by Mark Hebden
‘Go on.’
‘He decided he’d better contact the police, and the local cop – name of Morelot – remembered reading a report of the woman found dead at Vieilles Etuves. The description fits. The stepson thinks it might be his stepmother.’
Faux-Villecerf lay on the side of a hill overlooking a valley where the remains of the sunflower crop filled the fields. The area was well wooded and, below the road, the land fell away to flat water meadows full of buttercup and marsh marigold. Edged with celandine, the fields ran alongside the River Trine, which was one of a group of streams formed when the River Rinat, a tributary of the Saône, had been split into a sort of delta by the lie of the land. Further south, the streams joined up again near Dampierre-en-Sarve. Beyond the streams the land rose again to a wooded peak known as the Croq de Chien.
The village was small with narrow streets and looked quite dead in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t dead, though, and Pel knew it wasn’t. Eyes were watching through shutters closed against the heat as the car paused and they tried to find the entrance to the château.
It sat on its hillside above terraced gardens, the south side of the land ending in a flat-faced cottage with a large cow-byre and barn resting on a patch of grass buttressed by a high wall above the road. They could see the château above them, near the church, a solid block of masonry in the mellow ochre stone of the region.
The courtyard was dusty and hot and surrounded by stables and outhouses. As they stopped the car a door opened. It wasn’t the main door, which was at the top of a flight of wide and imposing stone steps and looked heavy enough to require a squadron of dragoons to shift it. Instead, it was a small ill-fitting door half-obscured at the side of the steps. A policeman came out.
‘Sous-Brigadier Morelot, sir,’ he said. As he spoke, another man stepped into the sunshine. He was square and solid and, although still young, was just beginning to go bald. He looked worried.
‘I’m Auguste Raby-Labassat,’ he said. ‘You’ll be the police. Come in.’
It was a blazingly hot day but immediately they were conscious of the coolness inside the house. They were led along a long dark hall to what appeared to be the kitchen. It was an enormous room full of ancient cupboards made of pine. There was a fireplace vast enough to house a couple of horses complete with stalls, mangers and probably a carriage as well. In front of it was a vast scrubbed table big enough to play football on and two easy chairs. ‘Easy’ wasn’t really the word to describe them. They looked cheap, and as though they’d been picked up at a second-hand sale, and they matched neither in shape, woodwork or the colour of the fabric.
‘The family mostly live in here,’ Raby-Labassat pointed out. ‘Because of the cost of heating. It’s also handy for the garden and the courtyard.’
‘Do you live here, Monsieur?’ Pel asked.
‘No. I live in Dijon. I’m an accountant. But I stay here regularly every summer.
‘For a holiday?’
‘No. To cut the hedge.’
‘To cut the hedge?’
Raby-Labassat gestured and, crossing to the window, they saw that the ground dropped rapidly away from them to give a magnificent view over the valley to the hills beyond. They could see fields quartering the slopes, clumps of trees and a long line of cypresses, like guardsmen in single file, marching up the hill. What Auguste Raby-Labassat was indicating, however, was an enormous box hedge that ran the whole length of the front of the château just beyond the terrace. It was nearly three metres wide, rising regularly in square blocks and arches like the castellations of a fortress to the height of four or five metres.
‘I cut it twice a year,’ Raby-Labassat said. ‘Late spring and autumn.’
‘What with?’
‘Shears, a lot of it. We have an electric clipper but it’s old-fashioned and heavy.’
‘It must be hard work,’ Darcy observed.
A shadow crossed the young man’s face. ‘I hate it,’ he admitted. ‘Even humping the ladders about is hard work. But it has to be done.’
‘Couldn’t you get one of these gardening firms in?’ Darcy asked.
Raby-Labassat gave him a look that was a mixture of reproach and bitterness and it occurred to Pel that perhaps the family couldn’t afford a gardener. A household that lived in the kitchen and worried about fuel bills might well be in straitened circumstances.
‘My father will be here soon,’ the young man said. ‘I’ve asked him to be here.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He has a workshop in a cottage in the grounds. He enjoys working in it.’ Raby-Labassat paused. ‘That woman,’ he went on. ‘The one at Vieilles-Etuves. It’s Bronwen – my stepmother – isn’t it?’
