The Sea Garden (7 page)

“Will you be sure to tell him that I'm working back at the Oustaou des Palmiers, please? I'm going upstairs now to collect my bags.”

“I'll come with you.”

It was as if she was not trusted to be alone in any part of the house. Ellie wondered what on earth the old lady had told Jeanne.

Upstairs the lamp in her room was on—and lying sideways on the bedside table. Her small collection of cosmetics was strewn across the floor. Papers were scattered. Some of the larger drawings she had done were ripped to shreds.

“What on earth—what's happened here?”

Jeanne shook her head. “I have not been in here today. This is how you left it.”

“I absolutely did not,” said Ellie. For the second time that day her vision blurred and she felt faint. The bed was rumpled, as if it had been slept in. She knew she had made it that morning, remembered thinking that she must leave everything perfectly tidy to withstand any checking by Jeanne.

Her camera was on top of the chest of drawers, but switched on, draining power. She gave silent thanks that she had thought to take her laptop with its precious files with her into the garden that morning. There was no damage to the camera, but when she examined it there were no photographs left; they had all been deleted.

“Someone's done this,” she said to Jeanne. She turned to gauge the housekeeper's reaction, but she was no longer there.

Drip. Drip. Drip-drip
. It took longer than it should have for Ellie to hear it. The drips sounded as if they were coming from a lazy tap or shower. But the bathroom was down the corridor. She found her travel grip and went over to the wardrobe.

Inside, her clothes were soaking wet. They smelled of the sea.

Drip. Drip.

She surveyed the wreckage. Then with shaking hands she stuffed her things into the grip, wet clothes onto dry. She pulled open drawers and swept out anything that was hers. Luckily it was not much. She glanced round for anything she had missed, hoping irrationally to see her mobile.

The light hit the headboard of the bed at an odd angle. It was only then that she took in what the carved scene depicted. It was a version of the garden with the topiary arch, in which some pagan dance was taking place. A devil's horns, shaved to a point. The cut on her hand throbbed.

She lunged for the door. For a mad instant she half thought it might be locked, but the handle turned easily enough. She almost fell down the stairs with her bags. There would be no horse and trap waiting to take her back. No option but to wheel the cycle with the luggage, even if it meant slow progress.

On a table at the foot of the staircase an hourglass was running. The sand flowed smoothly from one clear bulb into the other. Who had set that, and why?

A door banged.

“Miss Brooke?”

Madame was leaning on Jeanne as she came into the hall from the sitting room.

Ellie felt a trickle of sweat run down the back of her neck. Her heart thudded.

“You can't leave,” said the old lady.

“I'm afraid I have to.”

“What will I tell Laurent?”

“I left messages for him. I will speak to him myself.”

“If you go now . . .”

If she went now, then what? It would be the end of the French restoration project? Quite probably. There would be no prestige and quite possibly some bad publicity. But she had the terrible feeling that this was the end of something more than just one garden job, over before it had properly started; that events were taking place out of her control, but she had no idea what they might be. She took several deep breaths. Was this how it felt when a nervous breakdown began? Was that what was happening? Stupid, she told herself, you're making it worse by letting these ridiculous thoughts take root.

“I will speak to your son, madame. But after this . . . I can't see that I will be able to work here.”

When she got back to England she would take a week off, maybe two. She could relax and let herself recover. It was the incident on the ferry, the forts and the military parade ground, the talk of war, and the memorial garden that had combined to bring on this nervous reaction, crisis, whatever it was, and revisit her grief over Dan more painfully than ever.

“I have to go.”

“If you do, it will ruin your career. I will say that you took our money and weren't capable of delivering.”

“I've been paid nothing yet.”

“Apart from your flight and a stay in a hotel. The hotel you had to leave and come here because we were worried about your extravagance, racking up huge bar bills and charging them to our account.”

“But that's not true!”

“Truth is the first casualty of war.”

Ellie shook her head in bewilderment. What was she on about now?

“Furthermore, you attacked me.”

“You know that I did not.”

“Who will the French authorities believe, though? That is the only aspect to concern us.”

“The room I stayed in last night was trashed when I went up just now. My clothes are dripping wet,” Ellie started, then faltered. What was the point? The woman was not well.

