Murder at Malenfer Page 5

  Simonne turned the handle and entered.

  Later that same evening, hours after Simonne had run off, Sophie found herself standing sentinel outside her daughter’s room. She held her breath for a moment. Hastening feet approached from the direction of the main stair, but the tread was lumbering. Sophie was disappointed even before the fulsome Berthe appeared.

  The Malenfer housekeeper drew near. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but Mademoiselle is not to be found anywhere. No one’s seen her since dinner. Perhaps she went outside, do you think?”

  “No, I think not, Berthe, but thank you for trying all the same. I think I’ll wait for her a while longer.”

  “Shall I let you into her room, ma’am?”

  “Thank you, Berthe, but I’ll wait for an invitation.” She had her own key anyway. “I suppose I’m being a little silly here,” she confided to the trusted servant. “I’m trying to mend fences, you see. A chair would be welcome, though, I’m feeling a little low.” Her own voice was little more than a whisper.

  The housekeeper went off, happy to provide a service.

  Time then moved more slowly, and no one else passed by. Sophie sank into a despondent mood, alone in her own thoughts. She would do anything for her daughter, she told herself, Simonne was not to blame.

  An hour later Simonne had yet to return. Sophie gave up waiting and went at last to bed.

  5

  A Request

  Dermot did not wait for an answer; he picked up his hat and he went. The door of the Swan closed behind him and left him on the step. He found the courtyard ominous and cold, where earlier it had been welcoming; the noise and warmth were all at his back, and the dark and the quiet before him.

  Surely it had been Arthur – his old Lieutenant – standing by the tree? What trick was his mind playing? Whatever was going on, he had to leave. Got to get away. Go somewhere with fewer people around until the feeling left him. Because it wasn’t the crazy notion of what he saw, but the certainty he felt that scared him. Dermot pulled his collar up against the chill and put a foot on the wet smooth cobbles.

  “Dermot? Is it really you?”

  Ivy smothered one of the walls at the side of the brasserie. The words came at him from somewhere in there. It was a voice that Dermot had never forgotten – he knew it from down in his sleep.

  “Arthur?” he heard himself say.

  The figure stepped out under the gas streetlight where Dermot could see him clearly. “You’re a hard man to find, Dermot Ward.”

  “Josephing Mary. For the love of God.”

  Arthur still looked young from a distance. “I’ve been chasing you up for days.”

  He’d always been meticulous about his dress and grooming, down to his walrus mustache. The men had called it Arthur’s “Kitchener,” after the British lord. Arthur had cultivated his whiskers when he’d won his commission in the army of France. They’d been a foil to overcome his boyish good looks, but they weren’t a prop anymore. Arthur had grown into them long before now; he was a man who had seen things he shouldn’t.

  “What the bloody hell are you on about? ‘Hard man to find?’ You’re meant to be dead!”

  “I know,” Arthur agreed, disturbingly. “Isn’t that a strange thing?”

  “In that hospital…”

  “Yes…”

  “I left you in that hospital. They told me you were dead.”

  “Well. There’s an explanation there, Irlandais.”

  Dermot took a step back, his head reeling. As the first shock of recognition passed over him, it was replaced with something else. “In the ambulance. I went in that bloody ambulance… to that hospital with you...” His voice, accusing.

  “Ah, yes…”

  “You bastard! They said you were gone. I was there all along. In that ambulance.”

  “It’s difficult to understand…”

  “Why, Arthur, why?” Dermot sucked for air as if he’d just been punched. He doubled over, feeling winded. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Arthur took a step towards him.

  “No, you bastard! Don’t you move a bloody inch. Don’t come any nearer.” He shoo’d him back. Reason had turned on its head. He rose up, and scrubbed his knuckles at his head. “Think, think.” He spoke to himself. What is going on? “I helped them carry you. I was there. They told me you were done.” All the guilt. The sleepless nights. The haunted dreams of failure. “Why did they tell me that?” he pleaded with Arthur. “Why didn’t you let me know?” Tears welled up of frustration and anguish mixed with relief and joy. “Bastarding French bastard.” He cleared his eyes on the back of his rumpled coat sleeve.

