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But they weren’t about to let me off that easily. Put on the spot, I closed my eyes tightly and tried to think of something clever. Perhaps I ought to call out Armand’s name, I thought wryly, in case he was standing on the other side of the vineyard wall, listening. It might be good for his ego. But the dark eyes that smiled at me in my thoughts were not Armand Valcourt’s. I tried to push the image from my mind. Oh, damn and blast, I thought. Oh, help. So that was what I yelled, in French. “Au secours!”
It was a foolish thing to do. If I’d been in a public place, I might have caused a panic—people hurrying to help me; cries for the police.
But here, I only startled Paul, who turned to stare at me while Echo stirred in far-off fields and called back her advice.
“Cours,” was what she told me.
Run.
Chapter 13
From out a common vein of memory…
“The day gets better and better,” Simon said, as we filed out between the houses at the foot of the cobbled stair. I saw straight away what had pleased him.
It was already afternoon, and the sun had grown uncertain, but Thierry, in a burst of optimism, had set the hotel’s tables out around the fountain square. It made a cheery showing, the bright white tables and red chairs. And directly ahead of us, at a table beside the fountain, sat Martine Muret. She was so lovely, so strikingly lovely, with her fashion-model features and cropped black hair. Neil had said that Armand’s wife had looked like that, and pushing back another pang of jealousy I looked more closely at Martine, with eyes that sought to see beyond her to a woman three years dead. Had Brigitte Valcourt’s hair been short as well? The cut certainly suited Martine, and her simple dark clothes set off her beauty as a plain frame enhances an exquisite painting. Head up, she sat watching the idle activity of the square through expensive sunglasses that hid the expression of her eyes. She looked entirely unapproachable.
Undaunted, Simon raised one hand in cheerful greeting and blazed a path across the square toward her.
Paul looked at me. “He never gives up.”
“Well, one can’t really blame him.” I stopped, and bent to tie my shoe, tipping my face up toward him. “Paul, what does Martine Muret do?”
“What do you mean?”
“For a living. Does she work, or…”
“Oh. She owns the local gallery.”
“Art gallery?”
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s just around the corner there, in one of the smaller squares.” He pointed off to one side of the hotel. “You can’t miss it. There’s a Christian Rand self-portrait in the window.”
“They’re a couple, then, I take it?” I tried to ask the question quite as if I didn’t care, as if it hardly mattered which of the hotel guests Martine had been out with, when Lucie had wandered off.
Paul shrugged. “I wouldn’t say so, no. In fact I’m sure they’re not. Good friends, I think—that’s all.”
“Oh.” I yanked on my shoelace, tying it too tightly. Which one was it? I’d heard Armand ask Martine, last night. The German or the Englishman? And I’d been hoping, for some foolish reason, that it was the German. I sighed and stood, and looked again at that lovely face. The face that reminded Neil of Brigitte Valcourt. “I wonder if she chose that chair on purpose?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Well, she’s sitting next to Beauty.”
“What? Oh, the Graces, you mean.” He scrutinized the fountain sculpture. “How can you tell which one’s which?”
“Neil named them, last night. He thought Splendour faced the sunset, and that one there was Beauty, and Joy had the biggest smile.”
“That makes sense.”
I folded my arms and frowned. “Only they’re not smiling, are they?”
“Of course they are. That’s what—”
“—Graces do. I know.” Still, try as I might, the only smile I saw belonged to Martine Muret herself. And even that smile looked faintly strained.
“So,” she said, as we descended on her table. “Simon tells me you have toured the Clos des Cloches. And how did you enjoy it?”
Simon grinned. “It was great, thanks. Mind if we join you?” His arm was promptly nudged from behind, and he turned round, frowning. “What?” he demanded of Paul.
