The Splendour Falls (2 page)

I should have known better. Experience, as everyone kept pointing out, had taught me nothing. Even my Aunt Jane had raised her eyebrows when I’d told her I was going on holiday with Harry.

‘My Harry? Whatever for?’

‘He thinks I need a holiday,’ had been my answer. ‘He’s promised me adventure.’

‘How much adventure,’ she had asked me, drily, ‘were you planning on?’

I’d shrugged aside the warning. ‘I’m sure we’ll do just fine. Besides, I do like Harry.’

‘My dear Emily, that’s hardly the point. We all like Harry. But he has a habit of being, well, rather …’

‘Unpredictable?’ I’d offered, and she’d smiled.

‘That’s being kind.’

I’d reassured her it was only France that we were
going to, not darkest Africa. What could possibly happen in France? And if something were to happen I was well equipped to handle it – French was at least a language I could speak, thanks to my father’s years of service at the Paris Embassy. Besides, the thought of spending two whole weeks in Chinon was terribly seductive.

Aunt Jane had listened to it all, her blue eyes twinkling, and quirked an innocent eyebrow. ‘You’ve taken out insurance, have you?’ And then she’d laughed and turned away to make the tea.

My Uncle Alan had been less cynical. ‘Just what you need,’ he’d pronounced with satisfaction. ‘Change of scenery, eh? Bit of romance.’ He’d winked at that and nudged my arm, and I had smiled as I was meant to, thinking all the while that romance was the last thing that I needed. A holiday fling perhaps, quick and painless, but real romance … well, that proved as reliable as Harry himself, and, like my cousin, it could only lead one into trouble.

Harry, for his part, had done his level best to confound our suspicions these past weeks. He’d gone ahead of me to do some of the ‘boring bits’ of research on his own – I never had liked reading rooms. But he’d been almost conscientious with our travel plans, had sent me maps and confirmation of our reservations at Chinon’s Hotel de France. He’d even telephoned on Sunday last from Bordeaux, with my final instructions.

‘Not the Gare Austerlitz, love,’ he’d corrected me cheerfully. ‘Montparnasse. You still know your way around Paris pretty well, don’t you? Just take the bus in from the airport, and then the TGV from Montparnasse to
St-Pierre-des-Corps
,
that’s the quickest way to do it. You’ll be there before lunchtime.’

I’d stopped scrawling down directions and tapped the pen against my notepad, frowning. ‘And you
will
come to meet me?’

‘Certainly. I’ll be driving right across the top of Tours – that’s where St-Pierre-des-Corps is – so I’ll pick you up right at the railway station. I’ve got the red car; you shouldn’t have any trouble spotting me. Shall we say noon?’

‘That’s noon on Friday?’ I confirmed. ‘Friday the
twenty-fourth
?’

‘Don’t worry,’ he’d said, sounding amused. ‘I won’t forget. I’m not a total idiot, you know. Besides, I’ve had this letter, did I tell you?’ He hadn’t, as it turned out, so he went on to elaborate. The writer of the letter was some fellow history buff who’d read one of my cousin’s academic journal pieces on the lost treasure of Isabelle. ‘So presumably he reads English,’ said my cousin, ‘though his letter was in French. He’s rather cryptic, but it seems he has some information that might interest me, about the tunnels underneath the castle. Asks me can I get in touch with him. It’s wonderfully intriguing – just like that Watergate informant chap, you know the one …’

‘Does your man have a code name, as well?’

‘No.’ Harry had sounded a shade disappointed. ‘No, just his real name … Didier … Didier something. I’d have to look it up, I don’t remember. Well anyway, he lives in Chinon, so that’s why you needn’t worry I’ll forget to pick you up. I’m rather keen myself to get up there and find out what this fellow knows.’

‘Fine, then I’ll see you on Friday.’

‘St-Pierre-des-Corps at noon. I promise.’ It had been that final word, oddly enough, that struck a warning note, but the phone line was already crackling, breaking up. I’d heard my cousin’s voice saying, ‘Must dash, sorry,’ and something that sounded vaguely like ‘Till Friday’, and that was that.

I should have known.