  “Well, you know...” started Arthur, his palms turned upward. “It’s good to see you too.”

  Dermot ran forward. He covered the distance in three, four, powerful strides. He grabbed Arthur around the arms and shook him in a bear hug. He tried to hide his tears. “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  “Ah, old friend, it is good to see you, and I’m so glad you can see me too.”

  Something was wrong. He had felt it as soon as he’d grappled the Lieutenant. The man was as light as a rake. Dermot wasn’t listening.

  “Arthur?” He released him.

  Arthur reached over to him and put his hand on Dermot’s face. It wasn’t what Dermot had expected.

  “What the hell is this?” Dermot backed away. There was something not right here. He pawed at his cheek as if to clean a dirty mark where Arthur’s fingers had touched him. Dermot had an image of the laughing woman knocking the plate of food. Arthur’s touch felt like a smear of oiled fish that ran down to his chin.

  Right then, the door of Le Jardin des Cygnes banged open and a group of revelers spilled forth.

  “What’s going on, Arthur?” He heard his own voice too loud in the night. He heard it starting to quake.

  “We should go somewhere quiet.” Arthur tried to calm him. “I’ll explain.”

  “What do you mean?” Dermot wiped again at this face, the sensation slightly wet. “You’re all cold,” he challenged.

  “Dermot, don’t talk anymore,” Arthur soothed. “You’re attracting some attention.”

  He was right. The well-sauced group had noticed Dermot and heads were nodding their way.

  “Look.” Arthur became anxious. “Come away with me for a minute. Maybe stay quiet till then.”

  “What are you on about, Arthur?”

  “Please, Dermot. Stay quiet.”

  “Hey. Look at that.” It was the group.

  “Poor fellow.”

  “Crazy as a barrel of monkeys.” A laugh followed by another.

  “Better leave him be. Give him room.”

  “Onward! Single file.”

  The bar mountaineers passed amused eyes over Dermot’s tarantella. As if roped together they ascended the alley, the last of them waving goodbye.

  Arthur sighed. “Just come away with me for a minute, so we can talk. I’ll explain, Dermot, I will.”

  “What’s going on Arthur? Why were they looking at me that way?” The side of his face still felt slick. He kept wiping without relief.

  Arthur seemed to sag. He capitulated. “OK, I’ll tell you, but take it easy. And only if you’ll promise to come.”

  Dermot noticed a note of despair. The friend he hadn’t seen for nearly three years looked desperate and scared.

  “I promise, Arthur. I’ll hear you out. Don’t worry. Just tell me what’s going on.”

  “You were right the first time, Dermot. You were right.”

  “I was right?”

  “You were. I am here, but I’m not. Not really.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Please. Calm down. Take it easy. Try and understand, Dermot, about the hospital. It did happen. It did.”

  “What happened?”

  “I died.”

  There was a pause.

  “I’m dead,” he clarified.

  “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Wh
at have you been drinking?”

  “Please. Listen,” begged the Lieutenant.

  “Bugger. The hell. Off.”

  “I am here, but I’m not. I did die, Dermot. I’m dead.”

  “That would be funny if I didn’t feel sick.”

  “I died in the hospital. But I didn’t go away. It’s true enough. It happened.”

  “Away to hell! Aw, come on Arthur, let’s go get a drink. I’m sorry I got all weird on you.”

  “It’s true, though.”

  “Now don’t rub it in. I’ve been on the sauce myself. I thought I was seeing things. I was thinking to myself I’d gone mad.”

  “Please keep it down, will you? You’ll draw attention. People will look at you odd.”

  “Arthur. Come on. You win, I’m sorry. I should have been happier to see you. What kind of joke is that, anyway? Never mind. You’re a sick bugger, you are. Let’s go get a drink and make up. You can tell me where you’ve been.”

