The Sea Garden

by Deborah Lawrenson

  Marion smiled. “Quite right. Breath of fresh air never hurt anyone, neither.”

  The only concession Iris had made to her daily walking routine was to allow Marion to accompany her. A fall, at her age, would put her out of action for too long.

  (“Slippery slope,” said Iris. “In all senses.”)

  A bridlepath led down one side of The Beeches, meandering to a large pond and a cluster of agricultural buildings and a holiday let. It was a gentle English landscape, of flowing fields and winding paths under trees. The kind of landscape that made one feel safe—that was what he had once told her, wasn’t it?

  A lively wind threaded grass into silver patterns. A chintz of cow parsley danced on the breeze, and a vapour trail smoked high in a blue sky.

  “You’re very quiet, Mrs. C.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “There hasn’t been any more news . . . from the island, has there?”

  They made a slow but steady footfall on the stony path. In a wooded hollow, the pond water was a dusty antique mirror, reflecting oak and beech.

  “I may be about to find out.”

  The death of Suzie’s daughter Ellie on the island of Porquerolles had been a loss more terrible than any other. The random nature of the tragedy, the circumstances so unforeseen; that was what had been so shocking.

  When Ellie did not turn up to take the return flight she had booked from Hyères to London Stansted, there had been days of worry. Her partner in the garden design business, Sarah, raised the alarm when Ellie failed to contact her. It was three agonizing days before the body was found washed up on the southwestern rocks of the island. From the start, it was deemed most likely to be a dreadful accident, or perhaps what was termed inconclusively “misadventure.” Various sightings of Ellie the day before her flight put her close to the Fort de l’Alycastre, the harbour, and the hotel where she was staying—then nothing. It was suggested that she had gone swimming alone and run into difficulties when the weather changed. The sea had done its worst to the body. She was identified by a ring on her finger and the necklace she always wore.

  That was the salt in the wound for Iris: the necklace. Ellie had been wearing the wartime “moon” pearl, Iris’s one superstition, and it had failed to protect her. It had been given to Suzanne, when she was eighteen, and she had passed it on to Ellie. The pearl pendant had come back to them, but Ellie had not.

  The accounts carried by the newspapers had been respectful, by and large, but still painfully speculative. But it was a poignant story: the young woman making a name for herself as a designer of gardens, the evocative Mediterranean location, the dream job, and the tragic outcome. Iris and her daughters understood why some of the journalists had made much of the details, but could not forgive them for the intrusion on their grief.

  Even now, Iris had difficulty in accepting what had happened. It had been bad enough when Ellie had lost her young man in Afghanistan, an act of war that had brought granddaughter and grandmother closer than ever. But for Ellie to be taken in this way still seemed perverse.

  All the young men and women she knew who had died young had died in war. They had signed up to carry out acts of exceptional bravery; all of them were daring, motivated, and reckless and knew the risks. Some of them had themselves killed.

  Different times.

  It hardly mattered. Ellie was dead.

  Anna Lester was slightly older than her voice on the telephone had intimated, with dark shoulder-length hair and clever brown eyes. A pleasant smile reached her eyes, and her handshake was firm. She wore minimal makeup, if indeed any, and her short linen jacket and trousers seemed to wrinkle more with every movement, an outfit that gave the impression more of a harassed off-duty schoolteacher than a cutthroat reporter on a national broadsheet. There was a resolutely self-deprecating air about her that did not fool Iris for a second: she had been extremely well-informed the last time they had spoken, her questions informed by a genuine interest in wartime history.

  “Do you mind?” A small recording device came out of a large bag.

  Iris shook her head.

  “I find it easier. I make notes too, but . . .” She pressed a button and set it on the side table by Iris; then, perched on the edge of her seat with a notebook, she stared around the sitting room. Duck’s-egg-blue walls, hung with fine prints and watercolours. A walnut display cabinet. A magnifying glass poised on a side table on top of the morning newspapers, the Times and the Daily Telegraph.

  Marion brought in tea, served in the decent porcelain cups, then left them to it.

  “Best get straight to the point,” said Iris. She smoothed down her skirt and swallowed hard.

  “Last week I went to Porquerolles,” said Anna Lester. “We had a tip-off that the police had taken Ellie’s client Laurent de Fayols in for further questioning. By the time I got there, he had been released without charge. I was hoping I might get an interview with him, but—understandably, I suppose—he refused to meet me. I decided to retrace your granddaughter’s journey and visit the locations where she was known to have been, trying to build up a fuller picture of what happened, looking for details, descriptions that went beyond the police reports. I’m sorry, this must be hard for you to hear.”

  “Go on.”

  “I stayed at the hotel where she stayed, and spoke about her with the assistant manager. He was friendly and helpful, and remembered her very well. She had arrived looking distressed but said nothing about the suicide on the ferry that delayed her—it was only later he found out why her trip to the island had started so badly.

  “She went out every day and often seemed distracted when she returned in the evenings. Though there was one night when she did not come back.”

  “Is that significant?”

  “Possibly.”

