by Daisy Waugh
‘It’s just a couple of hours,’ she says. ‘They’re leaving straight after lunch.’
‘But pleeeeeease…’
‘No. Really. Don’t you think, Heck? They’ve lasted this long…’
She and Horatio are in the middle of examining the case history of a Pakistani-born teenager, forcibly married to an abusive sixty-year-old man and now living in Nottingham. The husband, according to their information, has confiscated the girl’s passport and forbidden her from leaving the house. It’s an unusual case, in need of more than usual consideration because their contact, Fawzia, has been unable to speak with the girl directly and has been getting all her intelligence through a sister living miles away in West London. There being a third party makes the operation less immediately credible, and also, for the Haunts and for Fawzia, a great deal more dangerous. On the other hand, the Nottingham girl, according to her sister, is being beaten so badly and so regularly that her life is at risk. If the story is true, something obviously has to be done.
‘Pleeeease, Mum!’ moans Superman, leaning absently against the flat scanner, flicking the switch on and off. ‘Those stupid children are so booorrring. Pleeeeease…Pleeeeease can we go…’
‘Anyway,’ says Tiffany. ‘It’s not like you two are exactly bothering to talk to the grown-ups. You’ve just left them there…’
‘That’s my point,’ says Maude vaguely. ‘That’s why we need you. We can’t all desert them! I tell you what, though, Heck. It’s the sister that’s worrying me…She’s come out of nowhere, so far as I can see. I’m wondering how she ever came into contact with Fawzia in the first place…’
‘Christ. Look at these –’ he interrupts. He sends an attachment over to Maude’s screen, crosses the room while she opens up the file. ‘Sent to her sister over the mobile…They’re fuzzy, but there’s no way that’s make-up. That poor girl’s been beaten to…’
‘All right –’ cuts off Maude, glancing over at the children. ‘Tiffany and Superman, why don’t you go and ask your guests if they want a game of football or something…’
‘Either that,’ says Heck, looking over Maude’s shoulder as she scrolls down to look at more…
‘…Jesus…’ she mutters.
‘Either that or she’s walked into one hell of a lot of doors…’
Downstairs, meanwhile, amid the wreck of the Mottram nappies, toys and abandoned snacks, Rosie, Simon, miserable Oana and the five white-haired children are lounging around the breakfast table, polishing off the bread that Maude bought in Montmaur at seven o’clock this morning, specifically for their lunch.
Beneath the whining, the arguments, the clattering of plates, Rosie’s instructions to children and au pair, and Simon’s mobile conversations to London, nobody hears Monsieur le maire, Olivier Bertinard, rapping assertively at the open front door. The first the Mottrams are aware they have a visitor is when he’s standing, looking strangely ostrich-like with his beaky nose, his tiny feet and his large round belly, at the foot of the kitchen table.
‘Excusez-moi,’ says Mayor Bertinard, casting a horrified eye over the Mottram chaos, ‘I am so sorry to intrude. But the door was open…’
‘Goodness!’ says Rosie, not certain she’s pleased to have to meet someone actually French so early in the morning. ‘Who are you? Grace! Put that knife down right now!’
‘Excuse me. I am looking for Monsieur et Madame Haunt. Might you kindly direct me towards them? Are they in the house?’
‘Are they in the house?’ Rosie repeats after him. ‘Frankly, Monsieur – Monsieur…?’
‘Bertinard. Olivier Bertinard. Good morning to you.’
‘Frankly, Monsieur B—Oana, could you – quickly rescue that cereal packet! Thomas is going to spill it any second. Thomas, put it down. Now. Thank you.’ She turns back to Bertinard. ‘Are the Haunts in the house? Frankly, Monsieur B., your guess is as good as mine, since we haven’t set eyes on either of them all morning…Actually, we’ve hardly glimpsed them for days…’
Olivier Bertinard looks confused. ‘I’m so sorry, Madame. I’m not certain I understand. They are here or they are not here? I notice the car is parked outside the house, and so I imagine –’
‘Well yes. Of course they’re here. But they’re closeted away somewhere at the top of the house. God knows where. All I know is they seem to disappear up there all day…Emily, you do that one more time – and you’ll be spending the rest of the morning on your own in the bedroom. Do you understand?…You can shout for them as loud as you like, Monsieur B., but they won’t hear you! They never hear us! Catherine – put that eggcup back on the plate! This minute. I won’t ask again.’
