by Aileen Izett
Tom stayed outside. Greg, Valerie, Eveline and I — we took up all the available space in the cramped interior, jostling for position around Claudine who sat at the only table on the only chair in the centre of the shack.
An oblong of sunlight fell through the open doorway. The rest of the hovel was in shadow — and it smelt of the rank odour of a life lived without recourse to fresh running water. Claudine ignored us, hunched over the banknotes fanned out across the table. They looked lovely: pink, crisp and clean under her misshapen fingers. I found Eveline’s hand, slippery with perspiration, and held it.
“Could you tell her for us please,” I asked Valerie, “that we’re looking for the brother of a friend of ours who disappeared while staying at the château.”
Valerie’s voice was cajoling. Other than a sharp glance at Eveline, it was as if Claudine wasn’t hearing her, that we didn’t exist, that we weren’t crowded around the table, waiting.
I had no choice. “Tell her that he was a guest of the Kumonos.”
Claudine stiffened and her frightened eyes looked up again at Eveline, searching her face. The silence seemed to last forever.
Then, for a moment, we were cast into semi-darkness. Tom blocked the doorway before taking the ten or so steps to Claudine’s table. He pushed between Greg and Valerie. He started bundling the notes together.
“I’ve had enough of this game.”
Slowly, unsteadily, Claudine levered herself to her feet. Her face swam close to Tom’s, the wrinkled mouth pouring out harsh invective. Eveline’s whole body stiffened. I held her hand steady.
“What’s she saying?” I had to shout to be heard by Valerie.
“She’s cursing him.”
There was no point in asking this bitter old woman anything. Tom was right. It was useless.
“Leave it Tom!” My voice rang out. “We’ll go.”
Claudine clutched him by the forearm. He could easily have pushed her away but it was as if he was mesmerised, a snake under the spell of the snake-charmer. He stood stock-still, his face redder and redder. Claudine ranted on, while Valerie watched her, open-mouthed and wide-eyed.
Eveline shoved her brother’s photograph into Claudine’s hand. Claudine barely gave it a glance and then something in the young man’s face attracted her attention. Abruptly she stopped shouting. She sank back into her seat, peering at the photo a couple of inches from her nose. After a couple of minutes she started to talk again, her voice much softer, the tone laden with regret.
“She says,” Valerie again, “that there were other young men who were guests of the Kumonos. They lounged around, getting in her way.”
“And?” My throat was as dry as a bone.
“And what?” Valerie riposted.
Eveline shuddered and leant into me. I supported her. Claudine gave us both a sharp glance.
“This is insane,” Valerie muttered.
Addressing me, a torrent of French spewed out of Claudine’s mouth.
“She doesn’t know anything,” Valerie reported.
“Right that’s it. Let’s get out of here.” Tom said.
“Come off it, she must.” My voice pleaded. Holding on to Eveline, I was becoming very hot and sweaty.
“People came and went all the time. It was very difficult to clean the château, a security man stood over her as she did her work. The young men were nice enough, but careless, and as for the Kumono brothers — ” Valerie imitated Claudine’s hand gestures, “she doesn’t like to speak about them. They were monsters.”
Eveline was trying to pull away from me. I held her tight. I had to go on. For her sake, I had to finish what I had started.
“Tell her,” I asked, “that we found a cupboard full of all sorts of old clothes, all beautifully ironed.”
Another volley of French from Claudine. “She says,” Valerie said, “that the Kumonos told her to tidy the château, after they’d gone. So she ironed the clothes and put them in the large cupboard in the room off the archway. She was too frightened to disobey them after her dog.”
“The ironing boards,” I said. “So many. Why?”
Valerie’s eyes widened. “The Kumonos had a thing about ironing boards. Often as not she had to use a fresh ironing board as the sons had a habit of dismantling them.”
“Hells bells,” Greg whispered.
“So bloody what!”
“Shut up Tom. Just shut up.”
I took a deep breath. “What happened to the young man in the photograph? What did they do to him? Why was he never seen again?”
“Christ, Sis!” Tom looked horrified.
“We all know what they were capable of!”
Valerie was also angry. She was angry with me, practically spitting with rage. How dare I, she shouted, nothing like that ever went on at the château. The village would have known. It would never have been allowed, what I was implying…
Eveline struggled to release herself from my grip. I held fast.
“You’re the one who told me about the naked man in the tree.”
“He was a druggie,” Valerie said flatly.
“So they told you. You said yourself something about a hunt being on.”
Eveline gave a strangled cry. She wrenched herself out of my grasp and ran out the door.
Greg swore, turned on his heel and chased after her.
Valerie’s eyes were wild. “For God’s sakes,” she whimpered. “This is sick.”
Greg’s shouts for Eveline grew fainter and fainter. In the silence, all we could hear was Valerie’s breath heaving. I felt ill. I couldn’t believe how unthinking I’d been in front of Eveline.
“That was despicable.” Tom’s voice was bitter. “I warned you. You’ve given her nightmares for the rest of her life.”
