Death of a wine merchant lfp-9 Read online

  The man following him was walking quite slowly up the Salle des Pauvres, peering behind the beds on either side. Powerscourt could stay where he was or he could run. He ran. He shot up to the ends of the row, behind the beds with the red blankets, inspected in astonishment by the patients, one reading her missal, another inspecting herself in a mirror, then out past a painting of the Last Judgement on his left and into the next ward. This was much smaller, with half a dozen beds and some very ill patients indeed. Two of them were chalky white in the face and looked as though they might not last the day. Two more were asleep or dead already. Powerscourt sprinted on. Advancing towards him now was an elderly nun in the regulation grey carrying a tray of medicines. The tray seemed to be rather large and she was holding it well in front of her. When she saw Powerscourt she opened her mouth as if she was going to speak or perhaps to scream. Then, almost in slow motion, the tray slipped from her grasp and a whole flotilla of medicines fell to the floor, pills white and pills red, lotions, potions, mixtures, medicines of every shape and size. They slithered across the floor, forming a slippery sheet that might cause anybody coming her way to fall into this viscous soup of medicines. Powerscourt didn’t stop to find out if his pursuer retained his grip on the floor. He was almost through the next room which seemed to be filled with elderly women when he saw a phalanx of nursing power advancing towards him. In the lead, resplendent in white, was a formidable woman of about forty years of age. Powerscourt thought she must be a sister at least, maybe the Matron herself. She stared in disbelief at the running man come to invade her hospital and disturb the repose of her patients and then she began to speak in one of those imperious voices that have grown used to being obeyed.

  ‘What on earth do you think you are doing, charging round our hospital in this way?’ she began.

  Powerscourt felt the time for serious discussion with nursing sisters or even Matrons was not now. Maybe another time.

  ‘Terribly sorry, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Chap following me, you see. Very bad teeth. Maybe you could do something for him now he’s here. Can’t stop at the moment. Terribly sorry. Au revoir.’

  And with that he was gone. He fled through a room where the walls were lined with tapestries and a sombre couple on the wall in Renaissance costume who were, he presumed, Chancellor Rolin and his wife, still keeping watch over their hospice after four hundred and fifty years. Behind him he could hear voices raised in anger. Maybe the man with no teeth had been arrested by the nursing sorority and was even now having his mouth examined. But he didn’t wait to find out. On he sprinted through the kitchens and here lay disaster. Lunch was being carried to the wards by a group of six nurses lining up two abreast to take delivery of the meals and carry the trays to the wards. Powerscourt noticed that chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables was on the menu today for those with the will and the teeth to eat it. But there was scarcely any room to move past the nurses. A grey stove was in the way with a steaming double oven between him and the wall. This was no time for dignity, Powerscourt said to himself. There was only one way out. He dropped to the floor and crawled through between the legs of the nuns, reciting the Lord’s Prayer as he went. He thought it might provide a diversion and stop them screaming. It wasn’t completely successful. A volley of Hail Marys followed him out of the kitchen and into a corridor. He thought he might have come round in a circle and emerged on the other side of the courtyard. He could hear the noise of the auction growing louder, punctuated by the enormous bangs of the auctioneer’s gavel and the cheers of the crowd who might, he thought, have been sampling the wares on offer. One small room at the end that might have been an office was dominated by sacred paintings on the walls and a trio of nuns writing things in enormous dark ledgers at high desks. They too looked as if they were about to speak but they were too late. Powerscourt was already opening the door. I’m through, he said to himself. Whatever was going on with that toothless youth is over. I can find Lucy at the hotel and we can do what we came for.

  But Powerscourt was not through. He came out at the very back of the courtyard, closest to the door into the street. He couldn’t see Lady Lucy. The crowd were concentrating on the auction, many of them rather tipsy by now. He hadn’t known it but he was up against two or maybe more enemies on this day. As he emerged, blinking slightly in the sunshine, an enormous man seized him by the arm. Looking at him for the first time Powerscourt thought he was shaped exactly like a barrel with an enormous chest. He could have done sterling work in the front row of a rugby scrum. Powerscourt wondered if he had in fact been manufactured by some master cooper in his quarters in Santenay or Pommard and brought to life by the patron saints of Burgundy.

  ‘You’re to come with me,’ said the barrel, ‘and don’t make any trouble.’ Powerscourt felt what he presumed was the point of a knife jabbing into his ribs. He knew he could never win in a fight with this man. He would be crushed. As he was guided out of the courtyard he wondered where they were taking him.

