The Splendour Falls

If Paul had left his cigarettes behind, forgotten for the moment in the pocket of his coat, then how had he smoked three here yesterday afternoon? He might, I thought, have simply bought another packet, but then he would have bought the same brand, surely? It was a popular French brand, sold at every corner store – a longish cigarette with a plain white paper filter and the brand name stamped in simple black. I’d never seen Paul smoke a different type.

And yet here before me was the evidence – the three spent ends on the pavement had dark spotted yellow filters. I picked one up to look, but there was no clear name or logo visible. Not only were the cigarettes a stranger’s brand, but there were no match stubs anywhere. Paul had always used matches, and I thought it unlikely he’d have bought himself a lighter all of a sudden. Not impossible, of course, but decidedly unlikely.

Which meant, to me, that someone else had given Paul those cigarettes; that someone else had held the lighter for him. That no matter what the witnesses had said to the police, Paul hadn’t been alone here yesterday, not all the time. He hadn’t been alone.

Knowing this myself was one thing; telling it to the police was quite another. In my mind I could already hear the quiet tolerance, the kind but oh, so firm dismissal by the weary young inspector. If only someone else could speak for me, instead – someone with a bit more clout, and knowledge of the system. The Chamonds, perhaps, or maybe even …

I bit my lip. What was it that Armand Valcourt had said to me in Martine’s gallery? ‘The price one pays for influence is isolation.’ Influence …

The bell below me in the town began to chime the hour, a tardy echo of the older peal from the château. With thoughtful eyes I raised my head again to look along the steeply rising road.

If François thought the hour an early one for visitors, he gave no indication of it. ‘You may wait here,’ he said, politely. ‘He will not be long.’

I thanked him and he withdrew, leaving me alone in the quiet room. This was not the glittering sitting-room into which I’d been shown on my first visit to the Clos des Cloches. The windows here were thickly curtained, and the room itself was small. It appeared to be a study of sorts, or an office, with richly panelled walls and shelves for books. A writing desk stood angled in one corner, and on its surface, neatly dusted, a row of framed photographs stood waiting for inspection.

The photographs were all of Lucie, at different ages, solemn and smiling. There was no one else. I moved closer to examine them, brushing the glass of one with wondering fingertips. My mind drifted back, I don’t know why, to the argument I’d overheard last Saturday, between Armand and Martine. ‘What do you know of love?’ she’d taunted him. Lord, I thought, how could she ask that, having seen these photographs?

Behind me the door to the study opened and closed again, quietly. I spun round, hands laced nervously behind my back, to face him.

He’d obviously been dragged from the course of his morning routine. His hair was damp from the shower, and he hadn’t finished buttoning his shirt, but I fancied he looked more presentable than I did. He, at least, had slept. The memory of that sleep still lingered round his heavy-lidded eyes, and the way he looked at me was unconsciously intimate.

‘I’m sorry,’ I began, speaking French from instinct. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered you, this early.’

‘It is no problem.’ He fastened the last few shirt buttons. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘My friend is dead.’ To my dismay, I felt the tears come burning up behind my eyes. I blinked them back, determined not to cry, but Armand saw them anyway. He stepped quickly away from the door, muttering a soft recrimination that was, I gathered, directed at himself.

‘I didn’t think,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. That was the young boy yesterday, who fell, yes? I didn’t realise—’ He broke off, stiffly. ‘It must be very difficult.’

I nodded dumbly, and took the chair he offered me. He didn’t sit behind the desk, but pulled a second chair across the carpet, facing mine, and sat so that his knees were only inches from my own. His dark eyes gently searched my face. ‘You have not slept.’

He had dropped the formal manner of address, and used the more familiar ‘tu’ instead of ‘vous’. It was not a change that the French made lightly, signifying as it did a deepening of one’s relationship. At any other time I might have noticed, and been flattered, but today it scarcely registered.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts.’

‘I understand. Myself, I’ve worried many times about Lucie playing near that wall. I was afraid that such an accident might happen.’

‘But it wasn’t an accident, that’s just it.’ I took a breath and squared my shoulders. ‘Someone pushed him.’

He stared, incredulous. ‘What?’

‘I … I’m not sure who did it, but I think I do know why, only the police wouldn’t listen. They were very polite, and all that, but they wouldn’t listen.’ My voice was bitter, laced with more emotion than I’d heard in it for years. ‘Somebody pushed Paul.’

He studied me. ‘You saw this happen?’

‘No.’

‘Then how can you be sure?’

I sighed, and looked away. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘I have time.’ He smiled, faintly. ‘Have you eaten, yet?’