Bones in High Places

by Suzette A. Hill

  That settled, I returned to the car to rally its occupants, while the others went ahead up to the bedrooms. As I opened the door Maurice darted out and shot ahead towards the entrance, clearly intent on making the new place his own. Bouncer and I followed more slowly, the dog sniffing the air and making ruminative growling noises. Presumably he could smell the pigs.

  Halfway up the stairs we bumped into Nicholas coming down. ‘What was all that about Clemenceau and the dog?’ I asked.

  ‘Good question,’ he replied, smiling wryly. ‘Simple really. The animal is called after Clemenceau because the original owner, Madame’s father, was intensely patriotic and an avid admirer of the old statesman. The music emanates from the creature’s collar via a batteried security device primed to operate every time he tries to escape – i.e. whenever he moves beyond a hundred yards of the inn’s perimeter. Sometimes the thing misfires and goes off at random moments – as we heard just now.’

  ‘But it’s an awful racket!’ I exclaimed. ‘How can they live with it? Can’t they change the collar – or the tune?’

  ‘They like it. Reminds them of Madame’s late parent. Apparently it took the old boy months to devise the thing and it was his pride and joy. But more to the point, the dog likes it too. Gets moody if he’s parted from it for too long – like a sort of musical comfort blanket, I suppose.’ Nicholas looked down at Bouncer, and added musingly, ‘And I thought your hound was mad enough …’

  ‘Did she say what breed it is?’

  ‘Didn’t need to. We were introduced when you were out at the car. I’m not good on these things, but I should say he’s a sort of cross between an Airedale and one of those giant poodles – a bit like a curly camel really. Actually, I think he’s mildly batty.’

  He continued on down the stairs while Bouncer and I went in search of our quarters – a small room with garish wallpaper and basic facilities.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, having unpacked and briefly tested the narrow bed, I joined the others in the hallway.

  ‘I think we should take a walk to get our bearings,’ said Primrose briskly, ‘and see if we can get a glimpse of the Folie from up here.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I agreed. ‘But we need to be a bit discreet – it would be awful to bump into Clinker or Gladys. They’re staying close by – though with luck may have moved on by now, but somehow I doubt it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Francis, always the pessimist. We probably shan’t get a single sighting of them – and even if we did, would it really matter?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said shortly, my mind once more beset with lurid images.

  She laughed and turned to Ingaza. ‘You’re coming, aren’t you, Nicholas? It’ll do us good to stretch our legs after all that time in the car.’

  ‘Not just now,’ he muttered. ‘Er … got something rather pressing to do first – in the village.’ He sounded slightly shifty and I was curious.

  ‘What ever do you want to do in the village? We’ve only just got here.’

  He hesitated. ‘Postcards actually – I noticed they had a few on display outside that mangy shop we passed.’

  ‘Postcards? Who on earth are you going to send postcards to? Besides – can’t they wait?’

  He looked sheepish. ‘It’s Aunt Lil. Old bat always demands at least two, otherwise there’s hell to pay and it’ll cost me an extra visit to the bandstand at Eastbourne. Or worse still, the casino at Bournemouth.’ He sighed. ‘Better get it over with, stop it preying on my mind.’

  Surprise gave way to sadistic satisfaction as I recalled the elderly Lil’s penchant for bandmasters and gambling dens. It was gratifying to think of my Nemesis in the merciless grip of his incorrigible old aunt. Whether she preyed on Ingaza’s mind to the same degree as he preyed on mine, I rather doubted; but there seemed a certain piquancy which satisfied my sense of justice. Thus I grinned cheerfully and said something to the effect that I was sure his fond aunt deserved such an attentive nephew. His response was unprintable, and getting up abruptly he sloped off towards the village.

  Left to our own devices, Primrose and I decided that a walk would indeed do us good; and leaving Maurice curled up on my bed but taking the dog with us, we set out to sniff the mountain air and get our bearings.