Claudine paid us no attention. Her concentration was absolute, the photograph a couple of inches away from her nose. The bespectacled young man smiled up at Claudine, trustingly, trusting in his future. A light breeze floated through the shack, bringing some relief. We waited. Eventually she looked up.
“They used the ironing boards as makeshift crucifixes and the irons like branding irons…” Valerie put her hands to her ears, tears in her eyes. “This is unbearable.”
Tom started to crack his fingers, one by one. The sounds were little puffs of gunshot in the stillness. Claudine looked at him sharply. Tom stopped, but she kept on looking, examining his features — almost as if she were seeing him for the first time.
“I’ll wait outside,” he said but Claudine gripped his arm again, like before.
She looked back down at the photo. She looked up at Tom.
“I assure you it’s not me,” he said, trying to make a joke.
Claudine started to speak.
“He tried to leave,” Valerie’s voice faltered. “So they punished him by taking away his clothes. Then they let him escape again,” Valerie clapped her hand to her mouth, “so that they could hunt him for sport.”
Valerie had to lean in, until her ear was level with the old woman’s mouth. “They were terrible men. They used anything lying around.”
Valerie straightened up so suddenly that she almost hit Tom on the chin.
“I can’t go on.”
Neither could I. I couldn’t listen anymore. I wanted to find Eveline, to tell her how sorry I was.
Tom angrily thumped on the table, sending most of the money spiralling to the floor. “I have never heard so much crap. What does the old crone take us for? Mugs?”
Gabbling incoherently, Claudine grabbed at Tom, battering his chest with her feeble hands. Shocked, he backed away from her, his hands up. She was telling him in no uncertain terms to get out of her house. Then she turned to Valerie and fired off a barrage of French. She sank back into her chair, laid her old head on the table and wept.
“Is it true?” Valerie addressed Tom, who was blocking out the light again, in the doorway.
“I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“That you were
at the château when that man disappeared?”
“I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.”
“She says you were a guest.”
“She’s a mad old woman.” He had backed completely out of the hovel and was standing in the sunlight.
“It’s the way you crack your fingers. It drove her wild all weekend. You saw her scrubbing out the bloodstains. You know what happened to the young man. They strung him up.”
For a split second, I saw a little boy who had been found out.
“She is totally and utterly mistaken, I assure you.” He strode back into the shack and over to the table.
I’ll never forget that moment. I felt cold, wretched and totally alone. I watched the old woman shrink away from Tom as he bent down and picked up the notes from the floor.
He placed the money on the table.
“Tell her I’m sorry.” He addressed Valerie but looked at me. He knew he had no place to hide but nevertheless he tried. “I haven’t set eyes on the château, except in photographs, until a couple of days ago. I’ve never been here before — ever,” he enunciated each word with great care.
“Sis here,” he said, smiling at me, “will vouch for me.”
Claudine grabbed the bunch of notes and shoved them into his hand. She spat at him. Then one by one, she started to curse us and it felt extraordinary that the world as we knew it hadn’t ended. Sunlight continued to fall through the open door. The cawing of crows continued unabated in the trees.
Chapter 42
We slipped and stumbled down the track. Tom was out in front with Valerie, a hand pressed solicitously against the small of her back.
The idea that he would spend a weekend holed up in an uncomfortable château, in very provincial France with the sons of a dictator, was ridiculous. Ridiculous, the word rolled through my mind, making me feel surer of myself, that somehow the old lady was mistaken.
Red-faced and panting, dripping with sweat, Tom and Valerie eventually waited for me where the path levelled out. I avoided Tom’s gaze.
“I am so thirsty.” Valerie’s voice quavered.
“You’re not the only one,” I said shortly, focussing on the shimmer of heat in front of us.
She continued on a rising note of hysteria. “How that woman could make such things up!”
Valerie huddled into Tom’s chest. Tom’s eyes bored into me over Valerie’s bent head.
“You were right,” I said, looking at Tom finally. “It was a bad idea.”
Relief shone from his eyes. “That’s okay,” he said, accepting what he took to be an apology.
“She’s made completely unfounded allegations before. A few years back, she said three boys raped her,” Valerie muttered into his chest.
“Poor lady,” Tom murmured. “Anything for attention.”
Finding Eveline was foremost in my mind. “We’ve got to get back to the car.”
Valerie lifted her face towards Tom. “The sons did have guests though. I used to see parties of them in the woods occasionally, hunting.” She gave a long shudder. “Perhaps she mistook you for someone else?”
Tom eased her away from him.
“Well, that would be difficult,” Tom said jollily. “As I wasn’t here.” He started down the track again.
I thought Valerie’s expression looked calculating as she watched his retreating back before following him.
Halfway to the car, Tom let Valerie go on ahead and waited for me.
“Sis…” he said.
I batted his hand away. “This isn’t the place or time.”
Valerie called back. “We should have met the others by now.”
“I expect,” Tom answered Valerie soothingly, “that Greg has found Eveline and they’re making their way back to the château.”
Valerie nodded agreement. “We can pick them up en route.”
I insisted on driving my car.
Reluctantly, Tom handed over the keys. He sat with Valerie in the back. I drove recklessly, childishly, bouncing over the potholes. I didn’t care if my brother’s head bashed against the car roof. The harder, the better.
