A Void (31 page)

I found out thus that Amaury's son, sailing from Harwich on

board a catamaran flying an Irish flag, plying along Istanbul's

Adriatic coast, had cast anchor off Naxos, and finally off Paros,

on which island it was his aim to stay all autumn, passing his

nights on board, going into Paros by day and roving around.

About six nights ago, in his usual fashion, Yvon thought to pop

into a dingy local bar, a honky-tonk saloon for dockhands and

sailors. Its barman, a man known only as Cock, got his kicks

from watching his patrons slip into a coma, giving a gut-rotting

glass of hooch to a sailor who was asking for a raki, a glass of

bathtub gin to a dockhand who thought it was hock, and not

plonking down a Chianti without first lacing it with a soporific

drug.

Almost as soon as Yvon sat down, a unknown man was stand-

ing in front of him, daring him to play backgammon for his

catamaran.

"If you want," said Yvon, "but not backgammon."

"All right," said his companion, "what do you want to play?"

Proposing, in turn, pontoon, blackjack, Tarot, gin rummy,

canasta, pairs, brag and old maid, Yvon finally took him up on

a round or two of zanzi, a quaint local variation on crap shooting.

An initial roll had him throwing a four against a King.

"Okay," said his antagonist, grimacing, "you won that round."

"I did?" said Yvon, dumbstruck. "But I had a four whilst you

had a King!"

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'That's right. . . But don't you know our local saying? A King

first round is out of bounds."

"I'm sorry," said Yvon calmly but firmly, "nothing doing. That

was yours or it's all off!"

"As you wish, it's your hard luck," said this curious individual

with a harsh, rasping laugh, whilst picking up, touching,

stroking, kissing, clicking, blowing on, rattling and finally

rolling his craps - coming up on this occasion with a trio of

Kings!

"Confound it!" said Yvon out loud but thinking inwardly: This

guy's obviously a bit of a con man, but his is a trick that two can

play!

So, in his turn, stroking, kissing, rattling and so on, Yvon also

cast a trio of Kings!

"Rampot!" (which is what you cry at a draw in zanzi).

Not a man in that room but that didn't approach to watch

what was going on.

"Shunt!" said Yvon's antagonist, an ugly rictus disfiguring his

lips. "It's a rampot. How do you want to play it? On points? On

pairs? On all-for-nothing?"

"On all-for-nothing," said Yvon coldly.

An icy, spooky, malignant aura was wafting about him and

causing a chill to run up and down his back.

Nobody is drinking now! Nobody is saying a word! Not a pin

drops!

As though unconscious of having brought all activity to a

standstill, Yvon lit up a cigar with his usual sang-froid, drank

down his glass of aquavit and said, "It's your go, I think."

Inhaling profoundly, his antagonist slowly, warily, shook his

craps in his fist and, again producing a King, said with a loud

guffaw, "Okay, laughing boy, match that if you can."

Yvon, whistling nonchalandy, cast his any old how, but Lady

Luck was smiling on him and also brought him a King.

"A draw." This said by Yvon calmly and softly.

"A draw?!! No way! It's a rampot! You and I gotta rampot!"

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"Oh, fuck off, will you," said Yvon, "that's it for now!"

But, a blind fury consuming him, Yvon's antagonist caught

him by his throat and, pulling out a Spanish poniard, stuck it up

to its hilt into his stomach, causing Yvon, who fought against it

but in vain, instandy to succumb!

"Awful as it is," says Squaw, "to think of so charming a young

man dying in that fashion, I must.. ."

Swann butts in. "Yvon? A charming young man? A thorough-

going rascal, I'd say!"

"Okay, Aloysius, just as you wish," says Squaw. "But what I

want to know is why Amaury has to fall victim along with his

son?"

"You'll soon find out," says Swann, "for it's a most important

point in this affair, a point on which, although I'm not totally

ignorant, my grasp is still, alas, much too patchy, with too many

missing links. Now, though, what if you and I and Ottavio go

and find out what Amaury's up to?"

Abandoning poor old Savorgnan to his forty (or fifty or sixty)

winks, Swann, Ottavio and Squaw start going through Azincourt

with a toothcomb. But on no cot, no bunk, no divan, no sofa and

no armchair is Amaury found, living or not. As for Augustus's

imposing baldaquin, which Squaw had put at his disposal, it

looks as trim and tidy as if nobody had got into it that night. In

fact, it's almost as if Amaury hadn't put a foot in Azincourt at

all.

But what Squaw finds, on a partition wall of a boxroom adjoin-

ing that studio that Amaury was put into four nights ago to rally

from his alcoholic stupor, is a whitish Bristol board stuck up with

four tintacks - a board displaying 25 or 26 portrait photographs,

photographs most probably cut out of a tabloid journal, a
Paris-

Jour
or a
Daily Mirror
or a
Historia
or a
Tit-Bits.

Coming out of this boxroom, Squaw instandy calls to Swann,

who is busily rummaging through a cupboard.

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"Just look at this, Aloysius! 25 or possibly 26 photos which

might put a hint or two our way!"

Always on duty, always, so to say, at his post, Swann joins

Squaw to study this intriguing board.

"Hmm. But, say, Squaw, how do you know Amaury put this

up?"

"Nobody but Amaury had any opportunity of doing so,"

affirms Squaw. "Four days ago I had to find accommodation at

Azincourt for Amaury and Arthur, with both of whom Olga was

avid to discuss our affairs, and I brought four pillows from this

room, four matching pillowslips, two quilts, a handful of wash-

cloths, that sort of thing. But I must say - and you know I'm

not a liar - I saw no board, no photographs, on this partition."