“How do I know you haven't done this yourself?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Are you saying there has been a break-in?”

“Well, perhaps there has. My phone has disappeared, but that went yesterday. But it would be a very strange burglar who decided to delete my photos but not take the camera and drench my clothes in seawater. . . . I don't know what kind of vicious game is being played here, but I want nothing to do with it. I've had enough of this craziness!”

Madame swayed, seeming to shrink into decrepitude as the tirade went on. Jeanne frowned and moved towards the old lady protectively. “We did not do this,” she said.

Ellie wrenched open the main door.

Of course the bicycle was not where she had left it. It was all so predictable that Ellie congratulated herself on guessing as much as she went down the steps. There was nothing to worry about—nothing at all. It was only a malicious game played at the command of a madwoman.

She could walk. The island was so small, no walk was too far. Without a glance back, she set off. The bag containing her laptop was heavy, and she had to stop frequently to change sides before trudging on. When she came out onto the main track she paused, half expecting to be stopped by a domaine worker in a vehicle. No one appeared. Then she began hoping that a vehicle would miraculously appear and offer her a lift, but that didn't happen either.

As she trudged towards the village, the tension in her shoulders and legs eased a little. To the left of the path, the sea formed strips of sequins. Farther out, it was the darkest blue she'd ever seen.

Much as she had been determined to swim in the Calanque de l'Indienne, it occurred to her that it might be unwise now. As soon as the thought occurred, however, she longed for cold water on her body, that delicious shock on immersion, to float, eyes closed against the sun. She was so close to the
calanque
.

Without further thought, she put down her bags and broke into a jog, slowing only to pick her way down over the rocks to the sea. It was steep, and loose stones made her slip more than once. She was alone. Standing on a flat rock half hidden by a pine, she stripped off down to her underwear and let herself into the water.

She floated on her back, barely moving. She was fine; everything was going to be all right. Beyond the wide inlet, sleek modern boats skimmed across the blue, trailing white ribbons of froth. Too fast, too soulless, she thought; this was a journey to be taken slowly, a transition to be savoured.

The sudden weight on her chest seemed to compress her whole body. She was being both pushed and pulled down. Banks of trees seemed to tower over her, blotting out the sky. At least, she thought they were trees. The shapes were pushing her down. She was underwater now; she could see clusters of bright darting fish, and the pressure in her head was building as the water became colder and bluer and deeper. She could not breathe. Deeper, into black water. Nothing more to see. All was black.

Her head seemed to explode. Then she was in the light again. Her teeth chattered. She was cold, and then hot. Gasping, she found she could stand. She was still in the shallows. Yet she had been drowning. It had been so vivid. What had just happened?

Ellie made it, terrified, to the rock. She hauled herself onto it and tried to slow her inhalations. Gradually a hot, heavy stillness settled over her, and she found the strength to drag herself out of the water.

She had to be rational. It was the only way she could get through this. Had she fainted? Was this anxiety, a kind of panic attack following on from the first time it happened, and worse a second time? Or was there another explanation—an infection caused by that nasty thorn scratch, reopened by the gash from the bedhead? A plant she had come into contact with, maybe . . . those hanging bells of datura in the entrance to the garden rooms were witches' weeds, cousins to deadly nightshade and henbane.

The logical progression of thought steadied her. Even so, it was a while before she picked up her bags and started walking again.

 

H
er watch said it was eight o'clock in the evening, but she was not sure how that could be possible. At the Oustaou des Palmiers, Jean-Luc looked surprised to see her, though she was sure she had told him she was coming back. There was a small room she could have. She would have taken a cupboard.

Up in a tiny bathroom in the eaves she looked in the mirror. A startled wreck stared back, dirt and charcoal smudged across her face and hands and pinched shadows under her eyes.

Kneeling by the bed, she switched on the laptop, praying for a strong Wi-Fi connection. A search, and the answers to some questions, at least, were there at her fingertips. Most parts of the datura were poisonous, and the seductive scent masked toxic hallucinogens. Confusion, delirium, and drowsiness were all symptoms of accidental poisoning. Coma, in the worst cases. Agitation and convulsions had also been reported. Muscle weakness. Memory loss.

