‘See how you come to the right place for your information, Lord Powerscourt,’ he said. ‘I take a look at these papers here.’ He waved at a mountain of apparently unsorted material on the table next to his desk. Outside a police seagull perched cheekily on the window sill. ‘Now then . . .’ Captain Imperiali began a hunt through his documents. ‘My colleagues in the French police, when they come here, always they talk to us about the filing systems, the order, the routines of the police work. But we Corsicans do not like the filing systems, the routine, the order of the police work. I do not even think my countrymen like the police work very much either. Here it is! This is what you need.’
He pulled a large sheet of paper from the surrounding chaos. ‘When they come here to live, the foreigners, they have to register with the authorities. I think I have seen this family in Calvi sometimes. A mother and two daughters, one very pretty, perhaps you will like her, Lord Powerscourt. They are indeed called de Courcy. And they live in a big house called La Giocanda at the back of the main square in Aregno, the Aregno on the hill, not the one on the shore. Oh yes,’ Captain Imperiali leaned back in his chair and took another puff on his cheroot, ‘I think this young milady would certainly like me. Most of the foreign women fall for the charms of the Captain Imperiali!’
A wolfish look crossed his face. Powerscourt wondered if his ancestors had been pirates, carrying protesting maidens away in their marauding expeditions across the Mediterranean.
‘I am most grateful, Captain,’ said Powerscourt, trying to remain charming. ‘And what of the forger? Or paintings sent abroad from here?’
‘I do not know about any forgers operating in the Balagne, our part of Corsica,’ said the Captain. ‘We do not have,’ he began to laugh at his own witticism, ‘we do not have the registration forms for the forgers, you understand! Registration forms for forgers, that would excite the policemen from France, I am sure!’
Powerscourt laughed at the Captain’s little joke. He began thinking it was time to leave. Except for the canvases. Did the man know anything about the canvases?
He did. ‘Paintings being sent away?’ Imperiali said, the gaps between his teeth clearly visible again. ‘There are always paintings being sent away. This English family, I think, they have been sending old canvases with old paintings to London for some time. But what of it? The people in London must have something to hang on their walls. No great artist has yet come forward with the scenes from the life of Jack the Ripper, I think. They would be very popular here in Corsica.’
Two days later Powerscourt and Lady Lucy were trotting along the main road from Calvi to Ile Rousse. The turn-off, a track rather than a road, Powerscourt suspected, would be about half-way along. A card had been despatched to the de Courcy family in their hilltop mansion, saying that Lord and Lady Powerscourt were visiting the area and would like to consult Mrs de Courcy about the problems of living here as an expatriate. Their coachman, a short swarthy man who did not smile or speak, concentrated on steering his horses round the potholes in the road.
The day before Powerscourt had taken Lady Lucy on a pilgrimage. A couple of miles to the south of Calvi a long thin rocky promontory stretched out into the waters of the Mediterranean. The land was rough, the sea crashing in on all sides, adventurous seagulls flying low beneath the cliffs. ‘They call this place La Revellata, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, ‘I want you to imagine you are a British sailor about a hundred years ago. Britain is at war with revolutionary France. Corsica is a place of supreme strategic importance in the Mediterranean. Whoever controls it can control the sea lanes, the traffic, not just of men of war and ships of the line, but the ordinary produce of the neighbouring areas. No olive oil, no timber for export. So, the British need to capture the rocky outpost. They need to control Calvi.’
Powerscourt paused and waved at the vast expanse of grey sea stretching out to a distant horizon. ‘You are the captain of an English ship, Lucy. Your admiral tells you to make a landing on this patch of coast. And to bring some of the ships’ guns with you. Where would you bring them ashore?’
‘I don’t think I’d be very good as a sailor, Francis,’ said Lady Lucy. ‘My family have always suffered from seasickness. That’s why they all joined the army.’
‘Pretend you’re a good sailor, Lucy. Where would you land?’
‘There’s only one place where you could bring things ashore without being crushed to pieces on the rocks,’ Lady Lucy said sensibly, pointing to a tiny beach a hundred yards away. ‘There. On that little patch of sand.’
‘Very good, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, pulling her down towards the inlet. ‘So, maybe in the daytime, maybe in the dark when the Corsicans aren’t looking, you bring your men and your guns ashore. You haul the guns up this terrible slope – think how long that must have taken, the sailors pulling at the ropes, swearing viciously as they lost their foothold, sometimes perhaps the guns too heavy to move at all. You reach the top. You move them along the coast until they overlook the town of Calvi on that hill over there.’ Powerscourt pointed upwards to a rise in the ground which looked down at the citadel on the other side.
‘Come, Lucy,’ he said, a wave covering his boots as he stood on the tiny beach, ‘we must gain the rise over there. Maybe it was dark.’ Powerscourt was panting slightly now as he hastened up the track back the way they had come, holding firmly on to Lady Lucy’s hand, warm and soft to his touch. ‘Maybe the orders said the guns had to be in position by dawn. Somewhere over there,’ he pointed at a towering flotilla of mountains, staring imperturbably down on to their island, ‘somewhere behind the highest peak, you see streaks of faint green or blue. As the sun comes up the battery is in position, staring down at the unsuspecting inhabitants of Calvi, soon to huddle together inside their citadel. You fire two shots to tell the fleet out there in the bay,’ he pointed to an empty sea, ‘that you have arrived. The sailors build a tower so the signal midshipman can send his messages to the admiral. Then you start the bombardment.’
‘How long did it last?’ said Lady Lucy, suddenly deciding to sit down on a convenient lump of granite. Hot work pulling all those guns up the hill. Powerscourt was lying on the ground, inspecting the seagulls who whirled in the clouds above him.
‘It lasted four weeks. The English poured eleven thousand shot and three thousand shells down into the tiny town. But that’s not the important bit.’ He rose and pulled Lady Lucy to her feet.
‘You, as I said, are the captain in charge. One day you are bending to your work again, aligning the guns perhaps, or inspecting the mountings to see they haven’t fallen out of true. There is a terrible accident. You, the captain, are hit in the face by an explosion of stones. The surgeon, a man more used to sawing limbs off in the heat of battle than tending people’s faces, is summoned from the fleet. Grave doubts are expressed as to whether you will ever see again. You may be blind for life, that impossible person, a sightless sailor, doomed to eke out your days on half-pay in some forgotten village or begging for your daily bread on the streets of Portsmouth.’
‘So what happened, Francis?’ Lady Lucy looked concerned at the prospect of life as a blinded sea captain.
‘He only lost his right eye,’ said Powerscourt, smiling.
‘And who was this sea captain, Francis?’
‘I’ve always thought it remarkable that he was nearly put out of action here on the island of his greatest enemy,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Down there,’ he gestured vaguely to the south, ‘was Napoleon’s birthplace. Here Horatio Nelson, the man who stopped him invading England at Trafalgar, nearly lost his sight.’