‘Can they trace him back to us?’ Harry asked at last.
‘They won’t even try. Italian police get so many of these they probably class it as natural death.’
George grimaced. Both men knew there had been nothing natural in the way their friend had died. The newspaper detailed it with weary dispassion: the burns and broken bones, the minor amputations, the scars that had had time to form before he finally died.
‘We have to assume he gave them Mirabeau. God knows I would have.’
George sipped his coffee and made a face. ‘This whole operation was a mistake. All we’ve done is put them on the scent. Saint-Lazare won’t stop now until he’s pulled that company inside out.’
‘He has to buy it first.’
‘We’ll fight him.’ George tipped a second packet of sugar into his coffee. ‘Drexler might help; perhaps Koenig. We’ll give it everything we can.’
‘So will they.’
They sat in silence for a moment. On the autobahn, a truck crested the pass and gathered speed as it began the descent towards the Italian border.
‘What about Ellie Stanton?’
Harry studied his fingernails. ‘Difficult. They’re working her hard. Evenings she mostly spends in her apartment. Doesn’t even walk to work.’
‘Has she told Blanchard about your encounter in Oxford?’
Harry shrugged. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘We need to get her on her own. Tell her more. If she could get into the vault for us …’
‘I thought we agreed we wouldn’t try that again,’ Harry said quietly. Perhaps George didn’t hear him.
‘Where is she now?’
In a bare room, a woman in a white strapless dress wandered among long, empty tables. The lights were dim and smoky: it must be late, or very early morning. She stroked her hand along the tables, as if the touch brought back memories. She looked lost.
Ellie settled into the plush velvet seat. Her new dress, bought that afternoon, was tight against her skin. Under the lights, the woman in white hesitated under the false proscenium, then stepped through onto the raked stage sloping towards the orchestra pit.
Afterwards, Ellie found she couldn’t recall the evening with any sort of precision. She had memories, vivid memories, but they were disordered, pages plucked from a book that couldn’t be reassembled. Hours in the warm womb of the theatre that passed like a dream, a woman in white and a man in black and a love so immense that only music could properly describe it. The cup meant to kill them that instead made them fall in love — or did he only fall in love because he thought he was dying? Drinking champagne in the glass hall where girls like her had once sold flowers; and, later, on the roof terrace, watching the tourists and the street artists far below while a full moon rose over London. Blanchard’s hand slipping over her seat-arm to rest on her thigh somewhere in the darkness of the second act, his touch hot through the thin silk of her dress. The lovers who surrendered themselves to night because they couldn’t bear the starkness of day, careless of the wounds they inflicted on those they loved less well. The faithful, unheeded friend: Take care, take care. Soon the night will pass. And always the music, more beautiful than she had ever imagined music could be. Circling, overlapping, rolling in like great ocean waves and breaking over her as if it would dash her to pieces.
She left the theatre in a daze. She felt limp, bruised by the music and yet desperate to hear more. She clung to Blanchard’s arm and he told her it was called Tristan-intoxication, that it was a well-known phenomenon of the opera. Part of her was glad to know it wasn’t just her; part of her resented it. The emotion was so strong she couldn’t bear to share it.
The Bentley was waiting for them on Floral Street, a faithful dog who always knew where to find its master. Blanchard held the door open for her.
‘Would you like to come back to my home? It is not far.’
Ellie’s world had shrunk again. All her choices, her past and her future, had reduced to this single point, a fulcrum. To move would tip the balance irrevocably. She could taste the champagne sweet on her tongue, smell the scent of her own perfume intoxicatingly strong. She looked at Blanchard for reassurance and saw only intent.
Take care, take care. Soon the night will pass.
The car drove down Shaftesbury Avenue, past theatregoers emerging from the shows with their souvenir T-shirts and shopping bags held over their heads against the rain. Down Piccadilly where wet crowds huddled in the bus shelters, and right into Mayfair, to the brightly lit arcade of Claridge’s hotel.
Ellie stiffened. For a moment, the spell flickered.
‘I thought you said we were going to your house.’
‘My home. This is where I live.’
Ellie didn’t question it. A doorman held an umbrella and escorted them to the lobby. She saw Blanchard slip something in his pocket and wondered if he did that every day. The lobby was golden and bright. A man in a white dinner jacket sat at a piano playing Cole Porter and Gershwin. The concierge nodded to Blanchard and smiled respectfully at Ellie. The lights from the crystal chandelier winked back from the chequerboard floor, polished like a mirror.
Stars of bliss shine smiling down.
Blanchard’s suite was on the third floor, a dimly lit world of heavy fabrics and elegantly outsize furniture. He took a bottle of champagne from the fridge and poured two glasses. The liquid was so cold it hurt. Ellie drained it in one gulp. There was nowhere in reach to put down the glass, so she let it fall on the carpeted floor. Blanchard stepped behind her to turn out the light; for a moment she felt the giddy illusion of being alone in unbounded space.
Blanchard’s hands, surprisingly gentle, slid the straps of her dress off her shoulders. It slithered to the floor. He leaned around and kissed her throat, while his hands traced out her silhouette: her thighs, her hips, her taut stomach and her breasts.
Ellie sank onto the bed. Darkness enfolded them.
XVI
October brings rain. Rain chews up the roads, rusts iron, spoils fodder. You can’t build a campfire with wet wood, or a siege engine. There will be no more wars this year, and no more wars means no more knights. It will be a long winter of regret and resentment, listening to water drip through the roof and trying to keep our quarrels from spilling into violence.
All the squires feel the disappointment, but I think I feel it worse than others. I’m tired of waiting. Waiting for my spurs, waiting for my revenge, waiting for Ada. The hope that flowered in the summer has withered. Now I stand behind my lord Guy at the table and scowl. I still contrive excuses to bump into Ada in the courtyard or the corridors — I can’t help myself — but when I see her I’m curt to the point of rudeness. I always regret it afterwards. Worse, it doesn’t seem to bother her.
One day, I’m passing by the door to Guy’s chamber when I hear Ada’s voice. I pause, lurking in the impenetrable winter shadows. To my surprise, I hear my own name spoken.
‘Don’t leave me with Peter. If I have to be chaperoned, let Jocelin do it.’