The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘They’ve what?’ Mattie said.

  ‘They’ve called in the money I still owe them.’

  ‘They can’t do.’

  ‘They have.’

  ‘Your man Dennis would never do that.’

  ‘Dennis is gone. He had a stroke when I was over in England – I didn’t know a thing about it, but although he’s all right, or rather he’s going to be all right, he’s out of the bank and a new broom by the unlikely name of Ignatius Pomeroy has decided to call in the money.’

  ‘But why? I mean – why? Even if we don’t pull off the Champion Hurdle, surely once the Flat season gets going again—’

  ‘No.’ Cassie shook her head. ‘Think of the interest on a million-pound loan, Mattie. If I can’t get hold of the necessary capital now, that interest mounts, and I pay interest on the interest, et cetera et cetera, and at that level of finance that isn’t funny. Let alone possible.’

  ‘How long have you got?’

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘Then we had better get serious,’ Mattie said, taking a pull on his spinhaler. ‘Let’s do a few sums, shall we? The race itself—’ He grabbed his racing paper to check something. ‘OK – if The Nightingale wins the Champion Hurdle for a start there’s a decent bit of prize money goes with the race. Nearly two hundred thou.’

  ‘Split three ways.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Mattie said. ‘Jo’s and my shares in the horse are nominal. Particularly if Claremore’s under the axe. If he wins the pot goes to you. Jo’ll agree, don’t you worry. She won’t want to lose our home either.’

  ‘No,’ Cassie protested.

  ‘Yes,’ Mattie replied. ‘If the horse wins and your bet stands you’ll be a third of the way there. That’ll buy you some time, surely. Then there’d be the money from Joel’s brother’s bet and Theodore’s – we’re not going to lose Claremore, Ma. I know it’s only a house, and a house is only stone and cement and all that, none of which any of us really believe, particularly in the case of Claremore because of what’s happened there. Because of – because of Dad. And you. Claremore isn’t a place, it’s your life, and if you lose it—’

  ‘It’s all right, Matt,’ Cassie said. ‘I won’t go and jump off the cliffs of Moher, don’t worry. If I lose this place, I’ll survive. We all will.’

  ‘You’re not going to lose this place, Ma, I promise you,’ Mattie said, getting up. ‘I promise you that you won’t.’

  Grateful as she was for Mattie’s resilience and determination, Cassie knew there was little to stop the inevitable from happening. Whether The Nightingale won or lost the Champion Hurdle was academic now she had failed to get her bet in place. That first letter from the bank had been followed up by a much longer one spelling out the cost and consequences of carrying on a prolonged extension of the credit at present carried by the business. Had she got the underwriters to court the bank would certainly not have had to threaten to take such draconian measures, but now they had no alternative, unless Claremore Racing could provide sufficient extra collateral to safeguard the continuance of the loan.

  Nor, it appeared, was there any longer any hope that a way could be found to break the conspiracy of silence which surrounded those undoubtedly responsible for the actual act of kidnap and violation. In those seemingly endless small hours of the morning Cassie had sometimes been tempted to throw herself on Leonora’s mercy, but by the time she had the whole possible scenario worked out in her head and dawn was peeping over her windowsill Leonora was laughing at and humiliating her, promising only to help bail Cassie out in return for the thing she wanted most now that Tyrone was dead, namely Claremore itself. Whenever the imagined proceedings reached this stage of particular absurdity Cassie either turned on her light and tried to read a book, or if it really was almost dawn got up and went out for one of her long and solitary walks in the hills before riding out.

  And then one night, the night of the third of March with the race less than ten days away, Cassie dreamed.

