From the exchange of greetings that followed I learned the woman’s name was Danielle. We were introduced, but she was clearly too preoccupied with other things to spare me more than a few words and a distracted nod. ‘They have taken Victor to be questioned,’ she announced, her lovely face clouded with worry.
Her brother nodded. ‘Yes, I know.’
‘You know? And yet you are still here? What kind of man are you, to let your friend face trouble in your place?’
‘They will let him go.’
‘Oh, will they?’ She tossed her head, eyes very bright. ‘That isn’t what I hear. I hear they think he murdered this one here,’ a jerk of the jaw towards Harry, ‘and that he tries to hide the evidence.’
My cousin sat bolt upright. ‘What?’
‘Victor Belliveau?’ I checked, and the woman Danielle turned her wild eyes on me.
‘Yes. They think he is a murderer because I hide the car in his old barn,’ she said.
My cousin’s car, I thought. Of course, it would have had to be hidden somewhere. I remembered the decrepit stone barn that faced Belliveau’s house, and how the locked door had moaned and rattled in the wind.
Danielle went on, with feeling. ‘He doesn’t even know about the car, poor Victor. That barn, he never uses it – I thought it would be safe. It is my fault,’ she cursed herself. ‘And he has always been so good to us. And you refuse to help him.’
‘It is too great a risk …’ began the gypsy, but my cousin cut him off.
‘All right,’ said Harry, in a tone I recognised from countless lost arguments, ‘that’s it. I’m going down.’
And he began to lever himself out of the bed, wincing with the effort, though I couldn’t be sure how much of that was for Danielle’s benefit. I knew better than to try to stop him, but Jean wasn’t privy to my years of experience with Harry’s moods.
‘The police, they will not listen—’
‘Then we’ll just have to make them listen.’ Harry swung his feet to the floor and reached for his shoes. He had been resting fully clothed in bed, no doubt to guard against the creeping autumn chill that soaked through even these stone walls. His dusty jeans and crumpled shirt, together with his week-long growth of beard, made him look the sort of person one normally found skulking under bridges with a bottle of cheap wine – not at all respectable; yet through the rough exterior, my cousin’s odd heroic quality still shone, brilliant and compelling.
Danielle moved to his side, drawn less perhaps by his heroic brilliance than by a practical and simple fear that he might fall and hit his head again. Certainly he seemed a little less than steady on his feet, although the obstinate determination in his face showed plainly that he had the will to override his weakness. If he was truly weak, I amended the thought, not missing his brief smile when Danielle took firm hold of his arm to help him balance.
Jean sighed. ‘I will come too.’
‘No.’ Harry shook his head. ‘No, you should stay up here I think, and out of sight, until I have a chance to clear this whole thing up with the police. Danielle can help me,’ he said, brightening. ‘We can take the tunnel, like you do. Danielle knows the tunnels, doesn’t she?’
‘As well as Jean.’ The woman raised her chin with pride. ‘I can guide you.’
Oh, wonderful, I thought. Aloud, I said: ‘Shall I stay here, then?’
Harry frowned. ‘Well, if you like. Although I would have thought … oh, right,’ he realised, suddenly. ‘Tunnels. I quite forgot. My cousin,’ he informed the others, predictably, ‘has a thing about tunnels. Why don’t you take the outside path, instead? It’s not the nicest of neighbourhoods, I’m afraid, but it is still light outside and I’m sure you’d find the way back with no trouble. You could meet up with us outside the château, where the tunnel door comes out. All right?’
‘All right.’ I nodded. A trace of apprehension must have seeped into my voice because Danielle looked up to meet my eyes across the room, her hands protective on my cousin’s arm.
‘Do not worry,’ she told me. ‘I will take good care of him.’
I thought that Harry looked distinctly pleased with the situation as his self-appointed nurse steered him to the cellar door. A moment later I could hear their footsteps slowly moving down the narrow stairway that led down into the darkness of the tunnels. I shuddered at the memory of that darkness, and turned my back on it. The gypsy Jean misread my action.
‘They will be fine,’ he told me. ‘It is an easy walk down there, easier than along the cliff, and no one will see them until they have reached the safety of the town.’ He walked with me to the front door, keeping to the shadows as he held the door open for me to pass through. ‘Take care, Mademoiselle,’ was the only advice he gave me. And then the door was bolted once more behind me and I found myself alone on the cliff path, between the château and the Chapelle of Sainte Radegonde, with the hollow eyes of half-decayed troglodyte dwellings staring at me blackly through a tangled web of weeds and sunbleached grasses.
The house looked larger, seen from the outside. It was unremarkable in design, like a child’s drawing of a house – four walls, peaked roof, two windows and a red brick chimney, with no frivolous decoration to relieve the solid severe lines. Two storeys tall it rose, which meant two rooms; two narrow rooms, at that, and yet it still looked somehow larger, perhaps because there were no other buildings nearby to lend it proper scale. There was only the hill rising up behind it and the gaping crumbled cliff dwellings snaking off on either side, and behind me the treacherous drop to the grey roofs of Chinon.