Cupid's Arrow (16 page)

There was such a mess in there. The table where Valerie Gomert had sat near the window was overturned. There were papers scattered everywhere. I recognised some of them – the sketches she'd been making for that new Bellerive tarot pack. But they weren't just scattered about. Someone had scribbled on them, attacking the faces with rough, violent charcoal strokes. And two of the paintings that had been on the wall were also lying on the floor. They too were scribbled on, ruined, the frames smashed. The destruction, the malice, the cold fury of it, I can hardly, properly describe, only that it scared me out of my wits.

For an instant, we were too stunned to react. Then Mum said, 'My God, what's happened here?' and I ran from the room into the others, calling out to Remy, sure something terrible had happened, that Valerie had flipped completely and ...

But there was no-one in either of the bedrooms, the laundry, or the back garden. I raced out of the gate, yelling, Remy, Remy, where are you? Where are you? Mum came puffing after me, calling Valerie. No-one answered. Noone came running. At last Mum said, 'Look, Fleur, there's no-one here. We'll have to go back.'

'No.' The lump in my throat was like a cold stone, the feeling in my chest like a band of iron. 'I've got to find him. I know something happened. I
know
it, Mum.'

It was then I saw it. Something white, fluttering on a bush a short distance from the back gate of the house. I ran over to look at it. It was a piece of cloth. Thin, flimsy white cloth, like that stuff those embroidered Indian shirts you find in hippie shops are made of. There was a small stain on it. A small brown stain. I pulled it off the bush and as I did so I had the strangest sensation. My head suddenly started spinning so that I thought I would fall and my ears suddenly filled with sound, with a roaring and a thumping and it scared me so much that I dropped the cloth as though it had burned my fingers.

Mum came running up. She picked up the piece of cloth where it had fluttered down and she looked at it, and at the brown stain. She said, 'I'm calling the police,' and produced the Blackberry from her pocket. I remember thinking, numbly, so she
did
bring it after all, she
did
expect trouble, but then she stopped dialling and stared down the woodland path, which began a little distance away from us, and she said, in a weird tone of voice I had never heard her use before, 'Stay there, Fleur. And don't move.'

I couldn't have moved. I was shaking too much. Mum walked away from me, down the path, and then quite suddenly I saw her take a step off the path. I heard her gasp. I saw her bend down, and I saw the uncontrollable movement she made, and I began to run. The breath whistled in my throat, the branches whipped past me, the bushes clawing at me, my heart had taken over my body, terror greater than I had thought possible propelling me to where Mum knelt in the undergrowth, her shoulders stiff with shock.

And there was the body, half-hidden under leaves just off the side of the path. It was lying on its front, arms flung to either side, as if pleading. You couldn't see the face, but the pony-tailed hair was matted with dried blood, which had soaked into the top of the loose white shirt. The feet were bare, dirty and scratched, the hands clawing at the earth.

All this I saw in the blink of an eye. All this and one thing more: for there was an arrow firmly embedded in the base of the neck, just where it meets the spine. You didn't need to bend down and touch the body, feel how cold it was, you didn't need to have any medical knowledge of any sort, to know that it was far too late, that there was nothing we could do, and that Valerie Gomert was quite, quite dead.

Everything's a bit of a blur straight after that. I know Mum made calls – to
Bellerive Manor,
to the police, to the ambulance – and I remember standing there like a statue of ice, unable to drag my eyes away from Valerie Gomert's body, till Mum gently took my arm and led me away, back to the house. She made me sit outside while she went and got me a glass of water from inside but I couldn't just sit there, all I could think of was Valerie lying there dead and Remy nowhere to be found, the bow missing from its place on the kitchen wall and the arrows gone too, except for that one ... I saw the faces of the Bellerive Tarot scribbled over and Valerie's own face scribbled over too, but with blood, and I could feel my gorge rising.

