I was relieved for this confirmation, but doubts remained. The clouds hung over me and I could be summoned back from England at any time. I wanted to see Nicole again, but they were shunting me to the cove immediately. Had Robert slipped them a douceur to keep me out of the way?
xi
At the cove, I found a lot of activity around the taverne. Antoine and Angelique seemed to be clearing up their things as well.
“Already?”
“Things are going to change, quicker than we thought.” Antoine shrugged his shoulders.
“We told you we’ve had it,” Angelique added, with a sad look on her wrinkled face. “Two deaths are enough.”
At that moment the sun fell behind scudding clouds, and a stiff breeze sprang up. The type that always presaged a storm. Suddenly it seemed this idyllic spot was not so welcoming as before. There were gaps in its charm. I worried for its future.
Antoine went inside the taverne and appeared, not with a drink, but an envelope. I knew immediately the writing must be Robert’s. The house was to be closed up and offered for sale. He had put this in hand already. The authorities were in discussions with him. He needed everything wrapped up at once. The police had given me a week but he wanted me to pack my things and leave as quickly as possible.
I went up to the house wearily and shut the door firmly against the rising winds. We were to be battered for two days and nights, and I kept my peace, packing Nicole’s effects, such as were left out, into the remaining boxes. They were to be passed to Robert to take with her. I suspected he would make some excuse and leave much of it behind. What was precious to Nicole was not to him. In her present state she would not be alert to his actions. He would tell her not to fuss. To be glad to be on the air ambulance with the chance to get back quickly to England – and Harry. He would appeal to her heart-strings, the commitment of a mother. To save him and Sarah from the burden of lifetime carers. If she recovered fully. I had to hope she would.
I attacked my literary critiques, working obsessively to finish the texts. I was now indifferent to the quality of my arguments. My editor would probably hash them around and they would appear in a form mangled to his requirements. Whether his readers would admire the debates I had assembled or think them out-of-date, irrelevant to the modern writer, I did not know. I no longer cared. Nicole was all that mattered.
The unusual weather abated on the third day and the sun came out, fiercer than ever. I opened a bottle of wine and sat on the terrace, and gave vent to my thoughts.
Antoine came up to the house with the two mules. He had come to transfer those effects of Nicole’s already packed, down to his store, in readiness for onward delivery to Calvi and Robert’s agent. These sensitive items had now been sub-contracted, had lost their personal touch, were miscellanea, detritus.
“You mustn’t blame yourself,” Antoine said quietly as he bundled the boxes onto the mules’ backs, tying them down with ropes to hold them to the compliant beasts, whose bodies would sway wildly down the rugged path, only their padded feet to grip the scree and slippery stones.
I didn’t take in which crisis, which death Antoine was referring to. I thought only of Nicole. An injustice to Giuseppe. Even the dog should have had a mention. I was going back into the wide world, but preferred to linger a little longer at the cove. To absorb the air, the brilliance of the sun across the landscape, and to enjoy one last time the scents of its plants, shrubs and flora.
xii
Change is in the air. Back in Calvi, Girard tells me the authorities have acted and intervened in the ownership of the cove, and the properties there. The State is to buy the land, the taverne and Nicole’s house. Antoine and Angelique have been offered a small house on the edge of Calvi, at the far end of the bay. On a headland that will go some way to replacing the peace and quiet they found at the cove, yet within reach of the facilities and transport they will need in old age.
The cove is to be incorporated into the adjacent Réserve Naturelle de Scandola. A sentier is to be cut in the maquis through the wild undergrowth, down from the mountain road across the landscape, passing the house, where a park warden will be based. He will have solar panels for power on the roof and a mobile phone mast will be fitted. The cove’s isolation will be terminated. The gun-runners will not be able to buy Nicole’s house or use this bay as a landing-place after all. Ironic.
The taverne is to be demolished. Antoine and Angelique’s shack is to disappear under Health and Safety rules. Yachts will be able to anchor in the cove, if their skippers are skilful enough to navigate the narrow entrance, but there will be no food or supplies ashore.
The grotte is to be emptied, reverting back to Nature. A grille will be fitted across the entrance, through which yachtsmen ashore, if curious, can peer into the dark space, but make no deduction as to its history, that it was ever a refuge for Giuseppe. If they guess from the menhir it might have once been a stone age man’s shelter, they would not be far from the truth.
Girard is going back to Marseille. I detect a look of triumph on his face. I wonder if he was ever appointed here other than to solve this case. I now doubt it was a demotion. He was, after all, an expert on the French Connection. His deputy here will be glad to have control back in his hands.
I am to see Nicole for the last time. She is in the custody of her brother-in-law and the hospital doctors, and remains a patient until she can be safely moved. The potion she intoxicated has inflamed her kidneys and the doctors report she has developed glomerulonephritis. There is a risk she will need dialysis, unless the inflammation can be stabilised and reversed. The sooner she is back in England for long-term treatment the better. Robert is not around when I get to the hospital. Thankfully.