  She dreamed there was a fire. The whole sky seemed to be on fire but when she looked up she saw it was just one tree that was burning, and then only its branches. Yet everything was lit up by it, the countryside, the sky and a building just beyond it, a large house which dominated the skyline. She knew what the building was, but she couldn’t put a name to it, and when she looked for someone to ask a man came forward with a clapperboard and he clapped it in front of her face and said scene twenty-one, take one. Then Josephine who was beside her stepped forward and began playing the scene. She was dressed as a doctor in a white coat and Cassie was in the scene with her, but because Cassie had been called in at the last moment she didn’t know her lines. She didn’t know what she had to say yet everyone was relying on her and she felt a terrible panic overtaking her. The next thing she knew she was inside a hospital, except it was a private house peopled by doctors and nurses who were all speaking so quietly she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Help me, she asked them. I don’t know what I’m meant to say, but they all shook their heads and walked away from her leaving her in a bedroom and all at once she knew where she was. When she knew she was in the château she had been in once long ago she became suddenly paralysed with fear. She tried to run away but her feet wouldn’t move. They felt as though they were glued to the floor. A man began to talk to her, telling her what to do. He was behind her so she couldn’t see his face but as soon as Cassie heard his voice she felt utterly safe because her heart told her who it was. Then still standing behind her the man gently took her by the arm and led her to a closet which opened from the panelling of the wall and inside there was a leather-bound book on a shelf. Nothing else. Just a large leather-bound book. Cassie was right in the closet then, with the book in her hand, and when she opened it she saw just as she knew she would that it was full of Tyrone’s racing and betting entries, all written in gold. And when she saw the entries she started silently to cry but they were tears of happiness because she knew then everything was all right.

  The following evening when Cassie drove over to Mattie’s for dinner with both of her children, Josephine opened the door to her in tears. When Cassie found out what had upset her daughter so deeply, she knew suddenly she still had one more life to live.

  ‘You won’t remember,’ Josephine began as Cassie poured them both a drink since it was Mattie’s turn to take watch outside The Nightingale’s stable. ‘Well, you might, actually. Do you remember a film I made in France about four years ago? An Anglo-French production called One Twenty One? It doesn’t matter if you don’t because—’

  ‘No, I remember,’ Cassie said, sitting down beside her daughter. ‘You were rather good in it. You played the girlfriend of some ridiculously handsome French actor who you had a crush on, as I recall.’ Cassie smiled but she noticed Josephine did not.

  ‘Gerard Fournier,’ Josephine said quietly. ‘And it was more than a crush. We had an affair.’

  ‘And he was married,’ Cassie said carefully, remembering now the aftermath of Josephine’s location in France.

  ‘Yes,’ Josephine replied. ‘I know it’s no excuse, but he wasn’t happily married even though he returned to his wife. And there’s this sort of unwritten law in show business as well. That being on location is like being away at war. It doesn’t count.’

  ‘This is a long time ago, Jo,’ Cassie said after a moment. ‘Why should you be bringing all this up now? He’s not come back into your life, has he?’

  ‘No.’ Josephine shook her head miserably and then turned her brimful eyes on Cassie. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Cassie echoed. ‘How can he be dead? He can’t be that much older than you are, surely. Not that that makes any difference, of course—’

  ‘He was killed in a car crash,’ Josephine explained, leaning her head back on the sofa. ‘He had just finished the shoot on his latest film and apparently they were on their way home from the wrap party late at night when the car left the road, hit a tree and burst into flames.’
/>   ‘Where did you hear this? Was it on the news?’

  ‘Someone rang me. A friend. But it will probably be on the news. Gerard was France’s big new up and coming young star.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ Cassie said, taking her daughter’s hand. ‘What a simply terrible thing to happen. I really am so sorry.’

  ‘The driver – would you believe? The driver was flung clear. Sophie, this friend of mine, said he was as high as a kite because he’d been doing cocaine all evening, but he drove because everyone else was pretty drunk. This bastard wasn’t, he was just out of his head on coke, and he killed them all. And he was the one who was thrown clear.’

  ‘He’s still alive, is he?’ Cassie asked. ‘Who was he? Another actor?’

  ‘No.’ This time Josephine shook her head as she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. ‘No, he was the producer. They were all going back to his château where they were staying. They’d been filming there as well. Somewhere down in the Loire valley near Amboise.’

  For a moment Cassie felt as if her blood had changed, then she gave herself a mental scolding, telling herself not to be so absurd.

