Dry Bones (20 page)

Enzo shook his head. ‘There was still flesh on Gaillard’s bones when they hid them. They would have been rather obvious behind glass. And I think someone might have noticed the smell.’

Raffin wrinkled his nose in distaste and turned away. He looked along the length of the nave to the organ pipes rising to the ceiling at the far end. ‘Not easy to hide body bits anywhere in here,’ he said.

Enzo found himself in reluctant agreement. He was not sure what he had expected to find. He had been hoping that something obvious would suggest itself, just as the shell fountain had done in Toulouse. But the naked whitewashed walls, the stark wood panelling, the statues of saints, the paintings of biblical scenes, and the cold, stone floor did nothing to excite the imagination. He walked to the back of the church and inspected a marble memorial to the dead of two wars. Enzo gazed at the names of dead men and wondered if they had any relevance. But somehow he felt that the trail had just gone cold. He glanced back along the length of the church to the stone altar, with its pillars and cross and praying angels, and had no confidence that there was anything of relevance here.

Quite unexpectedly, the church was filled with the sudden, eerie sound of soprano voices echoing back from ancient stone walls. A stereo system on a timer, hidden speakers. The effect was almost chilling, and Enzo felt all the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He also felt depression descend on him like a cloud. He had raised his expectations to a level which made it hard, now, to accept failure. But he had no idea what he was looking for, or where to turn when he couldn’t find it.

Charlotte was sitting among the pews, still going through her leaflets. She looked up and turned to see where Enzo was. Her voice rose boldly above those of the soprano choir. ‘One of the clues was a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon, right?’ Enzo nodded. ‘Well, suppose they didn’t actually hide the body here, in Hautvillers, but in the
caves
of Moët et Chandon? Down below Épernay, where the 1990 vintage is stored.’

Raffin turned towards Enzo. ‘That’s possible, isn’t it?’

Enzo was less certain. The clues had led to Hautvillers, not Épernay. But he had no alternative suggestion. He shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

III.

Brick tunnels with arched roofs led off into a fog of humid air clouding around electric lights. ‘The temperature in the
caves
remains constant all year round,’ the girl was saying. ‘Between ten and twelve degrees. Humidity is a constant seventy-five to eighty percent.’

Enzo felt the chill seeping deep into his bones after the heat of the morning sun. Thousands upon thousands of dark green bottles, laid on their sides between rows of wooden slats, lined the walls as far as he could see. A-framed racks called
pupitres
held yet more bottles, at angles that kept them neck down.

‘The bottles in the
pupitres
are turned just a little every day by expert
remuers
,’ the guide said. ‘This is to encourage the remaining sediment to gather in the necks, which are then rapidly frozen. The sediment is trapped in the ice, and when the bottles are reopened, natural pressure expels the ice and the sediment with it. Which is when the winemaker completes the process. A small quantity of
liqueur d’expédition
, composed of sugar and some wines from the company’s reserves, is added before the bottles are finally corked and wired.’

The official tour of the
caves
of Moët et Chandon had seemed like the easiest way to check out Charlotte’s suggestion, and so they had joined a tour group of more than twenty, and followed a guide through the tunnels immediately below the company’s headquarters in the Avenue de Champagne.

Enzo was learning things he had not known about champagne. That it was a blend of three grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. That two of those grapes were red, and must be pressed very gently in order not to transfer colour from the skin to the juice. That the vines of Champagne were the most northerly in France, and were constantly pruned to ensure that the sun got to the grapes. That the chalk soil, which so characterised the bleached, white landscape, retained the warmth of the sun, as well as the rain, which it released gradually to regulate the growth of the vines.

They had stopped, now, in front of a deep recess set into the tunnel wall. Racks of champagne bottles disappeared into the shimmering darkness beyond. The girl continued with her mechanical commentary. ‘Notice the plaque, with its six digit code which identifies what year and brand of champagne is stored here. These are secret codes, known only to the cellar master. They are constantly changing as the champagnes move through the processes of
fermentation, remuage, dégorgement, dosage,
et cetera.’

Enzo interrupted her. ‘So if you knew what these codes were, you would be able to identify where a champagne from any given year was stored?’