Some sources claimed datura seeds had been used as a murder weapon, others that it was known in ancient times as a means by which whores might sedate then rob their clients, who would remember nothing.

Most of the cases discussed online concerned the plant's dubious use as a recreational drug. It was slightly worrying—but also made sense—that the trippy, lucid-dream states it induced could recur spontaneously over a period of several days.

Ellie sat back on her heels. It was certainly possible that she had come into contact with the datura in the garden. But she had not ingested the seeds, which accounted for most of the experiences requiring an antidote. She wondered whether she ought to ask Jean-Luc if there was a doctor she could see as a precaution, but actually, now that she was back in the safety of the hotel and in control again, she felt better. Whatever had occurred seemed to have passed. She drank four glasses of water in an attempt to flush out her system and curled up on the bed, desperate for sleep.

6

The Flight

Friday, June 7

I
t was a bad night. She woke constantly, feeling either nauseous or thirsty. The waking broke her thoughts into vivid dream fragments: on a low rocky promontory a tower melted on a crag; the ferry was waiting for her; crowds surged up from the quay, but she was searching for the boy in the T-shirt. She kept losing her bags. The man at the lighthouse was watching her, face still hidden. At last she was on the boat, then she was balancing on the rail over the sea, walking it like a tightrope. Falling through blue air, trying and failing to fly.

As early as she could, she called Sarah from the reception desk of the Oustaou des Palmiers. “It's not working out. I'm sorry. My flight home isn't until tomorrow evening, but I might go back to the mainland and stay in a cheap hotel in Hyères tonight—I'll see how I feel.”

In Sussex, Sarah was chewing breakfast, swallowing rapidly. “What's gone wrong?”

“I'll tell you everything when I get back. But don't waste any time on contacting the landscapers out here. Oh, and I've lost my mobile, so don't worry if I don't pick up.”

“Ugh, what a pain. Lost how?”

“It disappeared while I was at the client's place. Misplaced, stolen, taken as part of the game, I don't know.”

“The
game
?”

“Don't ask. I'll tell you when I get back.”

“Are you sure you're all right?”

Tears threatened to spill over. “Fine. Just . . . I just want out of this. It's not what we thought.”

“OK, well . . . I'll wait to hear from you. Call me when you get to Hyères, yes? And Ellie? It doesn't matter. It's only one job.”

“I know. But thanks.”

“Speak to you later.”

 

A
warm breeze ruffled the palm trees and drew soft clinking sounds from the sailboats in the marina. Just a few miles away from the Domaine de Fayols, the island seemed a different place, full of light and life, cause for cautious optimism. The previous day was a world away, farther than a few kilometres, longer ago than twenty-four hours. She was relieved to feel relatively normal, if tired and gritty-eyed, as she walked down towards the ferry office to look at the timetables for the crossing back to La Tour Fondue. Perhaps she had been right about the datura, and all that water had done the trick. With a pang of guilt she remembered the rented bicycle. On the way to the ferry she should go into the shop and tell the man that it had been left at the domaine. He could keep the deposit for his trouble.

On a quayside board the timetable showed crossings so frequent that the return trip would be no more complicated than catching a bus. She could turn up whenever she wanted. There was nothing more to worry about.

Signs advertised pleasure cruises, catamaran trips, and visits to the other islands. A row of similar ventures were in healthy competition. Several dive schools offered lessons in using scuba equipment. Pictures of sunken ships interlaced with shoals of subtropical fish were placed as bait by an open door for those who were already qualified to dive and could be enticed on a guided expedition.

“You want scuba dive?” called a student type with long hair and a manner in which flirtatiousness did battle with lassitude.

Ellie remembered something.

“Do you dive over the wrecks?”

“Certainly, yes. Many ships on the bed.” He managed to make it sound quite lascivious.

“What about the plane wreck?”

He pulled a puzzled face.

“Airplane?” she asked.

“No plane. Only ship.”

“Maybe someone else does that dive trip?”

“No. There is no plane in the sea.”

“Oh. OK . . .
merci
.”

“You make a dive to see some ship?”