Nicole holds my hand as I stand by the hospital bed, neither of us quite sure what to say.
“They didn’t get the house?” she whispers.
The gangs she means. I tell her about the changes being brought to the cove.
“No. The State will own it, and keep it in the Réserve Naturelle de Scandola. You’ll get a fair price, and Robert will see your things get back all right.”
Nicole smiled, alive, but tired. Her eyes kept opening and shutting with the effort of keeping awake under the medication.
“The police are letting me go,” I said, “though they have me as a suspect in the murders and the attack on you. They can’t get out of their minds that my presence was a coincidence in all three cases. They think I could be the mastermind behind all these events at the cove.”
“Are you?”
Nicole’s eyes closed as she said these words. Then a flicker to show she was not yet asleep. I paused a moment too long.
“Well, are you?”
This time her eyes closed fully and stayed shut. Sleep had overtaken her. I had not answered her question.
I remained at her bedside. To me she looked as beautiful as ever. As on the day my glance across a room had first alighted on her brief smile. I hoped we would stay in touch.
There was much else we could have said, but not in front of others, not even family. What we had together wasn’t based so much on words as actions. Those loving touches that had bound us as one in those moments of joy, aside from the darker reality of life – or rather death. Why go over those troubles again now that the dangers had passed? There was no point. What mattered for now was she was in the care of her family and would receive the necessary treatment. I vowed to call her in England and meet up, but for the present I had handed her over, back to where she came from – a place in which I had no stake.
My claim existed in the cove, that isolated corner of Corsica, under the shimmering heat of the summer sun. Events had cast a dark shadow over its rays. She would be out-of-sight, but never out of mind. There was no case for me to ask for more.
Robert appeared in the corridor and came into the room.
It was time to go. I said the words that would ensure Nicole and I could meet again in h
appier times. “Au revoir.” I wasn’t sure if Nicole gave one of her gentle smiles or I imagined it. Robert signalled me to leave and I waited outside.
Through the window I could see she was sleeping. After a few minutes he came out to find me hovering. His words sounded kind but were uncompromising. “It is not ‘au revoir’, it is goodbye.”
The look on his face said quite clearly I had to let go. She was now back with her family, who would look after her and her epileptic son. The time we had shared in the heat of the Mediterranean sun was over, and would not be repeated. He had arranged for an agent to have her effects sent on to England. Robert was taking her back in the air ambulance the next day.
xiii
I arranged to leave Corsica the way I came, by ferry. But this time I would leave from Ajaccio, because the boat would pass up the western side of the island before turning towards Marseille. The police gave me my passport back.
The ferry would follow that part of the coast in which the cove lay, and with my binoculars I wanted one last glimpse of the haven that had given me so much loving. Yet, on the day, as I turned my attention to the coastline the sea had got up and a westerly wind churned up waves that struck the shore with sufficient force to conceal the details from my vision. I could not identify the narrow entrance to the cove, nor the specific headlands which pierced the rugged mountains that dipped straight into the sea. I thought I saw the Genoese fort but whether it was the right one was not clear. The secret harbour remained out of sight.
The files on the two murders officially remain open. The record has me down as a named suspect, common to all events. I may be recalled at any time. I don’t think I will be.
The randonneurs on the sentier which will extend from the Réserve Naturelle de Scandola will pass by high up on the mountainside and will be able to pause at the warden’s house, and admire the spectacular view of the deserted cove. The maquis will bloom every year and its intense scents will carry far out to sea, seducing passers-by.
For me, forever, it will be l’air du temps perdu.
xiv
Back in England I edited my critiques to the publisher’s demands, but with a lack of interest. Thoughts criss-crossed my mind between Corsica and the English village where I assumed Robert would be caring for Nicole and her son. Yet I had been told to forget her; something that was difficult to do. There was a hole in the pit of my stomach, an ache that would not go away.
My publisher gave me a new set of assignments for the winter months, including ones in New York, Paris, Rome and Naples. The travel would help distract me and I could meet up with contacts I had in these places, whilst I interviewed writers and artists for the paper’s features. It would stop me moping around.
Winter blues began to overtake me as English autumn rains replaced Corsica sunshine and the days shortened into cold darkness. I was irritable and not good company for friends or in the workplace when discussing features. Day after day I struggled with texts and resorted to research as a pretence of progress. The trips abroad were useful interludes, doing the interviews, but also catching up with family and business friends, and making future plans.
Ultimately however my thoughts were with Nicole. I even went as far as driving out into Oxfordshire to the village she had once named, as if I might run into her by chance. But there I realised I had never known her address. It was a place of perhaps two thousand people, strung out, and after an hour of fruitless endeavour I had to accept that this was a ridiculous plan and went to the pub in the centre. I considered seeking information on her from the barman, but knew that in such a small community I would be presumed a tabloid reporter or a private detective and nothing would be imparted. Indeed if Robert got to hear of any such enquiry, as inevitably he would, it might reinforce my ‘separation’ from Nicole even more concretely. I had a ploughman’s lunch and drank a pint of the sour beer, before returning to London disheartened.
