Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  As I walked towards his forge, the smell of singed bone filled my nose. Drifts of unmelted hailstones still lay trapped in corners and against stable doors, and with the wind dropping, a dense, yellowish miasma was gradually shutting out the surrounding gallops and wild landscape beyond.

  I shivered under my clothes, cursing I’d left my leather jacket indoors. Although damp, it was better than nothing. Then I sneezed. Not the best opener…

  “Hi there,” I said to the hot, flickering darkness. “That fall of yours looked nasty.”

  The black horse being re-shod turned my way, but his farrier was plainly ignoring me. He’d just finished trimming a hind foot with a nasty-looking knife before banging a molten iron shoe into shape on the anvil, sending up a spray of sparks.

  “Thought I’d see how you were. That’s all…”

  “Lève ton pied…” the boiler-suited guy addressed the horse. “S’il te plaît…”

  “Must be great to have a skill like this,” I persevered, using my Introduction to Quizzing technique from ‘The Box’ at HQ. A no-frills grilling room that usually got results. “Means you can work anywhere.”

  No reply.

  “Does Mathieu ever come and watch you?”

  At last. A shake of that unruly, gingery head. “Non. Too dangerous. I don’t want to lose my job over a kid.”

  “His sister says he can be stubborn. Do you find him the same?”

  “Monsieur, I barely knew the boy. To me, he was un petit étranger…”

  Was…

  Gilles Dugard looked up, and not for the first time since arriving in West Wales, did a coil of fear pass through my body. Something about those eyes. Alert and dangerous, told me not to push it. That there were other ways I could find out what I needed.

  I stifled a sneeze and made for outside.

  “Nice here, isn’t it? Not.” Laure stood next to me with a shovel and steaming bucket, watching her father lead the chestnut back into its quarters. Her ragged fringe dripping rainwater down her nose. “He’s fixed on running Vervain tomorrow. Would you, given the circumstances?”

  “That’s a tough one.”

  “Not to me it isn’t. What with my young brother gone off God knows where and Danny…” She then stared at me. “Papa’s unreal, Monsieur Lyon. You ought to know that.”

  “Look, the three of us - you, your father and me - need to talk, and soon.” I checked my watch while the bang and clang of iron continued from the nearby shed. “I’ve come in out of the blue, pecking around. I can’t help much until we do.”

  “Count me out. I’ve said everything I want to say to him.”

  As if he’d heard, Alain Deschamps who’d just secured the chestnut into his box, looked our way.

  “Could I speak to you to now?” I called out as Laure turned her back on him. Grief welling up in her eyes. “You did agree to it…”

  “Fuck him!” she snapped, meaning the man who’d just decided to ignore me and visit his farrier instead. She brushed away a tear. I reached for her arm. “Look, I’m here to listen…”

  But she moved off, quickening her pace until she reached the house. Here she abandoned her bucket and shovel, kicked off her Wellingtons and pushed open the front door. I noticed her thick, woollen socks were full of holes.

  “He drove Maman to it. Him and his whoring,” she went on. “And I’m expected to pretend everything’s OK. What’s more, she’s been appearing to Mathieu at night…” Her hands outlined the shape of a phantom. “But not me. No, never me…”

  Whoring…

  Quite a word for a daughter to use. In all my years of experience of ‘domestics’ and relationship breakdowns, I just couldn’t imagine it. Not Mr Detached with those cold, blue eyes. Then that strange blonde doll deep in Mathieu’s toy box came to mind. What might his sister say should she see it? But then, it may have even been hers in the first place. How the Hell could I begin to work anything out in this land of smoke and mirrors?

  The door crashed shut in my face, and as I stood there in the determined drizzle while that yellow mist descended, heard her sobbing like night waves rising and falling.

  Sherwood Forest all over again. And amid all the grief, I’d forgotten to ask about

  the godmother and the real colour of Christine Deschamps’ hair.

  7. Laure.

  Friday 11th March. 6.30 p.m.

  Papa had asked me to rustle up something for supper, but I wasn’t bloody Maman, was I? Happy to oblige his every whim even when her horrible prolapse had slowed her up. When she couldn’t give him anything else. Besides, with Mathieu and Danny still out there somewhere, I wasn’t in the mood.