  In fact our bearings were stupendous: jagged vistas of brooding mountains and shadowed valleys, expansive skies and trailing clouds, sudden meadows, sparkling tarns, sunlit crevices, gnarled tangled thickets, cairns of slatey granite … and everywhere, perched perilously and munching imperviously, po-faced mountain goats, their straggling beards moving rhythmically as they stared with blank, indifferent eye. Wild and ruggedly beautiful, it was the kind of mythical landscape that I had read about yet never encountered. I gazed transfixed by the hugeness and romantic grandeur; and for a few precious moments all fears and guilts dissolved – slipped away into some annihilating ether. I closed my eyes …

  ‘Well, that’s nice, isn’t it, Francis?’ Primrose’s voice rang out. ‘Pity I haven’t brought my Kodak, it would make a good snap. Shall I let the dog off his lead?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘he could do with a good run.’ And dragging my eyes from the surrounding beauty I watched Bouncer lunge at his freedom – dancing and barking, happy as the day he was born. Lucky beggar …

  For a little while we walked in silence, sniffing the pure air and absorbed in the unaccustomed space and stillness. Bouncer had rushed off on some excursion of his own, reappearing now and again to snuffle at our heels and leer at the goats before darting away for fresh reconnaissance. I took out my cigarettes, and was just about to light one for Primrose when she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oh my goodness, that must be it down there. Look. It has to be the Fotherington Folly!’ And grabbing my arm, she gestured excitedly towards the valley below. At first I saw nothing except trees and remnants of a crumbling stone wall. I strained my eyes, perplexed. ‘No, not there,’ she urged, ‘further on, to the right, past those trees. To the right, Francis – you can’t miss it.’

  And nor I could. Grey, formless, sprawling and turreted, it was a piece of dissipated architecture of a kind that might have been discarded following an abortive attempt at a Disney film. Had it been less monumentally ugly, it might have been risible. As it was, it was simply a large depressing blot on what originally must have been a lovely landscape … Some folly all right! I thought of Elizabeth and the diary jotting where she had expressed her distaste for the place and her vow never to set foot over its threshold again. Ugly and sinister, she had called it. Well, at least she had been right there; and I experienced a sudden flash of aesthetic kinship. But it was only a flash, for in the next instant the sound of those arch wheedling tones welled up in my mind, and I heard the tinsel laugh, even caught a whiff of the cloying attar of violets wafting around my nostrils. And when Primrose tapped me on the shoulder, I leaped back like a stricken deer.

  ‘Well, don’t stand there gawping,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think it’s awful,’ I said bleakly.

  ‘Hmm, pretty grim. Though I suppose having occupying troops in ‘44 wouldn’t have helped much. I wonder who slept in the turrets – Oberstleutnant Schmidt and Hauptmann Braun presumably, or some such. Perhaps we’ll meet their ghosts when we’re digging up the gold.’ She giggled and I gave her a scornful look.

  ‘That treasure business is a load of hooey; and as for selling the place, Nicholas must be mad if he thinks anyone would want it. Total white elephant – which is just as well. The last thing I want is to have my name brought into things, least of all if there’s profit to be had.’ I stuck my hands in my pockets and scowled down at the monstrous pile.

  There was a pause. And then she said, ‘Now look here, Francis, you are being a complete wet blanket. Do not, as Pa would say, spoil the party. One hasn’t travelled all this way to a most lovely region in France just for you to be gloomy and negative. Besides, we have the right to claim this enormous place for free, and even if there’s no buyer it
could at least be renovated and enjoyed. Also, with a bit of luck – unlikely, admittedly – we might even literally strike gold. Just think of all the hymn books and hassocks you could buy with that … even run to a new weathercock for the church spire. Where’s your sense of adventure and romance? Take a chance for once!’

  I whirled around and confronted her. ‘Take a chance for once? What in heaven’s name do you mean! What do you think I took that day in Foxford Wood – a cup of tea?’

  She stared back, startled. And then lowering her eyes, murmured quietly, ‘No, not tea … and not just a chance. You took something else.’

  ‘Precisely,’ I echoed, ‘I took something else.’ For a few moments we regarded each other in silence, before shifting our gaze to the valley below and my victim’s moribund property unlovely in the waning sun. I shivered.

