Strange Images of Death

by Barbara Cleverly

  All Joe could do was apologize for the obvious nature of his advice. She’d listened, amused, as he’d earnestly advised her not to be alone … to seek out the company of those she could trust.

  ‘Exactly what I have in mind,’ she’d said mysteriously. ‘No! Thank you, Joe—you’re a sweetheart!—but I really don’t need an escort to cross the corridor!’ She’d waved a hand towards the ladies’ dormitory, whispered goodnight, kissed him on the cheek and left him at his own door, his head still reeling from the enticement of her perfume. A lure which had not been thrown on the water to catch him, he acknowledged.

  He stood just inside his doorway listening to her scurrying feet which took her straight past the dormitory and on to the end of the corridor. From the click-clack of her heels, he guessed that she didn’t much care if he heard, so eager was she to move on to her next assignation. He couldn’t make out whether she’d gone up or down the staircase—nor decide whether he was relieved or disappointed.

  In the end he had to admit that he was concerned. Not fearful. But definitely concerned. And his concern centred on the women and children. In a few quiet moments with Dorcas, he’d made clear his preference that she sleep in the small dorm with the little ones, just a door away from the single women’s quarters. And across the corridor from his own cell. She’d listened quietly and told him that she understood. He thought it very likely that she understood quite as much as he did himself.

  At least Dorcas seemed content and busy. Since her status had been publicly acknowledged on the first day, she’d thrown herself into doing exactly what she had made a play of despising and the children followed her everywhere, delighted to have a gang-leader. She’d tapped on his door last evening just after eight as he was dressing for dinner and reported all well with the junior squad. They’d had early supper and Estelle had been informed that all were present, correct, clean and in pyjamas. The cook’s children were spending the night here in the château instead of going back home to the village. When their mother stayed on, they generally stayed too, so including herself, the total was seven. And could she borrow his copy of Kim? There didn’t seem to be much in the way of reading material about the place. Joe had reminded her that Orlando would be bound to know where the books were kept.

  Orlando. Finishing his morning tea, Joe decided it was his duty to confide his fears and suspicions to him and let him make what he might of them. He realized he didn’t know the man well enough to judge with any confidence how he would react. ‘All his geese are swans,’ Joe had agreed with Dorcas. And Joe was one of his geese. It wouldn’t surprise him to hear Orlando proudly announcing to the crowd that in the space of a few hours his Scotland Yard friend had uncovered under their roof a tormentor of small animals, a drugs ring, a deflowerer of virgins, and the man who once shot at Queen Victoria.

  There was no way around it. Joe would have to count on Orlando’s common sense, though so far in their relationship it hadn’t made much of an appearance.

  Joe sat on after breakfast as the rest wandered off to their work, sharing the dregs of the third pot of coffee with his target. ‘Come and help me find some children’s books,’ said Joe. ‘I’m sure on the way in I passed a store room full of broken rocking horses, rickety dolls’ houses and that sort of thing.’

  Orlando looked a little surprised. ‘I know the one you mean. Follow me.’

  When they entered the room Joe shut the door and invited Orlando to take a seat on a gaudily painted pirate’s chest. He pulled up a decaying nursery chair and tested it for strength and height before lowering himself on to it opposite and slightly higher than a puzzled Orlando. So far, so good. It never failed. Joe’s over-close proximity, knee to knee with his interviewees, the stiff breeze of moral rectitude at his back and, for choice, the sun in their eyes, was too unnerving for any but the most innocent of victims.

  Predictably, Orlando began to squirm with discomfort. ‘Oh, goody!’ he said, nervously. ‘We’re going to play Snakes and Ladders! No? Knucklebones then?’

  ‘Shut up and listen to me, you clot!’ Joe snapped. ‘I need to put you on your honour and I’m a bit perplexed as to how to do that. Is there anything sacred you can be made to swear by? You don’t believe in God and you’d cheerfully sell your mother to the devil. If I were to confide something disturbing—could I trust you to handle the information with discretion? How far can I trust you, Orlando?’

  The ingratiating grin faded and Orlando looked back at Joe with a face suddenly unprotected by its usual mask of mocking self-awareness. ‘You can trust me with your life. And any other burden you care to set on me. I thought you knew that?’