  OK, so there was plenty of food in the big chest freezer where once the old vestry had been, but who’d eat it even if I had gone to all the trouble? The atmosphere here was toxic. Kevin who’d found no trace of Mathieu at Hafod Wen by the quarry, had taken his dog home. She’d been trapped in a barbed wire fence, waiting for him, and cut her back leg. He’d said he couldn’t ride Vervain properly with all this going on, so Papa, having threatened to cut his pay, shut himself away in his study, phoning round, trying to hire a replacement jockey for tomorrow.

  I could hear his voice like a demented woodpecker. ‘Losing his cool’’ as they say over here. A week ago, I’d also heard him lay out 5,000 francs for a win with Vervain. Now Mathieu and Danny had spoilt everything…

  So here I was with the limping ex-cop sitting at the kitchen table with a cold mug of coffee, poring over the only photograph album I’d been able to dig out containing actual human beings Meanwhile, Mathieu’s open sketchbook and his anorak were still in place. It was hard not to keep looking at them, but somewhere deep down, I knew he’d come back in time for supper. The only reason I’d be prepared to rustle something up. He was used to me giving him the odd slap or yelling at him. In fact, sometimes I’d wonder if that kind of attention was better than none. But not letting him ride out with me? I just hoped to whoever God was out there, that hadn’t been the cause of him going off.

  The stranger had chosen the photo of us all outside the Église Saint-Benoît in our village after Mathieu’s christening. Maman’s round face the only one in shadow. Her hair more grey than gold. I couldn’t bear to look, but the ex-cop was. Frowning at her.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “Nothing, really.” But his index finger rested on Maman’s hair before moving on. “And is this Danny Lennox?”

  “Yes.”

  In a smart, dark suit, he stood to the right of Maman with Papa to the left, looking down at Mathieu, smiling. Now John Lyon was pointing at the best dressed woman in the front row. Her trim figure in a tailored, grey suit and little pill-box hat was so different from her sister.

  “And this person?” He asked.

  “Tante Elisabeth. Why?”

  “The only one looking serious.”

  “That’s just her way. Although she’s quite the opposite to Maman, she’s still a great godmother. Really generous and seems to know what things we like.”

  I came over and leant over his shoulder. He smelt nice. I noticed too how his greying hair had been neatly trimmed above his checked shirt’s collar. How creases in the back of his neck lay in parallel lines. No wedding ring either, and if he’d not been so old and with that stick, I might have taken my chance. After all, apart from the vile Gilles who’d twice pushed his fingers between my legs, I’d had to content myself with watching the stallions’ summer matings either in the specially built double loose box or the screened off-paddock.

  Vȃche triste…

  “Your brother’s drawn your aunt riding in a rocket. ‘Marraine Rapide,’ he calls her. Why’s that?”

  I was still blushing from thinking about him in a way I shouldn’t, and hoped he’d not noticed.

  “Perhaps because she was always dashing about,” I said. “Busy, busy, sans cesse. I sometimes think she did it deliberately to make Maman feel…” Here I stopped, unsure how much to say. I hard
ly knew the guy. Yet something about him made me continue. “Inadequate. That’s the word. You see, she was a career woman, while Maman just did housework…”

  “Is your aunt still alive?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s forty-five, but Elisabeth will never die.”

  I didn’t know why I’d said that. John Lyon’s frown returned.

  “She lives where?”

  Just then, her birthplace, that beautiful stone mas with its sloping lawn to the lake; the water tower on one side and black pinewood on the other, pushed into my mind.

  “Les Tourels, about five kilometres from our old stables. She looked after Mamie Jourdain there until putting her in a maison de repos last year after a stroke.”

  “And how,” the flic lowered his voice, “does this aunt of yours get on with your father?”

  “OK. But since Maman…” I stopped, then started again. “She only contacts me and Mathieu. In fact, she phoned me last week to ask us over for Easter.”