  ‘It probably will be on the news,’ Josephine said, looking at her watch and then flicking the television set on with a remote control. ‘Not that I particularly want to see it. Except to make sure that it’s true.’

  ‘This friend of yours?’ Cassie began.

  ‘Sophie. She was in One Twenty One as well,’ Josephine replied, tuning into the right channel. ‘And she had quite a decent part apparently in this picture as well. Though she said it wasn’t nearly as much fun. Mostly to do with this sod of a producer, so she said. He made everyone’s life a misery, particularly the girls’. Sophie said he was a serious card-bearing sadist.’

  Again Cassie’s heart stopped and again she told herself to control her imagination. Even if by some outside chance the man in question was who she thought he might be, his involvement in a fatal car accident somewhere in France was hardly going to affect her.

  For five minutes the two of them sat through the main part of the news before sure enough an item came up about the death of France’s latest young screen idol, Gerard Fournier, killed instantly in a car crash exactly as described by Josephine. While the dead young man’s image was on the screen Josephine sat staring at it as if unable to believe the news she was hearing yet again, while Cassie listened for any other details of the fatal accident.

  Finally the newscaster arrived at the detail which she awaited. ‘Three of the other four people in the car died in the ensuing fire,’ he announced. ‘Two were believed to be members of the production staff, while the third, a young woman whose identity has not so far been confirmed, is said to have been an actress working on the film. The driver, who was thrown clear before the car exploded into a fireball, has been identified as the producer of the film, Jean-Luc de Vendrer.’ Cassie sat bolt upright as she heard his name, staring at the screen in disbelief. ‘De Vendrer was taken to hospital and placed in intensive care where he remains in a critical condition.’

  ‘Not for too long, I hope,’ Josephine said with understandable bitterness.

  ‘For just long enough,’ Cassie muttered, getting to her feet and standing for a moment staring aimlessly around the room, before picking up the telephone.

  ‘Who are you ringing now?’ Josephine asked, killing the sound on the television. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m ringing Jack Madigan,’ Cassie answered. ‘And the matter is I want a lift to France.’

  * * *

  ‘What can you hope to achieve?’ Mattie asked when Cassie went outside to the yard to tell him of her plans. ‘I just don’t get it.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do myself,’ Cassie replied. ‘I just know I have to go over and try to see him, that’s all.’

  ‘Along the lines of a death bed confession.’

  ‘He’s a Catholic, Mattie. If he’s dying he won’t want to die with an unclear conscience.’

  ‘That’s what priests are for, Ma. If he has anything to confess he’s not going to confess it to you. Least of all to you.’

  Cassie leaned over the stable door and offered The Nightingale another couple of Polo mints which he received gratefully and slowly crunched to bits. ‘It’s silly, I know,’ she said. ‘But it’s a last ditch chance. And I feel – I feel as if I have to go. You see, last night …’ Cassie hesitated, then stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ Mattie prompted. ‘Last night what?’

  ‘You’ll only say what you always say,’ Cassie sighed. ‘That I’m losing it.’

  ‘Try me,’ Mattie suggested.

  ‘Last night I had a dream, and while I know it was only a dream I haven’t been able to shake it off. You know the way you normally lose dreams either when you wake up or during the day. I mean they just go, don’t they? Back into the ether or whatever. But this one wouldn’t go. It’s stayed with me, just as if someone got into my head.’

  ‘So what did you dream?’

  Cassie told him, in detail, such was her recall of the dream. When she finished, Mattie nodded, chewing his lip thoughtfully.

  ‘So what’s the significance?’ he said. ‘To me that just sounds like a typical panic dream, except for the book at the end of it. Does it mean something special?’

  ‘The house, the château, Mattie,’ Cassie explained. ‘It was de Vendrer’s. The man who was driving the car Jo’s friend was killed in. The producer of the film.’

  Mattie’s mouth fell open as he looked at Cassie. He pushed himself away from the wall of the stable on which he’d been leaning as he’d listened, frowning deeply. ‘You dreamed this last night?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Mattie exhaled and shook his head. ‘That is weird. I mean seriously weird. What do you think it means?’

