They had picked up a taxi at Les Invalides two days earlier after an easy flight from Stansted to Orly and gone straight to their hotel near the étoile. Joss was very quiet. Each time Luke looked at her she seemed more withdrawn and pale. By the time they had paid off the driver and found their room she looked as though she were about to collapse.
‘Do you want to ring Mother and see how the boys are?’ He sat down next to her on the bed. Outside the traffic was roaring down the street, tyres rattling over the pavé. They could smell coffee and garlic and wine from the café across the road opposite their window as their net curtains blew inwards on a strong draught. He stood up and went to close the window, then he sat down next to her again.
‘So, what are we going to do?’ He took her hand after she had made the call. ‘They’re well. They’re happy, and they’re absolutely safe so you have nothing to worry about except how we are going to amuse ourselves!’
Joss took a deep breath and as she let it out she could feel her tension dropping away. She was safe. The children were safe. Luke was safe. Outside the roar of traffic down the road, only slightly muffled by the closed window and its swathe of white net curtain was a comforting balm. Unexpectedly she threw herself back on the bed and stretched her arms luxuriously above her head. Later she would think about her mother’s Frenchman, but now, just for a while, she needed to relax. For the moment Belheddon was very far away. She had escaped.
Luke looked down at her and smiled. ‘Paris seems to be doing you good already.’
‘It is.’ She reached up to him. ‘I think you and I should have a little rest and then, this afternoon do you know what I would like? To go on a bateau mouche. I haven’t been on one since I was a child.’
Luke laughed. He leaned over her, kissing her forehead and her cheeks and then her lips. ‘I think that sounds like an excellent plan.’
As his fingers moved expertly down the row of buttons on her blouse she tensed for a moment, but the black wall in her mind held firm and relaxing again she put her arms around his neck and abandoned herself to his attentions.
‘It’s strange how much better things feel in daylight.’ David had produced the back door key and inserted it in the lock.
Behind them the coach houses were still shut fast. There was no sign of Jimbo, though it was nearly eleven in the morning.
‘Darkness doth make cowards of us all,’ Edgar commented tersely. In his hand was a black briefcase. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am you came to us last night. It’s strange but the subject of black magic and witchcraft has never really surfaced here before. Poor Laura and I never looked beyond the actual presence of malign influences. I know she was very conscious of the tragedy of Katherine but as far as I know she never suspected her or her mother of any influence on the house.’
He followed David into the kitchen which was warm and welcoming, the stove still banked from the night before.
Turning on all the lights David reached for the kettle. ‘So, what happens now?’
Edgar frowned. He put his briefcase down on the table. ‘While you make us a cup of coffee each I think I will have a walk through the house. Just get the feel of things a little.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘What Margaret de Vere did was probably not done openly and in public. It would have been done surreptitiously, in secret, without witnesses other than her accomplices if she had any. I may be able to tell where it happened.’
‘She must have known she would be sentenced to death if she had been caught.’ David reached into the fridge for a jar of ready ground coffee.
‘Indeed. But I suspect she was confident in her allies. The devil is a powerful friend.’
David shivered. ‘Let’s hope the church is stronger,’ he muttered. His fervent plea went unheard as Edgar disappeared into the passage.
Their meeting the night before had lasted long into the night after David’s arrival in Aldeburgh. His books and papers were spread all over Edgar’s desk in the window of his study, and as the night cleared and the stars appeared they glanced from time to time up at the uncurtained window to see the luminous blackness of the sea with its trails of silver and white as small uneven waves criss crossed the incoming tide. It was half past four before Dot had at last managed to chase them to bed, David in the attic bedroom which too looked out to sea, and only five hours later when she had woken them with cups of tea and toast. In twenty minutes they were on the road back to Belheddon. In Edgar’s case was Holy Water, wine and bread, a crucifix and a Bible.