  He was taking it all in, I could tell. Was looking at another photo where my brother was sitting up front on Papa’s leggy, bay hack. His brown hair blown back off his forehead. His gappy smile on full show. Danny took it a month ago. You could see snow on the distant hills. “I can see similarities,” observed the visitor. “But Mathieu seems quite small for his age.”

  “Small and stubborn,” I added, ignoring the first bit. “He had to show Rhys Evans he could ride a big horse, didn’t he? Even bigger than Danny’s. That cop’s son’s a piece of shit, Monsieur. Excuse the expression. And no-one’s done anything to stop him bullying, except me and Papa. Last week, we turned up at the playground and caught him at it. He called me a tart and Papa a frog. Good, hein?”

  “What’s this Rhys’s address?”

  “Verdre Fawr. God, I hate these stupid names. It’s down the road next to the school. The mother’s a lump of lard. No, ten lumps of lard.”

  I’ll have to ask your father if I can keep this photo for the time being. If necessary, we can get posters made. And,” he glanced at the anorak on the empty chair next to him. “This as well. Could be useful for the dogs.”

  “Dogs?” Papa won’t risk having any around for fear of upsetting the horses.”

  “I mean sniffer dogs.”

  The wall clock suddenly struck three eerie chords for a quarter to seven. I noticed how he’d jumped at the sound. Then realised the longer he stayed, the more chance of me having to cook something.

  “Look,” he added. “Your father agreed to my helping to find Mathieu. But I can’t do it on my own. No-one could.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, momentarily taking the weight off his left foot. “And every minute that passes is a minute wasted. Right now, the temperature outside’s well above freezing, but later on, who knows? If there’s anything at all useful you can tell me about your brother, you must.”

  The slam of the study door upstairs made me pull out a large saucepan from the cupboard beneath the sink and fill it with hot water.

  “Pasta OK?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, Laure, but I need to go out.”

  “Not now, Monsieur.” That strained voice drew closer from the stairway. “No racing either. This damned nightmare has just got worse.”

  *

  Danny Lennox was dead. Shot in the right eye and the heart at close range on La Princesse Poole’s lowest car deck just over two hours’ ago. Dorset police had passed on the news and to say that because there was no sign of the weapon, suicide was unlikely. A receipt from Millet’s in Cardigan for a boy’s anorak bought last Saturday, had led them via DC Eifion Evans to Ty Capel.

  They also knew about Mathieu being missing and were trying to make connections.

  A cold sweat pricked the back of my neck as I dutifully turned on the cooker. I should never have cut - or rather, hacked - my hair so bloody short, but everyone has different ways of dealing with stuff. This was mine. And the other random cuts. And the finger down the throat…

  Every word from Papa’s dry lips was sending me down another dark road. And where would this one end? A narrow bed in a private clinic like the last time and the time before that? Food and fluids delivered by tubes on the hour, every hour?

  The Englishman stood close by as I trickled a pack of hard, noisy penne into the saucepan’s water and switched on the hob. His checked shirt, the navy fisherman’s knit jumper - in fact everything about him said ‘solide.’ But he too, seemed bewildered by that news.

  “Someone will have to ID the body,” he said. “Does anyone know where exactly in Duns his ex-wife lives?”

  “63, Beswick Road,” I said. “A poky little dump from what I could gather.”

  John Lyon shot me a glance. “How do you know?”

  I wished then I’d kept my muth shut.

  “Danny had shown shown me a photo. Called her a viper as well. Nothing wrong in that, is there?”

  Papa pushed in front of me to switch off the cooker. His movements like those of a mechanical soldier Mathieu had once walked to death. Clipped and sharp.

  “Nasty business, so I believe. I doubt she’ll be grieving too much, or bothering to come so far south. And he never spoke of any other family, so it’ll be down to me,”

  John Lyon indicated Mathieu’s anorak.

  “Did he often buy him clothes?”

  “Occasionally,” I said, suddenly needing to sit down. To cry. “I think he missed not having kids. Wasn’t allowed to. He had mentioned an abortion against his wishes. That’s so sad, don’t you think? Some women can be really hard…”

  . “His passport and wallet are all missing,” said Papa, as if he’d not heard a word. “But the strangest thing is, he’d no luggage. Not even a toothbrush. Yet whenever we had to stay somewhere overnight after racing, he was very particular as to what he’d take.”

