Now he drew close, calling, ‘Bonjour!’ Excruciating accent. ‘What a pleasant surprise. Fancy a drink?’
Jane shook her head. ‘Merci, non, no thanks.’
‘Why not, if you’re on your own?’
Jane swung on her heels and hurried to the car.
‘No reason to be rude,’ he called after her.
She revved up the engine and pulled out without checking her rear-view mirror. The driver of an open-top BMW speeding up behind her leaned his hand on the horn and left it there. He braked hard. Diners at the restaurants turned. A head in a white baseball cap leaned out of the BMW and swore abuse at Jane in Russian. She riposted with a sweet apology in his native tongue and was delighted by the surprise she caught written across his face.
She had failed to draw out money. She would have to find another branch, for Claude and Matty’s sake. Who was that frightful man? For one ghastly second she had thought he might be a representative from a loan company. But after a few kilometres, she talked sense into herself. His presence was a coincidence. Malaz was teeming with tourists. She was too jumpy. Why do certain men presume that if you’re a woman on your own you’re waiting to get picked up?
She found another cash machine and a florist, and afterwards made her way back to the Malaz cemetery, to Luc’s grave. Several small bouquets of marguerite daisies in jars decorated it. Bonne Maman jam jars. Jane lifted up each in turn to see whether they contained a message, but none did. She laid her red roses on the settling earth and sat with her husband for a while in the sunshine. The now-scruffy card that had been left there six months earlier was in her shoulder bag. She had carried it with her everywhere.
Notre cher Luc, nos vies sans toi ne seront plus jamais les mêmes. Nous t’aimerons toujours. A. P. x
Arnaud and Pierre. His boyhood companions from the estate. ‘How foolish I was to have worried so.’ She pulled the card from the side pocket in her bag, tore it into pieces and slipped the shreds beneath one of the jam jars.
Back at Les Cigales, she took refuge in their bedroom, its planked oak floor smooth beneath her bare feet. The spinning, creaking blades of the overhead fan cut through the walled-in heat. Jane loved this room. Their room. It was tranquil and spacious and full of light, with the two pairs of French windows that reached from ceiling to floor. In midsummer afternoon siestas on the bed or reading, stretched out alongside one another or curled, with each other’s stomach as head cushions, it was a haven from the hot sun. Today it gave off a musty smell. Once upon a time, it had been Clarisse’s room and occasionally a whiff of her musky perfume or an alien scent on padded coat-hangers reminded Jane of its legitimate proprietor. It felt airless now and a little suffocating.
She crossed to the French windows, barred and shuttered. One set gave onto a small balcony where she and Luc used to enjoy their early-morning coffee. After a fair amount of pushing and shoving, because the frames had expanded in the humidity, the doors and shutters swung open and the room exploded with sunlight, the white muslin curtains fluttering and lifting in the unexpected rush of air. The balcony, with its pretty filigree ironwork, looked out over the gardens and pool, and beyond to the hazy outline of damson-coloured mountains rising out of the silent acres of vineyards, olive groves, apricot and other soft-fruit orchards. It was a picture-postcard setting.
In winter, in the early mornings, from this balcony, she and Luc had listened to the calls of the hunters, led by Arnaud Lefèvre, setting out with their excited dogs to bag unfortunate victims for Matty to deliver stuffed and roasted to the dinner table. On warm, balmy summer evenings, Jane and Luc had drunk their nightcaps there, a late-night glass of wine, occasionally an aged malt for Luc, after house guests had retired to bed. They sat at peace in one another’s company, entertained by choruses of frogs croaking in the valley beyond the now-dank pool. In this room they had slept, drugged by the fragrances of the season drifting in through the open windows: mimosa, jasmine, citrus blossom, cherry and apple; all had wafted in to weave their spell, their enchantment. And during all those episodes, all the daily moments of the life they were sharing together, Luc had been harbouring secrets, financial troubles.
For Luc, Les Cigales had always been home, ever since his family had purchased the run-down estate after their flight from Algeria. Even after he had relocated as a film student to Paris and later on to London with Jane, he never stopped describing the vineyard domain as his home. Had the money been required for here, for an investment that even Clarisse was not party to? Or had Clarisse lied?