“Another time, maybe.”

A fishing boat nosed into the harbour, and two men spread out their catches: spiny crab, sea urchins, prawns, and squid, as well as less exotic fish. It was surprisingly quiet, so close to the buzz of the village, the crowded marina with its pleasure craft and fishermen, the pastel stucco buildings with their bars and restaurants under red awnings. Porquerolles was an attractive place, no doubt about that. She wondered if she would ever return. Under different circumstances, it would be gorgeous. Now that the past few days at the Domaine de Fayols seemed a world away, she could be objective again. Frankly it was amazing that more approaches from prospective clients weren't a waste of time, wealthy, eccentric, unrealistic, and demanding as those who could afford her services often were.

She walked aimlessly, just for some gentle exercise to test her muscle strength. The path to the east rose up through spiny bushes—
griffes de sorcières
, witches' claws, as she now knew from one of Laurent's botanical dictionaries. A few hundred metres farther, pine trees were gnarled and blackened, as if they had been scorched by a forest fire but survived.

Not long now, and she would be off the island. She could leave anytime she wanted. The hills behind Le Lavandou on the mainland reared up in reassurance, so close that they seemed no farther than the opposite side of a lake. White sails skipped over the blue, and she watched them, thinking of the man in the billowing shirt, how sweetly serious he was at the café and how he had noticed and helped her when she felt unwell.

She walked on. Then, as if she had summoned him by the power of thought, there he was—or a figure that could easily be him—on the path ahead where it curved round a higher point in the direction of the Cap Medès. Or had seeing him sparked the thought, subconsciously? She began running, but when she emerged from a line of holm oaks, he was nowhere to be seen.

The disappointment she felt was entirely disproportionate. She tried to justify it; as a local there was so much he could explain: whether there had been any other news about Florian Creys, what his background was, and why he had slipped off the boat in front of them; the oddness of the de Fayols family and their domaine; what was wrong with Madame, and whether everyone on the island knew she was a lunatic.

If nothing else, she would have liked to run into him once more, anyhow, to say good-bye and thanks. Apart from Jean-Luc at the hotel, he was the only person who had shown her real kindness during the past few days. There had been something about him she found calming.

She skittered to a halt. What was she doing, chasing him like this? Had she lost her mind again? She turned round to start walking back to the Plage de la Courtade. A handful of earth trickled from above, as if the higher ground had been disturbed. She looked up but could see only trees. Her train of thought half forgotten, she turned back the way she came. Her shirt was damp and cold on her back.

 

H
ow is your work going on the garden?”

As she reached the harbour, there he was at her shoulder. His battered espadrilles had made not a sound on the concrete runway of the quay.

“Oh! It's you.” Close up she caught the aroma of old-style French tobacco. “The garden . . . it's not really happening now.”

“Problems?”

“You win some, you lose some.”

“I saw you over at one of the dive places.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going out on a dive?”

“I was just curious.”

He said nothing.

“I asked about the plane wreck, but they didn't know about it.”

“Not many people do.”

“I see . . .”

“It is there, even if most people don't know about it.”

She watched closely as he ran his hand up his right forearm. As the sleeve was pushed back, it revealed a contusion of red scars. “It was you on the ferry, the day the boy committed suicide, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

“There's a police lieutenant, Meunier, who wants to talk to you. They're still talking to everyone, trying to get an accurate picture of what happened. I've got his card somewhere.”

“Meunier? OK, no problem. I can find him.”

“Someone is saying the boy was pushed. Did you think he was pushed?”

“No.”

The sea shuddered in the wake of a passing boat, setting off a carillon of metal against mast in the marina.

“The trouble is, the more you try to remember exactly what you saw, the more you begin to doubt yourself.”

“First instincts are normally right.” He fidgeted with a heavy brass cigarette lighter he brought out of his pocket. “So what happened over at the Domaine de Fayols?”

“I'm not taking the job—I'm going home today.”

“Good.”

“Good? Why do you say that?”

“There is something I want to ask you. Will you walk with me?”

“I still don't know your name.”

“Gabriel.”

“I'm Ellie.”

