Gospel Truths

by J. G. Sandom

“Oh, blast,” she said, rising quickly to her feet. “It’s Monsieur Cosell. He’s always following me about.”

  “Who?”

  “That old man with the whiskers, in the gray coat. A friend of the admiral, my late husband. We’d better leave.” She took the baby from his arms. “Would you like to join me for tea at my house?”

  “Sure, I guess so.” Koster looked back up at the old man across the lawn. He didn’t seem very threatening. He wasn’t even turned in their direction. “Are you sure …” he began to say when he realized that the countess and the pram had vanished from the path. Koster stood up. There they were, moving behind the brambles toward the brick wall at the back. “Hold on,” he shouted, dashing after them.

  There was a kind of outdoor stove and chimney by the brick wall at the rear of the garden. It had probably been used for burning leaves, Koster thought, back in the days when the museum had been the Hôtel Biron. The wall was covered with the season’s leftovers, tenacious vine and brambles. The countess was standing beside an old, black iron gate set in the brick wall. Through it Koster could see a pair of sagging basketball hoops and the glass face of a school. The gate was chained and padlocked.

  “Give me a hand,” she ordered as he approached. “Help me lift it over.”

  “Surely he can’t be that bad. Why don’t we just go out the way we came? I’ll talk to him.”

  “You don’t know him as I do. Ever since Jean died—my husband, the admiral—he’s been after me. First he wanted to buy that piece of property in Cannes. Then he wanted to discuss it over lunch. Then it was a weekend at his home in Brittany. Well, don’t just stand there. Climb over.” She pointed at the iron gate.

  Koster began to look for a foothold in the wall. “Couldn’t we get arrested for this?”

  The countess smiled, thrusting her head forward like a raven. “You worry a great deal, don’t you, Monsieur Koster? This is the Lycée Victor Duruy. The headmistress and I are old friends. Stop. Right there.”

  Koster was poised on top of the wall, one leg raised up to scramble over to the other side. “What is it?”

  “Can you see him across the lawn? You should be high enough.”

  He stared out through the oak trees toward the rococo museum. The old man was standing with his back to them, talking to a woman in a yellow dress. “I think we’re safe. He hasn’t budged. Wait a minute.” Koster noticed another figure approaching in the shadow of a hedge. It was the young man in the olive-colored raincoat. “Someone else is coming.”

  The countess tapped his shoe with her bony fingers. “Over you go then.”

  He slipped to the playground on the other side. The countess lifted the pram and he thrust his hands through the gate to help her swing it up and over the wall. She was remarkably fit for an old woman, Koster thought. He was panting while she seemed spry as ever. As soon as he had lowered the pram in safety she hiked her smock up a little and slipped through the narrow gap between the gate post and the gate. Koster stepped back. The space seemed barely wide enough to admit a child and it was only then that he realized just how thin she really was, the barest edge of a woman.

  She pushed the pram furiously across the playground. The baby was laughing. Koster rushed after them, along a gravel path which led between two buildings. One, a hulking mass of brick and concrete, appeared to be a science laboratory. Dozens of teenagers waved at them from behind their Bunsen burners. The countess was obviously a familiar figure. She waved back and Koster felt obliged to follow suit. Suddenly the path came to a halt beside a huge green double door, set in the wall which marked the boundary of the school. The countess unlatched a separate smaller portal and swung it open. The boulevard des Invalides stretched just beyond the opening. Koster could see the crown of the Église du Dôme across the rooftops, Napoléon’s final conquest of the material world.

  “This way,” the countess said, pushing the pram through. The boulevard was almost empty. Koster followed close behind. A street sweeper dressed in green work clothes prodded a stream of water through the gutter with his broom, the long brown switches so well bundled, so disguised that even as he passed a yard away Koster could not tell if they were plastic or real wood.

  The rain fell onto Lyman’s face as he looked up from the drab stone of the storefront to the single bruise-blue thunderhead above. The rue Victor Hugo shivered in the sunlight. There seemed to be but one cloud over Amiens, surrounded by a spiteful rim of endless blue, and he wondered what each raindrop had reflected on its journey from the Caribbean to the coast of France, how many miles of ocean, how many other faces looking up. The door opened.

