I thought of Admiral Nelson’s brief control over the north of the island at the beginning of the 19th century, but it didn’t seem right to spoil Giuseppe’s sense of entitlement to being here.
He stood on the terrace, turning in each direction to spy for rabbits. There was a group just on the seaward side at the base of the tower. He drew his pistol and taking careful aim, pulled the trigger. A large doe fell over as the rest scattered. So rarely were they disturbed by humans they had lost any sense of danger.
As we descended the outside staircase from the first floor, he put his gun away and went round to pick up the rabbit. I realised then he had not answered my question as to why he had not gone back to Genoa after Marianne’s death. After all he had already said to me on an earlier occasion, “She was all I had”.
But he hadn’t forgotten my enquiry. “My family were in Genoa when the British and Americans bombed it in the last war. Their airforces weren’t the best at accuracy. Five hundred were supposed to destroy the monastery at Monte Cassino, for example, but weren’t that successful.”
“They destroyed the building.”
“Eventually. But not the Germans defending it.”
“The Allies had to take it with infantry – at enormous cost,” I said, but Giuseppe was right.
“The same with Genoa. Carpet-bombing from too high up. Hopelessly inaccurate. They missed most of the harbour and hit the centre of the city, and my family were amongst thousands that died. I had no one to go back to. With Marianne I chose to stay on Corsica, go native, become ‘French’. Why go to an Italy I had long abandoned?”
There was a wider mystery that remained unsolved that day. He made no effort to enlarge on his reasons for continuing to avoid his native country, now she was gone. He had said enough as far as he was concerned and it was not for me to pursue the matter. He had accepted his adoption and stayed faithful to the memory of Marianne. She had given him a love that had not been granted to him in Genoa. Perhaps this fort was a beacon for him, a reminder of tempo perduto, within his sight each day, but not powerful enough to persuade him to return and override the attachment to Corsica that Marianne had anchored.
We walked back to the beach and I left him to skin and cook the rabbit over a small wood fire he had made on the shore. As he busied himself I said my farewells and moved along the beach to the base of the path to the house. As I climbed wearily up, I turned from time to time to watch his shore-side activities, and saw a contented man. Why would he go back to what would now be an alien place, far removed in its modern bustle from the old city of his youth? No one would recognise him or his pain.
2. VENGEANCE
venditta
i
It was Angelique who first said that Nicole was not as happy as she appeared. This was still whilst I saw her beauty and manner in simple terms. I had been easily taken by her invitation and kindness to me, and all too soon by the seductive way she had let me enter her inner core. I had not bothered to question her motives, if there were any. I just accepted the ease with which we had fallen in with each other, how her willingness to let me love her under the sun had matched my desire. It seemed a contract of like minds.
I was certain her brain was focused on her work. My closeness to her daily routine assured me that was the case. I observed her busyness with field trips, plant gathering, and experiments with blending seeds or leaves with known efficacy into new formulations that might benefit sick or damaged bodies. There seemed no time for worries. If she had a hidden secret, it was not held here, and must be locked in England.
Sometimes Nicole wears a wristband, even when swimming. It has a series of coloured threads intertwined. She will not comment on it and I have come to know that she doesn’t want me to ask again. I can only guess it has some charitable connection, a cure in which she has personal interest. I have looked out for clues but she has given me none. It could be something that gives her inspiration rather than an issue which weighs heavily on her conscience. Due to her discretion I have no real understanding of her family, whether she has shared her life with a husband or children. If they exist, they are not mentioned. The licence of our lovemaking suggests that there is not a man in her life at present. That area is another off-limits, and there is little value in me treading clumsily over whatever ashes she is hiding. She admonishes me, “Just take a day at a time, and let’s make the most of it.”
Our days are busy enough. I am making progress on my literary critiques. Progress falsely exaggerated. Nicole achieves much more. Fieldwork I contribute to when asked, but her logbook and field papers were not for my curiosity. These were to be kept for discussion with those back in England she hoped would help to make others well. I was too happy from those moments of joy and satisfaction we shared out in the maquis, naked on the beach, linked in bed, to notice any unhappiness. Angelique’s words fell on my deaf ears.
As I watched Nicole, busy with her plants, medicinal notes, preparing a meal or relaxing on the terrace, I admired how she wore her natural beauty without make-up or ornament. Only the small wristband formed any sense of decoration. When we lay naked together it was the one dab of colour on the palette on her lightly tanned flesh. It remained a private matter, with some personal connotation, that I sensed had sadness attached to it, since she would wrap her other hand around it when troubled. In time perhaps she would reveal its significance. For now I had to guess it might it be in memory of a father, mother, partner, a child, or the charity, with whose colours I was not familiar. It remained amongst the mysteries preventing me from approaching that side of her. The sun had given me licence to be here, to be beside her, to share so much so quickly. Maybe too good to be true? I was determined not to challenge my good fortune and enjoy the luxury of lovemaking without restraint. Why interfere with an idyll, when only others could overshadow it?
ii
Antoine, Angelique and Nicole went to Calvi the following week for some annual registration and to settle the tax demands of the authorities. They had managed to arrange for a fishing boat to take them up the coast, and would be away for at least a couple of days. They would be forced to make on the spot arrangements in Calvi harbour for the return trip, either with a yacht or possibly the Gendarmerie Maritime, if the latter were due a patrol. I was alone in the house and in this solitude had taken liberties with the whisky and felt ghastly.