‘We can tell better when we know more about her.’
‘She was murdered, wasn’t she? It was in the papers.’
‘Yes, Monsieur. She was murdered.’
Raby-Labassat nodded, as if satisfied.
‘While we’re waiting,’ Pel said, ‘could you produce a photograph of your stepmother? It will not only help identify the woman we found but we can have it reproduced and use it to discover her movements.’
Raby-Labassat turned without a word and from a drawer produced a large photograph of his family. The Baron was a tall man with spectacles and a grim expression, as if he were standing before a firing squad. The Baroness, the missing Bronwen, was a good-looking, dark-haired woman, past her best but still attractive. There were three children with them, a spectacled teenaged girl and two older teenaged boys, one of whom was recognisable as Auguste Raby-Labassat.
‘I dug it out,’ Raby-Labassat said. ‘When I heard you were coming.’
‘That was thoughtful of you, Monsieur,’ Pel said. ‘Has your father any interests at Vieilles Etuves?’
‘None at all. Of course, she might have had.’ Raby-Labassat drew a deep breath. ‘She married my father when he was no longer young. The marriage couldn’t be called a success. They went their own ways.’
‘What about your father? Did he – er – have other interests?’
‘Yes.’
‘What exactly?’
‘Carpentry.’
Pel had been expecting anything but woodwork. But he blinked and recovered quickly. ‘Would it be possible,’ he asked, ‘to see your stepmother’s room? It might help us a great deal.’
There was a moment of hesitation, then Raby-Labassat gestured at the door. ‘This way.’
He showed them into a small room across the huge hall. It was furnished as a kitchen – a modern kitchen with a dishwasher, a washing machine, a stainless steel sink and an electric cooker.
‘This is the kitchen she used,’ he said. ‘She used the old kitchen you saw as a living-room.’ He opened a door and beyond they saw another small room containing a bed and a few toilet accessories.
‘Is this your stepmother’s room?’
Raby-Labassat flushed. ‘It used to be the maid’s. But we don’t have a maid now. My parents used it. It’s warm in winter.’
Pel’s guess about the family had been a good one.
‘Did she sleep here just in winter?’
‘At first. She found the house cold. It can be very chilly in bad weather. It’s so big and there’s no central heating, of course. It would cost a fortune to install. So, soon after she married my father, she moved down here.’
There was no sign of anything male in the room. ‘And your father?’
‘He doesn’t sleep here.’ Raby-Labassat hesitated. ‘They didn’t agree and he had a room elsewhere.’
‘I see.’
‘My stepmother,’ Raby-Labassat said in a stiff, disapproving way, ‘ran things. My father wasn’t interested. He preferred his carpentry. He was always buying bits of wood to repair doors and windows. He left things to Bronwen. And as she’d never previously run anything bigger than a rabbit hutch, she had no idea how to do it. She wasted money and damaged things. And it’s my land.’ He sounded bitter. ‘My father said it was to be mine. He p
romised it. It wasn’t hers to waste. She was always anxious to sell off a bit here or a bit there. To raise money.’
Raby-Labassat stopped dead as if he felt he’d said too much. ‘Would you like to see upstairs?’
He led the way along the stone-flagged hall. It was unlit by daylight except for a stone-mullioned window at one end and the glass in a door at the other, which seemed to lead into the garden. The hall smelled faintly of damp and was as cold as the tomb.
At the end, turning right, they faced a flight of stairs, three metres across, with wide treads and constructed of stone. It seemed to go away up into the heavens. At the top they could see an enormous chandelier.
‘Originally, of course,’ Raby-Labassat said, ‘the family all lived on the next floor and only the staff lived on the ground floor. But, of course, these days it’s different.’ He seemed to be faintly embarrassed.
At the top of the stone steps was another long hall with doors leading off. At the end, through glass doors similar to those below, was a huge balcony with a magnificent view over the valley. ‘One of Theodore Archéatte’s splendid creations,’ Raby-Labassat said. ‘It sticks farther out from the house than any other balcony in the province. Don’t lean on the balustrade, though. It’s old and I don’t trust it.’
