The Splendour Falls

Monsieur Chamond poured out the last of the Calvados and clucked his tongue regretfully. ‘Another bottle gone,’ he said. ‘Thierry, would you mind …?’

‘Not at all.’ Thierry could hold his liquor rather better than the rest of us, I thought. He walked with little effort to the door behind the bar, then swore with feeling as he bumped against some unseen object in his path.

‘Be careful,’ Christian warned him, craning forward, ‘that is fragile.’

‘So is my foot. You should give it to her …’

‘Now is not a good time, I am thinking.’

I caught the furtive sideways glance and sensed they were discussing me again. ‘What should Christian give me, Thierry?’

For an answer Thierry hoisted up a flat brown paper parcel, two feet square. ‘This.’

A painting, I thought. It could only be a painting. And I knew which one it was before the paper fell away beneath my clumsy hands. Christian watched my face, uncertain. Everyone, it seemed, was watching me. My fingers hardly shook as I pushed back the torn paper so that nothing obscured my full view of the lovely painting. Painting number 88, the river steps, with Rabelais a sleeping shadow in the background.

Christian cleared his throat. ‘Martine, she told me that you liked that one, so I thought …’ He knew why I liked it, too – his smile showed me that. It was a tight smile, almost forced. And then he put it into words. ‘I should have painted Paul there, yes? On the steps.’

I shook my head, and touched the fifth step lovingly. ‘No need,’ I told him, honestly. ‘He’s there already.’

Harry was the only one who didn’t fully understand. He frowned and looked across at me. I’ll tell you later, my eyes promised him, only please don’t ask me now. Still frowning, he reached out a hand. ‘Can I see it?’

‘God, it’s brilliant, Chris,’ Neil breathed, looking over Harry’s shoulder. ‘That river really moves.’

Jim Whitaker leaned forward, too, to look. ‘It’s too bad,’ he said finally, ‘that Didier Muret was never told what really happened to the diamonds. Think of all the trouble that it night have saved.’

François looked shocked. ‘You cannot mean that.’

‘Sure. If he had known she threw them in the river, he’d have never tried to find them, would he?’

‘The river?’ François raised his eyebrows. ‘Who told you Isabelle did this?’

Jim faltered, thinking back. ‘Well, she did. At least, she told my father …’

‘What did she tell him, exactly?’

‘I’m not sure, it was so long ago. I always thought …’

‘Not the river,’ François said, with certainty. ‘She might have said “the water”, but not “the river”.’

His tone, his words, had finally penetrated past my fog of Calvados. I turned in my seat to stare at him. ‘Do you mean … you don’t mean that you know where the diamonds are?’

‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘I helped her, I was there. She told me they were stained with blood, those diamonds, and she knew only one way to make them pure.’ He shrugged, and looked an apology at Jim. ‘She didn’t throw them in the river Vienne,’ he said. ‘She gave them back to God.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

… all the past

Melts mist-like into this bright hour,

The ancient door swung open with a heavy groan as Christian’s key turned creaking in the lock. A shaft of torchlight caught a pillar’s gleaming edge, then travelled up to where the grasses waved upon the ruined wall. Beneath the clouds that raced across the moon, the Chapelle of Sainte Radegonde slept still and peaceful, sacrosanct. Nothing moved.

And then the silence blinked.

Christian’s keys dropped jangling to the ground and at the muttered German curse my cousin swung the torch around to help. ‘Just there,’ Harry pointed out the keys, ‘beside the … no, beside that clump of flowers. Right.’

‘This would be easier,’ said Christian, ‘in the daylight.’

Harry grinned. ‘Well, we’re here now, so there’s no point having second thoughts. Besides, it’s all well and good for Jim and François to put off exploring until morning – they’re old men. They’ve lost their sense of adventure. Not like us.’

‘Jim Whitaker’s not old,’ I contradicted.

‘Of course he is. He must be over forty, surely.’

‘Thanks,’ said Neil, behind my shoulder. ‘I’ll just stop here and have a nap then, shall I?’

‘I didn’t mean …’

‘I know you didn’t.’ Neil’s smile forgave my cousin’s blunder. ‘Emily, my dear, could you just shine your torch in that direction, so Christian doesn’t trip on anything? Thanks, that’s lovely.’

Christian walked ahead, pinned by the torchlight like a cabaret performer in a follow spot. His shadow loomed macabre on the frescoed wall behind the sturdy iron grille. Again he clanked the ring of keys, selecting one to fit the lock. ‘Let us hope that Sainte Radegonde does not mind to be awakened.’

‘She won’t mind.’ Harry’s tone was confident. ‘And anyway, it’s not as if we’re doing anything we oughtn’t. We’re just having a bit of a peek, that’s all. Giving in to normal curiosity.’