The next day a full-blown storm came upon the coast with the gale-force winds that brought yachts in for protection or more often kept them elsewhere in bigger and safer harbours. It raged for two days, with a brief lull as the eye of the storm passed through. I stayed indoors. Judging by the state of the hillside around the house on the third day it had rained heavily again in the night, and some vague remembrance of thunder and lightning seeped back through my drink- befuddled mind. I peered around outside but there was no sign of the one motor-cruiser that had put in an appearance at the start of the storm, anchoring off the beach. It must have chanced its escape as the eye of the storm passed. The wind persisted with heavy rain and I stayed indoors yet again as it battered the windward side of the house, spattering the windows with dirt from the track. I couldn’t see a thing, nor did I want to venture out.
By the afternoon of that third day the wind eased and the rain stopped. As I poured myself a glass of fresh orange juice, dark scudding clouds remained to cast a gloom over everything. I pottered about for an hour or two, until some inner concern impelled me to put on my windcheater and check for any damage.
The house and its outbuildings seemed all right. The water catchment tank on the roof was full and overflowing, but otherwise the fabric of the house looked secure. The next logical search was to go down to the cove and check on the taverne and the mules that had been left in my charge, and from there to see Giuseppe and ensure the storm had not broken over the shoreline into his cave. Before long, for some reason I found myself in indecent haste, sliding and slipping down the wet track, anxiety building in my mind,
as to whether serious damage may have occurred – as it were on my watch - whilst I had loitered in the confines of the house for three days.
Eventually I reached the sandy beach. The taverne shutters and door were firmly closed, with only the old sheep-bells suspended from the eaves rattling nervously like alarms in the stiff breeze. With no longer the dog to greet me, the place itself looked abandoned, but at least the shaky structure was in reasonable, if battered order. Chairs and tables on the terrace had been blown over and swept into a pile at one end, so I lifted them up in turn and put them back in their orderly place. Importantly the mules were safe in their shelter, and I topped up their fodder. The sheep, goats and pigs had taken refuge in the feed pens but were now emerging into the paddock and orchard to graze. No harm done there. I ran next along the beach towards Giuseppe’s grotte.
The scene that greeted me was a terrible shock. In the centre of the cave sitting stiffly upright in his all-over bright orange oilskins, Giuseppe was white as a sheet, his head slumped to one side. I knew even before I felt his cold hand that he was dead. There was no pulse, but worse, rigor mortis was already setting in. Panic came over me for a few minutes as I realised I was completely on my own. I remembered the one boat, which had anchored in the cove the first night, had gone. No chance there. The cove was a dead phone area. I felt completely helpless.
I looked again. There was a big bruise on one side of his head, half hidden by his hair. It seemed he had been struck by something or had fallen on the rocks and staggered back to the chair to rest – and no doubt decide what he needed to do. Recover and call on me up at the house? He would have had to climb the steep mountainside once he had got his strength back. Or would he have waited, exploiting his strength and assume he would be all right, and that he could mend himself. Whatever his plan, he had lost the battle. A day or two ago.
I considered trying to move Giuseppe’s body, but he was heavily-built and becoming stiff as a board, and there seemed no prospect of doing so, and anyway where to? He would be no better placed on a bench, and I recognised I should leave him alone, so as when help did arrive, I would not have disturbed the ‘evidence’.
Within the grotte there seemed little I could or should do. I walked round the interior, looking for I knew not what. His possessions were pathetic in reality. Pots and pans, some small oil lamps, fishing gear and the carbide lanterns, cutlery, a few plastic plates and cups. Such clothes as he had were hanging from a line at the back of the grotte. The rough bed had heavy drapes over it for winter use, but in summer he simply slept on the top of them. His reading glasses lay on the wooden table.
The only things I found at the back were a pile of boxes. Inconsiderate instinct made me look through them, as if for any clues as to a next-of-kin, or to whom we might break the news – if there was anyone at all. Aside from bits and pieces, odds and ends there was a notebook, filled with lengthy notes, one or two old photos and an old Italian/French dictionary. These seemed to be the only truly personal things he owned. Given that I would have plenty of time alone, awaiting the return of the others, I took the notebook and determined to read its scruffy texts – some in Italian, others in French - as best I could for any clues to his life or contacts. I doubted there would prove to be any inheritors – or inheritance. He had lost Marianne and would be leaving this world alone.
At the last minute I thought of his pistol. “Just in case,” he had said. Maybe I should have some protection. It was in the drawer, which was where he kept it, if it wasn’t hung by the entrance. I took it. The revolving chamber had five of the six bullets in it. I had no idea whether I would be brave enough to use it in anger.
iii
The next day at midday I was waiting outside the shuttered taverne when at last I heard the sound of a boat’s engine that could offer the help I needed. Coming in to the cove the patrol-boat of the Gendarmerie Maritime appeared. At once I could see Antoine, Angelique and Nicole perched on the foredeck, looking inland, and on spotting me, waving. It anchored in the centre of the cove.