It was six months later, in March, when the envelope was delivered to my door. It was a bulky brown stiff-backed envelope with what appeared to be French franking in one corner. The courier had no word of information and simply made me sign for it, before departing. It was clearly too important for normal posting, and I made myself a pot of strong coffee before sitting down and attending to it.
The documents inside were indeed in French (with one exception) and covered with red seals, ink stamps and officialdom. Their purpose soon became clear to me, even given mon francais maladroit.
I was being summoned to Corsica to bear witness in the trial of the Corsair and his band of gun-runners. This was to take place in June and I was ordered to give such evidence as was material to their conviction. I was surprised to see a series of statements attributed to me (these being translated in English alongside the French version). On examination it appeared that much of what I had said when being interviewed by Inspector Girard and his team had been recorded, unbeknownst to me at the time. Whether this infringed procedure I didn’t know, but this seemed immaterial as what was written down was clearly, as it were, verbatim for my actual answers as far as I could reasonably remember. In other words I was hoisted by my own petard, and it would be quite fruitless to deny that these recordings were other than an accurate disposition of everything I had said. Whatever part the police wanted me to play in the proceedings, to put together a watertight case against the criminals, my part of the jigsaw was laid bare in this evidence. The covering letter made clear it was a legal obligation that I should attend and give this evidence without deviation or denial. There was a reply-paid card with which I had to confirm receipt of these instructions (as if the courier was not enough) and notice that the due dates of the trial would be confirmed one month prior – but mid-June was currently foreseen as the time. I was to make my own arrangements but the one consolation was that my travel expenses would be repaid … on completion of a successful prosecution and not being a party to the crimes. A caveat that struck me as odd, but no doubt an element of la loi francaise in such circumstances. It made me somehow feel guilty.
Confirmation duly arrived that the trial was expected to start on June 20th in Calvi, and that my attendance was mandatory. I would be met by the police and given the necessary details of the trial procedure and my part in it. I was to inform the Court of my travel arrangements and keep a record of expenses.
I booked my travel to arrive in Calvi a couple of days before, not least to adjust my head to the challenge of the trial and to go through the questions that were going to be asked of me, and for which responses were required in line with my recorded statements. Though I was to be only one part of the jigsaw, I felt threatened. After all the police had caught the gun-runners red-handed up the mountainside at the cove in the very act of bringing the weapons ashore and inland, and I thought this would have been evidence enough. I assumed I would give my evidence at the appropriate moment and then be released.
I decided to approach Corsica by my favoured route. Fly to Marseille and catch an overnight ferry to Calvi, so as to appreciate the island’s sensual attraction calmly from seawards, to savour the aroma of the maquis as the outlines of mountains emerged from their hazy slumber. In Marseille I spent a couple of days catching up with old friends and business acquaintances, as a necessary prelude to immersing myself in the trial. I rehearsed my French with them and went through the evidence and statements.
The ferry I boarded was exceptionally busy, it being just ahead of the high season and I had some difficulty in finding my cabin amongst the throng of passengers. It was only at dinner time as I forced a way into the dining-room that I glanced across the space and saw a blonde head amongst a group of attentive companions, who included a policeman and some officials.
I realised at once this could be Nicole, that I wanted it to be her. Then it struck me I had given no thought to the possibility that she too might be called as a witness … and maybe Antoine and Angelique. My self-centred attitude to the trial had only encompassed my part of th
e jigsaw. I had in effect, as Robert had wanted, removed her from the equation, and assumed anyway she would not be fit enough to contribute. Had she recovered fully from the effects of the coma? Why had I not persisted in these last months and broken through the barrier Robert had raised and at least found out about her health? I had dreamed about her, my love for her, and yet not gathered information by some means or other about her condition. She remained locked in my mind as at the cove, not in England. And now on the ferry?
It was Nicole. I watched her group be seated and make their orders. I hesitated to know what to do, how quickly to intervene, and ate my meal without relish, as I continued to observe them. It seemed logical to assume these people were her advisers, a notaire and avocat perhaps working with the police in a similar preparation for the trial. It came to me that it was obvious she had more substantial evidence than me to give, that she and Antoine were even at risk of being labelled as accomplices of the gun-runners. Indeed it immediately crossed my mind that the pair of them might be classed as defendants, unless they had brokered a deal with the police. Antoine had allowed the Corsair’s gang to use his mules for loads up the mountainside (how many times?), and Nicole had put out lamps (while I lay comatose in my bed) to guide the animal train past the house. Were these attributable as ‘criminal involvement’ or trivial asides?
When the group finished their meal and got up to retire, I could no longer hold myself back and intercepted them as they left the dining-room. Nicole was surprised to see me. For a moment we were both shocked into silence, and I worried for her reaction. Then a slight smile came across that beautiful face and she waved the others on.
The Dark Side of the Sun Page 27