‘Bloody Harry,’ I said aloud. The young woman seated at the table next to mine looked up, surprised, then glanced away again discreetly as she raised her dainty cup of coffee. My own cup was long since empty, and cold against my fingers. I pushed it away with idle irritation and, resting my chin on my hands, stared out through the wall of windows in front of me. The view from the cafe of the rail station was less than inspiring – a wide sweep of concrete slabs set in a square geometric pattern, curving rows of futuristic lamp standards perched on thick concrete pillars, and a long low concrete fountain filled with foaming white jets of water that only emphasised the coldness of the architecture. Across the street three large blocks of flats rose like blemishes from the landscape, pale and impersonal, with rows of windows staring blankly back at me through the prison railings of their balconies.

I sighed.

This section of the city of Tours was depressingly modern. Chinon itself lay somewhere to the southwest – not far, though at that moment it seemed a thousand miles away. I could almost hear it beckoning, that lovely castle in the river’s curve, beneath a violet sky. ‘The flower of the
Garden of France’, the brochures had promised me. I sighed again, with feeling. Because I wasn’t in Chinon – I was here, and St-Pierre-des-Corps looked nothing like a flower.

He wasn’t coming, I thought glumly. Harry never came an hour late. He either showed on time or not at all.

‘Well, bother it,’ I said, and once again the woman at the next table turned her eyes upon me warily. She seemed relieved to see me counting out the change to pay my bill, and even more relieved a moment later as I took a firm grip on my suitcase, pushing back my chair. I felt like telling her I didn’t normally talk to myself; that it was all the fault of my rotten bounder of a cousin … but then it didn’t really matter what she thought, as I was leaving anyway. Harry or no Harry, I would find some way to get to Chinon.

Outside, the air was cool against my heated skin. The skies had threatened rain all morning and the breeze was brisk, but still one wistful, optimistic patch of watery blue had broken through the unrelenting grey. With lifting spirits I headed for the taxi rank.

There were three taxis parked along the curved arcade of concrete columns in front of the station, but only one of them – the one at the rear of the rank – appeared to have a driver. He was standing not ten feet away from me, leaning against the bonnet of a smoke-grey Renault Safrane, eyes fixed upon the fountain in mild contemplation. One hand was thrust deep into the pocket of his tailored wool trousers, while the other held a half-finished cigarette. He wasn’t tall, but the dark and handsome labels certainly applied. He wasn’t young, either – perhaps a decade older than my own twenty-eight years. Distinguished, my mother would have
branded him, and rather elegant in that unaffected way that the French alone seem to have mastered.

As I drew closer, his gaze slid sideways from the fountain to my face, and something flickered behind the dark eyes before they drifted on, taking in my clothes and, most tellingly, the British Airways tags still dangling from my suitcase. Before I’d had a chance to use my French he spoke to me in flawless fluid English. ‘May I help you, Madame?’

He knew I wasn’t married. His glance had rested on the fingers of my left hand – more from habit than anything else, I imagined, as I never looked my best when travelling. But it was a matter of politeness, to address me as ‘Madame’.

‘Well, yes. I need a taxi, please.’

He frowned. An odd response, considering he was leaning against one. It wasn’t until he cast a quick glance along the taxi rank that I understood.

‘I know you’re last in line,’ I told him, ‘but the other taxis don’t have drivers.’

He looked back at me and smiled. ‘Where do you wish to go, Madame?’

‘To Chinon.’

‘Chinon?’ He lifted the cigarette, narrowing his eyes against the smoke. They were very thoughtful eyes. ‘But it is almost an hour away, Chinon. An expensive trip by taxi.’

‘Oh.’ I tried to look as if it didn’t matter, but of course it did. I couldn’t throw my budget out of whack.

Again he glanced along the idle taxi rank, then back at me, as though he were trying to decide something. I saved him the bother.

‘Is there a train to Chinon, then?’ I asked him.

‘Not from this station, no.’ His face cleared. ‘But there is the
autocar
… the bus. I think that it departs at thirteen hours and a half, from over there.’ The dark head nodded once, towards the fountain. ‘You can buy a ticket from inside the station, there is time.’

I checked my wristwatch, making the conversion to the French twenty-four hour system. I had fully fifteen minutes to buy my ticket and catch the
autocar
– plenty of time. ‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ I said, lifting my single suitcase from the pavement. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘You are welcome.’ He inclined his head gallantly, then leaned back against the sleek grey Safrane and looked away, lifting the cigarette. When I came out of the station the second time, he was deep in conversation with an older
red-faced
man sweating beneath the burden of a rich-looking set of luggage.