Jane had come upstairs to unpack her bag, but when she opened the wardrobe, an eighteenth-century country walnut armoire left by Clarisse, the clutter within included piles of Luc’s clothes as well as her own. In London, she had cleared out the cupboards and donated everything to a local hospice outlet in the high street. It had been a task for which she had steeled herself, but she had achieved it. Now she had to face it all over again.
Afterwards, the cellars, Luc’s studio, with whatever clues to his past they might hold.
4
Luc’s workspace was in the caves that ran under the manor house. It had been his sanctum. Jane had always respected his need for privacy and had rarely ventured down there. When they were kids hiding from adults they had sometimes secreted themselves in these cellars, armed with homemade biscuits and Matty’s lemonade. Luc had loved the subterranean maze. After Isabelle’s death, he had spent months converting it into a sprawling, secluded studio. During the renovations, Jane visited only once or twice to encourage his progress. And now here she was, turning the lock in the door that led off from the pantry, bringing a gust of fresh air into his sealed world. Her heart was beating fast. If there were secrets here, clues to his troubles, she had to know them, but now, so close, she almost felt afraid of what she might uncover.
As if to warn her away, she was instantly hit by the rank stench of rotting flesh. A trapped rat or bat, perhaps. Holding her nose, and bending her head so she didn’t hit it on the low, sloping ceiling, she descended the steep, narrow stairway. The roughly hewn stone walls were meshed with cobwebs, resinous curtains that brushed against her face as she passed. The broad shaft of daylight that shone from beyond the open door above was lost to her as she reached the basement. One step further and she was in darkness. She tried to recall the geography of the space. Her memory told her this was the first of several low-ceilinged vaults. Murky caverns of limestone beneath which the foundations of the house had been laid. The original cellars had been employed as wine and provisions stores. Silent, sombre, deprived of all natural light.
Where had Luc installed the power switches?
She shuffled forwards into the humidity and gloom, trying not to inhale the stench that burned her nostrils or tread on whatever rodent remains were corroding the air. She was groping with both hands for a switch, cursing herself because there must have been one at the top of the stairs and she should have thought to bring a torch. It was so chilly down here, like a tomb. Luc’s tomb.
A ghastly thought crossed her mind. Walnut. Might he have been trapped here for months, starving? Clarisse had sworn that Walnut was in the car when Luc departed, but what if the dog had jumped out at the last moment, hidden himself in his master’s world and Luc, running late, had let him be, assured that Matty and Claude would care for him? But Luc had locked the cellar door before he’d left. Still …
She shivered, turning circles. It would be easier to return to the top of the stairs. Foolish to grope about in this dank and sombre setting. It was giving her the creeps. She had been bemused by Luc’s delight as he and Arnaud, with a couple of local tradesmen, had converted the space to suit his needs, hammering and banging, installing Wi-Fi, telephone, television, computers … She had forgotten how easy Arnaud and Luc had been in one another’s company.
Her fingers fumbled over plastic, a bank of switches. She flicked at the first. Lights.
Tiers of cupboards and shelves greeted her. Dials, electronic equipm
ent. She stepped slowly, looking about her as she moved through into the second chamber, which resembled a bridge, a control centre in a sunless spacecraft. Beyond, further vaults were furnished as offices with benches. How transformed it was, piled high with documents, film clips, footage, research material. She ran her fingers along the spines of thick tomes on Arab history, France and the Algerian war. There were shelves of books in all shapes and thicknesses, a well-thumbed paperback edition of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Hefty volumes, textbooks, scripts. Draft one, draft two … DVD copies of his earlier, completed, films. Should all this material be donated to a media college, a university or to the CNC, the Centre National du Cinéma, in Paris? As far as Jane was aware, the latter had been the principal funding body for all Luc’s films. Had they also been involved in his unfinished Algerian documentary? Robert had suggested difficulties with raising the finance. Why? Because of its subject matter, the OAS? Were the French television companies too nervous to commission and invest in a film that showed a period of France’s modern history in a negative light? Dan would know. She wondered where he was now. Off on location somewhere, he’d said, moving forward with his professional life.
