‘I shall need to take the prints.’ Metand turned to Anna. ‘All of them.’
As they drove down narrow lanes between flat fields and great swathes of forest, Lucy asked a now familiar question, ‘Do you think he’s dead?’ Again, the images in the photos assaulted her.
‘The fact that the shirt has now been found so far away from the château might mean he could still be alive.’
‘So there is hope?’
‘Always.’ Metand replied with some fervour. ‘There is always hope.’ But she already knew how despairing he was. This was the first time he had tried to falsely cheer her. Then he continued rather more convincingly, ‘Solange decided you would be the best person to give the film to. I’m sure she was right, whatever motive she had.’
‘What are you going to do with the prints?’ Lucy had hardly been able to ask the question which had so many dreadful ramifications. Peter and Martin would be condemned by the photographs as criminals. They would be ruined by their arrests and subsequent trial. As to May and Sally – their suffering didn’t bear thinking about. Lucy tried to block out of her mind the conversations that would rattle the roof of Caves Café and failed to do so.
‘Eventually I’m going to show them to a propaganda expert,’ said Metand. ‘But for the moment I need to think. Think hard.’
The woods were dense and looked as if they hadn’t been entered in years. Brambles were everywhere and the trees were tightly packed together, many of them slowly being strangled by ivy.
There was no birdsong and a heavy stillness hung in the musty air. It was as if the undergrowth and foliage were too acidic, too arid to support life. Wild garlic and fennel pervaded the atmosphere and Lucy now understood the difficult terrain the police were up against.
An officer was standing by a thicket about fifty yards into the wilderness. Then she saw the all too familiar shirt entangled in some brambles.
She remembered buying it at Home’s near Waterloo Bridge.
‘I say, old girl. It’s a bit loud, isn’t it?’ Tim had said.
‘It’s stylish,’ she had told him firmly. ‘Nicely tailored. It’ll go with your sports jacket.’
‘What about the cavalry twill?’ he had asked, substituting one worry for another.
The first time he had worn the shirt Tim had been embarrassed. ‘Do you really think –’ he had begun.
‘I think it’s lovely,’ she had said lightly. ‘Matches your eyes.’
He had laughed doubtfully at the time. But then he had got used to the shirt and, as with everything, it became a habit. In the end she had had to practically tear the shirt off him. Now someone had torn it up. What a waste.
‘It’s his,’ she said reluctantly. ‘That’s Tim’s shirt.’
‘Do you have the slightest doubt?’
‘None.’ The misery swept her as she looked round at the tangled thickets, the too closely packed trees, the dense brambles that shrouded the wood. Where are you, Tim? Are you hiding somewhere? Lucy tried to keep the images of the photographs out of her mind, but they kept coming back. Then she started as something stirred amongst the ferns and then ran through a tunnel of dead bracken.
‘What was that?’
‘A rabbit,’ said Metand discouragingly.
‘Do you think he’s around?’
‘The shirt has been here some time. It’s soaked with dew and there are animal droppings on it. Probably badger.’
‘How long could it have been here?’
‘A couple of days. Maybe three.’
‘He’ll be cold,’ Lucy muttered. ‘Especially at night. But he has his coat,’ she added, trying to comfort herself.
‘I’ll take you back.’
‘To Anna?’ She sounded confused.
‘To Louis.’
‘Very well. I mustn’t get in your way. I tried not to get in hers.’
‘It’s not that –’
‘It’s just that you think I’ll get too upset.’
They walked silently back to the car. Then Metand stumbled and would have fallen if Lucy hadn’t grabbed his arm.
‘Thank you.’ He looked slightly embarrassed, and despite all her own preoccupations her heart went out to him.
‘You must be exhausted,’ she said anxiously, aware again of how much she had come to rely on him.
‘The possibility of a result keeps me going. I like to believe I might one day understand human behaviour. But as the years pass that seems an increasingly unlikely goal. The trouble is that human motives are so self-protective. But then I am the same. My home is my fortress, as the British say. Have you discovered the garden at the hotel? Louis’s garden?’
‘It’s a delight.’ She tried to remember its glory but only saw the men in the chapel.
‘Yes. It’s been a real refuge. He’s worked so hard on it. Do you have a refuge, Lucy?’
She had to think carefully and then told him about her father and the willow tree that bent over the pond.
‘You didn’t have such a place with Tim?’
‘We never found one. But we will. After all this is cleared up. We’ll find one somewhere.’ Then she asked him the question that had been on her mind for some time. ‘Do you think Anna knew Solange had left that film for me?’
‘It’s possible. They were very close.’
‘How close?’
‘Two women on their own cut off in a ruined château? I hardly know Anna, but Solange told me she was the only person she could trust to be with for a long time.’ He paused and added, ‘I should perhaps tell you that Anna is sick. She has cancer.’
‘She told me. She also said Solange had been hoping to get her to America for some kind of special treatment.’
‘Yes,’ said Metand. Then he came to an abrupt halt.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘The photographs,’ he muttered.
‘What about them?’
He looked at her in an abstracted way and then began to hurry on again. ‘It doesn’t matter for the moment.’