  Lady Lucy felt rather lonely when her husband disappeared through the double doors. She watched as the man with no teeth set off in pursuit. At this stage she was not particularly worried. She had seen Francis go off so often on strange missions but he always returned. She wished Johnny Fitzgerald was with him. He always served as guardian angel on these occasions. She had two indices of anxiety that she carried with her. One was the level of danger for Francis, rated on a scale of one to ten. Today in Beaune didn’t count for much more than a two or a three. There was another index, totally out of her control. This was the knot of anxiety that formed in her stomach when she felt he was really in peril. It grew tighter and tighter when she was really scared for him. So far the knot had not put in an appearance. There was another reason for feeling lonely here in the beautiful courtyard. Most of these people were countrymen. Their hands were calloused from working in the fields or hauling bottles and barrels around the cellars and the storerooms of Burgundy. There were one or two more sophisticated clients here, men in elegant suits with buttonholes who might have come from Paris or Lyon to bid for the great hotels and restaurants. But they were all male. The voices of the suffragettes and the marching protesters demanding equal rights for women did not seem to have reached Beaune yet. Everybody here this morning was male, every last one of them. As the shouts of the bidders grew louder and traded insults with their rivals, Lady Lucy slipped away to their hotel, the Ducs de Bourgogne tucked away in a little square a couple of hundred yards away. Francis would find her there.

  Powerscourt was pleased to see, but did not show his pleasure, that the man with no teeth, who he now gathered was called Jean Jacques, must have fallen foul of the nurse with the medicines back at the hotel. His trousers were stained in a strange medley of colours, red and green and a chalky white. A strange smell, a compound of dispensary and chemical factory, rose from them. And he must have twisted his leg as he fell, for he was limping painfully. Powerscourt thought of suggesting that he should have stayed in the hospital but thought better of it.

  They were joined by a third man, in his early thirties, with a mean face and a vivid scar on his right cheek. The others referred to him as boss at all times. Powerscourt felt sure that his rule was maintained through fear rather than brotherly love. ‘We’re taking him to the barn first of all,’ he said. The two others, No Teeth and Barrel as Powerscourt mentally referred to them, maintained a discreet guard through the streets of Beaune. Powerscourt noticed that one enterprising wine merchant had already filled his windows with bottles whose labels had Hospices de Beaune on the top with the titles of the particular wines, Corton Charlemagne or Beaune, underneath. The citizens, barred from the auction by the high entry fee or the lack of space, were making up for their loss in the shop, carrying off bottles by the dozen in enormous panniers on the front of their bicycles.

  They were on the very outskirts of the town when Scarface took them off the main road and on to a little track that led through the fields. Half a mile away there was a f
armhouse with an enormous barn fifty yards or so behind it. Just inside the doorway they halted while instructions were given. In the shadows at the back of the barn Powerscourt could see a very strange device. It was very old and looked as though it had survived from some earlier times. It was in the shape of an H or the goal posts at rugby except that the section above the cross bar was quite short and there was another beam of the same size just above the ground. And the beams were far thicker. At the top was a long beam, six or seven feet long and three or four feet wide. This beam was attached to the lower one, of similar size, running along the bottom of the H. Linked to the two vertical columns that joined the top and bottom were a series of short wooden arms that could be used to raise and lower the upper beam until it could touch the lower one if required.

  ‘Pressoir!’ said Barrel with a note of reverence. ‘Ancien pressoir! Formidable!’

  Then Powerscourt understood and he was terrified. The device must have been used to press the juice out of the grapes in the olden times. The grapes would have been held in some sort of container, probably made of cloth rather than wood, and arranged on the lowest horizontal beam. The top section would be lowered further and further down to crush the fruit until all the juice was extracted. There must have been a series of buckets or other containers by the sides to hold the grape juice. Or, in a less peaceful world, a man could be squeezed or pressed between the two beams until all the blood had run out of his body.

  ‘Tie him up,’ said Scarface. ‘On the lower beam, naturally.’

  In less than a minute Powerscourt found himself lying on the bottom beam, secured to the contraption with thick rope. He wondered what they proposed to do with the upper beam. He did not have long to wait. There was a series of grunts and curses as the two men tried to work the levers that would lower the upper section.

  ‘They’re stuck,’ said Jean Jacques. ‘Nobody’s oiled the damned things for a couple of hundred years.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Barrel, ‘they were working earlier this summer. Damn it, I saw them myself.’

  With that he gave a tremendous heave. Powerscourt could see the muscles straining in his face. With a thick squeak the left-hand lever began to work. Looking at the beam descending towards him Powerscourt began to pray. Then, as if working in sympathy, the other one limped slowly into action. The two men looked on as the upper section of the press grew closer and closer to Powerscourt’s chest.

  ‘Hey, boss,’ said Barrel cheerfully, ‘do you want any juice this morning?’