  “Do you know of any obvious enemies?” asked the ex-cop, keeping me in his sights.

  “None. And what in God’s name was he doing on that damned boat in the first place?”

  The skin on Papa’s once-handsome face had paled, drawn tight over his bones. Panic lit up his eyes.

  “Looking for Mathieu, perhaps?” Said the Englishman. “He may have sensed your boy could be heading south. Homesick maybe… After all,” he half-turned to me, “you did say he and Mathieu had been like…”

  “Father and son, yes.” I said, avoiding Papa’s disapproving glance. “But to France? That’s crazy.” As my voice faded, so my proper tears came. Big, hot and salty. I blindly made for the stairs with both men’s voices burning my ears.

  “We never did have our chat, did we?” said the ex-cop to Papa.

  “No time.” Papa paused. “What about you? We’ve a spare bed. Use it. Laure shouldn’t be left on her own. Not after this…”

  At last. Some consideration…

  But why then, did the image of that mysterious, black-clad woman Danny and I had met earlier, come so vividly to mind?

  *

  From my perch at the top of the stairs, I shivered. The past eight years had folded back to when Maman, tired but happy, had arrived back in Les Saules Pleureurs with her baby boy wrapped in that same white, crocheted shawl she’d used for me. Danny had driven her back from the Saint-Hippolyte hospital because Papa was away at a trainers’ conference in Chȃtellerault.

  Now John Lyon was shouting. Creeping up in my estimation.

  “Look, Monsieur Deschamps, either I’m allowed help or I’m off. You’ve sent the local police packing but like snow in January, they’ll be back. Murder is a matter for the law.”

  I saw Papa cup his head in his hands. The same as he’d done when I’d cut Maman down from that barn’s beam and tried to massage her heart back to life. All déjà vu. I felt a growing pressure to speak out. Say what I’d known all along. That yes, Mathieu, from the day he’d been moved here, had ached to go home.

  He’d cry our French house’s name over and over until falling asleep, holding that stupid doll I’d made h
im close to his heaving chest. He wasn’t the only one feeling homesick, but I kept my sorrow buttoned up comme les Britaniniques whom most Frenchmen secretly admired. Just like they loved a Big Mac with fries and a chilled Coke…

  “And if Mathieu is found nearby,” the ex-cop went on, “and I’m talking another possible death - where will that leave you, who’ve done precious little to find him? Because so far, Monsieur Deschamps, and I don’t enjoy saying this, it could be construed you and Laure here both have something to hide.”

  Only the dwindling rain against the kitchen window broke the choking silence.

  “Tell him about the letters, the phone calls!” I burst out. “Why she did what she did. Go on.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Elisabeth, of course.”

  John Lyon was already heaving his leather jacket over his shoulders; noticeably limping towards the door to the hallway. I came downstairs, followed him and saw from the corner of my eye, Papa opening a drawer under the worktop by the sink. The knife drawer.

  Merde…

  I screamed. John Lyon had turned to wrestle the carver from Papa’s grip. He certainly knew what he was doing.

  “You imbecile!” he yelled. “What’s that going to solve? Get real, eh?”

  He had both Papa’s hands tight behind his back, pushing him towards the nearest chair by the table. Forcing him into it. “OK. Book, verse and chapter, please, Monsieur, or I’ll get you for threatening behaviour and possible perversion of the cause of justice.” He let go. “I presume you want to keep Ty Capel stables?

  A tired nod.

  I returned the knife to the back of the drawer. I’d been the target. It would have been my heart next, pierced by that same blade I’d sharpened only that morning. Then, in a gesture of what I hoped would appear to be of support and conciliation, I sat down next to him and rested my hand on his trembling arm.

  “I’m sorry, Laure,” he murmured without looking at me.

  “Accepted. So, let’s have book, chapter and verse, shall we? And when that’s done, we’ll both go to Portsmouth. At least I’ll be company for you. What do you think?” I looked up at John Lyon. “Can you stay here, like Papa suggested, or is that hotel expecting you back tonight?”