‘Seven fifteen. Ten minutes.’
‘Of course,’ Julian said, ignoring her interruption, ‘playing devil’s advocate, one could just as easily take any number and find a whole string of things that suggested there was some special significance.’
He picked up the wine bottle and leaned forward to top Meredith up. She covered her glass with her hand. Hal shook his head. Julian shrugged, then emptied the remains of the wine into his own glass.
‘It’s not as if any of us have to drive,’ he said casually.
Meredith saw Hal clench his fists.
‘I don’t know if my nephew mentioned it, Ms Martin, but there is a theory that the design of the church at Rennes-le-Château is in fact based on a building that once stood within our grounds here.’
Meredith forced her attention back to Julian.
‘Is that right?’
‘There’s a significant amount of Tarot imagery within the church,’ he continued. ‘The Emperor; the Hermit, the Hierophant - who is, as I’m sure you remember, the symbol of the established church in Tarot iconography.’
‘I really don’t know—’
He carried on talking. ‘Some would say the Magician is suggested, in the form perhaps of Christ, and of course four of the paintings of the Stations of the Cross have towers in them, not to mention the Tour Magdala on the belvedere.’
‘But that looks nothing like it,’ she said, before she could stop herself.
Julian leaned sharply forward in his chair. ‘Like what, Ms Martin?’ he said. She could hear excitement in his voice, as if he thought he’d caught her out.
‘Jerusalem,’ she said, the first thing that came into her mind.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Or perhaps like any Tarot card you’ve seen,’ he said.
A silence fell over the table. Hal was frowning. Meredith couldn’t figure out if he was embarrassed or had picked up the tension between her and his uncle and misunderstood it.
Julian suddenly drained his wine, placed his glass on the table, pushed back his chair and stood up.
‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ he said, smiling at them as if they’d just passed the most pleasant half-hour in one another’s company. ‘Ms Martin. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay with us.’ He put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. Meredith could see Hal struggling not to pull away. ‘Can you pop your head into my study when you’re finished with Ms Martin? There are a couple of things I need to discuss with you.’
‘Tonight?’
Julian held Hal’s gaze. ‘Tonight,’ he said.
Hal hesitated, then gave a sharp nod.
They sat in silence until Julian had gone.
‘I don’t know how you can . . .’ Meredith began, then stopped. Rule number one: never criticise anyone else’s family.
‘How I can put up with it?’ Hal said savagely. ‘Answer, I can’t. As soon as I’ve sorted things, I’m out of here.’
‘And are you any closer to that?’
Meredith saw the belligerence go out of him as his thoughts switched from loathing his uncle to grieving his father. He stood up, hands buried deep in his pockets, and looked at her through clouded eyes.
‘I’ll tell you at dinner.’
CHAPTER 64
Julian broke the seal on a new bottle, poured a generous measure, then sat heavily down at his desk with the reproduction pack in front of him.
Pointless exercise.
He’d studied the reproduction Bousquet Tarot deck over many years, always looking for something, a hidden key or a code he might have missed. The search for the original cards had occupied him ever since he first came to the Aude valley and heard the rumours about the undiscovered caches of treasure buried beneath the mountains, the rocks, even the rivers.
Having acquired the Domaine de la Cade, Julian had quickly come to the conclusion, like many before him, that all the stories surrounding Rennes-le-Château were a hoax and the renegade nineteenth-century priest at the heart of the rumours - Saunière - was prospecting for more material than spiritual treasures.
Then Julian started to pick up stories about how a deck of cards revealed the location not of a single tomb, but allegedly the entire treasury of the Visigoth Empire. Perhaps even the contents of the Temple of Solomon, looted by the Romans in the first century AD, then in turn plundered when Rome itself fell in the fifth century to the Visigoths.
The cards were rumoured to be hidden within the estate itself. Julian had sunk every penny into trying to find them through systematic searching and excavation, starting with the area around the ruins of the Visigoth sepulchre and working out from it. It was difficult terrain and the effort was extremely labour intensive - and therefore expensive.
Still nothing.
When he’d exhausted his credit at the bank, he’d begun borrowing from the hotel. It was useful that the hotel was - at least in part - a cash business. But it was also a tough market in which to make money. The overheads were high. The place was still finding its feet when the bank called in its loans. But he kept taking money out all the same - gambling that, soon, he’d find what he was looking for and everything would be all right.
Julian drained his glass in one.
Only a matter of time.
It was his brother’s fault. Seymour could have been patient. Should have trusted him. Not interfered. He knew he nearly had it.
I would have repaid the money.
