Caught In the Light

by Robert Goddard

  ‘What was Lefebvre working on?’ I asked. ‘Lawrence Byfield?’

  ‘The very man. Tenant of La Fauconnerie, back in the eighteen twenties.’ We’d reached Quisden-Neve’s hire car. He opened the boot, dumped his bag inside and looked round at us. ‘Bit of a dead end, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Nothing worth murdering Monty for. That seems clear.’

  ‘Does it? What had Lefebvre found out?’

  ‘I really don’t have the time to go into it all. Why not ask him yourself?’ He fumbled with his wallet. ‘Here’s his card. Look, if you do turn anything up …’ He scribbled something on the back before passing it to me. ‘There’s my phone number.’

  ‘Thanks. But look—’

  ‘I have to go. Sorry.’ He moved round to the driver’s door, but pulled up smartly when Daphne laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  ‘One last thing, Mr Quisden-Neve.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Show him Eris’s picture, Ian. Just in case.’

  ‘All right.’ I took it from my pocket and held it out for him to see. ‘Ever met her?’

  He grabbed it from me and peered closely at the likeness. ‘As a matter of fact, I think I have. Here, in St Peter Port. Yesterday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A strange business, actually. But there’s been so much—’

  ‘Tell us.’ Daphne interrupted. ‘Please.’

  ‘I didn’t think at the time …’ He shrugged. ‘Lefebvre’s office is in a tiny alley near the market. I’d parked down at the harbour, on one of the piers. I’d just got back to the car and was about to get in when another car leaving the pier, some kind of Lotus, bright yellow and brand new – eye-catching number, no question – squealed to a halt right by me. The driver’s window was down. It was her. This woman. She was at the wheel.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Can one ever be absolutely sure of such things? I think it was her. I feel sure, looking at this picture.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She stared at me. Almost through me. As if she’d seen a ghost.’

  ‘She mistook you for your brother,’ murmured Daphne.

  ‘That’s possible, if, as you tell me, she knew Monty.’

  ‘Did you speak to her?’

  ‘No. She just stared at me for … what? … half a minute. Then she raised the window and drove away. I thought no more about it.’

  ‘She’s here,’ I said, half dazed by such a bland, unlooked-for delivery of proof. ‘Alive and well. On the island.’

  ‘This is important, isn’t it?’ asked Quisden-Neve, handing the picture back to me. ‘This is what it’s all about.’

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ said Daphne with a calm perversity that somewhere, at the back of my mind, I saw the sense of. ‘Eris has a lot of problems. But they’re unlikely to have anything to do with your brother’s murder.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that, Miss Sanger.’

  ‘Of course. Look, here’s my card.’ Seeing Quisden-Neve’s brow furrow at the sight of her professional title, Daphne added, ‘I was treating her. You’ll understand I can’t go into details. But if you want to talk further when we get back …’

  ‘I’m sure I shall.’

  ‘Then please phone me.’

  ‘Or we’ll phone you,’ I said, smiling in an attempt to assure him of our good faith. It was just as well he had a plane to catch. He had too many questions. And those I was able to answer I couldn’t afford to – yet.

  ‘I’m not going to let this rest, you know,’ he declared, as if to the world in general, as he climbed into the car.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Daphne.

  ‘Neither are we,’ I concluded, before she could say it herself.

  The Lefebvre Family History and Lost Heirs Service was housed in attic rooms over a hairdressing salon in the centre of St Peter Port. The receptionist-cum-secretary told us, through a headful of cold, that Mr Lefebvre wouldn’t be back till three o’clock. We made the nearest we could to an appointment and left.

  The next few hours hung heavily. I had no appetite for lunch and little inclination to describe my reaction to Valentine Quisden-Neve’s sighting of Eris. Daphne took a good guess at what it was anyway, as we walked the pier car parks in an aimless reconstruction of the scene, and wondered if at any moment the yellow Lotus might reappear.

  ‘What would she have done if it had been you rather than Quisden-Neve? That’s what you’re asking yourself, isn’t it, Ian? Are we falling over backwards to give her the benefit of the doubt? Is she ill and in need of help – or just having a good laugh at our expense?’

  ‘You think that if you want. I’ll go on believing in her, thank you very much.’

  ‘Because you have to.’

  ‘Because I choose to. I love her – unconditionally. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘As a psychotherapist, I have to tell you love is neither simple nor unconditional. You love the woman you met in Vienna. She’s not necessarily the woman hiding here on Guernsey.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘Yes. We will. I’m merely trying to prepare you for the possibility that—’

  ‘Save it, Daphne. I’m not going to argue with you about this.’

  ‘Just with yourself.’

  ‘For God’s sake.’ I pulled up and rounded on her. ‘This is getting us nowhere. Why don’t we go our separate ways until four o’clock and meet up then at Lefebvre’s?’

  ‘All right.’ She eyed me thoughtfully. ‘You’re going to spend all that time here, aren’t you? Just watching and waiting.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And, if you do see her, you’d prefer me to be elsewhere.’

  ‘I suppose I would.’