 

S
lim tree trunks twisted like wrought-iron latticework, holding up clouds of acid green foliage against the sea and sky. From the coastal path, the hills on the mainland were soft purple-brown mounds.

“How exactly did you come to be involved with the Domaine de Fayols in the first place?” Gabriel asked, in a tone that implied she was out of her depth there.

“Laurent de Fayols sent me an e-mail. He'd heard about my work. We spoke on the phone a few times and arranged for me to come over to look at the garden. But then he went off to Paris, and Mme de Fayols informed me that she was the one who'd found out about my work and chosen our firm, yet she has done nothing but undermine me since I arrived. It has all been very strange—and to what purpose?”

“She has a certain reputation.”

“I am very glad to hear that.”

“She is crazy.”

Ellie laughed, and the tension in her shoulders began to release. “Certifiably . . . or was that just a figure of speech?”

He did not reply.

As the trees grew more densely, a brown weave of needles on the path deadened the sound of their footsteps.

“So the memorial garden at the Domaine de Fayols will have to wait to be restored,” he said.

“I'm sure they'll find someone else.”

“I hope so. It's important to preserve it. It's special, the way it brings together the land, the sea, and the sky—and the lighthouse.”

“I agree. The view of the lighthouse is integral to the garden.”

“You are very perceptive.”

“I went into the little museum there. I thought perhaps there might be a connection to the Domaine, but if there is, it's not mentioned.”

“Did you see the record book and gloves that belonged to the lighthouse keeper who remained on the island under the Germans during the war?”

“Yes.”

“Henri Rousset refused to join the evacuation, and the occupiers needed him. He was permitted to stay to operate the lighthouse as normal. A very brave man.”

“I saw the large photograph and the flag,” she said. “I guessed it must have been something like that.” She shivered involuntarily as it came back to her: the feeling as she stood on the cliff looking up to the beacon that she was on the verge of making some important connection.

Gabriel was quiet for so long that she wondered whether he was going to respond. They climbed farther, following signs for the Fort de l'Alycastre, defenceless now, gnawed back to bare stone by birds and wind. Tufts of sea grass stole up the squat stone walls like a raiding party.

“Rousset put his life at risk to safeguard the lives of thousands of Allied men,” he said. “Before the Allies landed at Saint-Tropez on the fifteenth of August, 1944, these three Golden Islands had to be neutralized. At the crucial moment, just before the amphibious assault, he disabled the lighthouse beam to confuse the German night defences. Meanwhile, another beam was set up farther along the coast to imitate the Porquerolles lighthouse.”

“How did he know what he had to do?”

“A resistance agent managed to get out here to tell him. It was risky, but it had to be done. Allied intelligence agents in Marseille wanted to blow up the lighthouse, but bombing it from a plane would have condemned Rousset, a good man who had stayed on the island watching the Germans and waiting for his chance to act, to certain death—and risked the destruction of nearby properties.”

“The Domaine de Fayols,” said Ellie. “I'm beginning to understand. But how did the resistance get someone out to an occupied island, in an area that must have been heavily defended?”

“A light aircraft, flying at night.”

“That must have been extremely dangerous.”

“It was.”

“So the plan worked?”

“Up to a point. The objective was achieved. But Rousset was beaten senseless, had his head kicked in by the Germans when they realised they had been tricked. He never properly recovered, nor was able to remember exactly what had happened.”

They had stopped walking. Below was a beach of pebbles where three small boats rocked in the shallows. Even with one hand shading her eyes, Ellie could only see in patches of light and dark.

“But there was someone else who had stayed on the island, surely,” she said. “The doctor. Louis de Fayols.”

“They told you that, then.”

“Mme de Fayols told me.”

“Yes, during the war the doctor continued to care for the convalescents, mainly Italian soldiers. Most were poor young conscripts who had done very little harm. The doctor felt a responsibility for them. When the Nazis took over, they sent the Italians to prison camps, but they realised the value of having a doctor on the island. He was ordered to stay, effectively a prisoner in his own house. They shot him there, in the grounds, on the night the plane landed.”

“But the Allies were so close, the liberation was about to begin—why do it then?”

He did not answer.

“I can understand how you became a war historian, trying to make sense of it all.”