The guide seemed irritated by the interruption to her well-practised flow. ‘In theory. But as I just told you, the codes change as the wines move.’

‘Which they do all the time?’ Charlotte asked.

‘Space in the
caves
is at a premium,’ the girl said. ‘Bottles are moved on, and eventually out, displaced by each new harvest.’

Raffin said, ‘So the Dom Perignon 1990, for example, wouldn’t be stored in the same place as it was ten years ago?’

‘Absolutely not. In fact, I’m not sure how many bottles of that particular vintage we have left. But even if I knew the cellar master’s codes from ten years ago, I wouldn’t know where to find the 1990 today.’

They emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, the bubbles from the three free glasses of champagne they had received at the end of the tour still fizzing on their tongues. Charlotte spread her palms apologetically. ‘Sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ Body parts hidden behind or amongst bottles of the Dom Perignon 1990 would have been discovered years ago.

Fourteen grand villas, each one home to one of the prestigious
Maisons de Champagne,
marched up the hill to the top of the Avenue. Across the street, the Hotel de Ville stood in its own park behind a high stone wall. They crossed the road and wandered into the park, uncertain of what to do next. None of them had voiced it, but it was clear that each of them was convinced their trip was turning out to be little more than a wild goose chase. Enzo gazed despondently across a small, blue lake surrounded by willows. He felt personally responsible for their failure. And yet, there was no doubt in his mind that the clues had led him irrevocably to Dom Perignon and Hautvillers. Raffin was idly skimming stones across the surface of the lake, and Charlotte had wandered up uneven steps to a pavilion whose roof was supported on a circle of pillars.

‘We’ve got to go back,’ Enzo said.

Raffin turned to look at him. ‘Back where?’

‘Hautvillers. We must have missed something.’

‘What?’

‘Well, if I knew that, we wouldn’t have missed it.’ Enzo was annoyed with himself for getting irritated.

But Raffin just shrugged. ‘If you like.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘But I’ll have to be getting back to Paris soon.’

Enzo looked up and saw Charlotte watching them from between the pillars. She inclined her head and offered him the palest of smiles. ‘Let’s go.’

They drove in silence once more over the huge expanse of rusting railway junctions on the outskirts of town, abandoned rolling stock mutilated by vandals and left to rot. The waters of the Marne, on the far side, were a soupy chemical green. In a matter of minutes they were out among the vines, hills rising around them, Hautvillers cradled amid the trees and basking in sunshine. It was hard, now, to get parked, and by the time they got back to the abbey it was filled with tourists wandering the aisles, cameras flashing in the gloom.

‘I’m going to have a wander around the graveyard,’ Charlotte said, and she headed off through a small gate in the cemetery wall.

Enzo and Raffin walked again through the abbey looking at the same things they had looked at two hours before. Nothing had changed. Nothing new struck them. Enzo pulled down a folding seat below the wood panelling and sat down, gazing despondently along the length of the nave. Raffin stopped in front of him and lowered his voice. ‘I don’t like being lied to.’

Enzo looked at him, startled. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You and Charlotte.’

‘For God’s sake, man!’ Enzo’s raised voice turned heads in their direction. He lowered it again. ‘I thought it was over between you and Charlotte.’

Raffin’s jaw set. ‘It is.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

‘I asked you last night if there was anything going on between you….’

‘And I told you there wasn’t. Which was true. Then.’ Enzo looked away self-consciously. ‘Things change.’

‘Yes, so I heard.’

Enzo wondered if he meant that Charlotte had told him. Or that he had heard them, after all, making love the night before. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

Raffin looked at him hard for a very long time, and then let his eyes drift away towards the altar. ‘No,’ he said finally.

The church door creaked as it opened again and light flooded across the flags. Charlotte’s voice cut through the hush. ‘Enzo….’ They turned to see her framed in the doorway, and she waved an urgent hand towards them. ‘There’s something you should see.’