  ‘You seem to have forgotten something.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be on the same side.’ She sighed. ‘But have it your own way.’ Without another word she turned and walked away. I watched her go with a squirming sense of relief. Everything she’d said was true. But now at least I didn’t have to hear it said.

  Nothing happened. Lightning didn’t strike twice. Or maybe Eris knew better than to return to the same place so soon. I spent so long pacing round the piers and marinas that I began to wonder if Quisden-Neve could have been mistaken. But I knew that was only frustration doing my thinking for me. He’d seen her. But I wasn’t going to. Not yet, anyway.

  Daphne was waiting for me by the market arcade, opposite the entrance to the alley that led to Lefebvre’s office. It was just gone ten to three by the town church clock.

  ‘You’re early,’ she said, with a softness in her voice that hinted at regret for the harsh words we’d exchanged at the pier.

  ‘You, too.’

  ‘That’s because we’re suddenly short of time. I’ve had an urgent message from a psychiatrist I work with. A patient he referred to me has tried to commit suicide. Quite a serious attempt, apparently. I’ll have to go back right away.’

  ‘Of course. Eris is only one case to you. I do see that.’

  ‘Ian—’

  ‘You have to go. It’s all right. I understand.’ Part of me was pleased. When I found Eris, I wanted to be alone with her. ‘I didn’t see her, by the way. You didn’t expect me to, did you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘Because you think it’s me she’s hiding from.’

  ‘Let’s talk about it later. I’m booked on a flight to Heathrow at five o’clock. I can still come with you to see Lefebvre if you’ll drive me to the airport afterwards.’

  ‘All right. Let’s go.’

  Lefebvre was alone in his office, having sent his ailing secretary home. ‘She was no use to me, sneezing and snuffling all over the place.’ Not that he looked a fastidious man. The greasy hair, dirty fingernails and frayed shirt suggested he dealt with most of his clients by post. But he was nothing if not adaptable. ‘I conducted the Byfield
research for the late Montagu Quisden-Neve. It was a confidential transaction. The information itself, though, is still for sale, so to speak, at my usual terms.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘They’re, ah, set out in this leaflet.’ He began to rummage in his desk. ‘Now, where—?’

  ‘Just tell us,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Very well.’ He stopped rummaging. ‘Fifty pounds.’ He smiled. ‘For this kind of thing.’

  ‘For work you’ve already been paid for,’ Daphne pointed out.

  ‘I charge what the market will bear.’ His smile broadened. ‘And there is of course no VAT to worry about.’

  ‘Here.’ I handed him the money. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  ‘Do you want a receipt?’

  ‘All we want is everything you told Quisden-Neve about Lawrence Byfield.’

  ‘Of course. And we’re all busy people. I quite understand.’ He pocketed the cash and composed himself. ‘Well, now, this was an unusual assignment, I can’t deny. Famous ancestors and unclaimed bequests are my normal province. Mr Quisden-Neve had more abstruse requirements. They amounted essentially to everything I could learn about Lawrence Byfield, whom he believed to have lived here during the eighteen twenties. The most difficult task was confirming that the man had indeed been a resident on the island. I eventually traced him through the poor rate registers. He held the lease of La Fauconnerie, a rather handsome property up on—’

  ‘We’ve seen it.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Along with the camera obscura?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bernard Cresswell’s done an excellent restoration job, don’t you think?’ He paused, expecting, I suppose, a chorus of enthusiasm. When none came, he merely raised his eyebrows and continued. ‘Good. Well, Byfield leased the house from March 1819 until his death in October 1824, during which time he installed a camera obscura in the dovecote and won something of a reputation in the community as an amateur scientist.’

  ‘He was trying to follow in her footsteps,’ Daphne whispered. The same thought had come to me. Rogue or not, Byfield had appreciated the potential importance of heliogenesis. A camera obscura was a good starting point. As to how much further he’d gone …

  ‘What sort of reputation?’

  ‘I can’t really be more specific. He was a founding member of La Société Scientifique de Guernesey. There was a brief obituary in their archives. I had to have it translated from the original French. I incur many such expenses in this line of work, let me tell you.’

  ‘How did he meet his death?’ asked Daphne. ‘He’d still have been a relatively young man in 1824.’

  ‘Thirty-nine, according to evidence given at the inquest.’

  ‘Not natural causes, then?’

  ‘By no means. Byfield was killed in a duel – or as a consequence of one, perhaps I should say. He fought a Frenchman by the name of Paulmier on the sands at Vazon Bay. Sabres were the chosen weapons. Byfield suffered a minor injury from which he was expected to recover, but for some reason the bleeding couldn’t be staunched.’

  ‘He bled to death.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked at Daphne. The illness from which Byfield had supposedly been convalescing when he came to Tollard Rising; the limp; the minor injury; the unexpected death. Byfield was a haemophiliac – the one Quisden-Neve had been looking for.