  “I knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

  And Dermot laughed. What had he been thinking? He’d had his reservations – it had seemed so strange – but he’d seen crazier things through the war. A squad of men torn apart by shelling leaving one guy in the middle untouched. You took what was. You had to. It was Arthur here, however it happened, and there was nothing else about it. Dermot grabbed him in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles across his scalp.

  “You big French bastard! What a story. You totally had me wound up. Where the hell have you been hiding? When did you get out?”

  “You can let me go, Irlandais... thank you.” He picked up his fallen bag. “Okay, a drink. Do you have a house we can go to? Somewhere we can talk?”

  “You sure you don’t want to go in there?” Dermot thumbed at the Swan. “No? Well, I’ve got a room. It’s none too pretty, though.”

  “That’s OK, it will do. Give me an hour and I’ll tell you everything, and then I must beg a favor.”

  Dermot didn’t give it a thought. “Whatever you want, Lieutenant. You don’t even have to ask.”

  Dermot led Arthur as quietly as he could past the shuttered door of his landlady. Miserable old trout. He raised his hat. “Bonsoir, Madame,” he whispered. His rooms lay at the top of the stairs. They cautiously ascended, but did not get too far.

  “Monsieur Ward.” It was the propriétaire’s voice from below.

  “Ears like a bat.”

  “Monsieur Ward!” Loud enough for the neighbors.

  Dermot leaned gingerly over the banister and looked down on the gray-bunned head.

  “Can I assume from the late hour that your wallet still works? Your credit is good in the tap rooms? Rent day is tomorrow, and you are already two weeks behind.” She shut her door with a slam.

  “Beastly woman. Face like a bayonet.”

  Dermot and Arthur wound up the stairs like an hour hand chasing the minutes. “The door’s unlocked, please go on in.”

  “You’ll have to open it for me, Irlande.”

  “Open it?”

  “I’m afraid that I’m not able.”

  Dermot played along. He showed Arthur into the living room. It was his bedroom too, and his study, and his dining room besides; a bachelor of simple means is the consummate utilitarian. Dermot cleared clothes off a chair that served him as a wardrobe.

  “Please, take a seat.”

  “Thank you, but I’m OK here. I think I’d rather stand.”

  “May I get you something to drink, then?” he asked with polite formality. “I can do tea if you won’t touch the hard stuff, but I’m out of coffee and wine. I suppose you could drink water? The pressure is good at this time of day if you’re needing any.”

  “I’m good, thank you. I’ll pass.” Arthur took off his hat and laid his small suitcase on the floor.

  “I’ll fetch one for myself, then,” Dermot wasn’t going to pass up the occasion. A bottle was kept in his tiny kitchen for just such an emergency. He cleared two nights of dishes from the table on his way to collect it. “Make yourself at home.”

  Arthur took a look around the room while Dermot rattled down the hall. The ceiling rose fourteen feet high. A lifeless fan in its center waited patiently for summer. The walls of the room were papered heavily in a peeling burgundy pattern – a hint of faded richness that had long ago departed. The signs of frayed empire were everywhere, from the chip of the cornicing to the scratched pillars that supported a preposterous fireplace. The place would have been something in its day, but that day was now long over. It looked unlikely to soon return.

  “There you are.” Dermot was back, offering the glass that hadn’t been asked for.

  “Is that the cathedral?” Arthur looked from the window. “No, thank you.” He refused the drink.

  “Yes, they know how to ring those bloody bells. You’d think they do it for sport. I can’t say I’ve set foot in the place. Don’t feel the need anymore.”

  It should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn’t, and Dermot felt pleasantly fine. “Sorry for the state of things,” he apologized. “Cleaning lady comes first day of the year, only she took this decade off.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Arthur looked again at the piled bed sheets, books, and newspapers, the tools and the cups on the bench. A rucksack. “I heard that this season, squalor is ‘in.’” His lips widened in a teasing grin.

  Dermot radiated happiness. “It was precisely what I was shooting for. So hard to get it just right, you know? Place keeps slipping into ‘tidy’ or more often just ‘mess.’ It’s a balancing act. I’m glad you noticed. Not all my guests appreciate the work I put into the place.” He raised his glass in mock thanks, and took a little sip.