This body of work was certainly not for discarding. Collections of rare documents, his research findings, some of it must be. There were agricultural catalogues, nature encyclopaedias, two dictionaries on advanced winemaking for oenologists, a stack of home-movie tapes, dusty, rusted projectors, audio cassettes … Jane was blown away by the breadth and quantity of material. The private milieu of a brilliant and creative man. Some of it must go back decades. What future had he intended for it? Who owned the copyright to all this? Presumably Luc had.
Might Robert Piper have instructions?
The rooms, one unfolding into another, were meticulously tidy. Luc had been obsessive about creating order in the world that existed around him. Aside from the settling dust, cobwebs and encroaching insect life, the bugs that had crept in beyond his death and the reek of putrefying flesh, Jane might have been persuaded that her husband had merely gone away for a few days, as his intention had been before Christmas when he had locked up and driven north to be with her in London.
Hand still clutching her nose, inhaling as infrequently as possible, she turned a slow circle, wondering where on earth to start. Then she lowered herself into the leather swivel chair, Luc’s chair, placing his bunch of keys on the desk’s dusty surface. She had hoped his address book might be there, but it wasn’t.
To the left of her was a metal filing cabinet, impressively solid. She leaned in to pull open one of the drawers, but found it locked. She tried the drawers above and below. They, too, were locked. She reached down to the drawers on either side of the desk where she was seated, hoping for keys. They were also secured, inaccessible.
She inspected the collection she had laid out on the desktop. So many Yales, Chubbs, even an old skeleton key, but nothing among them fitted. She lifted the bronze lid to an inkwell. She remembered it from his studio in Paris. It contained nothing but a few paper clips. Inside a small tin box there was a rubber and three pencils. She opened another and found ink cartridges. Nothing. She was trying to remember from the wreckage of the car, his body – her numbed journey to Paris, to the spot where the accident had occurred, east of the city, the identification block, the reclamation of his possessions – if any other keys, apart from these, had been with the cache handed over to her. The ignition key-card had been destroyed with the car, his Chubb lock keys for London she had upstairs. And this bunch: his house keys for Les Cigales, but no others. Logically – and Luc had been logical – the cabinet keys should have been among this collection or somewhere in the studio.
If not, they had to be upstairs in the house, unless he had left them with Claude and Matty. Or Clarisse.
Damn it!
Standing, she bullied at doors, worried at bolts, turned over piles of papers, careful not to disrupt the order. She lifted books, ran her fingers along shelves. Nothing but dust. Every cupboard and storage unit that was lockable had been secured and there were no keys to be found anywhere. For what reason had he been so guarded? Was there something so very serious to hide? She stood and turned a circle, then ran from one vault to the next and back again. Was she just not seeing the blasted keys? It was as though with every step she took to draw closer to her husband, to delve into his clandestine self, he skipped a foot away from her.
Don’t do this, Luc. What are you hiding? It’s me, Jane.
She was getting frantic. She had to unfasten these cupboards somehow, with a crowbar, if necessary. And even if she found nothing untoward, no explanation for the debts, the gaps in his last days, it was not feasible to leave all Luc’s documents, close to thirty years’ worth of professional material, to disintegrate. Some of the paperwork might be classified, borrowed or required for archival purposes. But who were his colleagues in the field? Who had been his research assistants? Should she ring Dan again? Aside from a warm but surprisingly noncommittal note tucked into a bereavement card, she had not heard from him. He had not returned her calls. He was away.
What was the meaning of this stupid cloak-and-dagger charade? Impossible that all these cupboards were filled with classified material for Luc’s new film. OAS secrets. Was he being blackmailed?
Scenarios whirled through her head, each more outlandish than the last.