‘Excuse me, Madame,’ interrupts M. Bertinard again, flushing a little with irritation. ‘I must apologise. I appreciate this is not an easy time for you. But I am not exactly clear – perhaps you can direct me?’
‘Up there,’ she says, pointing towards the stairs. ‘On the left, and then through the far door…You’ll find them up there somewhere…Go on! Good luck to you…And perhaps while you’re up there you might tell Maude we’re running a bit low on milk…’
Olivier Bertinard doesn’t need to be asked twice. He bows at Rosie, at the motley Mottram crew and the small, paunchy man in bicycle shorts talking into his mobile telephone. He scuttles away towards the staircase before anyone has a chance to stop him.
He tiptoes quietly onto the upstairs landing, closes the door behind him to block out the noise of the family below, and he pauses. Not a sound; only the distant clatter of Mottrams downstairs. He ventures a little further, still on his tiptoes, unwilling to draw attention to himself…
If what Emma Rankin tells him is to be believed (and her story of Eritrean passports may have sounded confused, but it was certainly intriguing; what a shame she couldn’t produce the promised evidence), Monsieur Bertinard feels, as Mayor of Montmaur, that he is fully justified in staying as quiet as possible, and for as long as possible. Anything is justified if it leads to the exposure of misdeeds in his new fiefdom.
From where he stands now, he can see to his right two open doors, both leading to extraordinarily messy guest bedrooms, and on his left another two open doors, one to yet another bedroom, equally messy, the other to a bathroom, littered with dirty nappies and half-full children’s potties, and rubber ducks and toy cars and babies’ bottles…In front of him, at the end of the landing, there is another door, firmly closed. He approaches tentatively. Hears nothing. Hesitates, looks around him, and lays an ear against it.
Not a sound. Carefully, he turns the latch, pulls back the door – finds himself on another landing, much smaller, with a door on either side of him and a bookcase in front. The doors on either side of him are both closed. He puts a nose into each, discovers a small, clean bathroom on one side, and a large, clean double bedroom on the right. Both are empty. And yet from somewhere close by M. Bertinard can definitely hear the muffled sound of voices: the voices of Maude and Horatio Haunt.
The Mayor’s heart beats a little harder.
‘SCRAM!’ he hears, and jumps a little. Horatio’s voice becomes closer and clearer. ‘Go on! Go and play outside. We’ve got work to do…’
Bertinard hears the sound of a latch turning, a hidden door opening. He stands there, rooted to his spot, too frightened and too excited to know what else to do with himself. Before he’s had time to collect himself, the bookshelf in front of him is moving, and Superman’s small body is hurtling through the gap and colliding straight into M. Bertinard’s hard, round belly. It is the Mayor who screams first.
‘Good God!’ cries Horatio, peering round the bookcase, staring angrily at Bertinard. ‘Olivier Bertinard. What the bloody hell are you doing out here?’
‘I – I –’ It takes M. Bertinard a short second to recover. He has already prepared himself a little speech – his excuse for coming to call on them – he only needs to retrieve it from his adrenalin-fuzzed mind. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, running nervous fingers over his neat grey
parting. ‘Excuse me, I was directed up here by your kind guests…’ Monsieur Bertinard strains to see round the side of the bookcase. ‘Your English guests, of course…’ But Horatio moves smoothly, shunting Tiffany (and Maude) back into the COOP, out of view, slipping out through the small gap left by Superman and carefully sliding the bookshelf closed behind him again.
‘Yes?’ says Horatio edgily. He wants Bertinard well out of the area, and it takes most of his willpower not to push him backwards onto the other landing, and all the way down the stairs. ‘What do you want?’
‘Only I have a small matter I have to discuss. A small matter…’ Olivier Bertinard stares at the bookcase.
‘Well?’ demands Horatio briskly. ‘What is it? Shall we go downstairs?’
‘In my capacity as Mayor.’
‘Right-you-are,’ says Horatio, struggling very hard to remain calm. ‘Shall we discuss it downstairs?’
The Mayor doesn’t speak.
‘…I generally prefer,’ Horatio says, after a short but intense pause, ‘not to discuss things with a man – in his capacity as Mayor or otherwise – on the landing outside my bedroom.’ Horatio flashes him a smile, entirely ignored by Olivier Bertinard, who doesn’t move a muscle. He stays put.