Pel peered over. Almost directly below him he could see the width of the vast box hedge that Auguste Raby-Labassat cut twice every year. No wonder he hated it. It must have presented a formidable task.
The young man was opening a heavy oak door. It led into a magnificent dining-room. It was papered in crimson and the walls were lined with enormous portraits of men and women in the dress of the 1870s.
‘We don’t use this place, of course,’ he explained. ‘It’s kept just as my great-grandparents had it. My great-great-grandfather was governor of Tunisia for a time. That’s him.’
He gestured at a portrait of a man whose fierce visage was festooned with moustaches and whiskers so that he looked like a tiger staring out of the undergrowth. He wore a high ear-slicing starched collar and cravat and across his breast a wide pink sash that was obviously part of some decoration. His wife, equally off-putting in expression, glared across the room at him from the opposite wall. The décor was mostly heavy Second Empire in style, with stuffed birds under glass domes and sepia photographs of the family and groups of soldiers obviously taken in North Africa.
Another door led into a salon. It was furnished in the same crowded fashion, with heavy bow-backed chairs and settees and more portraits of the same two people, but also now with a few younger people, even domestic pets. This room was a mixture of periods and it was clear the fittings and furnishings were all valuable but were all deteriorating slowly in the damp cold winters and hot summers of the region. The red glass chandelier obviously came from Murano.
‘My great-grandfather was the man who went to Algeria to draw up a constitution in 1830,’ Raby-Labassat said. ‘His father was a general under the great Napoleon. Another ancestor was Maire of Dijon.’ He jerked a hand at a painting of a man in a red robe. ‘That’s him.’
The coat of arms was quartered into devices of lions and stags rampant, arrows, flashes of lightning and palms, and bore the motto, Unconquerable.
Raby-Labassat gestured at his feet. ‘The floors were all made here in Faux-Villecerf,’ he said. ‘From wood that came from the Forêt de Diviot. So was that.’ He gestured at an enormous wardrobe that was ceiling-high and looked big enough to hold a circus in.
‘It’s Louis Quinze,’ he said. ‘The one next door’s Louis Seize. The furniture in the kitchen – the big old objects – is Henri Second.’
They were shown into the study of the great man. The carpet was clearly valuable, as was a tapestry hanging on one of the walls.
‘He was the first baron,’ Raby-Labassat said. ‘Created by Napoleon III for his work in Tunisia. My father’s the fifth baron.’
The bedrooms were all filled with the same dismal display of period furniture, though there was one room that was furnished in the style of the Thirties and looked out on to the courtyard and the top of a huge and ancient fig tree.
‘My grandmother’s room,’ Raby-Labassat explained. ‘She’s dead now. After my grandfather died, she went to live in Dijon but when she visited us she always lived in this part of the house. She remembered the place as it used to be, of course, and refused to allow any change. She always insisted on a fire in her room in winter. My father created this room for her. It has the sun all day. He’s very good with his hands.’
‘Do-it-yourself?’ Darcy asked.
The young man smiled. ‘He’s known in the village as “Monsieur Bricolage”. You can get into the courtyard by the stone staircase. The door at the end of the hall opens on to it and there’s a separate staircase my grandmother used. She was a heavy smoker and used to do it in bed. She once set the curtains on fire and had to be rescued. She wasn’t in a lot of danger but the room was full of smoke. After that she demanded a fire escape, so my father built one.’
He unlocked the glass doors to a small balcony. From it a small wooden staircase led down to the garden. Pel glanced at Darcy. Both of them were wondering what would have happened if the flames had spread to the staircase.
As they talked, they heard a car arrive in the courtyard. It was very noisy and Pel wondered if that was Louis Quinze or Louis Seize, too.
‘That will be my father.’ Raby-Labassat turned. ‘I’d better go and meet him. You’ll have to forgive him if he seems vague. He’s getting old and he’s had a lot of worries lately. He also–’ He gestured with his hand as if he were lifting a glass to his mouth. ‘Just a little. He’s all right but I have to watch him. Perhaps you’ll follow me down.’
As he vanished, Darcy looked at Pel. They were both aware of the chill in the rooms and were wondering what it must be like in winter when the winds from the east and north blew through the place.