Who might have a key? Luc had rarely mentioned any specific researchers or editors. There was no one she could think of to telephone. He didn’t even have a personal assistant. Dan had someone. Hadn’t Jane, during her stunned days in Paris after Luc’s death, spoken to her briefly on the phone? Had she worked for Luc and Dan? Annabelle? Was that her name? No, that wasn’t it. Had the girl been employed by Luc’s company as a film assistant? Even if she had been, she, like Dan, would have moved on elsewhere by now. There was no company left to employ anyone. It stunned Jane now to realize how little she had enquired about his work. She had accepted years earlier that Luc shut her out from some areas of his life and she had learned to respect that and not pry.
She returned to the bottom of the stairs, the entrance to the studios, and flicked all the switches. Six. Three controlled the lighting. The fourth triggered a ceiling fan. Another a primitive air-conditioning apparatus. And the last? TV, video machines? It didn’t seem to have a function, certainly not a central locking system.
Short of hacking at the fixtures herself – she was almost ready to do it – she needed a locksmith, urgently. She stood by the stairs, looking into the refurbished stone caves, conscious once more of the appalling stench. Luc’s world stared silently back at her. Whatever trouble he was in, whatever he was concealing, he was not going to hand it over without a struggle.
Clarisse expressed only mild surprise at the idea that Luc had kept all his files squirrelled away, while both Claude and Matty shook their heads in puzzlement. Neither knew anything of the whereabouts of another set of keys, but Claude could assist with the phone number of a local serrurier. However, before they called in the locksmith, Matty instructed Arnaud to have a go. No damage, insisted Jane. The Lefèvre son glowered at the locks. Unless he used a crowbar and wrenched the doors open, there was nothing he could do. It needed a professional. He offered to have a shot at finding the source of the appalling smell. Jane prayed it would not, after all, be the dog as Arnaud went down to rummage for the stinking carcass, armed with a torch, sack and gloves. Without success.
She thanked him for his trouble and for the kind sentiments he and his brother had expressed when Luc had died. He stared at her with his habitual discomfort and disappeared out of the kitchen door.
The following morning, the growl of a battered white Renault drawing to a halt outside the kitchen door delivered the locksmith, Monsieur Tassigny, a stocky middle-aged man, with a handlebar moustache and cropped hair the colour of flecked tobacco. He wore a black beret, a red kerchief knotted about his throat, a faded blue shirt, scuffed boots and bright yellow s
ocks. His trousers were held up at his thickening waist by braces and a leather belt. He shook Jane’s hand vigorously, almost crushing her fingers.
After rooting about in the cellars to assess the work involved, while Jane watched over him, fearing for Luc’s material as he slapped, banged and harried at cupboards and cabinets, he announced in his strong Provençal accent, ‘It’ll cost you eleven hundred and fifty euros.’
Jane was speechless. He smiled, crow’s feet cracking about his brown eyes. ‘This is hors taxes,’ he pointed out. A cash price, best offer. ‘There’s the déplacement to consider, the skilled work involved, a fair few hours of drilling … a variety of locks to accommodate. The one key would never open all. If Madame requires a written devis, another twenty per cent must be added to the total.’
Jane was reluctant to accept his estimate. It was an outrageous amount and her personal funds were running low. Until the London flat was sold, she needed to budget carefully – and even then money would be tight. On the other hand, she was loath to force the locks but determined to get beyond the hold-up.
Matty quietly suggested to Jane that she wait. ‘Let Claude ring some other locksmiths from further afield. It’s Madame Cambon’s estate so he’s trying to rook you.’
But Jane was bent on uncovering whatever lay behind those sealed cupboards. She wouldn’t rest until she found answers. Her quest was becoming an obsession. The sooner the studio was opened, the sooner she could clear this up and get on with her life, although she couldn’t picture what that life might look like. ‘But will the other quotes be any kinder?’
Matty sighed. ‘She’s made herself so unpopular.’
Jane nodded her silent agreement to the locksmith, promising to go to the bank before the day was out. Monsieur le serrurier, satisfied, stroked his stupendous facial hair, trudged back up the stone stairs to the rear of his car and drew out a scuffed black leather bag, rather like a house-to-house doctor would have carried in the olden days. Next came a large drill and various other formidable tools, such as a jemmy and a crowbar. Matty went in search of an extension lead, shaking her head in disgust, muttering to the fellow in their Provençal tongue.
The Forgotten Summer Page 18