"I could," says Swann thoughtfully, "point to a host of indi-

viduals in this display whom I know to look at, but I'm struck

by four - no, six - with whom I'm totally unfamiliar, and this

guy in particular I want to find out about."

So saying, Swann points at a portrait of a skinny man with

long, curly, slightiy wispy hair, thick hairy brows, a dark, bushy

chin and an ugly, narrow gash scarring his lips. Sporting a woolly

cardigan with four buttons on top of an Oxford smock without

a collar, our man has a faindy folksy look about him, calling to

mind a
zingaro
or a gypsy, a carny or a Mongol, but also (switch-

ing to a wholly distinct mythology and iconography) a hippy

strumming his guitar in a barroom in Haight-Ashbury or at Big

Sur or in Katmandu.

Swann calls out to Ottaviani, who's nosing about at random

not far off. It's said, among cops, that Ottaviani, a bit of a robot

but unfailingly loyal and hardworking, could fix in his brain for

good any individual crossing his path.

"Ottavio," says Swann, jabbing at his snapshot with his thumb.

"This put you in mind of anybody you know?"

"No, sir!" says Ottaviani instandy and unambiguously. "Any-

way, it looks as if it was shot long ago."

"Hmm, that's a point," Swann admits. "I'm going back down

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to ask Arthur, as I'm obviously drawing a blank with you and

Squaw."

Swann quickly rips off Amaury's photo, which was stuck on

with a tack, and, following Squaw, with Ottaviani in tow, taps

on Savorgnan's door, looks in without making a sound, confirms

that his chum is still snoring away and murmurs:

"Shhh! Our Arthur's dozing so soundly I don't want to knock

him up. Actually, I fancy a mug of cocoa and possibly a fruit or

-1 don't know - bacon on toast? Can you do that for us, Squaw,

for our work's cut out for us tonight?"

So Squaw brings in two mugs of hot cocoa which Swann and

Ottaviani soon gulp down with lots of noisy lip-smacking. Swann

dunks almost half of a crusty, oblong loaf into his mug, whilst

Ottaviani puts a thick coating of apricot jam on his croissant.

Night is gradually fading at last. A cloudy, misty day is dawn-

ing, giving Azincourt's dining room a dispiritingly wan and pallid

look. It stinks of cold tobacco.

"Good God!" says Ottaviani in disgust. 'This room is suffo-

cating!"

"What you want," says Squaw, unlocking a window, "is a

lungful of cold air."

Swann and Ottaviani start, caught in a gust of sharp if invigor-

ating morning air. Savorgnan, for his part, abrupdy waking up

and rubbing his palms with a loud "Brrrr . . .", jumps up off his

divan, puffy, groggy, his hair all tously, his clothing in disarray,

his look still as haggard as it was, and groans, "What? It isn't

morning, is it?"

Although sniffing hungrily at Swann's mug of cocoa, Savorg-

nan insists first of all on having his morning bath. So Squaw

shows him to Augustus's own sumptuous, marbly bathroom,

from which Savorgnan almost instantly struts out again, grin-

ning, having had his bath and put on a crisp pair of slacks, a

stylish polo shirt and a playboy's polka-dot scarf.

Swann instandy, and anxiously, confronts him.

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"What do you know about Amaury?"

"Amaury Conson,' says Savorgnan blundy, drawing his hand

across his chin, "is kaput."

2 2 0

21

In which you will find an old family custom obliging

a brainy youth to finish his
Gradus ad Parnassum

with six killings

"Amaury Conson is kaput," says Savorgnan again. "If you want

to find his body, it's in a stockroom, floating in a gigantic basin

of oil."

"You saw him?" asks Swann.

"No - thanks to that damn short-circuit. But what I was con-

scious of was his dying cry - a long-drawn-out cry that'll haunt

my mind till my own dying day, particularly as it was blown up

by acoustics that would amplify a dropping pin into practically

atomic proportions - right up to a final splash. At that point I

had no doubt at all as to his lot!"

"But how? Or, should I say, why did Amaury fall? You didn't

push him, did you?"

"Oh, I was willing to if I had to," admits Savorgnan, vainly

trying to mask his pain, "but, jumping at my throat, Amaury

found his foot skidding, swung back and forth for an instant and

finally lost his foothold. I saw him falling right in. It was as

though I was actually watching gravity at work!"

"But why would Amaury think of attacking you?"

Savorgnan sighs but, almost as though sulking, as though at

a loss for words, says nothing to this.

Swann now pulls out his photograph and, holding it up in

front of Savorgnan, says to him, with an intimidating scowl,

"This is why, isn't it? It was this photo that brought him to such

a pass! You got him to look at it, didn't you?"

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No (says Savorgnan), it was totally fortuitous that Amaury

found it, in a cupboard in my room. This is how it was. Last

night Amaury took a turn around Azincourt but, in doing so,

got lost, finally making his way back indoors by about midnight.

Squaw didn't stay up for him and nor did I. It was pitch-black.

Amaury, his brow throbbing madly, lay down on a sofa, possibly

nodding off but almost instantly jumping up again, suffocating,

panicking without knowing why, and in pain, in ghastly pain,

thinking wild, crazy, paranoid thoughts about individuals trying

to kill him, lacing his drink with poison, thinking, too, that I

had a flask of Homatropini hydrobromidum in my room that

might pick him up and pull him through. So Amaury, going

upstairs without waking anybody, bursting into that boxroom

that, as you know, adjoins my room and rummaging through it,

found this photograph and, as if throwing off his pain, and giving

out an agonising cry, roaring, "That photograph!", caught my

throat in his two clammy hands.

At that point Amaury quickly took off again, mumbling and

grumbling inaudibly, to his own room; but, still running, was