  ‘That’s what I’m going to the Loire to find out,’ Cassie said. ‘You just take care of everything.’

  ‘I will, don’t worry,’ Mattie replied, still frowning deeply. ‘Don’t worry about a thing.’

  Cassie smiled and kissed him on the cheek. Then she leaned past him to stroke The Nightingale over the stable door and give a gentle pull on his big ears before going inside to say goodbye to her daughter.

  What she had not told Mattie was the last part of the dream. That the man who stood behind her guiding her everywhere was of course Tyrone.

  She didn’t tell Jack Madigan anything of her dream, but none the less Jack thought if Cassie reckoned she had good reason to fly down to the Loire in the hope of learning something about the kidnapping of her beloved horse, that was good enough for him. He also insisted on going over with her.

  ‘I have a friend just outside Tours with his own landing strip, just like mine,’ he told Cassie through her headset after he had successfully lifted his twin engine Nightstar into the dark. ‘I’ve already called him to tell him we’re on our way and he’s going to have a car waiting to take you straight to the hospital in Tours itself. He doesn’t know de Vendrer personally, but he knows all about the man and tells me he’s not France’s best beloved. So how come you know him?’

  Cassie told him of re-meeting de Vendrer on her fateful trip to Longchamps and how she had narrowly escaped what would more than likely have proved to be a very distasteful as well as painful experience.

  ‘Well, there you go,’ Jack replied. ‘And you think that was enough to get him involved in the hijacking of your horse.’

  ‘Obviously you don’t,’ Cassie remarked as Jack levelled his plane out at cruising altitude.

  ‘On the contrary, Cassie,’ Jack replied, scanning the instrument panel in front of them. ‘I’ve long thought that some men have a spite equal to women when it comes to being rejected. Anyway from what I hear of your man he sounds like the sort of fella who gets his kicks pulling the parachutes off free fallers. He might just have gone along with the whole thing for kicks.’

  ‘Meaning if he couldn’t hurt me then, why not a little la
ter?’

  ‘Why not indeed?’ Jack agreed. ‘Now we should be there in about an hour fifty, so to pass the time away let’s have some fun discussing by how many lengths exactly this famous horse of yours is going to win at Cheltenham. Because, you know, that’s something else we could have a little bet on.’

  After he had switched the plane onto automatic pilot the two of them got to grips with trying to imagine exactly how the great race might be run.

  The chauffered car that was waiting for them drove straight to the hospital in Tours. Jack dozed most of the way, tired after the night flight and anxious to build up his reserves for the return journey, leaving Cassie to her thoughts as the car sped through the darkened countryside. Quite what she was hoping to achieve she was not at all sure, but with all real hope apparently lost of finding the missing link she saw no reason not to put herself in the hands of the Fates, or as Mattie was forever saying, going with the flow. There was very little likelihood that her journey would result in her discovering the final truth, yet as long as there was some sort of chance she knew she must take it.

  Particularly as long as the dream she had dreamed the night before stayed so vividly in her mind’s eye.

  There was even something vaguely familiar about the hospital. Not that the building was at all recognizable, because the hospital in her dream had been a huge old house which had become the château, while the one she was now entering was a modern, strictly functional edifice. Yet as Cassie made her way into the brightly lit reception area she felt as if she was retracing her steps, just as she felt that she already knew the woman on duty at the desk.

  ‘Monsieur de Vendrer?’ the nurse repeated in answer to her enquiry. ‘Madame, I am so sorry, but I regret to inform you Monsieur de Vendrer died early this evening.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Cassie replied hopelessly. ‘When I telephoned earlier they said there had been no change in his condition.’

  ‘I gather it was very sudden and somewhat unexpected,’ the nurse replied. ‘Monsieur de Vendrer seemed to be rallying, but then …’ The nurse gave a small, sympathetic shrug. ‘The doctors say his internal injuries were obviously worse than was first thought.’