  And, apparently regretting lowering his defences even for a moment, he reverted to his usual insouciance: ‘Didn’t realize I’d be made to swear a blood oath. I say, I hope you’re not contemplating a little knife-work to seal this brotherhood … Can’t stand the sight of the old claret oozing from the veins, don’t you know.’ Then, into Joe’s intimidating silence: ‘So it’s to be a round of Truth or Consequences, then? You tell the truth and I suffer the consequences?’

  ‘Something very like that,’ Joe agreed. ‘A warning, Orlando. And here’s the truth—this is not a safe place for the children. You must take them away from here.’

  He waited for the automatic protests, the huffing and puffing to roll away. ‘Yes, yes, I can see that. Oh, to be ten years old and free to roam in a pack about the Château de Silmont in summertime! With a dozen indulgent adults to take an interest. Twenty years ago I’d have thought I’d died and gone to heaven to be among them … But listen—it’s gathering … I’m not sure what, but something dark. If there’s anything more important to me than flushing out a villain who’s committed a crime it’s preventing that crime from ever happening in the first place. There’s no glory in that for a policeman! No front page acclamations in the daily papers. And to hell with all that! Will you help me to take the necessary steps, Orlando?’

  Joe waited for and got an understanding nod before he went on. ‘There are one or two things you ought to be made aware of. Listen—I went to take a look at the mess in the chapel yesterday. All as described and disturbing enough, but there was an additional element … a small furry one …’

  Orlando listened and, to Joe’s relief, didn’t make the all-too-easy Englishman’s scoffing objections. ‘Not much of a reader, I’m afraid, Joe, and I can’t say I’ve ever opened a book by any of those psychologist chaps you go on about. From what I hear, it all sounds a bit like common sense and I can’t see what the fuss is all about. Perhaps it sounds more impressive being expressed in German? But I can quite see why you—or anybody—would be on the alert. It rang a bell with me—what you had to say at luncheon yesterday—that stuff about progression.

  ‘There was a girl in the village—yes, a girl—who was a bit queer in the head, you know. Started sticking pins in her dolls, chopping off their limbs … the family cat had kittens and they all mysteriously disappeared one by one. No one noticed.’ Orlando breathed in and out slowly and shuffled his feet. ‘Her baby brother, six months old, was found dead in his cradle one day. Suffocated, the doc said.’

  Joe nodded. ‘Classic case. I do hope …?’

  ‘The doc is a clever man. He put two and two together and saw that the right thing was done.’

  ‘I don’t think your village gossip is going to be much help with the next problem. I have to ask—any dope-fiends in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘Dope? Not as far as I know. People say there’s a lot about these days. You can get anything you want in most Paris bars. You just go to the till with your cash. They even have a slang word for the till: la pharmacie! And the Riviera coast is Paris-by-the-Sea at this time of year. Bloody awful stuff! I’ve watched friends of mine … well, never mind. I drink too much and, yes, I’ve sniffed a little this and that. Lost my nasal virginity at a young age but never got addicted. I don’t think I’m the addictive type. Nothing clings to me and I cling to nothing. Everything
and everybody rejects me in the end and moves on. Except for Dorcas. She’ll drop a tear on my coffin.’

  ‘So. Glad to hear you’re conscious of the dangers.’

  ‘I don’t want the evil stuff or any rum bugger under the influence of it anywhere near the children. It’s illegal here in France anyway. Throw your weight about, Joe. Lean on whoever it is you’ve flushed out and make them leave. Who? Give me a name!’

  Joe took two screwed-up pieces of paper from his pocket. ‘Let’s examine the evidence first. What do you make of these?’

  He handed one to Orlando.

  Orlando took it and opened it up carefully. ‘It claims to be face powder—shade, wild rose. My mama uses these. Dab, dab, dab on the cheekbones. Useful little things to slip into your handbag. They don’t leak or spill. But this powder’s white.’ He licked a finger, ran it along the creases and popped it into his mouth. ‘Definitely not cosmetic. It’s cocaine,’ he said.

  ‘Thought so.’

  ‘Some folk use a five-pound note for the purpose,’ Orlando offered.

  ‘All adds to the gaiety, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, it could have been worse, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean? Bad enough, I’d have thought.’