Nodding to himself, Julian flipped the lid of his Zippo with a snap. He took out a cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply. Julian had spoken with the police commissariat in Couiza just after Hal had left the station, who had suggested that it would be better if the boy stopped asking questions. Julian had promised to have a word and invited the commissaire for a drink the following week.
He reached for the bottle, pouring himself another two fingers. He cast his mind back over the conversation in the bar. He had been deliberately clumsy, hardly subtle in his technique, but it had seemed the easiest way to flush the American out. She had been reluctant to talk about the Tarot. The girl was sharp. Attractive, too.
‘What? What does she know?’
He realised the sound he could hear was the sound of his fingers drumming on the desk. Julian looked down at his hand, as if it didn’t belong to him, then forced it to be still.
In a drawer of his locked desk, the deeds of the transfer of ownership lay ready to sign and return to the notaire in Espéraza. The boy wasn’t stupid. He didn’t want to stay at the Domaine de la Cade. He and Hal couldn’t work together, any more than he and Seymour had been able to. Julian had been leaving a decent interval before talking any further to Hal about his plans.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said. There was a slur in his voice.
He should talk to her again, the American girl. She must know something about the original Bousquet deck, why else was she here? Her presence was nothing to do with Seymour’s accident or his pathetic nephew or the hotel finances, he could see that now. She was here for the same reason he was. He hadn’t done all the dirty work to see some American bitch come in and take the cards from him.
He gazed out at the darkened woods. Night had fallen. Julian reached out and turned on the lamp, then screamed.
His brother was standing right behind him. Seymour, waxy and lifeless as Julian had seen him in the morgue, the skin on his face scarred from the crash, lined, his eyes bloodshot.
He leapt up out of his chair, sending it hurtling back behind him to the ground. The whisky glass went flying across the polished wood of the desk.
Julian spun round.
‘You can’t be ...’
The room was empty.
He stared, uncomprehending, his eyes darting around the room into the shadows, back to the window, until he realised. It was his own pallid reflection, stark in the darkened glass. It was his eyes, not his brother’s.
Julian took a deep breath.
His brother was dead. He knew. He had spiked his drink with Rufenol.
He had driven the car to the bridge outside Rennes-les-Bains; struggled to manoeuvre Seymour into the driver’s seat; released the handbrake. He had seen the car fall.
‘You made me do it,’ he muttered.
He lifted his eyes to the window, blinked. Nothing there.
He exhaled, a long, exhausted breath, then bent down and righted the chair. For a moment he stood with his hands gripping the back, knuckles white, his head bowed. He could feel the sweat running down his back between his shoulder blades.
Then he pulled himself together. He reached for his cigarettes, needing the hit of the nicotine to calm his nerves, and looked back out to the black woods beyond.
The original cards were still out there, he knew it.
‘Next time,’ he murmured. He was so close. He could feel it. Next time, he’d be lucky. He knew it.
The spilt whisky reached the edge of the desk and started to drip, slowly, on to the carpet.
CHAPTER 65
‘OK, shoot,’ Meredith said. ‘Tell me what happened.’ Hal put his elbows on the table. ‘Bottom line, they don’t see any grounds for opening things up. They are satisfied with the verdict.’
‘Which is?’ she gently pushed him.
‘Accidental death. That Dad was drunk,’ he said bluntly. ‘That he lost control of the car, went over the bridge into the River Salz. Three times over the limit, that’s what the tox report claims.’
They were sitting in one of the window alcoves. The restaurant was quiet this early so they could talk without being overheard. Across the white linen tablecloth, in the light of the candle flickering on the table, Meredith reached out and covered his hands with her own.
‘There was a witness, apparently. An English woman, a Dr Shelagh O’Donnell, who lives locally.’
‘That’s helpful, isn’t it? Did she see the accident?’
Hal shook his head. ‘That’s the problem. According to the file, she heard brakes, the sound of tyres. She didn’t actually see anything.’
‘Did she report it?’
‘Not straight away. According to the commissaire, lots of people take the road too fast on the bend coming into Rennes-les-Bains. It was only the following morning when she saw the ambulance and the police recovering the car from the river that she put two and two together.’ He paused. ‘I thought I might talk to her. See if there’s anything that’s come back to her.’
‘Wouldn’t she have told the police already?’
‘I didn’t get the impression they thought her a reliable witness.’
‘In what way?’
‘They didn’t say it in so many words, but they implied that she was drunk. Also, there were no tyre marks on the road, so it’s unlikely she could have heard anything. According to the police, that is.’ He paused. ‘They wouldn’t give me her address, but I managed to copy down her number from the file. In fact . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I invited her up here tomorrow.’