They are standing very close together on the tiny landing, facing each other, with Superman clinging avidly to his father’s leg and filling what small space remains between them. ‘Shall we…?’ Horatio suggests again. Olivier Bertinard’s stocky body is blocking their only access to the rest of the house; Horatio’s only means of escape. ‘Allez,’ Horatio says impatiently, a little desperately. ‘On descend! Let’s go!’ Still no movement. ‘…Vous voulez un café, peut-être? Il faut descendre à la cuisine.’
‘Monsieur Haunt, I have come here to discuss with you – about your detritus recyclable…’ the Mayor mutters nonsensically, still unable to tear his eyes from the bookshelf past Horatio’s shoulder. ‘But you have something behind the books, Monsieur? A secret room, it seems to me…How most unusual. An architectural oddity, n’est-ce pas? May I have a look inside?’
‘What?’
‘I would very much enjoy to examine behind that most intriguing –’
‘No! Of course not. Look. Could we – I don’t mean to be rude, Monsieur Bertinard, but would you mind very much sort of – backing up a bit? I’d much prefer to have this – conversation – somewhere a bit more comfortable. By the pool, perhaps. It’s a lovely day.’
M. Bertinard looks at him carefully. ‘Il pleut, Monsieur Haunt.’
‘Does it?’ Horatio is amazed. ‘Is it really? How very unusual. Since when?’
‘You haven’t yet looked outside?…You must have been very busy this morning.’
‘Very. Since you ask. So – er. Monsieur Bertinard, excuse me. Would you move?’
Monsieur Bertinard does not move. He stays just where he is, staring at Horatio, weighing him up. ‘You know I hear many rumours,’ he says meaningfully. ‘Most alarming rumours. About you.’
‘We all hear rumours,’ Horatio pretends to laugh. ‘Christ!…How dull would life be without rumours, eh?’
‘Indeed…But you must not think, just because our houses are so significantly more economical, that we French people are fools, Monsieur.’
‘Fools? Les Français? Are you insane? Individual Français, perhaps. But the whole lot of them, Monsieur Bertinard? Don’t be mad! Why would I think that?’
‘And I inform you now – I will not tolerate…illegitimate activity…in this quartier, so long as I have the honour of acting as his Mayor.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it.’ They stare at each other silently and Horatio wonders what, if anything, Olivier Bertinard actually knows. Nothing, he suspects, beyond what bloody Emma Rankin has no doubt told him. But what does she know? And does anyone take anything Emma Rankin says very seriously? He notices Bertinard hesitate a second. He is, Horatio senses, uncertain how exactly to proceed, and Horatio’s heartbeat slows a fraction. He’s fishing, Horatio thinks. It’s fine. He knows nothing…
It’s just then, just as this moment of highest danger is beginning to recede, and Horatio senses the start of Bertinard’s retreat, that they hear, behind the bookshelf, the COOP door clunking open, and then the bookshelf itself sliding gently, and then Tiffany emerging, closely followed by Maude, gabbling words, her voice ridiculously high:
‘Hello there, Olivier,’ she’s saying, before she’s even set eyes on him. ‘We thought it was you, didn’t we, Tiffie? What a lovely surprise! Et quel honneur! Notre nouveau maire! I know we saw each other at Emma’s but, seriously, I’ve been meaning to call on you all this time, actually, to congratulate you properly on the election. Not that there was ever any serious competition of course. I’m only sorry we couldn’t vote for you ourselves. But here you are, right here at the house, and you’ve gone and beaten me to it! Well, well –’ She takes his hand and shakes it vigorously. ‘Tiffany, Superman. Dites bonjour à Monsieur Bertinard. C’est un monsieur très, très important maintenant.’ She grins at him. ‘Le plus important du village, n’est-ce pas?’
But the flattery – to which he is normally so susceptible – on this occasion only succeeds in making him more suspicious. He tips his head to the side and looks at Maude very carefully. He doesn’t smile.
