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‘God, I hope not. Would change everything, don’t you think? Stalkers’ paradise. There’d be no escaping your enemies.’
Joseph dropped his brush and bent over to pick it up. His expression, on rising, was one of abject horror. Why? He didn’t even own a mobile phone. The questions remained unanswered: who was following whom, and why were we so bound to the same list of castles, the same order and deadlines? Joseph might have doubts still about Medici’s involvement in both our projects, but I was convinced. I was in the mood for another interrogation. However, David was holidaying somewhere, and as for Medici, David’s injunction was still in place. Should I break it? In order to, I needed an internet connection.
He rested the brush on the palette. ‘Let’s do this properly. We can meet, have a nice cup of something, and get to the nitty gritty points. What do you think? I’ll try getting hold of Camilla again—’
‘No luck?’ An earlier call to Yvette had gone unanswered so I had left a message, conveying a degree of urgency without the intent of alarming, or so I hoped.
He shook his head. ‘She’s damn hard to pin down at the moment. Could do with that tracker after all.’ The laugh was decidedly half-hearted. ‘Tea? Cake? You choose.’
I recalled the town below, and one pretty looking tearoom. I described its location and he agreed we would meet in three hours.
Which left me more time to kill. ‘I’ll go to the keep. It’s next to the cell block.’
?
‘You bleedin’ coward,’ says the gruff voice. ‘Bread and water, that’s all you’ll get. You should be fighting the Hun like my son.’
The clang of the door echoes. The cell is tiny and he’s not alone. He squeezes himself against the icy wall and the damp immediately is sucked into his bones. He shivers, violently.
Slowly, using the edge of his pewter spoon, he etches a letter in the wall. The limewash crumbles. Character by character he writes his name. His fingers by now are numb with the cold.
He hears voices, some despairing, others crying out in anger. There’s no escape. He’s trapped in this hellhole and struggles to breathe in the fetid air. Time passes, he can do nothing but wait for his fate to unfold.
The candle flame flutters. There is graffiti everywhere. Pictures of zeppelins and aircraft and the battlefields below. A few verses of a hymn, the scrawled lines of poems; some sad words, some defiant. He continues to draw in the dim light. His dog. His mother’s face. A crucifix. A grave with his body lying in it.
They’ll probably shoot him soon.
I gasped for air and removed my clammy hand from the wall of the cell block. I never made it to the adjacent keep. The cries of the prisoners were all it had taken to freeze me to the spot outside a small high window of the locked building. And there I had stood like a statue, caught suddenly aware of sounds, enveloped by my own imagination and wishing my immersion into the past wasn’t so abrupt.
I thought of returning to where Joseph was painting and seeking comfort in his company. But as I moved out of the shadows of the building and the sun warmed the nape of my neck, I felt the raw emotion of fear subside to be replaced with the customary sense of self-awareness, and my own foolishness. I was annoyed with myself. The guidebook said the conscientious objectors sang hymns, debated their political views, even played chess. They tried hard to boost each other’s morale and survived their imprisonment. But I had found a dark, miserable corner of a cell and allowed it to torment me with another haunting daydream.
My skin prickled as if the air was filled with static electricity. Glancing around, I wanted Joseph to appear close by, smiling infectiously. However, he was still in the garden below, painting the latrines, and yet for a brief moment, it had felt as if he had been watching me, or somebody had.
?
Joseph ordered coffee and ginger cake. I chose tea in a China pot with a silver strainer and doily. The service was appropriately quaint, and slow.
He had left his painting in the car. I asked him if he was happy with it.
‘I did two, which is why I took so long. I often do two or three perspectives. I did a quick one of the gatehouse and the cell block you mentioned.’ He stirred cream into his coffee.
I peered inside the teapot. The leaves were stuck at the bottom, the colouration weak, but I wasn’t in a hurry. ‘Is the campsite safe for your things?’
‘Good enough.’ He yawned and apologised.
‘Bad night’s sleep?’
‘Cows.’
‘Early mornings on the dairy farm?’
‘It’s a small campsite next to the cow shed. The wind, fortunately, blows the other way.’ He sipped and grinned at the same time.
‘You couldn’t… you didn’t use hotels?’ I skipped over the missing word.
He was sharp, though. ‘I can afford them, just prefer the open countryside. I camped extensively in Greece. And other places.’
And then he started, hesitantly at first, to open up about his travels. I listened, slightly envious, and saw the glee in his bright eyes. I also spotted gaps in his tale, the lack of personal information about family and friends, the lack of interest in his teaching job, and the haphazard approach to his artistic work.
