Page 73 of Marble Hall Murders

‘It was a few days after. You don’t think …?’

‘Please continue, Maître Lambert. You say she had not arrived at half past nine. Did you not think that she might be ill?’

‘It was indeed my first thought, Monsieur Pünd. That’s why I rang her parents. I spoke to her mother, who told me that Alice had gone out the night before to meet a friend and had not returned home. She said that such behaviour was completely out of character and they had been most worried. They were waiting for her to telephone them and when they heard she had not come into the office either, they insisted that I should alert the police. I decided it would be more sensible to telephone you directly. I had already called the chateau before I called the gallery. If I had not found you there, I would have called thecommissariat de policein Nice.’

‘Have you spoken to Mademoiselle Carling’s fiancé?’ Voltaire asked. ‘If she had worries and spent the night away from home, surely it would have been with him.’

Lambert sighed. ‘I have no telephone number for him,’ headmitted. ‘She had not even told me his name until Monsieur Fraser requested it, here in this office.’

‘You did not know the identity of the man she intended to marry until that moment,’ Pünd said. It was not a question. From the way he spoke, he might have known it from the start.

‘That is correct.’

‘She gave us a false name,’ Pünd continued. ‘The man she referred to as Charles Saint-Pierre does not exist.’

‘How can you be so sure of that, Monsieur Pünd?’ Voltaire asked.

‘Have you searched for his number?’

‘No. But I am sure we will find it in the directory.’

‘I am less certain.’ Pünd turned back to the solicitor. ‘You announced that she had become engaged, but she did not introduce you to her fiancé or even tell you who he was. When James asked her for his name, she was clearly embarrassed and did not wish to meet his eye. I knew then that she did not wish to reveal it.’

‘Then who is Charles Saint-Pierre?’ Lambert asked.

‘It was an invention. The poor girl had no idea you were going to mention her engagement. She was caught unawares and had to put something together immediately, by word association. As it happens, a few moments before, she had mentioned that her father played boules in the Place de Gaulle.’

‘Charles de Gaulle,’ Voltaire said.

‘And Saint-Paul, where we are now, became Saint-Pierre.’ Pünd turned to Voltaire. ‘We should see her parents at once. They may be able to tell us more.’

‘We will also begin a search,’ Voltaire said. ‘Let us just hope it is not already too late.’

*

La Gaude was one of those villages that seemed to have sprung up as if by accident, lying beneath a backdrop of mountains, half-asleep in the fierce Mediterranean heat. Like Saint-Paul-de-Vence, it was built into the hillside, with a maze of side streets, most of them too narrow for cars, along with ancient steps and walkways that led the unsuspecting visitor around corners to yet more steps and walkways on the other side. Nothing really led anywhere. There was a chateau that had fallen into disrepair, two churches, an unsanctified chapel that was used as a makeshift cinema, a pink-washed police station, a few shops, some cafés and the inevitablebar tabacclose to a patch of gravel where the men played boules. The houses faced each other, providing welcome shadows for the residents as they went in and out, made of stone and wood, brick and plaster, all equally beaten down by the sun. Shrubs and flowers sprouted everywhere, climbing the walls, tumbling from window boxes, bursting out of terracotta pots that might have stood there for a hundred years.

Tom and Élise Carling owned a house at the end of a street, three storeys high but only one room deep. They had always lived vertically and had grown used to squeezing past each other on the narrow staircase that connected the floors. The front door opened into the hallway, kitchen, living room and workshop, which all occupied the same area, with a bathroom tacked on at the back. The room was cluttered butclean and tidy, with an enamel stove and provincial furniture that might have been reduced in size to fit the available space.

They were sitting opposite Pünd and Voltaire and perhaps it was the worries of the past twelve hours, but they also seemed diminutive, shrinking into themselves. Tom was thin and wiry, with silver hair and hollow eyes. His wife was rounder, softer, wearing an apron over her dress. After more than thirty years’ marriage, she spoke fluent English, even if her husband’s French had barely progressed beyond ‘bonjour’ and ‘merci’.

‘Alice hasn’t been herself since the news of Lady Chalfont’s death,’ Élise was saying. ‘The evening it happened, she came in and she went straight to her room. I could understand she was upset. She did a lot of work for the family, her and Maître Lambert. But when she finally came down for supper, I could tell she’d been crying.’

‘We asked her what was wrong.’ Tom sounded ashamed of himself, as if all this was somehow his fault. ‘But she wouldn’t talk to me. She hardly touched her food, then she went back to her room.’

‘I did go up, but it was a long time before she would even let me in. Then I sat down with her on the bed and held her in my arms, just like when she was a child,’ her mother continued. ‘She was crying again. She said she’d done something terrible and that she was going to be in trouble. She wouldn’t tell me what it was and the more I asked, the more upset she became. In the end, I decided that it had nothing to do with Lady Chalfont. After all, our Alice meets a lot of important people. Wealthy people. I decided she must have made a mistake at work. I couldn’t think of another explanation.

‘The next day was Saturday. She seemed happier in the morning and we did not speak of what had happened. After breakfast, we went to the market together, and then on Sunday we went to the Church of Saint Isidore, as we do every week. It was just before lunchtime that she received a call.’ Élise pointed to a black telephone sitting on a pedestal in the corner. ‘I knew it was bad news. It was as if a cloud had passed across the sun. After lunch, she told me that she was going out to see a friend. She did not say who it was, but I assumed she meant Adeline, who works at the bakery. The two of them have always been close.’

‘It wasn’t Adeline,’ Tom muttered. ‘I spoke to her after Mr Lambert telephoned us. She doesn’t know anything about all this.’

‘Alice went out at three o’clock. That was the last time we saw her. We went to bed early last night and we were busy this morning. Tom helps out at La Petite Ferme, outside the village. I had my housework. We were only aware that something was seriously wrong when Monsieur Lambert called to ask where she was.’ She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve. Tears had appeared in her eyes. ‘It was so stupid of me!’ she whispered. ‘I should never have let her leave the house.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, my dear.’ Tom Carling rested his hand on her arm.

‘It may be that your daughter is in the hands of a very dangerous man,’ Voltaire said, speaking with his usual directness. ‘But it is not too late. Help is on its way, madame. We have police officers coming from every town and village to help with the search.’ He paused. ‘What can you tell me of a man who may call himself Charles Saint-Pierre?’

‘We’ve never heard that name,’ Élise said.

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