‘Well, well!’ she says, pumping away at his hand, still grinning. ‘What a nice surprise.’ With Maude and Tiffany adding themselves to the knot, it’s now a very tight squeeze on the little landing. Yet still, M. Bertinard blocks the doorway. She glances across at Horatio, who is temporarily stumped – dumbstruck, in fact, by his wife’s unhelpful intervention. She looks again at the Mayor, and decides there is only one way to progress from their stalemate. ‘Ah-ha!’ she says, following his gaze to the bookshelf behind her. ‘I expect you’ve been admiring our little hideaway? I’d invite you in, Olivier, only it’s such a mess in there at the moment…and the fact is, it’s our – sort of inner sanctum, so to speak. Sort of “Haunts Only” inner sanctum…’
M. Bertinard doesn’t look impressed.
‘…We’re the victims of our own success, Monsieur Bertinard.’ She pretends to laugh. ‘…It’s the problem with being English and living in the South of France. If it’s not friends staying with us, it’s the paying guests. During the summer we can barely get half an hour to ourselves…Hence –’ She shrugs, without enough conviction. ‘Everybody needs a little privacy, Olivier. Don’t you think?’
‘But I drive past your house very often. I have never known you having guests before.’
‘Really?’ replies Horatio briskly. ‘Well! Why would you have done? But we are a registered gîte, Monsieur Bertinard. As I’m sure you’ll be aware. Not that it’s really any of your business. Monsieur Bertinard, please. I must ask – insist – could you step back so we can all get out of this tiny little anteroom? I’m worried the children are going to suffocate.’
He moves, finally. But just a little. Not enough. Tiffany and Superman, impatient for liberty, begin to jostle angrily.
‘Watch out, Superman. Tiffany. Watch out –’ Maude laughs, half leaning against the bookcase to keep her balance. ‘You probably think we’re mad,’ she says. ‘Needing a place like this, when we live in the middle of a field. You’re probably thinking, well, it’s hardly Piccadilly Circus.’
‘This is what I am thinking, exactly. Why does a small family need so much privacy? Unless they have something to hide…’
Amid loud exclamations of relief, the children finally break their way through the knot of bodies and escape onto the larger landing beyond. They knock Maude as they do so, who falls against the edge of the bookcase, causing it to glide away from her on its newly oiled tramlines, and revealing the inner door, still half ajar.
‘The fact is, Heck and I – Horatio and I –’ From where she’s standing she can glimpse their computers, their flat scanners, and enough documentation littering the floor to lock them both away for years. M. Bertinard strains to see
into the room. Though his body appears not to be moving, she can feel the force of his curiosity, and his large, taut belly gently, firmly, pushing her backwards against the open door. She tries to stay balanced but in the attempt her elbow jerks backwards and the door swings open a little further. There, on the ground just behind her, and visible to all three of them should they choose to look, is a pile of three newly minted British passports – ready to be sent to three young Zimbabweans; orphans of the Mugabe regime, and currently sleeping rough somewhere round Elephant and Castle.
‘Heck!’ Maude says. Gasps. ‘Heck!’
Horatio grabs her. ‘Sweetheart, are you all right?’ he says, holding her firm, stretching smoothly behind her and snapping the door shut. ‘You look a little faint.’
‘She’s fine,’ says M. Bertinard, eyeing her beadily. ‘On the other hand I have a very strong feeling you are hiding something from me. First I am hearing unusual rumours about passports. The next I discover you have a secret room, like James Bond, in your family house…’
‘James Bond?’ Horatio laughs. ‘James Bond? Good God! If only!’
M. Bertinard watches him laugh, waits until the laughter dies, which it does, unnaturally quickly. ‘I believe you are hiding something from me,’ he says evenly.
Maude sighs. ‘Really, Monsieur Bertinard. This is idiotic. And quite rude, actually. You walk into our house uninvited –’
‘I am only asking for you to reassure me. As Mayor of the village. I have heard too many rumours, Mr and Mrs Haunt, simply to allow this adventure uncommented. You understand? What are you hiding?’
‘We’re hiding absolutely nothing. Nothing which needs to concern you.’ She turns to the children. ‘Right then,’ she says breezily. ‘Tiffany? Superman? Who fancies a swim?’
‘It’s raining,’ Tiffany says.
‘Is it? Well…anyway.’
‘Dad, can we go to the village? Please.’
‘You say it is not a need of concern for me,’ persists Bertinard. ‘But I am Mayor of the village. I have to inform you that it does need. Of concern. It does concern to me. If I have suspicion of wrong practice in Montmaur it is carrément my concern to enforce an investigation. And also an investigation profound. You don’t agree? And so you have a secret room in your family home. Pourtant, I have received reports and made observations personally – that it is not as it seems in La Grande Forge. No, not at all. And so I ask, why do you build this strange space architectural in your family home, and you give me no explanation…’