Lucy stared at him blankly, suddenly needing to be put to bed, to sleep and to remain sleeping. The only place where this could happen was the Hôtel des Arbres. Her mind was so tired that it hurt.
‘Who would have done that to his shirt?’ she muttered, hardly knowing what she was saying. ‘It cost a fortune at Home Brothers.’
Then she saw a policeman pushing his way through the brambles towards them. Lucy noticed that one of his wrists was badly scratched and he was breathing heavily.
A feeling of leaden despair filled her as she turned, her eyes sweeping the wild-wood, like a lost child, waiting for her tormentor.
12
31 July – 1 August
Metand hurried over to his colleague and for some reason Lucy waited, watching them conferring. Then he began to follow the policeman through the wilderness, now seemingly oblivious of her existence. Why had he deserted her?
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Metand sounded agitated.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Why don’t you go to the car?’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Over the hill. I’ll be back. I just need to – check something.’
‘I want to come with you.’ Lucy began a stumbling run, like a younger child left out of a game, desperate to follow her older siblings, determined to force them to wait for her. To include her. ‘I want to come with you.’
Reluctantly, Metand hesitated and so did his colleague. She felt an unwanted appendage.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It could be nothing. I’d much rather you waited by the car.’
But Lucy was already at his side, already fearing the worst. Something scurried amongst a cluster of ivy-covered oak trees. More rabbits? ‘You won’t get away, Tim,’ she said aloud, and then felt a fool as she stumbled after them, nettles scraping at her stockings and a thorny bramble catching her skirt. Lucy wanted her father. She wasn’t dressed for this.
Now they were
walking on an overgrown path, striding uphill through the mulch of last year’s leaves. They came to a ridge and she gazed down into a small valley. The ruins of a stone farmhouse rose above the scattered remains of collapsed outbuildings; the roof had fallen in, the doors and windows had long since disappeared and a chimney stack was resting against a huge oak, branches weaving around the masonry.
Beyond the farmhouse, at the bottom of another overgrown track, was the crumbling brick base of a well.
A group of men were heaving at a couple of ropes they had made into a primitive pulley while a police officer gave instructions. When they saw the three of them hurrying down the hill, the strenuous group activity ceased.
Metand stopped and grabbed Lucy’s arm. His colleague strode on, anxious to confer. ‘For the moment I would like you to stay where you are.’
‘I have to see.’ She forced herself from his grip. Then she came to a halt.
Metand spoke to the men by the improvised pulley for what seemed an inordinate length of time. As he did so, Lucy was conscious of the stillness of the woods wrapping itself around her. But this time the sensation wasn’t threatening. It was as if there was a membrane across her mind, mercifully stopping her thinking.
Eventually Metand turned back to Lucy. ‘There is a heavy object down there.’ He looked as if he was under an impossible strain. He also seemed extremely apprehensive.
‘Who alerted them?’
‘A dog. The – object is about eight metres down.’
Lucy didn’t want Metand to stop talking. She had to procrastinate as long as she could.
‘What is it?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘Can’t they see?’
‘Not at the moment.’ He turned away, gave a signal, and the men – she counted eight of them – began to pull on the improvised winch. Slowly the body appeared.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ she screamed. ‘You’ll hurt him.’
Metand gripped her arm, but she shook him off again and ran the last few paces to the top of the well. The men were looking at her in distaste, as if she was a voyeur. Then Lucy realized it wasn’t distaste, but shock.
Still the body rose up. Now she could see the ripped and gory corduroy around the thighs. Then the ropes gave a jerk and a torso appeared, naked and covered in mud. An arm cracked against the well head, twig-like in rigor mortis, and then the chest and head. She saw the other arm was bent at an extraordinary angle.
Lucy felt encased in stone.
But then, when she saw the blackened turnip that had once been Tim’s head, she began to run in hopeless little circles, her mouth open, the scream silent at first and then emerging as a thin wail.
As the turnip hit the top of the well she could see Tim’s wide-open eyes staring at her. The nose was gone and the mouth was only a ragged tear. Above the eyes was a section of matted brown hair. He looked as if he had been scalped and a blackbird sang as if in triumph. The nursery rhyme beat in Lucy’s head like crackling feathers.
Who tolled the bell?
All the birds of the air
Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing
When they heard of the death
Of poor Cock Robin.
She looked up and saw birds soaring. She’d known, hadn’t she? She’d known she’d tolled the bell. I drove him to this, she said. I drove him here.
Lucy fell to her knees as she watched the body rise, flies buzzing about its charnel hulk, winched up to whirl a sombre dance and then down to the ground where it lay as stiff as a board, rigid at every impossible angle.
Metand pulled Lucy to her feet, smothering her face against the thick wool of his jacket.
‘Let me help you.’ He let her go and she leant against him while he unscrewed the top of the brandy flask. ‘Drink.’
She did, eventually spluttering and then taking another long draught.
She gave the flask back to him and moved towards the well. ‘I want to see him,’ she said.
‘Animals have been down there. They have – they have interfered with him.’
‘Tim!’ She screamed out his name over and over again. ‘I’ve found you. You got lost. It’s going to be all right now, my darling. It’s going to be all right.’