  ‘There are more deadly concoctions about. Until recently, this stuff was sold openly over the counter as a tonic!’

  ‘Here in France?’

  ‘Yes. Never heard of Mariani Wine?’

  ‘Of course. A tonic—as you say. One of my great-aunts swore by it. She imported it by the case.’

  ‘I bet she did! But she was in good company. Other advocates of this infusion of coca leaves topped up with red Bordeaux wine included Edison—he of the electric light bulbs—Jules Verne, the Prince of Wales and His Holiness Pope Leo XIII. His Holiness actually awarded them a medal! At nine milligrams of the hard stuff per bottle, no wonder they were enthusiastic!’

  Joe was entertained, as usual, by Orlando’s worldly knowledge. ‘Good Lord! I had no idea! Edison, eh? Isn’t he the chap who said genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration?’

  ‘He did. Failed to take the nine milligrams into his calculation, it seems.’

  ‘But someone a lot closer to home is getting supplies of much more serious stuff. I should like to find out how.’

  ‘If you’ll open up and tell me who, perhaps I might have an answer as to how.’

  ‘Estelle.’

  Orlando spent a few moments absorbing this information before shaking his head sadly. ‘Now you come to mention it … Yes, I can see there were signs there for those sharp enough to pick them up. The eyes! The mistimed gestures! The surges of jollity! Oh, Lord! What am I supposed to think now? I like the girl. So do the children. Why couldn’t it have been that appalling pseudo-Russian? That impresario or whatever he is … Director of the Ballet Impérial de Lutèce—that’s what he calls himself … Pretentious twerp! I’d have enjoyed watching you kick him out. I shall look forward to handing him the keys of his Hispano-Suiza and waving goodbye.’

  ‘So that’s his car? I had wondered. Well, on the subject of Monsieur Pederovsky—’

  ‘I think it’s Petrovsky.’

  ‘Thank you. You may well yet have the pleasure of watching him depart in double-quick time. I’m sure his chiselled profile is known to the Vice back home. And if he’s who I think he is, believe me, you wouldn’t want him under the same roof as the children. But I make accusations without proof. I want you to come along with me to his quarters while he’s at lunch and we’ll look through his drawers.’

  ‘Oh, I say! Poking about in a chap’s privacy? Not sure I could do that.’

  ‘You don’t have to. Just stand in the doorway, and keep watch while the Law gets its hands dirty. I don’t think we’ll need to look further than his passport.’

  ‘What colour are Russian passports? Do they have passports or do the poor blighters still just escape over the border and head for Paris?’

  Joe groaned. ‘Go back to your painting when we’ve finished here. At the lunch table, make sure that our ballet-loving friend is sitting there in best bib and tucker and then make a vague statement about regretting sending me off on a wild-goose chase somewhere about the place—I’ll leave that to your invention—excuse yourself and come after me. We’ll roll up, arm in arm, ten minutes later making apologies. Got that?’

  ‘Got it!’ Orlando tried to get to his feet in relief that his ordeal was over.

  ‘Not so fast, blood brother!’ Joe put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him down again. ‘There’s more I want from you. And you’re not leaving until I get it! There’s another little mystery I’ve been asked to clear up. I know you have the answers to my questions. There are just two of them. First: Who is—or was—Dorcas’s mother? And second: Where is the lady now?’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘No good, I suppose, telling you the answer to both your questions is: “I don’t know”? Thought not. And if I added: “None of your bloody business! Go away and leave me in peace, you nosy bugger …”’

  Orlando got to his feet rebelliously and made for the door, to find that Joe was already blocking his way.

  ‘Why don’t we take a walk down to the stables, old man?’ Joe said, unruffled. ‘I’m sure I’ve heard horses somewhere in the distance. I’d like to take a look. You can always get the measure of a man by checking his horses—I’ve heard you say it. And, as the lord himself seems to be eluding me, it’s the best I can do.’ He knew that Orlando loved horses even more than art and would never raise an objection to strolling out to admire a selection. Orlando fell into step willingly enough. ‘We can get a bit of fresh air before the day heats up,’ Joe persisted cheerily. ‘If you care to burble a few confidences into a sympathetic ear as we go, I can assure you of my utter discretion. And it is my business, I’m afraid. I’ve been engaged by Dorcas to find her mother. She seems very certain that she’s to be found down here in Provence.’