  And then Primrose said briskly, ‘Yes, Francis, I grant you – some whopping chance … Now, let’s go back to the inn, find Nicholas and get a bottle of whisky out of the car.’ I nodded, whistled Bouncer, and we set off back to the village.

  14

  The Dog’s Diary

  Well, I tell you, it’s all happening now! Talk about Bouncer the Bold, I’m having no end of adventures! You should have seen the cat’s face when we finally met after he had escaped from the car. Looked as if he had been eating lemons smeared in castor oil.

  ‘Bah,’ he said, ‘trust you to get here, muzzling in on everything! Why aren’t you with the Watkins? Borrowed a magic carpet, I suppose.’

  I explained that as a matter of fact I had made a small error of judgement which had involved some dog biscuits, and that sometimes mistakes lead to good endings.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘what good endings?’

  ‘Such as seeing you again, Maurice!’ And I gave my best friendly bark.

  There was a long silence while he flattened his ears and closed his eyes. Then he opened them, and do you know what he said? He said, ‘You are most welcome, Bouncer. Things are not good with the vicar and we must guard him closely.’ I thought that was pretty good, and I told him he could rely on me all right and would he like to see the way I dealt with rabbits? He said he didn’t think that would be necessary but it would be most helpful if I just lay very quietly on the back seat and kept an eye on F.O. So that’s what I did.

  And then of course there was all that business on our first night in that big place with lots of doors and where the vicar was so windy when he took me up to his room. That’s where the cat sneaked downstairs to the pantry and overheard those types talking and was chucked off the window sill. He wasn’t half in a bait when he came back to the room. Spitting and hissing all over the shop – and you should have heard some of his words! I thought knew a few like that, but they’re not a patch on Maurice’s … I suppose that’s what education does for you. He spent the whole night under the bed planning how to get his own back. But I told him that I thought that was pretty useless because we probably wouldn’t see them again and he’d miss the chance. That didn’t go down too well and he went into another sulk.

  Still, he’s all right now because we are at this new place high in the mountains, and there’s a table right in the sun where he’s allowed to lie, and he’s given special pilchards by a chap called George behind the bar who he approves of. They spend a lot of time talking to each other – which is odd for Maurice as he generally ignores most humans. Unless he doesn’t like them of course – and then they know it!

  But I’ve found a friend too. He’s called Clemso and he’s like a brown woolly horse only shorter. Do you know, he’s got this collar which plays music. How about that! I wouldn’t mind having one of those, but I don’t suppose I ever will … Still, can’t have everything. After all, there’s always the cat and F.O.

  And talking of F.O., he’s stewing up again. Got a bee in his bonnet about those two types. Thinks they’re out to get him … Though come to think of it, he often feels that about people. There’s that bishop person, the Mavis woman, the organist, fat Crumplehorn, the Brighton Type, the whole of the Mothers’ Union, Violet Pond before Crumple did her in – oh, and lots of others. It must be pretty tiring if you ask me. A bit like always being on the run after you’ve been caught raiding Miss Dalrymple’s dustbin – great hoofs bearing down on you …

  15

  The Vicar’s Version

  That evening, over a rustic supper of robust ham and vigorous wine, Ingaza gave me my instructions. The following afternoon I was to take his car, drive to the local railway station and meet the fourth member of our party off the train. Henri Martineau, rapscallion curé of Taupinière and long-time accomplice (dupe?) of Ingaza, was evidently an essential part of our enterprise, his principal qualification – other than the linguistic one – being an acute expertise in the art of metal detecting.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Nicholas had said, ‘set old Henri loose with one of those things and he’s like a pig turning up acorns. Makes a small mint out of those Picardy battlefields – though the idiot blows it all on booze and betting. But believe me, if anyone can locate that stuff, he will. Snout and mind like a prime ferret.’ I do not often believe Ingaza, but having seen photographs of the cleric during the paintings débâcle and heard a little of his language and manner from newspaper reports at that time, I was prepared to credit every word. The prospect of a rendezvous at the station was not an enticing one, and I asked why Nicholas could not do it himself. He explained that a transaction of some delicacy was being conducted in Brighton and that he needed to keep telephone tabs on Eric to ensure that all went smoothly. ‘After which,’ he added, ‘I intend taking a little nose round the Folie to get the lie of the land – test out the accuracy of the map.’

