more ways than one of defending a castle. The medieval architects had known their job. If you didn’t want to have your drawbridge hacked down, your walls pounded into rubble, foundations undermined, you could always discreetly leave the way open, invite entry … Once inside the courtyard and completely surrounded, a small army could be—and on several occasions here had been—massacred by concealed defenders.

  The watcher smiled. ‘Come in! Come in! Test the warmth of our welcome!’

  At last, the fastidious Englishman, apparently satisfied, had returned to his car.

  ‘Well, if a Hispano-Suiza and a heavily laden gypsy cart can survive the trip over, I think we can do it in a Morris,’ Joe announced. ‘It’s usually safe to take the road well-travelled.’ He turned to Dorcas and grabbed her by the shoulder. Excited by the mention of the gypsy cart, she was already halfway out of the car, bare legs and sandalled feet sliding over the running board.

  ‘Stop wriggling and listen!’ He spoke to her in the guardian’s voice he found he had developed over the past months. ‘Look, Dorcas … last chance to say this … I’ve learned a thing or two about assessing new diggings from billeting officers. Security, hygiene and comfort. That’s what you look for. In that order. Now, I think we can probably say of this handout—walls three yards thick: secure enough! From external assault at least. But the other two requirements? Do you suppose they have running water up here? Decent kitchens and proper ablutions? Flea-free mattresses? I won’t leave you behind in dubious conditions. Aunt Lydia would have my guts for garters!’

  Unusually, Dorcas did not pour scorn on his concern. She’d grown accustomed, he guessed, to the high level of cleanliness and comfort maintained in Surrey.

  ‘Whatever your confidence,’ he went on, ‘always plan for retreat! We learned that much at Mons. I checked with the landlord back in the village that they had rooms to spare at the inn—and the telephone.’

  ‘Ah! I thought you were taking your time in there.’

  ‘I was making myself known to Monsieur Ferro and charming his good lady. I pointed you out and sketched for them the rough outline of your situation. Motherless child … arty father … concerned but distracted uncle. I even displayed my warrant card and gave poor old Inspector Bonnefoye’s name as a referee … you can imagine. The upshot is that they’re prepared—and encouraged by a generous deposit!—to take you in at a moment’s notice. Should you want to bale out at any time, you can cut along there and present yourself. And ring me in Antibes. You have my number.’

  She didn’t argue but sat back in her seat and thanked him quietly. Then, suddenly alarmed, she clutched his arm. ‘Joe, you’re not going straight off, are you? I thought you’d perhaps stay for a day or two. Meet Orlando’s friends. You might find them interesting. Pablo might be here … He usually turns up … I know Henri Matisse is due to come up from Nice to put on a teaching session like the ones he used to give in Paris. There may be a poet … a dancer or two. You can carouse with Orlando till the small hours …’ Her voice trailed away as she realized that none of her offers was likely to be attractive to a man with his sights on the Riviera.

  ‘One night,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve brought my sleeping bag and if they can find me some hole or corner to bunk up in, I’ll stay for one night. Long enough to make certain I’m not leaving you in a nest of robber barons, Left Bank lounge lizards or Portuguese pimps. And time enough to inspect the kitchens.’

  This was not what Dorcas wanted to hear but her silence was witness to her acceptance of one further night’s protective police presence. A stab of uncertainty, Joe decided.

  He was seeing the child’s quite natural response to being catapulted back into her old life. She would soon acclimatize. By the end of the week, she’d be running around brown and barefoot, screeching at her father and herding the younger children, back to being the girl he remembered meeting in the spring.

  He patted the hand still clinging to his sleeve. ‘Don’t worry, Dorcas. You took the Château Houdart by storm—this one will be easier. The occupants will all be friendly and you’ll be back in the bosom of your family.’ Feeling no relaxation of her grip, he added: ‘I would never leave you in a bad situation, Dorcas. You know that.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said stoutly. ‘Promise.’

  She released his gear lever arm. ‘Sorry, Joe! Nerves. Go on then. Advance!’

  The motor car started up again.