  “So you left the army after all?” Arthur asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. Sometimes though I have a bit of trouble believing the whole thing’s actually over.”

  “You didn’t want to stay on?”

  “Christ, no, Arthur. I’ve had enough of that for ten lifetimes. But I’m still figuring out what to do. It had changed, too... the Legion, I mean. It was filling up with Russians. Not that I mind Russians, you understand – cheery bunch of miserable buggers – but nearly all of them were Tsarists. Divine right of kings. Arse kissers, all of them, and that I couldn’t take. La République’s got lots wrong with her, but she sorted out that issue.”

  “So you took your discharge.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been out of uniform since Christmas, and I can’t say that I miss it.”

  “Why did you stay in Paris? Why aren’t you back in Irlande? Why are you hanging about here?” Arthur had at last settled himself on the corner of the bed.

  Dermot had a distant look, as if it wasn’t an easy question. He swirled the contents of his chipped glass.

  “Do you remember where I’m from, Frenchy?”

  “A distant bog, as I recall.”

  “Exactly. I left Ballingarry in 1914 and I haven’t been back since. Nowhere outside of something small near the little village green.”

  “But it’s home, isn’t it?”

  “Well, that’s quite the question.” Dermot sighed. “My father died last year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  What was the point in sharing? What would Arthur remember anyhow? It was years ago. His little brother. He took another sip.

  “How do you go back, Arthur? How do you go home to that after all that we both saw?”

  “Many men have done so. And yet I find you here.”

  “Exactly. You’re right. You get on a bloody boat, that’s how you do it. You just get onto the train. Back home. If that’s what’s important to you.” He pulled another long drink from his glass, not quite finished it yet.

  “You had a brother. A younger brother. He was, what? Ten years younger than you? Did he eventually sign up?”

  Dermot finished his drink. “He was fifteen. Fifteen, Arthur. All stirred up by the Easter Rising three years back, he went and got himself killed.”

  “Oh, Dermot. I didn
’t know.”

  “Nothing to know. I was here. He was trying to do the best that he could and ended up in a ditch. Well, maybe the rest are doing all right. I hope they are. I’m just trying to look after me – I’m no good for anyone.”

  Dermot saw Arthur’s face, looking at him.

  “Christ, don’t you start too. I can’t go there, it’s not home anymore – or it is, but I’m not me.” Dermot pumped his arm as if priming a dart, chasing the elusive target of what he was trying to say. “I mean, look at ourselves, man – things are different now. I’ve probably gone insane and you supposedly died years ago...” He laughed between another mouthful, tasting the irony as much as the whisky. “So both of us are having a rough time. How do you go home and say it’s all good, with this crap in your head?”

  “You get on a boat,” Arthur replied.

  “Exactly. And maybe I will. Maybe time will change things. Maybe that’s all that will.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’d like to go home, Arthur; one day I really would. She won’t be doing great, my mum, not right now, but she’ll be doing all right. When I can help her, I’ll go, when I’ll be good for her – but not right now. Not right now for me.”

  “Or when you run out of money?”

  “Or when I run out of money. I might go then, that’s a point. Cheeky bastard.” He was smiling again, however. “So why were you looking for me, Arthur? What did you come here for?”

  It hadn’t escaped Dermot’s attention that Arthur had not brought it up. Whatever it was that was important and pressing, he needed to work up to saying. Dermot thought the time had come; it was time to get some answers. He turned the tables on Arthur. “Why aren’t you at that farm of yours, that big house you talked about? You used to make us all jealous. See? You’re not the only one of us that hasn’t forgotten a thing. Why aren’t you back home, Arthur? Are you in a spot of trouble?”

  “Yes, my friend. I suppose that’s it. I suppose that’s why I’m here.” He sounded like he wanted to talk, so Dermot stayed quiet and let him. “Do you remember the tunnel, Dermot? Do you remember what happened that day?”