  17

  The knot returned to Lady Lucy as she picked her way through a large helping of roast chicken in the hotel dining room. It was slight at first, the knot, then it gathered strength as her lunch progressed. By the time she reached the cheese it was as tight as she had ever known it. Where was Francis? Who were these people who pursued him into the Hotel Dieu and must be holding him prisoner somewhere by now? Why were they after him? As she reviewed the case of the murdered Colville in her mind she could not think of anybody who might want to harm her husband. Perhaps he had not told her about a whole new raft of enemies. Perhaps he did not know of them himself. Perhaps they had risen up from some old investigation years before, but for the life of her she could not think who such people might be. She wondered if she should go back to the hospital and ask the nuns what they had seen. Then she remembered what Francis had always told her. If I get lost or taken prisoner, he always said, don’t go charging round the place trying to find me. You may be taken prisoner too. Please stay put where I know I can find you. That will be for the best. And so, sipping at a bitter coffee, Lady Lucy sat in the dining room of the Hotel des Ducs de Bourgogne wondering where her husband was. She wished Johnny Fitzgerald was with him. Somewhere she knew she had the telegraphic address of her brother-in-law William Burke in London. He would be able to find Johnny but even if she sent the cable first thing in the morning when London offices would be open again it would be at least two days before Johnny Fitzgerald could reach Beaune. The knot seemed to be growing worse. Lady Lucy was determined about one thing. She wasn’t going to cry. Not yet anyway. And certainly not in the hotel dining room.

  Marcel came to inspect Powerscourt, lashed to the beam like a prisoner on a galley slave. He tested the knots that held him in place. He motioned for the upper beam to be lowered slightly until it pressed harder on Powerscourt’s chest.

  ‘I don’t think we want any juice for the moment,’ he told his men. ‘We just need to be sure Monsieur here cannot escape.’ He glances at the ropes again. He patted the upper beam with his right hand.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We can leave Monsieur here for a little while. Have no fear, sir, we shall return.’

  Barrel looked closely at Powerscourt as they left. Powerscourt could see the disappointment in his face, disappointment that there had been no juice pressed that afternoon, disappointment that Powerscourt’s blood had not been forced out of his body into the square buckets lined up in rows on either side of the beam. Powerscourt suddenly remembered the torturers in the basement cells of the Russian secret police, the Okhrana, in St Petersburg he had met on a previous case. There the mouths of the victims had been taped up so that the neighbours could not complain about the screams. Barrel, he thought, might have a great future in the Okhrana. But here they hadn’t bothered to tape up his mouth. The barn was miles from anywhere. Nobody in Beaune would hear him scream, nobody at all.

  With determined and painful wriggling he found he could move an inch or so to his right. It didn’t do him any good, of course, but it gave him the illusion of control. He wondered yet again who his captors were and where they came from. He tried in vain to establish a link between them and the case of Randolph Colville. He was, however, optimistic on one count. He didn’t think they were going to kill him. If they had been, they would surely have done so by now. Five or six great turns on the levers and he would have been crushed to a pulp. He hoped that if they were going to press him to death they would be quick about it. A real Okhrana man would be able to drag the process out for hours until there was no breath left to scream and no bones in your body left unbroken. He thought of Lady Lucy abandoned in a strange city. He prayed that she was in the hotel, not tracing his movements and running into danger herself. He thought suddenly of the long drawing room on the first floor of Markham Square, the sunlight streaming in on summer days, the books on either side of the fireplace, Lady Lucy’s favourite pictures on the walls, Lady Lucy herself reading a story to the twins. The contrast with his present surroundings was almost too much to bear. He tried to remember some of the worst predicaments he had found himself in on previous cases. If he twisted his head as far as he was able he could just see the light coming in the barn door, but it was beginning to fade and he didn’t like to think about what might happen in the dark.

  Lady Lucy was now sitting in a small desk in her room at the hotel. She wrote some letters. She tried once more to make progress with the latest Joseph Conrad but found it difficult. She had taken a photo of her husband she always carried with her and propped it up on the little table by her side of the bed. She prayed that Francis would come back to take his place on the other side. She prayed to God that He would bring Francis back from his time of trouble. She prayed that they might be reunited with their children before too long. She asked for forgiveness for the sins she had committed and any others that she might have committed but not known about. ‘Keep him safe, Oh Lord, please keep him safe.’

  Marcel and his thugs returned just as the light was fading. Marcel was carrying a battered suitcase.

  ‘Take him down,’ he said, ‘quickly, while we can still see what we are doing.’

  ‘No juice at all, boss?’ asked Barrel. ‘Not even a cupful, or better still, seeing where we are, a bottleful?’