  The watcher in the airy space above changed position to follow the progress of the car from the vantage point of a narrow slit which widened at the base. A slim hand reached out to touch the cool limestone that an ancient mason had gouged out and rounded to accommodate the barrel of a musket. A trigger finger slid along the groove angled and channelled precisely to aim at the centre of the grassed courtyard and paused, targeting in imagination, one of the dark heads below.

  Dorcas yelped with delight at the sight of the hooded gypsy cart parked in the centre of the courtyard as they passed through the narrow entrance. Joe eased over the cobbles and on to the grass to station his Morris alongside. The midday sun beating down on the open, treeless space was, in itself, a weapon deployed against invasion. The architecture surrounding them was so bristlingly military, Joe almost expected to hear the clang of the drawbridge descending behind them, the imperious challenge of a sentry, the rattle and swish of a sword being drawn. But no unfriendly sound reached his straining ears. The clang of a metal pail and the whinny of a horse came from some depth in the building, reassuring and domestic. No human greeting followed. He sat on, hands still clenched around the steering wheel.

  ‘Joe? Are you all right? What’s the matter?’

  He began automatically to make reassuring noises but she interrupted him. ‘Stop that! You’re making me nervous! Something’s wrong, isn’t it? You’ve gone quite pale, you can’t seem to let go of the wheel and your eyes are swivelling all over the place. Not a pretty sight! What have you seen? If I didn’t know what a thug you are, I’d say you were in a blue funk … Joe?’

  Joe made an effort to ease the constriction in his throat, released the wheel and shuddered. ‘Sorry, Dorcas! Feet of clay, I’m afraid. All those years of soldiering … if you survive them, you never lose it, you know … But you’re right. Blue funk it is! You’re the only person ever to have caught me in one—or, rather, recognized it for what it is: fear. Soldier’s best friend. Keeps you alive. It’s the icicle-between-the-shoulder-blades feeling of a gun barrel sighting on you … the normally steady foot that hesitates and changes course a split second before treading down on something nasty. An instinct for survival.’

  While he muttered on, his eyes were ranging round the tall curtain walls, taking in the dozens of windows and arrow slits from any one of which they could have been under surveillance. ‘Officers were the favourite targets for snipers in the war and easily distinguishable at a distance. Peaked caps, side arms. High casualty rate. Lucky to have survived. For a moment I had a distinct and familiar feeling that someone was drawing a bead on me. Ridiculous! Going a bit barmy? But, of course—when you think about it—I was reacting just as the military architect intended. Freezing like a trapped rabbit! All these defences are carefully worked out and we seem to have parked ourselves right in the centre of an ancient killing ground. The earth under our tyres is probably steeped in blood! I wouldn’t give much for the chances of any rough-tough army of medie
val routiers with pillage in mind making it through to the keep from here, would you?’

  ‘But you’re not going mad, Joe. There was something moving up there,’ Dorcas agreed slowly, staring upwards. He noticed that she didn’t point and looked quickly away. ‘I caught a flash of something white. Up there in that turret. North-eastern, would that be?’

  Her voice changed from calming to startled and she gasped as, with a clatter and whoosh of wings, a flock of birds soared into the air. They eddied and swirled and with one mind descended on a different turret roof. Dorcas exclaimed with pleasure and relief. ‘Well, you can come off watch now, Joe! But we weren’t wrong, were we? The lookout turret was occupied. By peaceful white doves!’

  Joe smiled. ‘Yes, doves,’ he agreed.

  ‘And by whoever disturbed them,’ he added silently. He kept the thought to himself. The suspicion that someone had been covertly observing their arrival was vaguely menacing and he wished he had not risked transmitting his fears to young Dorcas.

  He needed to take action. He needed to assert himself and shake off the menacing influence of his surroundings. He gave two peremptory peeps on the hooter and got out of the car.

  The response was shrieks and excited laughter. Half a dozen children appeared from a dark doorway and came tearing over the courtyard. Three of them, two boys and a small girl, hurled themselves at Dorcas, chattering in a mixture of French and English. The oldest boy Joe could just identify as her brother Peter who seemed to have grown over the summer to eye level with Dorcas.