I passed by swiftly, without looking up, and scurried on towards the waiting
autocar
, where I settled myself in the vacant front seat behind the driver. I had every intention of enjoying my clear view of the passing scenery, but the rolling motion of the bus defeated me, and before we’d even driven the few miles to the centre of the city of Tours I was asleep. It was wholly understandable – I’d been up before the birds that morning, caught the plane to Paris and endured a bumpy bus ride, high-speed trains, and two full cups of railway station coffee the consistency of river mud.

I might have kept on sleeping straight to Chinon, but for the sudden blare of a car horn directly beneath my window. The second blast of sound brought my head round with a jolt that rattled my teeth, and my eyes flew open in time
to see the Safrane cut smoothly in front of us, travelling at twice the necessary speed. So, I thought smiling, my dashing taxi driver had found himself a fare after all. Good for him. He had long disappeared down the road ahead by the time the bus reached the next town.

‘Azay-le-Rideau,’ the driver announced over his microphone. Fully awake now, I held my breath as the bus folded itself around the narrow, sharply twisting streets, pressing pedestrians back against stone walls or into the shelter of doorways. Down we went at a dizzying angle, disgorged a handful of passengers in front of a row of shops, and swept on over a bridge that offered an intriguing glimpse of a jewel-like château that seemed to have been built on water, a perfect island perfectly reflected in a pale quiescent lake.

Here at last, I thought happily, was the Loire Valley of the brochures and guide books – and the France that I remembered from my childhood. The town gave way to forest, and the forest fell in turn to field and vineyard. I sat forward in my seat, reading the passing signposts with interest, and then with eager recognition.
La
Devinière
… surely that great block of a building was the birthplace of the writer Rabelais. I remembered reading about it in one of my brochures, somewhere. Which meant that Chinon itself must be just around that …

‘Oh,’ I said suddenly, and with rather more force than I’d intended.

The bus driver smiled at my reaction, understanding. He slowed his speed a little. ‘It is your first visit to Chinon?’ he guessed, in French.

I somehow managed a nod in reply, and the bus slowed still further.

‘It should be savoured, then, this first approach,’ he told me.

Savoured indeed. The yellow-white ruins of Chinon Castle rose majestically above us like the crumbling scene of some great Shakespearean tragedy, an unbroken sweep of blind wall and decaying towers bleached with age, jaggedly spearing the grey and ever-shifting sky.

Despite the bus driver’s best efforts, I barely had time to register the image before the road tipped sharply downwards, hugging ancient walls hung thick with ivy as we dropped towards the level of the town. The castle hung high on the cliffs above us now, all but forgotten in my first view of the river Vienne and the wide avenue of towering plane trees that ran along the riverbank, marking the approach to the town centre. Nothing – neither Harry’s descriptions nor my own faded memories of the French countryside – had prepared me for such a sudden, breathtaking explosion of sheer beauty.

‘Oh,’ I said again.

It was, I realised, an inadequate sort of comment to make, but the bus driver seemed quite pleased by it.

‘It grabs, does it not? It grabs you here,’ he said, making a fist with one hand over his heart, to illustrate.

I found my voice at last. ‘Yes, it does.’

And it did. It grabbed me so completely, in fact, that when the driver announced: ‘Place Jeanne d’Arc’ and another handful of passengers filed off the bus, I scrambled off after them without thinking, bumping my suitcase
down the steps. It was only after everyone had scattered purposefully that I realised I hadn’t the faintest idea how to get to the Hotel de France.

I stood for a moment with the river to my back and the plane trees stretching off to either side, and looked for someone to direct me. The square across the street was, I presumed, the Place Jeanne d’Arc, a great broad crossroads filled with a confusing swirl of bodies and faces and the
half-familiar
sounds of speech and laughter. I’d just prepared myself to grab the nearest person when, quite by accident, I saw a face I recognised.

He had parked the Safrane in a no-parking zone beside the curb, and was leaning up against the bonnet as before, frowning slightly as he watched the milling crowd. I don’t know what impulse it was that made me cross the street towards him – simple weariness, perhaps, or maybe just his handsome face. I caught him this time unawares.