Cast Iron

Chapter twenty-eight

A tree-lined drive of pale castine gravel wound through this lightly forested estate in the very south-west corner of France, before opening up suddenly on to a sweep of neatly cut lawn, and a view of the house where they were to stay, that very nearly took their breath away.

Although they knew it had only been built in the nineteenth century, it looked like a sugarloaf and marzipan château from some extraordinary medieval fairy tale. Cream-painted, with red-chequered stonework around arched and square windows and doors, it was topped off by a tower and a jumble of red-tiled roofs that raised themselves like eyebrows in surprise over dormers and balconies.

The whole was softened by exotic trees and shrubs, which grew all about it, and as the drive looped around to the front entrance, they saw the lawns that stretched away on the far side, to an oblong water feature with a fountain sparkling in the early-afternoon sun

In a long, tiled entrance hall they were greeted by an attractive woman in her thirties, black hair pulled back severely from a sultry face and dark eyes that seemed to owe more to a Spanish than a French heritage. She wore a tight-fitting black business dress that reached the knee, and black shoes with impossibly high heels that emphasised the elegant curve of her calves. Long fingers, with perfectly manicured red-painted nails, and a simple pearl necklace completed the picture of the ideal hostess, always on hand to greet visitors to this exclusive manor house of half a dozen chambre d’hôte apartments.

So this, Enzo thought, was what Raffin had married into, and in the end inherited.

‘I’m Rafaella,’ the young woman said, shaking their hands. ‘Roger told me to expect you.’ And as they followed her along the hall and up the broad spiral staircase at the far end, Enzo found his eye being drawn by the sway of her hips and the way that her dress clung to a slim but curvaceous figure. He felt an elbow in his ribs, and turned to see his daughter glaring at him.

‘Papa!’ she admonished him in a whisper.

He shrugged and whispered back, ‘I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t look.’

She breathed her exasperation and shook her head.

On the first floor, Rafaella led them along a hushed and carpeted hall. At the end of it, she opened double doors into a sitting room filled with light from two enormous French windows overlooking the lawns at the back of the house. ‘Bedrooms on either side,’ she said, indicating doors to the left and right, ‘each with their own en suite.’ She looked at their overnight bags, and Alexis in his carrycot. ‘If you have more luggage in the car I’ll send someone to fetch it.’

‘No that’s fine, thank you,’ Kirsty said. ‘I’m sure Roger must have told you, we’re only here for the one night.’

‘Yes, of course. There’s a bar in the lounge downstairs. Just give me a call and I’ll serve you whatever you would like. We’ve had the apartment airing. I’ll send the housekeeper to close the windows and turn down the beds.’ She smiled and exited the room backwards, pulling the doors closed.

When she had gone, Kirsty looked around in awe. ‘Wow. I had no idea it was this grand.’

Antique furniture, cream-painted and upholstered in satin, languished in a big, square, high-ceilinged room. Soft silk cushions dressing settees and armchairs. A huge hi-def television was set, like a mirror, above an elaborate fireplace.

Enzo opened one of the French windows and wandered out on to a covered balcony. The air was soft here, almost warm, autumn retarded by at least three weeks. He looked down on to the terrace below and saw tables and chairs set out in the sunshine, and wondered if they were the only guests.

As if she had read his mind, Kirsty said, ‘There’s no one else here at the moment. They close down for the season at the end of the week. The housekeeper lives in and looks after the place during the winter.’

After she had fed Alexis and laid him down to sleep in his carrycot, Kirsty and Enzo went downstairs and had drinks on the terrace. Both were a little overawed by the place.

‘Imagine living here,’ Kirsty said.

‘It’s where Roger’s wife grew up, isn’t it?’

She sipped her vodka tonic and shook her head in wonder. ‘God, yes. Hard to believe it was a family home. I’m not surprised she didn’t want to sell it. It’s beautiful.’

‘Must cost a fortune to maintain.’

‘That’s why they decided to do the chambres d’hôte, I think. To make it pay for itself.’ Kirsty hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I feel entirely comfortable staying in the apartment. Feels like... I don’t know... trespassing on other people’s lives.’

Enzo nodded. ‘I know what you mean.’ He took a mouthful of wine. ‘What do you know about Marie? I suppose you and Roger must have talked about her?’

‘We have. But maybe not as much as you would think. It’s still a painful subject for him, so I can understand why.’ She swirled her glass and listened to the chinking of the ice cubes. ‘You knew she was a journalist?’

Enzo nodded.

‘Roger said she was absolutely determined to make her name. Free herself from a life in the shadow of her parents. Privileged little rich girl. She needed to validate her own existence, not just for herself, but for a world whose eyes she thought were always on her.’

‘Roger said that?’ Enzo was surprised.

