The light was nearly gone now, and the wind seemed everywhere around me. It had a voice, that wind, half human and half demon, that numbed the mind and turned the soul to stone. I’d reached the end, with nowhere left to go. A slash of brightness showed in the wall a few feet on and with desperate hands I clawed my way around to it. I found a window … well, an arrow slit – a crumbling gaping arrow slit my height and width, with jagged edges framing an impressive view across the roofs of Chinon’s old and peaceful heart.
In ages past an archer would have stood here, poised with watchful eyes to hold the castle keep against all challengers from the darkening hill below. And nearly eight centuries ago a frightened girl of fifteen years might well have stood in this same spot, watching the spreading fires of the rebel barons camped around the château walls. I could almost see the fires myself, tonight – the rue Voltaire below me was a blaze of light, and I fancied that I saw a line of torches winding up the cliff. Oh, God, I prayed, please let him come.
‘I’m coming up,’ Armand announced, below me. He was on the stairs. ‘Do you hear me, Emily? I’m coming up. Don’t move.’
I slid away, along the wall, and pressed myself into the dripping stone. Armand moved very slowly, with deliberate purpose. His steps fell loud upon the worn stone. ‘Please, Emily, I promise I won’t hurt you. I could never …’ His voice trailed off, and clearing his throat he tried again. ‘Just don’t move. The walls are weak in places, they’re not safe. Please …’
I could see his outline now, at the top of the stairs. A few more steps, and he would be beside me. Panic froze my limbs, keeping me anchored to the stone while Armand edged his way towards me, past the arrow slit.
Then, in one flashing second, my whole world seemed to explode. The sudden stab of brilliant light came slashing through the arrow slit like lightning, and caught Armand full square upon the face. He tried to move and turned against the wall, and, frozen still, I heard the horrifying sound of grinding mortar giving way, and watched while Armand lurched to one side, out of sight. The light that had so blinded him kept shining, unconcerned, upon the settling dust and pebbles. It reflected even on the thick clouds moving low above the sharp and ragged edges of the roofless chamber I stood in.
And then I realised what had happened. The sunset, now, was nearly over. They had turned the floodlights on.
Armand hadn’t fallen, not completely. With one hand he kept a death grip on the stone ledge where the arrow slit had been. Half stunned, I sidled round and watched him while he scrabbled for a foothold. He couldn’t find one, but he managed to bring his other hand up to strengthen his grasp. And there he hung, suspended, muscles straining as he gathered all his energy to pull himself back up and in.
His fingers clung mere inches from my feet – I could have stepped on them, kicked at them, sent him to his death. It would, I thought, be no less than the man deserved. He’d killed Paul, hadn’t he? But even as I thought of Paul I knew I couldn’t do it, for in my mind I saw again Paul’s gentle face, his dark eyes gazing out across the darkly flowing river, and I heard again his voice telling me sadly: ‘People hate too much, you know?’
I knew.
And anyway, I thought, it was a sin to hate someone on Yom Kippur. I slowly crouched and braced myself with one hand against what remained of the wall, and stretched the other hand to take firm hold of Armand’s wrist. He raised his head to look at me. With all the floodlights angled up behind him I could only see a darkened outline of his face, I couldn’t see his eyes, and yet for some strange reason I believed I saw him smile at me. He turned his own hand slightly in my grasp until his fingers closed with mine. And then he just let go.
They told me later that when Armand fell, my group of would-be rescuers had only just arrived within the château grounds – that Harry was, in fact, still causing some kind of disturbance at the entrance booth. But somehow, when I spun away from the gaping, light-filled hole, Neil was there to catch me, his solid body shielding me from danger while his arms came round me strongly, firmly, warm as life itself.
I clung to him while, overhead, the clouds burst forth a final brilliant streak of golden red, as if the gates of heaven themselves had briefly opened, and closed again. My trembling stilled; the wind seemed to fall silent, and some weight I didn’t fully understand, a melancholy ages old, was lifted from my sobbing chest and drifted like an answered prayer into the darkness.
‘It’s all right, don’t be frightened, now,’ Neil said, his mouth moving down against my hair. ‘I’m here.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
… the long fantastic night
With all its doings had and had not been,
And all things were and were not.
Inspector Prieur proved to be a decent man. I’d thought as much the moment I’d first met him, when he’d come walking across the château yard, calm in the midst of the confusion, and gently coaxed me out of Neil’s protective hold. He’d looked like someone’s grandfather come down for sports day, with a vacuum flask in one hand and a dark wool blanket in the other. ‘You must be cold,’ he’d said to me. ‘I’ve brought you coffee.’ And then, when I was ready, he’d begun to ask me questions, but even that had been relaxed – less an interrogation than an undemanding chat. When it was finished, he had looked at me with understanding. ‘There is a child, they tell me. A little girl.’
‘Yes.’