  The boy released his sister from a hug and went to stand shyly in front of Joe. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he began his prepared speech, ‘for bringing her. We’re all just sitting down to lunch in the hall. Will you come? No, no! Leave the luggage. I’ll get someone to help with it later. Now, you’ll be wanting to wash your hands … But first …’

  Well, things were looking up, Joe thought, noting young Peter’s helpful manners. The lad was shooting up in size. Slim like his father and blessed with Orlando’s distinctive thick auburn hair and fine features, he promised to become a handsome young man. In response to a sergeant major’s glare from Peter, the others formed up in height order for presentation.

  ‘Dicky, my brother, and Rosie, my sister, I believe you know, sir. The other three are … um … children of the household. All French.’ Peter made the introductions in their language: ‘Monsieur, je vous présente: Clothilde, René, et le petit Marius … Mon oncle, Joseph.’

  Joe shook a series of sticky hands and murmured the appropriate formulae.

  As intrigued by the round-eyed French contingent as they were by him, he took the time to lean over and talk to each child in turn. He established that the fair-haired Clothilde, plump as a Fragonard cherub, was the daughter of one of the guests. She confided that she was seven and a half years old. The two boys, one eight and the other, le petit Marius, not quite certain of his age—or unwilling to confide it—were the sons of the cook. Joe rather thought, judging by the set of the jaw and the ugly glint in his eye, that Marius did not want it revealed that he was the youngest of this group and didn’t press him.

  But Joe quickly understood that he was not the star of the show. His questions answered, all eyes now slid past him, drawn by the glamour of a motor car. With a conspiratorial wink for Peter, Joe invited them to do what they had clearly been dying to do since they came into the courtyard. He lifted them all into the car and Peter organized a rota for sitting in the driver’s seat and honking the horn. Distracted by the giggles and squabbles, Joe took some time to realize that Orlando had appeared and propped himself in the doorway, watching them with amused indulgence. He called out Dorcas’s name, held out his arms and she ran to him with a squeal of delight, hopping and chattering like a magpie.

  ‘Now—lunch!’ said Peter, remembering his lines. ‘We’ve got a rabbit stew … I hope you can eat rabbit, sir?’ he announced and led the way back to the hall.

  Dorcas stood aside and turned to Joe, allowing her father to greet his friend.

  Tall, handsome, stagily framed in the archway, Orlando stood ready with his easy smile. He was wearing his usual gear of corduroy trousers tied up at the waist with string and a rough cotton shirt dramatically smudged with paint. A red scarf of Provençal pattern was knotted negligently at his throat. All carefully worked out, Joe always suspected. A Punch cartoon could not have more clearly signalled: ‘bohemian artist at work’. But there was nothing studied about his welcome. The unmanly hug was rib-cracking in its enthusiasm.

  ‘Where the blazes have you been?’ Orlando wanted to know. ‘We were looking for you last week! In Champagne? But why? What kept you up there? Was it the local brew or were you intoxicated by your hostess? What was the name of the enchantress? Calypso? Circe? … Aline, eh? Well, come inside! Nothing fizzy to offer you, I’m afraid, but we do have a quite splendid red wine from the vineyard over the wall.’ He grinned. ‘And one or two seductive Sirens to divert the weary traveller.’

  ‘I say—I hope we haven’t fetched up here at an inconvenient time—’ Joe began.

  ‘No, not at all! This is really rather a good moment to drop anchor. We’re all in the refectory. You’ll find everyone at the table so you can get a look at the complete gallery. It’s the one occasion in the day when you’ll find them gathered together. Catch them between hangovers. And indiscretions. One or two stragglers yet to arrive but mostly they’re into their second helping of stew by now.’

  Joe’s eye automatically sought out Dorcas as everyone began to troop into the building, and he enjoyed the sight of her picking up her little sister Rosie for a cuddle and carrying her on her back into the dark interior. Joe hung about ushering the others ahead and was the last to leave the courtyard. He turned and spent some moments staring with a residual unease at the summit of the watch tower silhouetted against a blindingly blue sky. On impulse, he sketched an insolent bow in its direction and went inside.