‘Yes.’ Kirsty smiled. ‘He has a way with words. He’s a journalist, too, remember.’

Enzo grinned. Then his smile faded. ‘She never did, though, did she? I mean, find the success she craved.’

‘Well, I think she was quite a respected journalist, but, no, never achieved the recognition she’d hoped for. Apparently she was working on something in the weeks and months before her murder that she point-blank refused to share with Roger, certain that it was going to make her name. He said she was obsessed. Secret meetings, disappearing sometimes for days on end, working into the small hours of the morning. Suspicious of him if he even asked her about it. He said it was as if she was paranoid, or scared that he might steal it from her.’ She sighed. ‘Roger and she hadn’t been close for some time, but this weird, secretive behaviour was absolutely putting the nail in the coffin of their marriage.’

‘And they never did find out what it was she had been working on,’ Enzo said thoughtfully.

Kirsty shook her head. ‘No.’

Enzo remembered the chapter about her in Raffin’s book. How police had searched the apartment and her office, even the house here in the south-west, and found no trace of any story that she might have been about to break. No papers or letters, and since it pre-dated the internet, no emails. Neither her editor at Libération, nor Raffin himself, had been able to cast any illumination on the object of her obsession.

Kirsty said, ‘It was during that time that Roger and Charlotte began their affair.’

‘No,’ Enzo corrected her. ‘They didn’t meet until he was working on his book, which was some time after Marie was murdered.’

‘No, Papa, you’re wrong. Marie was still very much alive when Roger and Charlotte got together. A very secret affair, apparently. About six months before her murder. And afterwards, well, they agreed to just keep it that way. Secret. In case the police would see it as a motive for Roger to kill her. So they didn’t tell anyone.’

Enzo frowned. None of this chimed with what Charlotte had told him when they first met. Then he said, ‘Why would the police even consider Roger a suspect anyway? He was at an editorial meeting at the paper the night she was killed.’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he recalled again, with a sudden sense of shock, the words of the old judge, Guillaume Martin: I didn’t spend all those years sitting on the bench, monsieur, without coming to the realisation that alibis can be fabricated. And then Charlotte’s words to him, only the previous day: I have often wondered just how closely the police examined his alibi. He glanced at Kirsty, concerned once more for his daughter. She was living with the man. She had borne his son, and it was still their avowed intention to marry.

They had decided to drive into Biarritz early to find something to eat and to check out the location of the specialist’s consulting rooms in the quiet of the evening. The town lay only four kilometres away, and with a gentle breeze now blowing from the west they could almost smell the Atlantic.

They went back upstairs to prepare Alexis for going out and were startled to find the door of the apartment lying open. ‘Hello?’ Kirsty called out in alarm, and ran towards the open door of the bedroom where she had put Alexis down to sleep.

Enzo was right behind her as she stopped in the doorway at the sight of a middle-aged woman standing by the bed, bouncing the baby gently up and down in her arms. She was making faces at him and Alexis was lost in fits of giggles.

She smiled at Kirsty. ‘I heard him crying from the other room when I came to turn down the beds.’ And Enzo noticed that she was wearing a black blouse and skirt beneath a cream pinafore. The housekeeper that Rafaella had spoken of. She was a plain-looking woman who might once have been pretty. But the years had not been kind to her, and the absence of any make-up seemed only to emphasise the colourless quality of her skin. Lifeless, greying hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Alexis, however, had brought animation to her face, and her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.

‘Thank you,’ Kirsty said, but nonetheless moved quickly to retrieve her baby from the stranger.

The woman stood awkwardly, then. ‘You’re... um... Monsieur Raffin’s partner?’

‘Yes.’ Kirsty was clearly annoyed that Alexis seemed to want back to the arms of the woman who had been making him laugh. ‘And you are...?’

‘Madame Brusque. The housekeeper. Been here for years. I have rooms up in the tower.’ She seemed suddenly self-conscious. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry to disturb you. If there’s anything you need at all, you can buzz me from the reception desk downstairs. Rafaella finishes at seven.’

‘Okay, thank you,’ Kirsty said, a little coolly, and Madame Brusque slipped out of the room, averting her eyes timidly as she passed Enzo.

When she was gone, he said, ‘You were a little brusque with her.’

Kirsty made a face. ‘Oh, very funny.’ Then paused. ‘I don’t like people picking up my baby without permission.’

‘I don’t think she meant any harm.’

‘No, neither do I. But still...’ Then she frowned. ‘You know, it’s weird... I’m sure I’ve met her before, or seen her somewhere.’

Enzo shrugged. ‘She didn’t seem to know you.’

‘No... She didn’t look familiar to you?’

Enzo said, ‘To be honest, I wasn’t paying her very much attention. She’s no Rafaella!’

Kirsty glowered at him. ‘Oh, Papa!’