The Orchid Shroud (8 page)

He turned the possibilities over in his head as Mara drove out of the sleeping village.

“You know,” he said eventually, “at bottom, everything about orchids boils down to sex. In fact, the ancient Greeks considered the orchid as a symbol of sexuality. The word
orchis
means—”

“Balls,” Mara cut in dryly.
“Orchis
means balls. Because orchid roots look like testicles. Géraud told me.”

“Oh.” They were now bumping down a gravel road, past farms where only occasional lights showed, or here or there the blue glow of a television in an unshuttered window. “Well, did he tell you that orchids are some of the most ingenious plants in the world when it comes to reproduction?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

“Then he missed the most important part.” Julian waved his hands enthusiastically. “They go to incredible lengths to attract pollinators. Some orchids put out a scent like rotting meat to lure a certain kind of fly. Others produce a fermented nectar that gets
visiting insects drunk in order to increase the chance of cross-pollination. Others have evolved physically to resemble the pollinators they want to attract. Take the Fly Orchid. Its labellum looks like a certain kind of female wasp, even down to the development of pseudo wings and eyes—” He broke off to glance at Mara. She drove, staring straight ahead. “The—er—male wasp tries to mate with it,” he finished lamely, “gets covered in pollen, and then goes off to try it on with another Fly Orchid, which it pollinates in the process.” It was hard to read her expression in the dark.

A minute later, Mara pulled up in front of his cottage. He reached across to stroke her cheek. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” he said, really meaning it. “Time with you.” She was unresponsive, and he found it necessary to explain, “Us alone. Coming in?”

She seemed to struggle out of a reflective mood. “Sorry, Julian. Not tonight.”

“Oh? Something wrong?”

If there was, she clearly didn’t want to go into it. “I’m just beat,” she said. “Rain check?”

“Okay. If that’s what you want.” He paused, then added, “I suppose I could do with an early night myself.” Stuffing down his disappointment, he tried at least for a lingering kiss.

She pecked him briefly. “I’ll call you.”

Julian stood with Bismuth at the roadside, watching her car disappear into the night, feeling stunned. Friday-night dinners at Chez Nous, weekends together, lovemaking, it was the rhythm that he measured his life against nowadays. He sensed that her leavetaking had been more cool than tired. Things had been running along so well. Now he wondered uneasily if Mara was going off him. His throat constricted with a feeling of dismay as the vision of a piece of elastic, suddenly gone limp, free-floated before his eyes.

F
or Mara, one of the things that was wrong was Baby Blue. The little corpse haunted the corners of her mind, demanding—what? Justice? Retribution? Truth? Because someone in the past had got away with murder. Later that night, she tried to spell out her feelings in an e-mail to her best friend, Patsy Reicher. Once resident in the Dordogne, now returned to her native New York, freckle-faced, gum-chewing Patsy was a psychoanalyst, erstwhile sculptor, and Mara’s personal touchstone.

That was the other thing that was wrong: Julian. His obsession with orchids.
Cypripedium incognitum
filled his vision, sucked up all his passion. It also made him shockingly callous. He didn’t seem to care that Baby Blue had once had a life, albeit short, that the child had struggled vainly to live against a stronger force intent on ending his existence.

There was also the fact that she was grappling with the realization that they had been stalled in the same routine for months.
Dinners at Chez Nous, weekend sex, no commitment. Mara felt that love affairs, like water, ought to have a natural flow. She wanted things to move on. Where their relationship was concerned, Julian seemed perfectly happy to turn in the eddy of indecision, going nowhere. Only
Cypripedium incognitum
galvanized him. To put it simply, she felt sidelined. It was silly and demeaning to be jealous of a flower, but Mara, who found herself unexpectedly drawn to this eccentric, earnest, single-minded man, was.

SATURDAY MORNING, 1 MAY

S
ergeant Laurent Naudet cared. He was a pleasant young man who took his job seriously. It bothered him that the case on Baby Blue, now that the cause of death had been determined, seemed headed for the inactive files. No one wanted to waste time, especially with a killer animal on the loose, investigating a crime going back god knew how many decades. He felt that the murdered child deserved better than that. The Sigoulane Valley was part of his beat, and so, even though he had no further business at the manor, he decided to return there on his own time, at least to have another look at the room where the dead baby had been found. What he was doing was strictly against the rules, but, he rationalized, so far everything having to do with the case ran counter to regulations.

At the moment, he was zipping along on the pride of his life, a classic Kawasaki KZ1 that he had bought five years ago as a wreck, therefore cheaply, but still for far more than he could afford. Bit by bit he had painstakingly restored it. All legs and arms, he crouched atop the bike, resembling a large, rapidly moving mantis. His black helmet and the dark wrap-around glasses he wore to keep the wind out of his eyes enhanced the image. His heart swelled with satisfaction as the retooled 900cc engine easily took the steep climb up Aurillac Ridge. Now he entered the long, tree-lined lane leading to the house.

He drew within sight of it just as a red BMW pulled in ahead of him into the graveled forecourt. Another car, a green Renault with a dog in it, was already parked there in the shade.

“Hé!”
An old man in dungarees came trotting around a corner of the house. He brandished a pitchfork at the BMW. The driver, a toothy man with slicked-back hair, put his head out the window. There were other people in the car. Laurent slowed and veered onto the verge of the lane. He pulled off his helmet but kept the bike idling, balanced between his legs.