I was sick. My insides turning inside out and upside down, a burning pain under my ribs where my heart used to be and a roaring in my ears which wouldn't stop. When I was spent and couldn't throw up anymore, Mum put her arm around me and helped me up. She wiped my mouth gently with a tissue and gave me some water to drink, and then she held me, just held me, and didn't say anything. Nothing like it's going to be all right, or don't worry, or stupid things like that. It's funny, I always thought it was Mum who lived in a dream world and if any crisis came I would be the one who'd have to cope, but it just shows how wrong you can be, how stupid and naive. Actually, I was weak and useless and hopeless, just staring and shaking and spewing, and nothing in any of the crime novels I'd read or the crime shows I'd seen had prepared me for what it was like, what it was
really
like, to see a dead body, to see violent death up close.

'Remy,' I said, at last. My voice was hoarse, croaky, my throat stung. 'Remy. You've got to find him. Whoever's done this ... Mum, he's in danger too. They'll be after him too. They –'

'Oh, Fleur,' said Mum, and there was such pity in her voice that it frightened me.

I pushed away from her and said, 'Why are you looking like that? Why is your voice like that? You have to find Remy.'

'I know,' she said, and her voice was very sad.

'He's hiding,' I said. 'He's been running. He's so scared.' In my mind I could see him, running, running through the woods like a deer with a merciless hunter on his trail. I could see him crashing through the woods, the branches whipping at him, the brambles tearing at his bare feet, the breath pounding in his chest. Running for his life. It was so vivid, that picture, so vivid, and yet it was like the one in my dream, and my head started spinning again, my ears roaring. I said, 'I think he has gone to the Lady's House,' and suddenly my head filled up with darkness and I felt myself falling. Mum caught me just before I fainted.

I came to a little while later and there were Oscar and Christine, who'd run all the way from the manor after they'd got Mum's phone call. Wayne and Laurie had apparently been out, in Avallon or somewhere. They talked in whispers to Mum and I couldn't hear most of what they were saying, but I thought they looked pityingly at me too. Then the Avallon police and the paramedics came. The police – two detectives and a pathologist – came in on motorbikes but the paramedics had had to leave their ambulance parked on the other side of the woods and bring their stretcher on foot. It was shorter in that way than through Bellerive but they were quite clearly displeased that someone should have had the lack of consideration to live – or die – so far from a bitumen road. Anyway, they didn't have much to do; their skills were for the living, not the dead. They gave me a sedative of some sort and wanted to give Mum one but she said she didn't need it, and there was a bit of a tussle about whether I should go to hospital and be treated for shock but in the end they decided I probably didn't need it.

I hardly listened to them, my attention was fixed away from the house, not on the path where poor Valerie lay, being examined by the police pathologist, but in the woods where I was sure Remy was hiding, in fear of his life from the killer who had so brutally struck down his mother. It was strange, I felt as though I could see him. Feel him. Hear his ragged breaths, the white-knuckled clench of his fists as he crouched in the darkness, waiting. Then I thought I actually heard him, his whisper:
Fleur, help me. Help me. Please.

'Yes, yes,' I said. 'Of course I'll help. Of course.' I felt rather than heard the silence that followed then as Mum and the paramedics broke off from their conversation to stare at me, and I realised I'd spoken aloud. Mum said, 'I think we should take you home,' and one of the para-medics said that in his opinion that was an excellent idea, but then one of the detectives came over to us and said that nobody was to go yet, they had to ask us some questions. Mum said that I was still in shock and that surely I shouldn't have to do that yet. The detective looked sympathetic but said she had to ask just one or two basic questions, then we could go home and they would interview us more fully later.

So Mum and I went inside and sat down while the detective asked us the usual things, you know, like when we'd arrived, and what we'd seen, and why we'd come. That took a bit of explaining and even as Mum talked, I could feel something growing in the air, something horrible and ghastly and I felt as though I was suffocating. I knew what she was thinking, what she thought had happened here, and it hurt so much, that she should think that, because I knew it couldn't be true. Couldn't be. No way. I knew him. I knew him. I just knew he could never ever ever do a thing like that, no matter what.