Metand pulled her against him and pushed the flask to her lips again. This time Lucy drank until she choked.
‘I’m sorry.’ He was patting her back like her father had done when she’d swallowed something the wrong way. ‘I’m so sorry.’
More birds flew overhead, rustling the trees at the edge of the woodlands until the sound filled her ears, blocking out everything else except one stabbing thought. I killed him.
The afternoon sunlight sent long, low, dust swirling beams through the half-closed shutters of her bedroom in the Hotel des Arbres.
Metand had driven her back and she had sat beside him in the front seat, unresponsive to his attempts to comfort her.
It was over. He was dead. There had never been any hope from the start.
Lucy could not associate the thing in the well with Tim but, at the same time, she now had to accept that it was all over.
Suddenly she was thinking more clearly. Tim killed Claude. Tim killed Solange. But who killed Tim?
Overall, Lucy knew it was all her fault. The men had tried to stop this happening, tried to protect them both. So had poor May. But she wouldn’t listen, hadn’t been able to listen. Then there were the prints. Those obscene, unbelievably vile photographs.
She bore the blame.
She had driven Tim to his death.
It was all plain, unvarnished fact.
Tim had killed Claude. But surely it hadn’t been because of Solange? It must be to do with the prints. No wonder he had become a nervous wreck. No wonder the men had moved into Shrub Lane to guard him.
But why had he agreed to go? Was it just because she had threatened to leave him? Or was he glad to be prompted to face his unfinished business, glad to confront Solange over the roll of film. Just as Tim had been driven to breakdown, she been driven mad.
Yet there were so many loose ends, so many things Lucy didn’t understand. Nevertheless, all she now wanted was the safety of Esher, even the safety of the men. Peter and Martin would look after her. They would forgive her. For she was, after all, only a misguided little woman who should never have left her mock Tudor home. She was no good on her own.
Some hours later, Lucy leapt out of bed and rang the bell that Monique had so thoughtfully left on the table. Another possibility had crept into her mind. Why hadn’t she realized? Why hadn’t she been able to deduce such a simple fact? She realized that Metand would have tried to shield her. But why had she been so blindly foolish?
Monique came running breathlessly up the stairs and Lucy knew she had to tell her, to gauge her reaction at once.
‘Would you say that Solange was capable of murder?’ Lucy gabbled. ‘You see, I’ve just realized that if he – if Tim has been dead all this time, then she might have killed him. Must have killed him.’
Monique sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hands in hers. ‘I don’t think she would be capable of doing that.’
‘How do you know?’
‘And why should it be Solange? The killer could be anyone.’
Lucy sprang her trump card. She wanted to shock Monique into agreeing with her. Then it would all be over and she could start trying to cope with the fact that Tim was the turnip head in the well. That Tim was dead. That he would never call her ‘old thing’ again.
Lucy spoke slowly, concisely. ‘Solange left a note and roll of film for me in the archive at Pavilly.’
‘Does Metand know? You’re not –’
‘I told him. Anna was sure the film had only been placed there the previous day, just before Solange died. The photographs are of Martin and Peter. Tim wasn’t in them. They were engaged in something unspeakable. A homosexual act. I don’t know the law in France, but in England homosexuality is a criminal offence. No one even mentions the w
ord. If it ever came out – Martin and Peter would be ruined. But I’m certain they were forced to do this by the Nazis for propaganda. I gather that’s how Claude Eclave and his friends were found out. The girls they supplied were caught on film and that was bad enough, except their activities were rather more orthodox.’
Monique’s expression didn’t change. ‘You say Solange left the film for you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see the purpose of that. If Tim wasn’t in the photograph.’
They gazed at each other in silence.
‘Then why did she do it?’ demanded Lucy.
‘I don’t know. Does Metand?’
‘We didn’t discuss it.’
‘Where are these prints now?’
‘Metand has them. He said he’d give them careful thought and maybe show them to a propaganda –’
‘Lucy.’ Monique was now determined to cut off the flow of words. ‘You’ve had the most terrible shock. You can’t talk about all this now. You’ve got to give your mind a rest – or you’ll go mad.’
‘Like Solange? Like Tim?’
‘Let me ring our local doctor. He’s very good. He can prescribe some sleeping pills, or a sedative.’
‘No.’ Lucy was insistent. ‘I’ve got to talk to someone. I don’t want you to be soothing.’
‘Very well.’ Monique resigned herself. ‘I won’t be soothing.’
‘Martin and Peter were obviously compelled to do that horrible –’ Lucy’s voice died away. ‘I’m sure Tim went to get that film.’
‘But then at least his task has been completed. The photographs are safely with Metand.’
‘Peter and Martin wouldn’t have wanted to have got involved in something like that.’
‘No,’ said Monique. ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t.’
But Lucy knew that despite all her pleading there was no point in trying to discuss it with her. She could only be soothing, however much she tried not to.
Suddenly Lucy began to cry and Monique put her arms around her, holding her as tightly as Metand had. Eventually the tears were replaced by dry, hard sobs and a great bleakness spread inside. Tim was dead. The hope had gone.
The Men Page 19