“Filez!”
Didier yelled, stabbing at the air. “Get lost!”

The driver ignored the threat. “Say, old fellow, is it true they’ve uncovered a whole crypt of bodies in there?”

“You’re trespassing,” shouted Didier. “Fsst! Move it or I’ll call the cops.”

The driver laughed at the gardener’s ineffectual jabs.

“He said beat it.” A strapping lass with big arms and muddy knees appeared from another direction. She wore shorts, a tank top, and ankle boots and carried a bucket.

“Don’t get your knickers in a knot,” said the toothy driver. He swung his door open and got out. “I’ll give you twenty euros—Hey!” The contents of the bucket—a soggy mixture of coffee grounds, vegetable peelings, and fish bones—hit him in the face.

“Now shove off, you ghouls!” shouted Didier’s granddaughter, Stéphanie. She grabbed the pitchfork from her grandfather, who stood by cackling, and prodded the intruder with authority. “Unless you want to wear this up your backside.”

There was a moment of shouting and arm-waving before the driver stumbled back into his car. The BMW shot forward, swung around, and roared away down the lane, nearly clipping Laurent’s bike in passing.

“You, too!” Stéphanie yelled, striding toward him. “Push off.”

“I’m a cop.” Laurent switched off his engine, hung his helmet on a handlebar, and dug into his pants pocket. “Laurent Naudet, Sergeant.”

“You don’t look like one.” She barely glanced at his identification. “Anyway, he’s not seeing people.” The young woman was tall,
although still a good head shorter than he. Her fair skin was covered in a dusting of freckles, and she wore her maize-yellow hair in two short braids. Her legs were as stout as a rugby-player’s. Laurent admired the way her knees locked, showing the muscle definition of her thighs.

“I don’t need to bother him. Monsieur de Bonfond, that is. I just wanted to have another look at the room where the baby was found.”

Stéphanie wheeled around to her grandfather. “Says he’s a cop.”

“I
am
a cop,” Laurent insisted firmly. “I’m the one who came out on Wednesday.”

But she had walked away and was conferring with the old man. Laurent stamped down the bike’s
kick
and went after her.

“Okay.” She gave him an unfriendly head-to-toe with wary blue eyes. “I’ll take you up. But make it fast. Some of us have work to do.” She did not bother with the servants’ stairs but led him, almost at a jog, across the forecourt and up the steps to the big front entrance.

“What’s your name?” Laurent asked, following in her train.

“Stéphanie,” she said without turning around.

They crossed an echoing vestibule. Laurent had an impression of tall paneled doors and a large expanse of black and white tiles. He knew that a sharp cop would be soaking up every detail, checking for clues. Somehow, his vision remained glued to his guide’s solid posterior as it bobbed, roughly at eye level, up the grand stone staircase ahead of him.

Someone else was already up there. It was the woman he had questioned the other day, the one who had been hired to tear down the walls. She wore the same jeans and T-shirt (he didn’t know English, but he recognized the words “book” and “dog”) as on the day he had met her. Laurent experienced a momentary alarm, thinking that she and her men had resumed work. But she was
alone, standing in the middle of the litter of stones and broken plaster, gazing at the wrecked wall. She turned at their approach.

“Madame Dunn. What are you doing here?” Laurent addressed her severely. This was mainly to impress the girl in pigtails at his side, but he then ruined the impression by coming forward to shake Mara’s hand. His few years chasing criminals had not yet stripped him of his innate courtesy. He would have shaken hands with anyone he was not actually about to arrest.

Mara said, “Just looking. I didn’t touch anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Her eyes strayed thoughtfully to the wall, and then returned to him. “I was just trying to imagine how it must have been … for the baby …”

Laurent nodded, feeling an immediate sympathy. He was there for the same reason. Even Stéphanie looked sobered. The three of them gazed wordlessly at the dark cavity.

After a moment Laurent asked, “Why were you tearing it down?”

“What? Oh, you mean the wall.” Mara explained about the elevated gallery.

“Daft, silly idea if you ask me,” said Stéphanie. “Look, if you don’t mind—”

“Don’t go. I mean, not just yet.” The gendarme faced her with an earnest pleading. “It-it’s just that I might need to ask you a few questions.”

Stéphanie stayed but found it necessary to stare hard at her muddy boots.

Laurent went back to his study of the wall. “What I don’t understand is, why put the baby in there? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to bury it in the woods?”

“That’s a dumb question,” muttered Stéphanie. “Whoever it was wouldn’t have wanted to be seen carrying a dead baby through the house, would they?”

“If I needed to hide something in a hurry, breaking a hole in a stone wall wouldn’t be the first thing I’d try.”

She tossed her braids. “All you’d need is a crowbar.”

“Better a cold chisel,” said Mara, and went on to talk about drystone construction.

Laurent scratched his head, looking around him at the rubble-strewn space. “What would this room have been used for?”

Mara considered. It was a corner room, the end chamber of the central block of the manor. Its windows faced west, with a view of the forecourt, and north, looking out over a small orchard at the side of the house. She said, “I never saw it furnished, but it’s a big room, so it could have been put to a lot of uses over the years. At a guess I’d say a bedroom.”

“There was a bed in it,” Stéphanie confirmed. “With a canopy thing. I remember seeing it when I was a kid. And a great monster of an armoire.”