House of the Hanged

‘I’m not sure you know them. They’re friends of your mother’s psychoanalyst.’

‘Oh God . . .’

‘They’re not so bad. I had them over for dinner last night. She speaks as much nonsense as the time allows her, and he perks up no end if you get him on to Phoenician pottery.’

‘Thanks for the tip,’ groaned Lucy.

‘Until tomorrow.’

Lucy set off up the steep pathway through the trees, making for the house that her parents rented every July. Standing proud on the promontory, just back from the bluff, it was so hemmed in on its three other sides by Tom’s land as to make it almost part of his property. With any luck, by the end of the summer it would officially become so. He was deep in negotiations with the owner, a retired thoracic surgeon from Avignon eager to convert his holiday home into hard currency which he planned to fritter away before he died; anything to prevent it falling into the hands of his two feckless sons.

He was a charming old boy, but he drove a hard bargain. He knew that the British pound went considerably further in France than it did back home, and he understood the notion that something could amount to more than the sum of its parts.

Tom might already own a substantial patch of the coastline directly east of Le Rayol, but the last remaining parcel at the heart of his kingdom must surely be a thorn in his proprietorial side, and therefore worth considerably more to him than the marketplace might suggest.

That was Docteur Manevy’s thinking, and Tom couldn’t fault it, or even begrudge the old fellow for it. If he’d learned anything during his five years in the country it was that no Frenchman could abide the idea of being taken for a ride. ‘Ne pas être dupe’ was the inviolable code by which they led their lives, and Tom had grown to embrace the theatre that accompanied most negotiations.

He would continue to play up his role as the impecunious author of travel books, Manevy would bleat on about the scandalously small government pension he received, and eventually they would arrive at an agreement satisfactory to both of them. That was the way of things. One had to remain patient.

As for the house itself, Venetia referred to the place affectionately as ‘the Art Nouveau eyesore’. Like the castle in Irene Iddesleigh it was ‘of a style of architecture seldom if ever attempted’: a clumpy, three-floored structure devoid of any obvious charm, and which the architect, for reasons known only to himself and his original client, had chosen to orientate facing inland, turning a dumb mask to the stunning sea-view. Tom’s own house – an imposing Art Deco villa verging on the ostentatious – dominated the other headland flanking the cove, and together they stood like two watch-towers guarding against a seaborne invasion.

A crease in the rising ground ran north from the cove, deepening as it went, bisecting Tom’s land from the water’s edge almost to the railway line. This was the route he now took after parting company with Lucy.

While most of the fifteen-acre plot was carpeted in cork oaks, pines and palms, the narrow gulley was a shady world bristling with ferns, hostas, petasites and other plants that favoured the dark and the damp. In summer, the ground was dry and firm underfoot, but for much of the year it was positively boggy with spring water. Le Rayol was known for its springs, a rare asset along this parched stretch of coast, and – miraculously, like the widow’s cruse – his well never ran dry. It stood at the centre of a deep dell near the head of the gulley, where the rocks rose sheer on three sides and the inter-locking branches of the trees overhead provided a welcome canopy against the sunlight.

‘Hector . . . Hector . . . Come on, boy . . .’

The words echoed back at him, hollow, futile.

Hector would often come here to cool off when the mercury was nudging ninety degrees, but he wasn’t here now.

The donkey engine and the water pump were housed in a wooden shed beside the well. Tom cranked the wheel, amazed, as always, when the faithful old Lister phut-phutted into life. The water in the big holding tank up top was running low. It would take a couple of hours to fill – more than enough time to complete his task.

He started in the northeast corner, right up by the railway cutting, where the ground vanished in a sheer drop of some thirty feet to the steel tracks below. From here he made his way back towards the sea, working methodically, taking each patch of land between the latticework of pathways in turn and searching it thoroughly, delving deep into the tangled underbrush.

Chapter Three

He signed for the cocktails and lay back on the sun lounger. As jobs went, he reflected, things didn’t get much better than this.

He cast his mind back over the other ones and concluded that things didn’t get any better than this. Talk about mixing business and pleasure: a summer break at a top hotel right on the beach, just one little chore to perform and then he’d be gone.

‘Why are you smiling?’

She had finished her swim and was towelling herself dry in the sunshine. She was in good condition for her age, although gravity had taken its inevitable toll on her breasts and buttocks.

‘Because I’m contented,’ he replied.

He spoke a formal French, far too formal, but it would have to do. It was the only shared language between them. He barely spoke a word of German, let alone Swiss German, and her Italian was a joke.

‘Is that for me?’ she asked in her guttural French, nodding at the drinks set on the table between their loungers.

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a bad boy.’

He was about to reply that she sounded like his mother, but checked himself just in time. She was, after all, close to his mother’s age; not so close as to repel him, but close enough for him to feel mildly squeamish at the prospect of seducing her.

‘I’m on holiday,’ he said. ‘And so are you.’

For the first time in their brief acquaintance, he used the familiar ‘tu’ instead of ‘vous’, and he could see that this didn’t go unnoticed by her.

She adjusted her bathing costume, brushed some imaginary sand from her thigh and lowered herself on to the lounger.

‘Well, if you insist . . .’ she purred coquettishly, following his lead and using the familiar pronoun.

He knew from their conversation on the terrace after dinner last night that her husband had been held back in Zurich on business, leaving her to travel on ahead alone. He could picture the husband rolling around with his secretary on some dishevelled bed, and he wondered if she suspected the same.

‘Did you contact your friend?’ she asked.

‘My friend?’

‘The painter in Cannes.’

‘Oh him . . . yes.’

He remembered now. Stuck with the cover story he’d already shared with a couple of the other hotel guests, he’d embellished it slightly for her benefit, adding a touch of glamour to impress. The painter in Cannes was a childhood friend from Rome who had recently found great success abroad, and was eager to show off his new house on the Cap d’Antibes.

‘Have you decided when you’re leaving?’

Not immediately the job was done; that was liable to arouse suspicion. No, he would brave it out for a day or two afterwards, as he usually did.

‘When is your husband arriving?’

‘Saturday.’

He glanced around him, but the only people within earshot were two sun-bronzed children, a brother and sister, playing beach quoits nearby, and they were far too absorbed in their game to be listening.

‘I was thinking Friday,’ he said.

There, it was done. He had made his intentions plain. It wasn’t the end of the world if she didn’t take the bait, but it would be much better if she did. It was always good to have an alibi up your sleeve.

She didn’t react at first; she just took a sip of her cocktail and stretched out on the lounger, closing her eyes.

‘I’ve never done this sort of thing before,’ she said quietly.

‘You haven’t done anything.’

She turned on to her side and looked at him. ‘No, but I want to.’