The Splendour Falls

Think, damn you, think, I ordered my racing mind, but no ideas came. My hands shook ever so slightly, and I tucked them back in my pockets to keep them still.

Armand noticed. ‘You are cold?’

‘No. No, it’s just—’ And then it finally struck me, what excuse to use. ‘It’s just this place,’ I said, quite honestly. ‘It’s difficult to stand here, so soon after …’

‘Dieu, I didn’t think. I’m sorry.’ He sent a brief look up the road and raked his hair with one lean hand, then met my eyes again and smiled. ‘Have you ever seen the sunset from the walls of the château?’

The château, I thought. Public place, with lots of people. Perfect. Trying to keep the relief from showing in my voice, I replied that I had not. ‘Is it very lovely?’

‘It is something to be remembered.’

The walk up the hill was a short one, but to me it seemed to take an age. I held my breath as we passed the door that hid the tunnel’s entrance, and fancied that I heard somebody stir behind the wooden panels, but it might have been imagination, or the wind. The wind had risen sharply with the sinking of the sun, and it caught now in my throat as I quickened my step to keep pace with Armand’s longer strides.

The young guide at the château admission booth looked faintly surprised when we appeared. Her wide eyes swung from me to Armand, and she cleared her throat. ‘Monsieur …’

Armand reached for his wallet. ‘Two adults.’

‘But Monsieur …’

‘We wish to see the sunset,’ he explained. He passed a bill across the narrow counter, with its tumbled stacks of coloured brochures and souvenirs. I didn’t see the exact denomination of the note, but it was rather more than the price of our admission. The girl took it slowly from his hand and looked at it, hesitating, then took two pink tickets from below the counter and handed them to Armand.

I frowned as we walked up along the gravel path, past the Royal Apartments on our way to the far western wall. ‘Why the bribe?’ I asked him, casually. The only other visitors I could see were heading in the opposite direction, so I’d already half guessed what Armand’s answer would be. And I was right.

‘The château closes to the public at this hour,’ he said, with an uncaring shrug. ‘But it’s no problem. The workers stay on for a while yet, to finish up the closing, and they know me well. We’re neighbours.’ He stepped aside to let me go ahead across the short bridge spanning the dry moat that split the grounds. Directly in front of me, the ruined Moulin Tower rose like a sentinel at the château’s westernmost edge, its jagged, roofless silhouette a foil for the brilliant wash of colour on the billowed clouds behind.

It looked as though the very sky was burning.

‘It will be still more splendid in a moment.’ I heard the click of Armand’s cigarette lighter and smelled the drifting smoke as he moved up to join me. ‘I hope you found your cousin well?’

My mouth went dry as dust. ‘What?’

‘You have,’ he said, ‘a most revealing face.’

Some distance off a set of ancient hinges creaked a protest that was silenced by a final-sounding thud. They were closing the gates to the château.

‘It was bound to happen, I suppose,’ Armand went on, lifting one hand to gently touch my hair, ‘but I’m still sorry he had to tell you.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

It needs must be for honour if at all:

I felt the change in my own eyes. He dropped his hand.

‘You are afraid of me,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want that. I didn’t want …’ The dark eyes angled downwards, shutting me out, and he pulled sharply at his cigarette.

My heartbeat lurched arhythmically and for a second time I steadied it. Don’t panic, I thought, just stay calm. Surely Harry would by now have reached the meeting place, the place where the steps started down to the fountain square, and he would not wait long before deciding something must have happened to me. Unlike Harry, I was never late.

No, I reassured myself, he’d realise something had gone wrong and he’d go straight to the police, as he’d intended. And then the police would telephone the château where, somewhere, a handful of straggling staff members were still working through their closing duties, and the police would ask if anyone had noticed me upon the road, and then someone was bound to tell them … Yes, I thought, trying desperately to convince myself, that’s how it would happen. If I only kept my head and kept Armand in conversation, then everything would be all right. It was only a matter of time before someone came for me.

He will come … The promise, in a voice not quite my own, flowed, through my mind and over me and filled me with an oddly quiet calmness. I cleared my throat. ‘May I please have a cigarette?’

I was breaking faith with Paul, I knew. Nothing for pleasure, that’s what Thierry had said was the rule of Yom Kippur. No food, no drink, and certainly no cigarettes. And yet my request was not for pleasure, it was purposeful. It bought me time. If Armand found it odd that someone shut into a deserted ruin with a murderer would think of smoking, he didn’t let on. His face remained impassive as he handed me the packet and the lighter.

The wind rose wilder up the tower walls. It took me several tries to light the cigarette, the flame kept blowing out.

Armand stood watching me. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt you,’ he said.

Past tense, I noticed. Lovely. My own voice, to my surprise, was nearly normal. ‘So what happens now?’