But the detective was nodding, and I knew she must be thinking it too. She asked me if I had ever seen Remy with a bow and arrow, and when I didn't answer, repeated the question with a knowing look in her eyes, so that I just yelled out, in English, 'It's not him! It's not him! Can't you see! Someone else was here. Someone else. They must have come after the dream book. They must have done!'

The detective stared at me as though I'd gone barmy and she said, very gently, in very shaky English, 'What do you say?'

Mum broke in before I could answer. 'She is in shock. She needs rest. Can't you ask these questions later?'

'Very well,' said the detective, and snapped her notebook shut. 'We have what we need for the moment, anyway. We will contact you when we need you again. Tomorrow, perhaps.'

Mum nodded. 'Officer – the boy – will you –'

'Do not worry, Madame. My superior has already called in a search for him.'

My mother gave me a sideways look. 'The place my daughter said?'

'We know it, Madame. Do not be concerned. We will find him.'

'And if you don't?'

'We will. You must not be alarmed.'

What were they talking about? I couldn't understand. Did they think that not only had Remy killed his mother, but that he'd go after me, too? I opened my mouth to tell them how crazy they were, how wicked and evil it was to even suggest such a thing, but instead of words, just screams came out, ragged, pitiful, barking, like the fox's scream, scratching at my throat, filling my insides with a pain like boiling oil. The paramedics came running then and this time they insisted that I had to go to hospital and Mum didn't even try to argue. They gave me a shot of something and made me lie down on the stretcher and carried me off through the woods, with Mum running along beside. It was the weirdest feeling, like deja vu, probably because I was so spaced-out by now, but I felt like this had happened before, to me, or someone I knew. Then just as I dropped off into unconsciousness, I knew what it was, Raymond's dream of the wounded king carried on a litter – a medieval stretcher, really – through the woods. And on that thought I fell into a darkness so deep that there were no dreams in it, no shadows, no images, nothing.

I woke, and it felt like it was the next day. I was in an unfamiliar place, and it took me a few seconds to understand I was in hospital, in one of those hard narrow beds. The sunlight was coming in through high windows and the walls were pale, and Mum was sitting by the bedside, looking drawn and anxious. She said, 'Fleur. Darling. Don't try to get up,' because I was trying to struggle up, out of the constriction of the tight hospital sheets. I wasn't wearing my own clothes, but some sort of paper nightie. Mum said, 'It's okay. Your clothes are just over there. You've been asleep a few hours. They thought you'd be more comfortable like that.'

'I want to get out of here,' I said. 'I'm fine now. I want to go back to Bellerive.'

'We're not going back there,' she said. 'I've organised for us to stay in a hotel here, in Avallon. We'll just stay here for a day or two, till I get that library packed up and ready to be shipped home. Then we'll go. To Paris, I think. What do you say?'

I stared at her, biting my lip. 'I want to go back to Bellerive.'

'No. We all think it's for the best.'

'Who's we?'

'The police. Oscar. Christine. Wayne.'

'Laurie too?' I could hear the bitterness in my voice. 'All the happy little vegemites agree!'

'Laurie's gone,' she said. 'Couldn't cope with all that stuff. But Christine and Oscar and Wayne have been marvellous. So kind and helpful.'

'Didn't you ask Nicolas too to join your jolly party?'

She flushed. 'What is the matter with you, Fleur? As a matter of fact, I haven't spoken to Nicolas.'

'You should. Ask him about the dream book. Ask him what Raymond told him. Ask him who would try to frame Remy.'

'Stop it, Fleur! I know you're upset, but this is ridiculous. This terrible tragedy has got nothing to do with your dream book or anything like that. It has to do with someone being provoked – someone probably very highly strung – who just snapped when –'

'No,
you
stop it,' I said fiercely. 'You don't know Remy. He's not like that at all. Not at all. He loves his mother. You should have seen him with her. He'd never ever do a thing like that, not in a thousand years, not in a million years. Why would he? Why?'

