Again I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’ I hugged my arms around my waist to stop the trembling. ‘You were going to tell me about Didier.’
‘Ah, well,’ he shrugged, as the flame of the lighter danced behind his cupped hand, ‘that was an accident. Not that I regret it, but it was not meant to happen. I was that week in Paris, meeting buyers, but each lunch hour I telephoned Lucie, to talk. She likes for me to ring her when I’m out of town. Most days we talked of school, of François, but on that Wednesday Lucie asked me could she have a shovel.’ His jaw tightened a little, remembering. ‘I asked her why, and she said Uncle Didier was going to go digging for treasure with a man, an English man. She said she’d heard them talking just that morning, by the river, and she thought it sounded fun. Fun.’ His smile held no humour. ‘I felt like I’d been punched. I’d warned Didier once, you understand – I’d paid him well not to dig on my land, to ruin my vines, looking for those foolish diamonds. I told him if he ever tried again to touch my land, my daughter’s land, I’d kill him. I didn’t mean it,’ he qualified. ‘I don’t believe I meant it. But I had to make quite sure he understood. So when I heard from Lucie, what was going on, it made me angry.’
Only Lucie, I thought, had got the story wrong, as usual. She’d heard Didier and Harry talking about tunnels, about digging for treasure, God knows what. And Didier, who had hoped to learn from Harry some new clue to help him find the diamonds, had no doubt been rather stunned himself to learn he’d wasted his effort. Small problems of communication, I thought, that had led to murder.
Armand shrugged. ‘I had to talk to Didier, to stop him, so I hired a car and drove to Chinon. He was alone and drunk, when I caught up with him. He laughed at me … he laughed … and so I told him that I’d had enough, that I wasn’t going to give in any longer. That I didn’t think he even had the will any more. I hadn’t seen it for months. That made him angry.’ I saw his faint smile glimmer in the gathering dusk. ‘Didier, he didn’t like to be called a liar. Said he’d show me I was wrong. He went upstairs, and so at last I knew where he kept Brigitte’s will. I only meant to take it back, to burn it – but Didier, he tried to stop me …’
‘So you killed him.’
‘He was very drunk. It was easy to take the will from him, but he came after me, attacked me on the first floor landing. I pushed him off – not hard, but he went back over the railing.’ Armand shrugged, a short and callous shrug without remorse. ‘There was nothing I could have done.’
‘You could have reported it. It was an accident, for heaven’s sake.’
‘But why? Why let that bastard draw me into an enquiry, headlines in the newspapers, gossip in the cafes? He was dead, I owed him nothing, so I left him where he was. I don’t regret what I did. If I had to do it again, I would still have left the house, only,’ he admitted, ‘I’d have left it by the front door, not the back. I thought the back door would be safer, not so many windows facing me, and the lane beside is always dark. I hadn’t counted on your cousin coming up the path.’
‘He didn’t see you,’ I informed him.
‘Did he not? I was so certain that he did. I thought I’d killed him, too, but I did not have time to check. I could not risk a neighbour looking out and seeing me.’ He lifted the cigarette, his mouth twisting. ‘The next day, when Martine called me in Paris to tell me Didier was dead, I learned no other body had been found. The man who’d seen me, he was still alive, and though he had not talked to the police, he was a danger. I could not risk another blackmailer, you understand. So I came back to Chinon. And then,’ he said, quite simply, ‘I saw you.’
So I’d been right, I thought. He’d seen the resemblance from the very beginning. ‘Is that why you sent me the invitation?’ I asked. ‘Because you wanted me to lead you to my cousin?’
‘I wanted to find out who you were,’ was his reply. ‘And when I learned you had no brother, that you were in Chinon by yourself, I thought it must be just coincidence, that you looked so much like him. I was surprised, at lunch, when you mentioned a cousin – I hadn’t thought of cousins – but then you said this cousin lived in England, so …’ He shrugged, a little sadly. ‘I did not know, for sure, until this morning. When you told me.’
‘I see.’
He watched my face a moment, mulling something over. ‘You said your cousin did not see me. And yet you knew,’ he mused. ‘Who told you?’
‘You were seen.’
‘The gypsy,’ he decided, his mind sifting through what I’d told him that morning. He was very sharp, I thought. ‘It was the gypsy with the dog, was it not? The one who follows you around. So, it is just this gypsy’s word against my own, then.’ The knowledge seemed to please him, and I kicked myself for having told him anything.
‘My word as well,’ I said, lifting my chin with a courage I didn’t quite feel. ‘You shouldn’t be telling me this.’
‘You won’t repeat it.’
My belly crawled with sudden cold. ‘Oh? And why not?’
‘Because of this.’ I guessed his intent even as he reached for me, but I didn’t have the time to move away. The kiss was hard, and yet it scarcely registered – I was past feeling anything. I simply stood and let him kiss me, unresponsive. At length he drew back, touched my cheek. ‘We have this still between us, you and I,’ he said. ‘From the moment I first saw you …’