  “Yes?” A young girl in a corduroy dress leaned a pointed hip against the door.

  “Mr. Randall to see Monsieur Duval.”

  She smiled, fluttering her hands. “Yes, Mr. Randall. We’ve been expecting you. Please, come in.”

  The girl ushered him into a waiting room decorated in a floral wallpaper with the same red pheasant bouncing off each wall. Lyman sat down on a modern metal chair while the girl disappeared to find Duval.

  The office appeared to be the first floor of a private house. Lyman could smell the scent of freshly baked croissants. He lit a cigarette and noticed a magazine open beside him on a sidetable. There was a picture of a dam being built in Amazonia, a human anthill, and beside it a list of grim statistics. Forty-nine men had died in the construction of the dam, and of them six had been full-blooded Incan Indians. The caption read: “Sacrificed to the God of Engineering?” Lyman tried to imagine the bodies hidden somewhere in the concrete wall, frozen for all time like a nest of ants in amber. He closed the magazine. The girl had returned. Duval would see him now.

  This time she led him down a corridor toward the rear of the house. The walls were lined with drawings of barns and turn-of-the-century farmhouses. The girl knocked on a side door and Lyman heard a voice respond.

  Charles-Philip Duval stood like a wrestler on the other side of his desk, his arms thrust out for the embrace, his back hunched over, the bull neck wagging side to side. “Mr. Randall,” he said, rushing from behind his desk and dragging Lyman in. “A pleasure. Please, sit down.”

  Duval’s office was spacious and flooded with light, despite the grayness of the day. One wall was covered with more drawings: garages and a row of shops; a stadium roundabout; and even the cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace. A draftsman’s table tilted in one corner. Monsieur Duval had already sat down behind his desk. He had a wide pleasant face, and a tiny well-clipped mustache which balanced out the tonsure yawning like an overturned sea urchin on his head. Lyman pulled up another chair. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said. “The train.”

  “Think nothing of it, Mr. Randall. So,” Duval said, rubbing his hands. “What can Duval Construction do for you?”

  “First I must insist that my company’s plans be held in the strictest confidence. Property is already dear enough in Amiens.”

  Duval nodded firmly. “Of course. I’d be more than happy to sign a nondisclosure.”

  “That won’t be necessary. At least, not yet. I’ve heard a great deal about your company, Monsieur Duval, and most of it, I must say, is bloody impressive. However,” Lyman added, slapping one hand against the other as he had seen Chief Superintendent Cocksedge do a thousand times, “this particular project is extremely important to my company. Large sums of money are at stake.”

  “Mr. Randall, I would not be in business today if I failed to protect my clients’ interests.”

  “Of course.” Lyman hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Frankly, I’m a little surprised. You see, when I made this appointment, I thought I’d be speaking with Maurice Duval. Perhaps he should be present also.”

  Duval clasped and unclasped his hands. “I’m afraid my son is no longer with the company.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Not for some time now.”

  “I see.” Lyman waited but Duval remained impassive. “I heard,” Lyman continued, “that he was wo
rking on the Bishop’s Palace. Our plans require a similar kind of renovation and I was hoping to ask him a few questions. You wouldn’t happen to have his number, would you?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Lyman nodded slowly. “Of course, the project would remain yours, your company’s. I’m only looking for some advice.”

  “Mr. Randall,” Duval said at last, leaning back in his chair. “My son is dead. He was killed in a car accident in Austria seven months ago.”

  Lyman turned away. He closed his eyes for a moment and suddenly there was George, out of nowhere, his muzzle frothed with blood, falling in slow motion to one side; and then the car with Hadley’s broken head against the windshield, the horn blaring. “I’m so sorry,” he heard himself reply. “I had no idea.”

  Duval stood behind his desk, looking down. “But I do have some sketches of our work on the Hôtel Bulot, if they’ll be helpful to you. And the Bishop’s Palace,” he added, pointing at the wall. He hovered for an instant more and then started for the door. “Would you excuse me for a moment? I’ll get them.”