  ‘You could take Bouncer,’ suggested Primrose brightly.

  ‘No,’ was the short response. ‘Bouncer and I have little in common; and besides, the last thing I need is a dog trailing at my heels when I’m trying to be unobtrusive.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘discretion is not his finest point, and in any case I doubt whether he would trail at your heels – much more likely to be plunging ahead bellowing his lungs out among the rabbit holes.’ I cast a kindly look at the dog who returned it with a grumbling sigh and settled himself deeper into the basket beside the cat. They both began to snore gently.

  It had to happen of course … Clinker and his entourage. The nightmare I had been dreading, and of which Primrose had been so dismissive, manifested itself the very next morning. (Few concessions from impatient Fate.)

  I had risen later than intended and, leaving the others wrangling over the last and rather emaciated croissant, wandered into the village in search of something more substantial at the bakery. However, entry proved difficult, for its doorway was occupied by a woman of enormous bulk, and although she was speaking French to the girl inside, the familiar hectoring tones struck chill to my heart. Voice and girth made her unmistakable: Myrtle, Clinker’s sister-in-law and my querulous neighbour at his luncheon table four months previously. I doubted whether she would remember me (not distinguished enough), but where there was Myrtle there was surely Gladys – who most certainly would. I backed away, hunger subsumed by fear; and turning down a small alleyway scuttled into a conveniently placed pissoir. Less well camouflaged than a wartime pillbox and affording poorer protection (legs on show), it nevertheless had the properties of both haven and lookout post. Here I skulked, squinting through the narrow slits at the enemy in the square.

  Sure enough, as Myrtle lumbered from the shop bearing armfuls of cakes and baguettes, she was greeted by another woman, taller, less huge but beefy: Gladys. The two sisters exchanged a few words and then, as luck would have it, proceeded in my direction. They paused momentarily at the corner of the alley where they seemed to be in dispute over Myrtle’s shopping. ‘No,’ I heard Gladys say firmly, ‘there is certainly not room for those things in my bag.’ (She was wearing a large canvas rucksack slung over one shoulder.) ‘As you well know, it’s my best sketching sat
chel, and I do not propose having my pencils and paints mixed up with all that pastry and flaking crust! If you were going to buy so much I cannot imagine why you didn’t bring something with you. Lavinia has endless string bags at the villa – indeed, if you ask me she seems to have an obsession with them. Absurd.’ I couldn’t catch Myrtle’s reply but she looked pretty sour, and in any case by that stage they had drawn level with my sanctuary and I was more concerned with matters of concealment than with bread and bags.

  I held my breath and they passed … but Myrtle had turned round, and in ringing tones announced, ‘I think it’s disgusting the way their legs are always exposed – so unsettling.’

  There was a dry laugh from Gladys, and in an equally scathing tone she replied, ‘What else would you expect? Typical Gallic exhibitionism!’

  They continued on their forthright way and I slunk from behind my screen, anxiously wondering whether my legs would be for ever recognizable.

  The nervous strain of my sojourn in the pissoir had produced a ravenous hunger, and the moment the women were out of sight I slipped back to the pâtisserie and bought a pair of almond tarts which I consumed with gluttonous relief. Feeling better fortified but with the prospect of Henri that afternoon, I thought a little peace among the hills would be a good idea. So returning to the inn for stouter shoes, I summoned Bouncer and we set out for a leisurely ramble.

  Despite the shadow of the episcopal presence – wherever that was exactly – the first hour of this was delightful. Bouncer was in his element, and we spent a happy time sniffing our way along narrow paths, splashing over rock-strewn brooks and putting up rabbits whenever the chance. The dog’s energy was tireless. Not so the owner’s: and eventually, despite the interest of the scenery and stimulus of the mountain air, I felt the need for a sit down and a smoke.