  Orlando sighed. ‘And that’s all the information you can count on. Why do you suppose I come down to this part of the world every summer? I’m still hoping to find her again. Laure. The love of my life. Well, the first love of my life.’

  ‘Laure?’

  ‘Yes. Like the name of the poet Petrarch’s inamorata. We met in Avignon. Half the girls there are called Laure. The half that aren’t are called Mireille. I’m not even sure that was her name. She was a bit of a storyteller. And secretive. Dorcas is very like her.’ His smile was tender.

  ‘Dorcas tells me all she knows is that her mother was a gypsy and a dancer and that she abandoned her at the age of one year and returned to France.’

  ‘Village gossip. She wasn’t a gypsy—just dark as the Provençaux are. Ancient Greek and Roman ancestry, of course, and it shows—the straight nose, the lustrous eyes, the black curling hair … But, of course, to the good Saxon folk of Surrey, dark equals gypsy. She was slim and lithe and looked like a dancer but she wasn’t one. Not professionally. As far as I know. I found her in a state of destitution. On the street, sleeping in a doorway near the Pope’s Palace. She’d fled her village and come to the big town looking for work.

  ‘No honest work available for a homeless girl. She’d been earning a crust or two singing outside cafés. There was a sort of folklore festival on. Gypsies and other performers in town. People were more willing to open up their purses for a pretty girl singing the old tunes. But it was clearly not going to last. I was going through my Modigliani phase at the time and here was a girl my idol would have smacked his lips over. Thin, dramatic, enigmatic, beautiful …’

  ‘Get on, Orlando!’

  ‘She became my model and my mistress and I took her back home to England with me. I was very young myself … and the money soon ran out … By then, she was pregnant with Dorcas.’

  Joe recalled the acid remarks, the hard slaps he’d seen meted out to Dorcas by her grandmother, and cringed. He could imagine the impression that flinty nature and un
yieldingly aristocratic bearing would have made on a young and pregnant foreigner.

  ‘A year? She survived a year under your mother’s roof? A happy time was had by all, then?’

  ‘You know my mama! I have tried to sell her to the Devil but he’s having nothing! Hatred at first sight! She made Laure’s life a misery. Tormented her, rejected the child when she was born. I did what I could. But, after a year, the moment the child was weaned, Laure disappeared. Left me a note asking me not to try to find her and to take care of Dorcas. I haven’t even got a portrait of her. She burned all the canvases. Made a bonfire of them in the orchard while I was away in London. Not that you’d have recognized her from those pictures.’ Orlando grimaced at the memory of his early work. ‘And that’s it. It was the year before the war broke out. For the next five years there was no possibility of travelling through France but every year since then, I’ve done my best.’

  ‘And your other children?’

  ‘All illegitimate like Dorcas,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Never married any of their mothers. Or rather they wouldn’t have me. I told you—nothing and nobody ever sticks to the smooth surface of the life and character of Orlando Joliffe. Money, lovers, children, friends, they all lose their foothold in the end and they drift away, heaving sighs of relief. You will too …’

  ‘Stupid, self-indulgent sod!’ said Joe mildly. ‘What about that angel, Nanny Tilling? That tower of strength, your groom, old Yallop? They’ve given their lives to you and your progeny. My sister Lydia is not unconcerned and it’ll take more than a bit of self-deprecating hand-wringing to dislodge me, mate!’

  ‘A good kick then? Will that work?’

  ‘Not even. Would you like to hear what I’m planning?’

  Orlando groaned. ‘I don’t want Dorcas to be hurt. And there’s every chance that she might be if you go on with this ferreting. Hopes may be raised only to be dashed. Even worse—you may find her mother and discover that the woman herself has changed. Hadn’t it occurred to you? What do you think life will have been like for a fallen girl with no protector? She’ll be something quite other after thirteen years. Dorcas has a picture in her mind of a young and lovely dancer. Laure might look by this time more like that raddled pouter-pigeon of a duenna that Petrovsky hauls about with him. Did you notice her at the dinner table?’