It was some time before they had launched the dinghy, loaded some stores, and pushed off to the shore. I went down to the small jetty to help them tie up.
“What’s up?” Antoine could see the look of alarm on my face, as he stepped ashore.
“Giuseppe. A terrible thing has happened,” was all I could muster.
“Can’t we unload first?”
“No. Je vous en prie, vite, vite!”
Antoine indicated to the others to put the stores ashore, whilst Angelique went off to open up the taverne. Then he turned and aware of the seriousness of my alarm, ran with me back along the shoreline to Giuseppe’s grotte.
“Mon Dieu!” He surveyed the scene and checked immediately that there was no pulse on Giuseppe and saw for himself the pallor of his complexion. “Vraiment mort.”
“He must have died two days ago. The night after you left,” I blurted out, “but I didn’t find him until yesterday.”
“I don’t think we can do anything, should move anything,” Antoine said at once. “The gendarmes will want to check everything over for themselves.”
The gendarmes were surprised to be called ashore, but quickly prepared to take stock of the situation. Four of them walked behind Antoine over to the grotte, and found me waiting at the entrance. Inspector Girard was in the lead. They touched nothing, casting a professional eye around the miserable cave, noting its simplicity, its lack of worth. One of them checked Giuseppe’s pulse, before acknowledging that they would need to take the body to Calvi for a post mortem. They also had to work out how to lift him out of his rigor and get him into the dinghy and on to the patrol- boat.
I watched them silently, but was not ready for the surprise that occurred. In deciding to remove the heavy oilskin overalls, which reached up to his shoulders, they struggled, but managed to release the straps at the top of his chest. This revealed the unexpected. In the position of his heart there was a small bloody wound.
“He’s been shot.”
The gendarmes turned to me accusingly. I could offer no explanation.
“I didn’t look closely. Assumed he had had a fall and cracked his head. I just thought he had been more badly injured than he realised - or maybe because of it had died of a heart attack. He worked so hard all the time. Had done so all his life.”
“You were the only person here these last three days?”
“Yes.”
“Then how do you explain it?”
“I can’t.”
Antoine chipped in immediately, protesting that I had no reason to kill Giuseppe, nor as far as he knew did I have any weapon.”
“The bullet hole is very precise. The gun has been fired from close range, but not through the oilskins. There is some powder on his shirt,” one of the gendarmes pointed out.
“A professional job.” Girard added.
“He was probably already wearing his oilskins,” I ventured. “He used to work on the nets with the top half down when he was ashore or in the grotte.”
“If so,” one of the gendarmes said, “he must have been knocked out first. Whoever shot him then buttoned the top half of his oilskins up to hide the evidence – at least from a first look of anyone finding him.”
“A person he trusted and let him get close.” All three gendarmes turned to me again. “You were the only person here.”
“I didn’t hear anything. There has been a strong gale for two days, as you know. I stayed in the house up the hillside.”
“The gale effected our movements. But here on land, that didn’t mean you had to stay indoors.”
“I did.”
Girard shook my shoulder. “You’ll have to do better than that. Only you can explain, give a reason for his death.”
I insisted I was at a loss to explain anything. Giuseppe had become a friend, such as our paths had crossed. Only a few days before we had shared the walk out to the fort. I had no reason, nor knew of any i
njustice to me to ever think of such an action. I protested my innocence.
“There was a boat anchored in the cove the first night of the storm. Taking shelter from the gale, I assume.”
“And?”
“It was gone the next evening. I supposed the lull at the centre of the gale had allowed them to get back to … well, wherever they had come from.”
“What type of boat?”
“A fast motor-cruiser. About twelve metres, I would say. I looked briefly through the binoculars at the time. It was like many high-speed motorboats we see, modern, flashy. White, I recall, with a dark blue stripe along the hull, but that’s all. Then it was dark, and I didn’t give it a further thought. As I said, the next day, later, it was gone.”
Girard and the two gendarmes consulted together in a corner. “This is now a murder enquiry. You’re not to leave here, you understand? We’ll need your passport. You’re not to try and go anywhere. One of us will stay to question you further, whilst we take the body to Calvi. When we come back we want to have had a full statement from you.”
“I understand.”
“You realise the position you are in?”
“Yes, but I can’t explain what happened.”
“If you are telling the truth, and if … if there was a boat, that presents one other possibility … the only possibility.”
“I have no reason to hurt Giuseppe. We were on friendly terms.”
“Then who wasn’t?”
“I don’t know.”
Girard took his men aside and gave them their orders. He glanced once at me, and I read a decision of my guilt on his face. Two of the gendarmes left with Giuseppe’s body in a sack and managed to struggle with it into the dinghy and out to their patrol-boat. The third began to ask a barrage of questions, whilst we sat outside the taverne. Antoine was still incredulous and reluctant to doubt my innocence, though he could not provide any logical explanation to the gendarme either. Angelique provided us with coffee and a stiff whisky. We all needed the latter,
The Dark Side of the Sun Page 11