  Chapter Three

  Joe entered the building with eyes still dazzled by his prolonged scanning of the midday sky and it was a second or two before he was aware of the figure coming towards him down the corridor. Dressed in black and moving on silent feet, the stranger made straight for him. Once within striking distance, the man grunted an exclamation and raised his hand, the chopping edge lined up on the centre of Joe’s face.

  Joe’s reaction was swift and instinctive. He seized the outstretched arm by the wrist and tugged the man forward, jerking him on to his swiftly extended right foot. The unknown crashed to the stone-flagged floor, falling to his knees with a scream of pain. A second scream rang out as Joe yanked his arm up behind his back.

  ‘What the hell? For Chrissakes, lemme go!’ protested an American voice.

  From the end of the corridor Orlando’s voice rang out, reinforcing the suggestion: ‘Joe! Let him up! Are you mad? What’s going on?’

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ Joe asked when Orlando joined them.

  ‘That’s Nathan! Nathan Jacoby. He’s staying with us. He was only coming to say hello.’

  ‘He has a strange way of introducing himself!’ Joe grunted, his anger blocking any embarrassment or regret. He hauled the spluttering American to his feet and addressed him in a tone of false bonhomie: ‘Look, mate, let me explain: if you come at a London copper down a dark corridor dressed like a lascar thug and stick a fist in his face, you must expect to be lifted out of your socks. In polite circles we put out a hand at waist level. Like this.’ Joe demonstrated. ‘How do you do, Mr Jacoby … I’m Joseph Sandilands … And I’m pleased to meet you,’ he added, remembering the American greeting.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I’ve been overjoyed to meet you— so far! But thanks for the advice. I’ll be sure to hail a British bobby from a safe distance in future … Like the width of the Atlantic. Shall we start over?’

  Orlando gave a nervous burst of laughter. ‘Nat, you twerp! You were doing that gesture again, I’ll bet! That affected business with your hands. You’
ll have to forgive him, Joe—he gets carried away. Nat’s one of those photographer chappies. He’s incapable of looking at any new face or vista without framing it.’ Orlando put up his hands, made a box shape and pretended to peer through it. ‘Like this.’

  ‘No, no, Orlando!’ the American said in exasperation. ‘You’re just not seeing what I’m seeing. You haven’t noticed it, have you? Perhaps you’re too accustomed to the sight of this man’s face?’

  ‘Ugly brute to meet for the first time in a dark corridor, I agree,’ said Orlando peering uncertainly at Joe. ‘And perhaps I should have said something.’ The American sighed. ‘Permit me, Sandilands?’ He carefully put up the edge of his hand again, centring on Joe’s nose, and turned it like a flap from side to side. ‘I caught sight of you lit up in the doorway. See that, Orlando? This side you’ve got light, this other darkness. We’ve got ourselves a Janus … a Lucifer in mid-fall … an Oxymoron of War … I’m assuming it is war we have to thank for this fascinating rearrangement of your physiognomy?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Nat! He’s just a bloke, you know,’ Orlando protested. ‘A bit battered but then so are thousands like him … nothing out of the ordinary for an Englishman of his age. You’ll pass a dozen in worse condition between the Ritz and Boodle’s.’

  The photographer raved on: ‘If I put a high wattage bulb over him, up here—’ an elegant hand indicated a spot to the right and above Joe’s head—‘you can imagine the drama! No—a daguerrotype! Old-fashioned perhaps and a pain in the neck to perform but this face is worth the bother. Nothing like them for portraits, you know.’

  ‘Do leave it for later, Nat!’ Orlando pleaded and turned to Joe. ‘He sees everything in black and white, don’t you know. Only to be expected when he spends the hours of daylight squinting through a viewfinder and the hours of darkness closeted away in some garde-robe developing the stuff. I reckon all those chemicals he uses are softening his brain.’ He grinned at the American, who grinned back cheerfully.