They left the church and followed her quick footsteps into the graveyard, and she took them along a narrow path between rows of tombs, to a vault like a miniature temple. It was weathered and streaked with black, and a sad bunch of wilting flowers was placed at its door. The earliest inscriptions had been eroded by time and were almost unreadable. But the most recent was sharp and clear. Dated October, 1999, it was dedicated to the beloved memory of Hugues d’Hautvillers and his wife, Simone, who died together on October 26th that year in a car accident on the road between Épernay and Reims.

Enzo stared at it in disbelief. Hugues d’Hautvillers. So perhaps the clues had been leading, not to the place, but to the person.

‘It’s a very old family vault,’ Charlotte said. She knelt down to touch the dying flowers. ‘But there’s still someone around who cares.’

***

There was a bell push set in the wall beside the gate to the priest’s house. A sign read,
Sonnez et entrez
. Enzo did as bid, and they heard a bell sounding some way off beyond the wall. He pushed one half of the white gate and it opened on to an overgrown path between two lawns, leading to a small house almost adjoining the front end of the nave. The door opened before they reached it, and the
curé
looked at them with mild irritation. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I wonder what can you tell us about the d’Hautvillers family vault in the graveyard?’ Enzo said.

The
curé
seemed surprised. Apparently it was not a question he was asked very often. ‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s the family vault of the d’Hautvillers. They’ve lived at Château Hautvillers for centuries.’

‘Hugues d’Hautvillers died in a car crash in 1999, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he have any heirs?’

‘His son still lives at the château.’

‘What’s
his
name?’ Raffin asked.

‘The eldest son of the family has been called Hugues since the days of the Knights Templar, and probably before.’

‘So there’s an Hugues d’Hautvillers living at the château now?’ Enzo said.

The
curé
was running out of patience. ‘I think that’s what I just said.’

‘How do we get there?’ Charlotte asked.

IV.

Château Hautvillers was less than three kilometers away in the next valley, rebuilt in the seventeenth century from the remains of a mediaeval fortress. An odd hybrid of French country manor and fortified
château
, it stood foresquare at the end of a long drive flanked by lime trees, and was surrounded by a deep, wide moat. Well-kept parkland rose up behind it to the treeline, and a fountain sparkled and frothed in the centre of a cobbled courtyard in front of the house. Horses snorted and snuffled and stamped in stables along the west wing of the courtyard. A group of working farm buildings huddled along the east bank of the moat. As Enzo turned his car into the drive, they saw the blue-flashing lights of several police vehicles on the far side of the stone bridge. A white ambulance stood in the courtyard, backed up to the main entrance. Its rear doors were open. A group of people stood at the near side of the bridge watching the proceedings in silence. Staff from the
château
, and farm workers, and a couple of
gendarmes
. They all turned at the sound of the arriving vehicle.

Enzo swung his car off the drive just before the bridge and parked under the trees. One of the group detached himself and approached as they stepped out on to the grass. He was a man in his late sixties or early seventies, with silver hair short-cropped around a polished bald pate. He had the demeanour of a
ma
î
tre d’hôtel
, and wore a dark suit with polished black shoes. ‘Can I help you?’

‘What’s going on?’ Charlotte said.

‘There’s been a suicide, madame.’

‘Oh, my God. Who?’

‘I’m afraid it was young Hugues d’Hautvillers.’

‘Suicide?’ Enzo could hardly believe it.

‘Yes, Monsieur. He hanged himself in the
grande salle
. Did you know him?’

Raffin said quickly, ‘We came from Paris to see him.’

‘Oh, I see. Were you friends? At ENA together, perhaps?’

‘That’s right.’

Enzo marvelled at the way Raffin could lie so easily.

‘Then, I’m terribly sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.’ The old man turned and glanced across the moat towards the
château
. ‘They’re just removing the body. Perhaps if you’d care to wait fifteen minutes or so, I can speak to you, then.’

‘Of course,’ Raffin said.

‘Why don’t you take a walk in the grounds?’ The old man nodded towards the gardens, evidently anxious not to swell the ranks of the
voyeurs
. He returned to the group, and Enzo, Raffin and Charlotte followed the moat to its south-west corner where a gate opened on to wooded parkland. A brown hen and a clutch of chicks went clucking away across the lawns ahead of them.