  The journalist opened a notepad at a marked page and ran a finger down a column of writing mixed with shorthand squiggles. “I gather Ellie’s client sent someone over to collect her luggage in order that she could stay over at the Domaine de Fayols. But the next day she was back at the hotel. On the Friday evening, the last night she was booked to stay at the hotel, she came back much happier. Jean-Luc Martin—the assistant manager—passed on a couple of messages, and she went out again, using a bicycle he lent her. But before she went, she gave him something to put in the hotel safe. Jean-Luc had forgotten about it until I came along, asking questions.”

  “What was it?”

  “A notebook containing sketches, ideas, and plans for the garden she’d been working on.”

  “He must have remembered to show it to the police, surely?”

  “Of course. He said he did show it to them in the days after she died, but they looked through it and dismissed it as unimportant. After that, well, I think the truth is that it got lost for a while when it didn’t go back into the safe. The Oustaou des Palmiers is a charming little hotel, but the reception and office are extremely cramped and, frankly, a bit of a mess.”

  Anna Lester cleared her throat and flushed. “I’m afraid I have a confession to make. I may have let him believe I was rather better acquainted with the family than our conversation a couple of years ago would warrant. But as it turned out—”

  “A very old reporter’s trick. Spare me the justification.”

  “Well, you may not be entirely displeased when I tell you that”—she bent over the capacious leather bag at the side of her chair and fished out a black book—“I have the notebook here. Jean-Luc let me have it, on condition that I handed it over to Ellie’s family.”

  She held it out.

  “I think he was pleased to have it taken back to its rightful owners. They hadn’t known quite what to do with it. It wasn’t much of a gamble that I would bring it to you. I was upfront about being a journalist, and he was astute enough to realize that I would get a better story by handing it over in person.”

  Iris took the bulging, stained book. Minutes passed as she flipped through the pages filled with drawings and notes
, measurements and perspectives.

  She looked up. “You have read it right through, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. There must be more than planting schemes and topiary designs to bring you here with it. What is it?”

  The journalist indicated the book. “May I?”

  Iris handed it back. Anna Lester turned the pages carefully.

  “Here. Can you read this?”

  “I’ll need my glasses . . . where did I put them? Read it aloud for now.”

  “It says: ‘A message for Iris.’ Your name is underlined twice. Then it reads: ‘Thy word is a lantern unto my feet: and a light unto my path.’ ”

  Iris composed herself, determined not to react. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. There’s an account of a World War II operation involving a French Resistance agent and the lighthouse on Porquerolles.”

  “Read it.”

  The journalist did so.

  Iris tipped her head back on the high-winged chair and closed her eyes to listen. Trembling, she was actually trembling.

  In August 1944, a plan was made to disable the lighthouse beam in order to confuse the German night defences as the Allies landed at Saint-Tropez in August 1944. British and Americans working with the Resistance in southern France had originally wanted to bomb the lighthouse, but Xavier (a French liaison agent) refused to sanction the destruction of the Porquerolles lighthouse, arguing that it could be more effectively and subtly disabled. He was born on the island—he had known Rousset the lighthouse keeper since he was a boy. How could he allow him to be killed in an explosion? He volunteered to go to Porquerolles himself.

  The island was ringed with barbed wire and mines. Xavier was a native of the island, knew every rock and cove, but realised it would be impossible to come by sea. Time was not on his side. He was already running late after waiting an extra day for a repeat landing on the Saint-Christol plateau that had been called off. He begged the use of a Firefly aircraft hidden near Rians in Provence, and piloted the plane himself on the night of August the thirteenth, the last possible night. Allied bombardment prior to invasion was due to start on the fourteenth.

  Landing on flat ground by the cliffs at the Domaine de Fayols, he ran to the lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper Rousset was astonished to see him but agreed to what Xavier asked. He would disable the beam on the night of August the fourteenth—and claim there was a mechanical fault.

  It was highly dangerous for Xavier to be on the ground. He ran back to the plane and took off as quickly as possible from a field on the cliff where the wind lifted the wings. The takeoff was risky, but he made it. Then the German guns opened. The plane was hit but flew on. Halfway to Marseille, it began its final descent into the sea.

  “There are a few notes at the end,” said Anna. “ ‘Are there any records in London regarding that night? Any records at all of Xavier? Why has the wreck of the plane never been found before now on the seabed? (This must be G’s big discovery . . .)’ Are you all right, Mrs. Corbin? This obviously means something to you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I ask what that is?”

  Iris pulled herself together. “Is it possible that this has a bearing on . . . what happened to Ellie?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Can we verify this story—can it be true? Where would Ellie have found this account?”

  Iris? What on earth are you doing?”

  Iris, on her knees in front of the old travelling trunk in her bedroom, started at Marion’s admonishment but was relieved to see her. She wasn’t entirely sure she would be able to get up again. The lid of the trunk was open. Piles of photograph albums and papers were banked around her.

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “I can see that,” said Marion, indulgently. She was a big woman, tall and strong; she nearly filled the doorway. “You said you were having a rest once your visitor had gone.”

  “It must be here . . .”