Pel sniffed and rubbed his nose, convinced by the chill about him that the cold he had been expecting had definitely arrived. ‘I didn’t seem to notice the Baron’s room,’ he said quietly. ‘Did you?’
Six
Baron Honoré Eustache Célestin Raby-Labassat de Bur – it took a few minutes to get it straight and Pel was pleased to see someone else suffered from the administrations of an ambitious mother – was a tall stooping man with wispy grey hair and vague eyes. He was by no means everybody’s idea of a baron. Most people expected barons to be erect, slightly military and commanding. This one was dressed in a shabby jersey with a worn hole where his stomach was situated, and a pair of rumpled cord trousers that looked as though they’d been slept in. He wore thick spectacles and was hesitant and distant, as though he didn’t really belong in the world.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I was occupied and I forgot the time. I understand you might have found my wife.’
‘It seems so, Monsieur,’ Darcy said. ‘We still have to confirm it. You can probably help us.’
‘In what way? I understand she’s been lying in the earth a matter of two months.’
‘Almost,’ Darcy agreed. He described the sweater the body had been wearing and the Baron sighed and glanced at his son. ‘It will be hers,’ he said slowly. ‘She possessed several. She bought them in England. You may check her drawers and wardrobe if you wish.’
‘It will be necessary, I think. Can you explain how she came to be at Vieilles Etuves?’
‘I can,’ Auguste Raby-Labassat said.
The Baron regarded his son with sad reproachful eyes. ‘Auguste,’ he said in mild protest.
His son swung round on him. ‘Father, these gentlemen are policemen. She was murdered. Whatever she got up to, they must know. We have to find who killed her.’
‘What did she get up to?’ Pel put in quietly. Auguste Raby-Labassat turned to him. ‘She had boyfriends,’ he said.
‘Forgive me for asking, but is that the reason why she slept downstairs and your father slept elsewhere?’
‘Yes.
’
‘We didn’t notice any of the bedrooms upstairs in use.’
‘They aren’t,’ Raby-Labassat snapped. ‘He doesn’t sleep here.’
‘Where does he sleep?’
The Baron came to life again. In between coming to life he seemed to be uninterested and even half-asleep. ‘I have a cottage in the grounds.’
‘And you live there?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the time?’
‘Yes.’
‘You do your own cooking?’
‘No. I have a housekeeper.’
‘Marie-Hélène Gaussac,’ Auguste said shortly. ‘She was housekeeper here until we could no longer afford to pay her.’
‘Do you pay her now then?’
‘No.’
The Baron seemed to vanish. One moment he was there, the next he had gone. Darcy was about to fetch him back when Auguste gestured. ‘Leave him,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you. I think it upsets him.’
‘What does?’
‘What happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘He was born here. So were his father and grandfather. Marie-Hélène Gaussac came as a maid when he was in his teens. I believe she was quite pretty. They fell in love. But, of course, there was no question of their marrying. My father was the future baron. Marie-Hélène was the daughter of a carter called Peignot. She became his mistress. When he married – he had to marry, of course, because of the title – she also married. A man called Gaussac. He used to beat her. He was killed in 1943 with the Resistance. After the war she returned here to help because my mother wasn’t strong. She was very capable and took over the house. The servants had left because there was no money to pay them. When my mother died she and my father got together again. I personally fully approved. She’s a splendid woman.’
Pel nodded. ‘What about your brother and sister?’
‘As they never come here what they feel doesn’t seem to matter.’ Auguste sighed. ‘Then my father met Bronwen. She was a lot younger than he was and she swept him up on a visit he paid to England. It was a whirlwind romance and she married him. I think she tricked him into it. You’ve seen him. It wouldn’t be hard. Poor Marie-Hélène was heartbroken. But she was loyal and stayed on. By that time, of course, we had become aware of the problems of keeping this place up. Bronwen had thought, because my father had a title, that he was wealthy, but all he has is this house and land and nothing very much to pay for its upkeep. They began to quarrel. My father – old Monsieur Bricolage – did a do-it-yourself job on one of the cottages in the grounds and eventually moved in there. Marie-Hélène moved in with him soon afterwards.’