Greg’s tall spare figure moved into view, trudging along the road back into the village. I sped up and drew alongside.
“Where’s Eveline?”
“Isn’t she with you?” He ducked his head into the interior to check.
“Where could she have got to?” Valerie wailed.
“She hared off track and I lost her.” He slipped in beside me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Valerie asked as I embarked on a three-point turn to go back to the woods. “I’ve got an aromatherapy client in half-an-hour.”
I ignored her.
“It’s all very well for you. I need the money. I can’t afford to let my customers down.”
“Let’s get her home, Sis,” Tom’s voice was calm.
Greg grunted his agreement.
We drove on in silence, my thoughts focused on a distraught girl running through the woods, out of her mind with anguish. The man in the tree lodged himself in the back of my brain. “Sorry,” I said softly. “Sorry. Sorry.”
“Let’s pay a little more attention to the driving,” Tom shouted.
“Hells bells!” Greg swore as I swerved out of the way of an oncoming lorry.
“I’ll tell the police,” Valerie announced as we drew up to her house. “I’m the only one who speaks French.”
Tom helped her out. “They won’t thank you for wasting their time. All we have to go on is an old witch’s ravings.”
“There’s the silver bullet.”
“A bullet,” he shrugged contemptuously and steered her towards her front door. “Let’s just check our facts before involving the police.”
They disappeared into the house together.
“I hope he’s not going to be long,” I said. “Every minute not searching for her is a minute wasted. God knows where she is.”
“And the cow doesn’t even invite us in for a drink of water. I could kill for a beer.”
“It’s unforgiveable what I said back there.”
“Listen,” Greg said. “Don’t blame yourself. You’ve done your best. You’ve fought her corner when others wouldn’t.”
“Justice,” I said, thinking back.
“What’s this about the police?”
He listened in stunned silence. I told him everything except Claudine’s assertion that Tom had been at the château. It would have been too painful to watch Greg process his disbelief.
“That fucking door,” he said eventually. “We should never have opened it.”
“It was all there in front of us even before.” I blinked back tears. “The clues were there all along.”
I remembered a detail which made me want to retch. “Those boxes and boxes of tongue scrapers, what were they for?”
He looked green.
“And,” I continued remorselessly, “you took the hook out of the ceiling.”
“Don’t,” he held up his hand.
“You knew about the Kumonos. Didn’t you think?”
“I did my job. I wasn’t paid to think. And aren’t you forgetting something?”
I didn’t know what he meant.
“Your brother. What does he know that he’s not telling you? He got the place at a knock-down price. I mean why? Something stinks with the whole set-up.”
“You’re working for him.”
“I’ve got to eat.”
A cold finger ran down my spine. Years before Tom had offered Philip a job which Philip refused, saying that he wasn’t prepared to end up in jail. I hadn’t asked Philip why. I was just furious that he’d snubbed Tom.
“Actually,” Greg said, “I’ve got nothing against your brother. He’s a nice man but I’m going to go home, you know, back to Cheryl. You don’t need me now, not with Tom around.”
He gave my knee a sympathetic rub.
“What about Eveline?”
“She needs more help than I’ll e
ver be able to give.”
Tom reappeared grinning broadly. He tossed me a bottle of water, another to Greg. “With compliments from Valerie.”
“Sorted,” he said to me, sotto voce, as he slipped into the seat that Greg had vacated. Greg was now sitting in the back. Tom buckled himself in. “Valerie has agreed not to say anything to the police. What about you, Greg?” He looked over his shoulder. “Do you think the police should be involved?”
“I don’t go near the police.”
“Good man. I thought so. First things first, we’ve got to find Eveline.” His glance at me was oblique and pointed as if the situation was wholly my fault. If I hadn’t allowed Eveline to stay with me, if I hadn’t allowed myself to become as obsessed as she about her brother, if I hadn’t been so desperate to rid myself of the man in the tree — if I had done just what Tom had asked and revamped the interior, the slightly uncomfortable atmosphere would have been painted over and relegated to the shadows. We could have lived with it. I had lived with it, before Eveline came.
My brother’s touch was reptilian. I couldn’t bear him next to me. I had to go home soon as well, back to London, and I would ask Eveline to come with me. It was the least I could do.
Chapter 43
We arranged to reconvene within the hour.
Tom took the track which led to Claudine’s. Greg went downhill to the left and I picked my way slowly uphill to the right, glad of the canopy shielding me from the sun. For the first time ever, out in the open, I forgot about the possibility of a snake.
Our shouts for Eveline echoed each other. They were met with a stillness, underpinned by birdsong and the crackle of leaves being crushed by my feet. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Tom when he had turned up, without warning, at the château. I’d needed explanations and I couldn’t ask the questions. Everything he had said I’d accepted at face value. I’d been too frightened of the truth.
After a half-hour or so of futile searching, I came across Tom sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, a couple of hundred metres from Claudine’s shack.
He lifted his head up at my approach. “There’s no use, she’s not here — or if she is, she doesn’t want to be found.”