  “What? What are you after? If you tell me, perhaps I could help.”

  Iris raised her head, straightening painfully. “You can help me up, in a minute.”

  Marion nodded. They had come to an understanding, many years ago. Marion never mentioned age or its limitations.

  It had been so long since Iris had last seen what she was searching for. Could it somehow have disappeared? How could it not be there? But it was. Among the most private papers, letters, and mementos was the file marked with his name and enclosing the pitifully few photographs. The papers too sensitive to have a place in the bulging filing cabinet she kept in her, admittedly, rather untidy study downstairs. The cabinet had been exclusively her domain for decades, ever since Miles passed away, but even so she had these items under separate guard. This trunk, leather-bound, scuffed, and dented, was the cradle of her older, frailer possessions.

  Iris reached farther into the trunk, finally exhuming a small parcel of tissue paper. She peeled back the crackling layers. Inside was a glass bottle, five inches tall. The perfume it had once held was nothing more than a brown stain on the base. She fumbled with the stopper, twisting it off with some effort; it seemed to have stuck. Or was it the shaking in her fingers? She put her nose to the lip of the glass and inhaled. She sat and waited for a moment, concentrating before she took another breath. But it was no good. The scent had finally evaporated. There had been times when she had seemed able to catch a remnant of it, but now nothing came. If she smelled anything, it was the dust and cold hard glass of the present.

  Downstairs, in Ellie’s notebook, lay what might be the final chapter of the story, and yet it was impossible. How could Ellie have heard it, or stumbled across it? She knew she should contact Suzie, but she felt too exhausted. If Nancy had still been alive, she could have picked up the phone right then. She missed her, too.

  A week later the telephone rang. It was around the time Suzie or Betsy usually called, and Iris picked up the phone in full expectation that it was one of her daughters.

  “Mrs. Corbin, this is Anna Lester.”

  “Anna.”

  “Look, I know we agreed you would call me when you were ready, but something has happened. Trust me, you will want to know about this. Laurent de Fayols has told the police that he has some more information, but he wants to meet you first.”

  11

  Le Train Bleu

  Paris, September 2013

  Naturally, Suzie and Betsy had counselled against travelling, ridiculously overprotective as they were. Betsy, in particular. Slighter, blonder, more cerebral than her sister, she was her father’s daughter: risk-averse to a fault. Iris had rather enjoyed the heated exchange that ensued, in which her daughters’ opinion that she was too old to charge off to Paris had been countered by Anna Lester’s reassurances that she would send a car to bring her up to London and remain at her side every minute of the firstclass rail journey on the Eurostar. A five-star hotel would be booked for the night, and the meeting over lunch would take place the next day. Even Marion had been drawn into the argument, finally asserting that Iris really was not your average ninety-one-year-old lady, had never been average at any age, and still had plenty of the old get-up-and-go.

  Whatever anyone else thought, it was immaterial. Iris was resolute. If Laurent de Fayols had asked to see her, with Anna there as part of the deal, nothing was going to stop her from granting his request that she join them.

  “Why can’t he come to London?” asked Suzie.

  “I don’t know. We didn’t ask.”

  “I want to come with you. I should be there.”

  Iris put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder, almost the same height as her own. The calm determination on Suzie’s face reminded her of Xavier every time she saw that expression. “I know. I did ask, but he specifically said he wanted to speak to me alone—if I could do it without Anna, I would.”

  “It’s very odd.”

  “It will be fine. You want me to find out what he has
to say, don’t you?”

  The high-speed train across northern France seemed to fly over fields stretched wide and flat under white skies. It was midmorning, and the carriage was quiet except for a middle-aged couple at the other end and a group of businessmen intent on their own discussion, conducted over four open computers. Even so, they kept their voices down.

  “Has he intimated anything about what he has to tell us?” asked Iris.

  “No. I got the impression he was not going to say anything until you were there.”

  “I see.”

  “The police have spoken to him several times, which is as you would expect. He was the reason Ellie went to the island, and she . . . her body . . . was found quite close to his estate. He didn’t want to speak to me when I was there, but I left my card in case he changed his mind.”

  Iris put her chin on one hand. “You asked when you came to see me whether the message and the story in Ellie’s notebook could be connected to her death. It seems incredible that it could be.”

  “But not impossible?”

  She had decided that there was no point in obfuscating any longer. “If it is, then it is a long and complex story, and one that—I have to warn you—I have never managed to unravel myself. Frankly, I had come to terms with not knowing.”

  “Either Laurent de Fayols has something to confess—or he too needs to understand something that only you can explain.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough. It’s a question of trust, Miss Lester, isn’t it?”

  “Please call me Anna. So . . . if this story goes back to the war, it must include your days with SOE. There is currently a great deal of interest in those operations. More and more information is becoming available—”

  “With every obituary published in the newspapers.”

  “Also being released from archive files.”

  “This story may not be in the archive files, despite the notes that indicate Ellie’s intention to try to find some corroboration there,” said Iris. “It may involve the unthinkable, perhaps for me, perhaps even for you.”