Mum said, after a silence, 'You saw how she was, when she came to see us. She must have laid down the law to him, told him he was forbidden to see you, and –'

'But she had told him that already when she came to see us! Don't you remember what she said? She said she'd told him, and that he'd obey because he always obeyed her. So why would he get angry about it much later?'

'People do, sometimes. They brood, and then they snap. You say you
know
him, Fleur, but you've only known him for barely two days. You don't know his history. Not really. You don't know how his relationship with his mother really was. Maybe she was always bossy. Dominating. Stopped him from doing what he wanted. Stopped him from seeing people, doing the things normal young people do. And this was the last straw.'

'Is that what the police think?' I snapped. 'Is that their stupid theory? Because it's rubbish. Just rubbish. He's not like that.'

'They've found the bow,' she said gently. 'And the other arrows. Near that place you said. The Lady's House.'

'Oh my God.'

'They're examining them now for fingerprints and other traces. If someone else really took that bow, Fleur, they'll soon know.'

'Good. You'll see.'

'Don't pin your hopes on it, love,' she said. 'Please don't.'

At that moment, a nurse came in to examine me and take my temperature. She said, 'You're looking better.'

'
I
feel
better. I want to go.'

'Doctor will see you soon. Then we'll see,' she said, with a little smile at Mum, and clicked briskly out.

When she'd gone out, I said, 'Mum, please. We don't really have to go and stay in Avallon, do we?'

'I'm afraid we do, Fleur.' Her tone was firm, but I tried again.

'But I'll be okay – and I promise I won't go anywhere. I won't try to find Remy or contact him or anything. Please, can we stay at Bellerive?' My mind was fluttering with panic, because if we left Bellerive and stayed in Avallon, how could I let Remy know where I was? If he was hiding somewhere, in fear of his life – of his mother's killer – then I was sure he would try to find me. He'd want me to help him. He'd come to the manor – at night – or somehow. But if we had gone and he didn't know where I was ...

'No,' said Mum. She hesitated, then went on, 'It's not just for your sake, Fleur, but for mine. I don't want to stay at Bellerive at night anymore. There's a disturbance in the atmosphere there. It makes me feel very uneasy. I'd prefer it if we were in a nice hotel, safe and ordinary and tucked up with TV. Okay?'

'Okay,' I said, swallowing. I'd thought of something. 'But Mum, if we have to leave Bellerive, can we just go back there today? I mean, just so I can get my things and maybe help you with the library, so it can go faster and we can get away more quickly?'

She looked at me, sharply, but I kept my face blankly sad. After an instant she said, 'Yes. That's a good idea, Fleur. The sooner we're away, the better. But you must promise me...'

A wave of relief went through me. I'd get a message to him somehow. Not at his house – he wouldn't go back there – but at our willow hideout, where we'd been happy. Well, it was maybe an outside chance, but I had to take it. I had to give
him
a chance, no matter what anyone else said. Lying through my teeth, I said, in an injured tone, 'I told you I wouldn't contact Remy. How can I, anyway? I don't know where he is. I just know he didn't do the thing you all think. I know that.'

She sighed. 'Okay, Fleur. Whatever you say.' She was about to say something else, when someone came in. It was the young woman detective, the one who'd interviewed us before. She said, 'I just came to see how you both were.'

'Good, thank you. My daughter is much better.'

'That's good. Madame Griffon, can I talk to you for a moment, in private?'

Mum looked quickly at me, then away. I could feel my heart beginning to race again. It took all my willpower not to react. 'Of course,' Mum said. 'Fleur, you will be all right?'

'Of course,' I said, but my scalp was prickling with cold.

They were gone for just a few minutes. I took the opportunity to get up and get dressed in my own clothes. When Mum came back into the room, she was alone. Her face was still, her eyes full of sadness. She went straight to me and put her arms around me. 'Fleur. Darling. I'm so sorry.'