  ‘Why was the duel fought?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘Not recorded, I’m afraid. Paulmier fled the island, fearing prosecution. The Procureur was known to be down on all that kind of Gallic excess. The seconds claimed not to have been told. Mr Quisden-Neve asked me to look for a woman in the case and I did turn up a coincidental death which struck him as significant. The suicide of an unidentified Englishwoman a week before the duel. She threw herself off the harbour wall into a stormy sea and drowned.’

  ‘Oh God,’ murmured Daphne.

  ‘It was suggested at the inquest that the events were connected, but an old friend of Byfield’s who’d travelled from England to attend his funeral and stayed on for the inquest—’

  ‘Joslyn Esguard,’ I put in with fatalistic certainty.

  ‘Yes. Esguard was the name.’

  ‘He did his best to disconnect them, did he?’

  ‘As a matter of fact he did. He said, in evidence, that his friend had fought several duels back in England over gambling debts, and suggested that was almost certainly the cause on this occasion.’

  ‘Are you sure the woman was never identified?’

  ‘We’re talking about 1824. It’s pure luck I turned up this much. Without the duel it wouldn’t have been sensational enough to warrant such a detailed press report. The drowning was small beer.’

  ‘What else did you find out?’

  ‘Nothing to speak of. Byfield died without issue and––’

  ‘Without legitimate issue, you mean?’

  ‘Er, yes, quite. As you say. At all events, no widow or grieving relatives cropped up at the inquest. And La Fauconnerie was re-let. Byfield was buried in an unmarked grave at the town cemetery. I can give you the plot reference if you require it.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘What about the unidentified woman?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Where was she buried?’

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t say.’ Lefebvre shrugged. ‘Does it really matter?’

  We reached the airport in time for a cup of tea in the cafeteria before Daphne went through to board her flight. We hadn’t said much since leaving Lefebvre’s office. The doleful implications of what he’d told us didn’t seem to need spelling out. Marian had traced Byfield to Guernsey after seven years of searching, and found a man of straw not worth the hunting down. Perhaps she’d hoped all along that he really had been more than Jos’s puppet. But perhaps he’d had enough decency to disabuse her on the point, to be honest with her for the first and last time. Hence her despairing dive from the harbour wall. And hence his quarrel with a short-tempered French swordsman. A second suicide, dressed up as a mort d’honneur. Leaving his old friend from England to sift through the wreckage – and to squirrel away certain facts for future use. Quisden-Neve had died with the last piece in the jigsaw close at hand. But for us it was only the first piece. And the picture it formed part of remained a mystery.

  ‘Do you think Eris knows what happened to Marian?’ I asked as the minutes ticked by.

  ‘Knows – or senses?’ Daphne looked across at me, her voice barely audible above a toddler’s temper tantrum at the table behind her. ‘It would at least explain what brought her here. In part.’

  ‘And the other part?’

  ‘Something to do with Niall. It must be.’

  ‘I thought you were unconvinced he was on the island.’

  ‘I’m unconvinced by everything. Except the need for caution. I’ll be back as soon as I can. By Sunday, hopefully. Until then—’

  ‘I’m to walk on eggshells?’

  ‘Just tread carefully. Quisden-Neve got himself murdered, remember.’

  ‘I’m not about to forget.’

  ‘What is there worth killing for in this, Ian? I understand that least of all.’

  ‘It has to be Marian’s photographs. They’d fetch a fortune. And people never like sharing fortunes. Especially not people like Niall Esguard.’

  ‘Stay out of his way, then.’

  ‘I will if I can. I’m not interested in finding the photographs. Only in finding Eris.’

  ‘That’s what worries me. In the end, they could turn out to be the same thing.’

  It was a valid warning. But I was convinced, maybe because I needed to be, that Eris was in some kind of danger, and was only hiding from me to ensure I didn’t get dragged into it as well. But, if there was any sacrificing to be done, I meant to be the one to do it. And staying out of Niall Esguard’s way wasn’t how to start.

  For the time being, though, he was no easier to track down than Eris. They were
both on the island. I didn’t doubt that. But where? My only clue was a bright-yellow Lotus, driven in St Peter Port just the day before. It should be possible to trace it, I reasoned. It really should.

  After I’d seen Daphne off, I did the rounds of the airport car-hire desks. Lotuses weren’t exactly their speciality, but I was told which dealer to go to in search of one, and their showroom was, like just about everything else on Guernsey, only a few miles away. It was still open when I arrived, and a salesman with the last half-hour of a Friday afternoon to while away gave me the benefit of his wisdom.

  ‘Sounds like a mainland model. I certainly can’t recall anything as exotic as that going through our books. It’s not as conspicuous as you might think, actually. The millionaires like to be seen around in customized sports jobs, even though the speed limit here means you get a ticket for just changing into third. Most of the cars sit in air-conditioned garages up at Fort George conserving their second-hand value. What a waste, eh?’

  Fort George was an estate of luxury residences laid out within the walls of the old British garrison on the headland south of St Peter Port. I drove round it that evening, gazing at the hacienda-style rooflines and the manicured lawns, at the locked gates and the closed doors. It was no place to ask questions, let alone expect answers. Apart from anything else, there was no-one to ask. A pedestrian would have been more noticeable than a whole motorcade of Lotuses.