  Lyman rose awkwardly. “Of course,” he said, but Duval was already gone. Lyman put his hands in his trouser pockets, feeling—in the space between his fingertips—an accident, a coincidence, an incidental tragedy. These were the names that Chief Inspector Cocksedge had employed to score the ransacking of his flat in London—and the Lemur had agreed, wholeheartedly.

  Lyman moved over toward the drawings on the wall. There it was: the Amiens cathedral, with the Winter Chapel and the Bishop’s Palace to the side. He studied the plans. Somewhere in those walls lay the hiding place where Jacques Tellier had found the Book of Thomas the Contender. A title in block letters swam across the top: ÉCOLE SUPÉRIEURE DE COMMERCE ET D’AD-MINISTRATION DES ENTERPRISES. So, Lyman realized, they were turning the Bishop’s Palace into a trade school. The irony warmed him. Guy had told him that even in the Middle Ages the cathedral had been the town’s commercial center, a gathering place for the guilds. He smiled and it was then that he first saw the photograph, off to the side, almost behind another drawing. Charles-Philip Duval was sitting at the head of the table wearing a tuxedo. Beside him sat a young man Lyman knew must be Maurice, his son. He had the same eyes, the same wrestler’s slouch, the same tuxedo even. And beside him, underneath the arm which he had thrown so casually across her naked shoulders, a younger Mariane looked up, the bald surprise apparent in her eyes. The flash caught her mouth open in the middle of a laugh, and for a moment as the scene came clear and Lyman recognized the way she leaned the slightest distance toward Maurice, he was convinced she laughed at him.

  “Mr. Randall.”

  Lyman turned. Duval stood right behind him with a mass of blue-lined drawings in his arms. “See anything which interests you?” he said.

  “Your work is clearly very professional, Monsieur Duval.” Lyman shifted his weight uncomfortably. “But that really isn’t the issue, is it? If it were, I wouldn’t be here.” He paused again.

  “Yes?”

  “What I mean is, we know you have the required technical skills for the job but—and I hope you won’t misunderstand me—we are a little concerned about, how shall I put it, the finances. You see, we heard a rumor some time ago that your firm was involved in some kind of financial impropriety. Now,” Lyman added with a fragile laugh, “I know only too well how these things start sometimes—the competition and all that. But we would certainly feel more comfortable if we were to hear, directly from you, that all this talk about missing money and such is just an exaggeration, with no basis in fact.”

  Duval smiled and his mustache narrowed, line-thin. “I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Surely you don’t deny there was some kind of theft?”

  “Mr. Randall, I don’t deny anything. Why should I? I have yet to be confronted with anything substantive to deny. You may run your business as you choose, sir, but don’t ask me to run mine on innuendo.”

  “I see. Well, I suppose that’s that,” Lyman answered wearily. “I’m afraid that until I can report to my superiors that all this talk of missing money is as you say—an innuendo—we will not be able to finalize our plans. I can only add that this particular contract will be worth in excess of eight hundred thousand pounds. Consider that, Monsieur Duval. All we seek is the truth of the matter.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Mr. Randall.” Duval slipped the plans he had been carrying onto his desk and offered his hand to Lyman. Lyman shook it firmly.

  “Good day, Monsieur Duval,” Lyman said. “I’ll be in touch.” Duval’s hand was trembling. Lyman wanted to say something, to end the conversation on a different note, to tell him that he understood, but the ordinary symbols seemed so distant, so inadequate. “I was sorry to hear” is such a pale beginning to a consolation. What do you say to a man who has lost his future by accident?

  “It’s only me,” the countess said, as she leaned against the intercom. The door of the apartment building buzzed and she shoved it open with her shoulder, dragging the pram in with a flagging hand. Koster followed close behind. They made their way through the apartment foyer but instead of turning off to take the elevator, the countess pushed the pram right through the hall until they reached a set of white French doors which looked out onto a little lawn and garden in the back. “The city has grown up around us,” the countess said. She pulled a key out of her pocket and waved it absently. “Welcome to my little island in the sea.”