‘Is that such a great idea?’ said Meredith. ‘If the police think you’re interfering, won’t that make them less rather than more likely to help?’
‘They’re already pissed off with me,’ he said fiercely, ‘but to tell you the truth, I feel like I’m hitting my head against a brick wall. I don’t care any more. For weeks I’ve been trying to get the police to take me seriously, sitting around here, being patient, but it’s got me nowhere.’ He stopped, his cheeks flushed. ‘Sorry. This can’t be much fun for you.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, thinking how similar Hal and his uncle were in some ways - both quick to flare up - then felt guilty, knowing just how much Hal would hate such a comparison being made.
‘I appreciate there’s no reason for you to take what I say at face value, but I just don’t believe the official version of events. I’m not saying my dad was perfect - to be honest, we didn’t have much in common. He was distant and quiet, not the sort of man to make a fuss - but there’s just no way he would drink and drive. Even in France. No way.’
‘It’s easy to misjudge that sort of thing, Hal,’ she said gently. ‘We’ve all done it,’ she added, although she never had. ‘Had one too many. Played the odds.’
‘I’m telling you, not Dad,’ he said. ‘He liked his wine, but he was fanatical about not getting behind the wheel if he’d been drinking. Not even one glass.’ He dropped his shoulders. ‘My mother was killed by a drunk driver,’ he continued in a quieter voice. ‘On her way to pick me up from school in the village we lived in, half past three in the afternoon. An idiot in a BMW, on his way back from the pub, tanked up on champagne and driving too fast.’
Now Meredith totally understood why Hal couldn’t bring himself to accept the verdict. But wishing things were different didn’t make them so. She had been there herself. If wishes were promises, her birth mother would have gotten healthy. All the scenes and fights would never have happened.
Hal raised his eyes and stared at her. ‘Dad wouldn’t drive if he was drunk.’
Meredith gave a non-committal smile. ‘But if the tox screen came back positive for alcohol . . .’ She left the question floating. ‘What did the police say when you raised that?’
Hal shrugged. ‘It was obvious they thought I was just too fucked up by the whole situation to think straight.’
‘OK. Let’s come at it from other directions. Could the tests be wrong?’
‘The police say no.’
‘Did they search for anything else?’
‘Like what?’
‘Drugs?’
Hal shook his head. ‘Didn’t think there was any need.’
Meredith thought. ‘Well, could he have been driving too fast? Just lost control on the bend?’
‘Back to the lack of skid marks on the road and, in any case, that doesn’t account for the alcohol in his bloodstream. ’
Meredith fixed him with her gaze. ‘Then what, Hal? What are you saying?’
‘That either the tests are fake, or someone spiked his drink.’
Her face gave her away.
‘You don’t believe me,’ he said.
‘I’m not saying that,’ she said quickly. ‘But think about it, Hal. Even supposing it was possible, who would do such a thing? Why would they?’
Hal held her gaze, until Meredith realised what he was getting at.
‘Your uncle?’
He nodded. ‘Got to be.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ she objected. ‘I mean, I know you don’t see eye to eye, but even so ... to accuse him of ...’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it, Meredith. Who else?’
Meredith was shaking her head. ‘Did you make this accusation to the police?’
‘Not in so many words, but I did request that the gendarmerie nationale were shown the file.’
‘Which means?’
‘The gendarmerie nationale investigate crimes. At the moment, the crash is being treated as a traffic accident. But if I can find some sort of evidence linking it to Julian, then I could make them reconsider.’ He looked at her. ‘If you would talk to Dr O’Donnell, I’m sure she’d be more likely to open up.’
Meredith sat back in her chair. The whole scenario was crazy. She could see Hal had talked himself into believing it one hundred per cent. She really felt for him, but she was sure he was wrong. He needed someone to blame, needed to do something with his anger and his sense of loss. And she knew from her own experience that however bad the truth turned out to be, not knowing was worse. It made it impossible to put the past behind and move on.
‘Meredith?’
She realised Hal was staring at her. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Just thinking.’
‘Would you be able to be there when Dr O’Donnell comes tomorrow?’
She hesitated.
‘I’d really appreciate it.’
‘I guess,’ she said in the end. ‘Sure.’
Hal gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.’
The waiter came over and straight away the mood changed, became less intense, more like
a regular date. They both ordered steak and Hal chose a bottle of local red to go with it. For a moment, they sat half looking at one another, catching each other’s eye, smiling awkwardly, not sure what to say.
Hal broke the silence. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘Enough of my problems. Are you going to tell me now why you’re really here?’