  Koster raised a hand to block the light and peered out through the doors. The house was more an island in an atoll than in the sea, he thought, and it certainly wasn’t little. Three storeys with a pair of cupolas at each end, it was built as if the architect had only planned one half and put a mirror on the edge to make the rest. Both sides were identical, and yet there was a freedom in its uniformity, a whimsical simplicity: light stone, white paint, clean lines. A gravel path encircled the house, and beyond that a ring of well-clipped lawn. It was a natural border before the apartment buildings which loomed five storeys all around.

  The countess swung the doors open and a Rhodesian ridgeback came bounding out of nowhere. A flint of a word from the countess and he withdrew. They crossed the lawn onto the gravel path and Koster noticed an old woman standing in the doorway of the house. She had a shoe in one hand and a brush in the other, and was dressed almost exactly like the countess. They looked like a pair of nuns together, Greek women grieving. At first, as she brushed her shoe and chatted, Koster was certain that the woman was a maid or servant of some kind. She asked about the morning walk and brushed. She commented upon the weather. Then, with a bang, the shoe dropped to the ground and Koster realized it was hers. She slipped her naked foot inside. Finally, the countess turned and said, “My sister, Nicole.”

  “How do you do,” Koster answered with a bow. The woman laughed, floating back into the house. Koster looked up. Why hadn’t he seen it before? There was more than a similarity. The countess was thinner but their faces, that curve of the nose, those penetrating almost amber eyes were badges of a common ancestry. The countess pushed the pram inside. Koster followed with the dog, panting and chomping, close behind.

  The corridor wound by a set of stairs into a spacious entrance hall. Nicole pushed the pram into the kitchen and out of sight, while the countess showed Koster into the dining room.

  A massive oval table stood at the center of the room. The ceiling was more than thirty feet high and a single painting punctuated the far wall, a field of flowers pieced together by Monet. The countess took Koster by the hand and led him through a curtained entrance on the other side. He could feel her bony fingers in his, fleshless as talons and yet gentle, delicate.

  The next room was even larger than the last. The furniture was Louis XV, lithe and light with but a trifle too much ornament. An ice green satin sofa beckoned. She ignored it, moving past a granite fireplace stuffed with white birch and ready for a match. The paintings here were mo
re pastel, the same colors as the Kurdistan below their feet.

  The countess continued to a sliding door which opened onto a room almost the mirror image of the last, and Koster realized that the house had really once been two, then joined together later. Here was the same fireplace, the same alcove, the same garden doors. But unlike the last room, this one was decorated as an office or a study.

  An imposing desk stood squarely to one side, the top covered with papers like a fresh layer of snow. Oil paintings of stallions hung from the walls. One was called “Phi,” another “Nisaba.” There were cut flowers in the corner and what appeared to be a water clock, all brass and moving parts. The countess crossed the study and opened a door, revealing a staircase leading upward.

  “My daughter Louise and her husband,” the countess said, “live in the other wing.” She began to climb the steps. “After Jean died, they asked me to move back to Paris. They thought it would be safer for me. I don’t know. I used to live here as a young girl.” She turned and winked at Koster. “Paris was fun in those days. Of course, you’re too young to remember all that. But there were some nights.” She paused, listening. “Now each memory is like a fresh glass of champagne.”

  The staircase turned. Koster noticed that the steps here were uncarpeted. A little triangular window looked out onto the garden. The staircase turned once more and suddenly they were on another landing. The countess moved ahead, wrestling with the knot of her scarf. Then, without warning, she stopped and pushed against a narrow wooden door just off the hall. It opened slowly, inch by inch, onto a kind of library. Koster followed her inside.

  Two walls were packed entirely with books. There must have been at least ten thousand titles, Koster guessed. A formidable collection. The other two walls were bare except for a black-and-white photograph of a young man in uniform, and a tiny watercolor of a desert scene. There were no chairs, only a series of brightly-colored carpets on the floor, and a few pillows. A window brought the day in. The countess leaned against one of the walls and slowly lowered herself to the floor. “Sit down,” she said, still struggling with her scarf. It had fallen behind her head and Koster could see her hair for the first time, trimmed short and white as fog. “Please, sit down, Monsieur Koster,” she repeated.