The Orchid Shroud Read online

  He sighed, gave a hitch to his backpack, and headed down a narrow trail overgrown with grass and bordered with cowslips. Orchid-hunting was a lonely, quirky occupation. Julian thought of famous orchid-hunters of the past: Rumphius, who went blind in the Moluccas; Skinner, who spent over three decades wandering in forests before dying of yellow fever; Cuming, who discovered more than thirty new orchid species; and Lobb, who brought home the magnificent Vanda coerulea, although he left his leg in the Philippines. There were many others, odd, elusive men every one of them, who disappeared for years into far, tropical jungles, some never to return. He wondered if he was going the same way, albeit closer to home and in less strenuous circumstances. Mara, he suspected, thought him obsessive. Maybe Linnaeus had had a point when he asked “whether men are in their right minds who so desperately risk life and everything else through their love of collecting plants.”

  As he walked, he was rewarded by occasional sprigs of Green-winged and tiny Burnt-tip Orchids growing along the borders of the trail. These were some of the earlier species to show themselves. Soon Lady Orchids, long-leafed Cephalanthera, deep-throated Serapias, and stately Limodorum would come into bloom. Their succession was as much a part of his internal rhythm as was the flow of seasons to the farmer, the rise and fall of tides to the fisherman, the wheeling of constellations to the astronomer.

  Bismuth appeared suddenly from the undergrowth. His paws, snout, and the tips of his long, floppy ears were covered in mud. The dog looked doubtfully at his master.

  “Grubbing again?” Julian growled. The dog came to him, tail thumping rapidly between his hind legs. “Oh, come on, then,” Julian conceded and gave Bismuth a grudging scratch on the head. Bismuth, overjoyed, rolled over on his back.

  Something else stirred in the bushes. Christophe’s gardener stepped onto the trail. Stooped and thin, he resembled an elderly crane. His clothes, hanging loosely from his frame, resembling bedraggled feathers, added to the impression.

  “Ah, Didier.”

  “Good dog, that,” said Didier, as Bismuth righted himself and went over to investigate the old man’s boots. “Don’t hold much with them myself, but this one’s got a nose. Make a good truffler. What’re you doing here?” The gardener’s inquiry was not rude, simply to the point.

  “Well …” Julian was momentarily distracted by the idea of Bismuth’s being good for anything. He decided to enlist the old man’s help. “I’m looking for something.” He dug out a copy of Iris’s sketch of Cypripedium incognitum from his backpack and held it forth. “This. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  The gardener took the drawing from Julian and held it close and then at arm’s length. He tipped his head this way and that and sucked his teeth. “Not sure,” he said finally and gave the drawing back. “Although that might be the thing the old ones called Sabot du Diable.”

  Julian’s heart leaped in his chest. “Sabot du—Devil’s Clog? What did it look like, this Devil’s Clog? Where did it grow? Can you show it to me?”

  Didier scratched his jaw. “That was long ago. Before my time. Doubt if you’ll come across it around here anymore.”

  “Why not? What happened to it?”

  “Folks used to dig it up wherever they found it.”

  Julian gasped with an almost physical pain. “Dug—it—up? Good god, why?”

  “Don’t know exactly. Planted aconit in its place.”

  “Aconit?” Julian was baffled. “You’re saying people around here destroyed Devil’s Clog and planted aconit?”

  Didier shrugged. The conversation, which was becoming repetitive, ceased to interest him. He turned to move down the trail.

  “Wait a minute.” Julian hurried after him. “So aconit now grows wherever Devil’s Clog used to be?”

  Didier shrugged again. “Maybe. Maybe not. Stuff grows wild anyway.”

  “But why would they have done that? Plant aconit, that is?”

  Didier gave him something that passed for a grin. “You’re the know-it-all. You figure it out.”

  Julian rifled his brain. Aconite. Monkshood. He knew very little about the plant, apart from the fact that all parts of it were extremely poisonous.

  “Hang on, Didier,” he called, just as the old man was about to vanish into the trees. “Are there any of these old ones still around who might know anything about this Devil’s Clog?”

  The gardener chuckled. “Worms. All gone to worms.”

  “Well, is there anything else you can tell me? It’s important that I find it.”

  “Oh.” Didier glanced back over his shoulder. “I can tell you lots of things. It’s up to you to ask the right questions.”

  Julian sat sunk in his favorite armchair. He had spent the rest of the day prowling the northwest sector of Aurillac Ridge, scanning the paths, detouring into clearings, and poking around in grassy patches. He saw orchids, but not his orchid. He was still reeling from the possibility that the local population had ripped up Cypripedium incognitum and replaced it with Monkshood. He wondered if Didier had got it right. He had pursued the gardener with more questions, got some interesting bits of local lore, but nothing more on Devil’s Clog. Toward the end of the afternoon, a heavy downpour had forced him to abandon his search. On returning to his cottage, he had put in a few hours redoing the Coteaux de Bonfond landscaping plan, trimming bits to reduce the bottom line. Julian was prepared, if Pierre still didn’t like it, to dump the project and let the Crotte face Denise’s wrath. Dinner had been a plain omelette, which he had shared with Bismuth. The dog routinely ate kibble or canned food, whichever was available (sometimes both), plus a good portion of Julian’s own meals, and yet remained as skinny as a whippet.

  Julian sighed, worked his way farther down into the armchair, crossed his arms behind his head, and stared up at a familiar stain in the ceiling. Every time it rained, he remembered that he should climb up on the roof to see where the water was coming in. He wondered what Mara was doing. Their parting on Friday night had left him feeling cut adrift. Bound to happen sooner or later, the glass-half-empty side of him argued, as he contemplated the prospect of yet another relationship coming unraveled. Julian’s affective career had started with an early, brief, and deeply wounding marriage to a woman who was as unfaithful as she was beautiful, and had bumped along over the years with others, none of whom had chosen to stay. Nevertheless, despite an acquired pessimism, his glass-half-full side had nursed seedling hopes of this one.

  Meantime, the rain continued to drum drearily overhead. Maybe, he thought sadly, it would be better to stick to orchids. If Didier’s old ones had dug up Devil’s Clog wherever they found it, didn’t that suggest the plant was fairly widespread? So, if Devil’s Clog was the same thing as Cypripedium incognitum, that meant there had to be—at one time anyway—a population of the orchids large enough to attract attention. The thought made him sit up straight. Bismuth, seeing movement, was instantly at his side. When Julian remained frozen in that posture, the dog planted his head on Julian’s thigh. Absently, Julian plucked at the silky ears, enjoying the feel of them sliding through his fingers.

  But why the hell rip it out? he wondered. What was it about Devil’s Clog that made it so noxious? He had read that many species of Lady’s Slipper gave people a contact dermatitis, like poison ivy, which would have been as good a reason as any for getting rid of it. Or maybe it was toxic to grazing animals. But, then, why replace it with another poisonous plant? Whatever the reason—he scratched Bismuth’s neck; the dog groaned with pleasure and presented his rump—it now only made sense to include Monkshood in his scan in the hope that the Devil’s Clog that had once grown in its place had not been completely wiped out. Not entirely a long shot, and besides, Monkshood, a leggy plant with rather sinister-looking purple blossoms, was a lot easier to spot than a single, low-standing flower. A distant, persistent sound, vaguely familiar, brought him to. It was his phone. He reached for it.

  “Oui? Allo?”

  “C’est moi, Thérèse.”
The housekeeper’s voice was strident. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Who? Christophe? No. Why?”

  “Well, then,” Thérèse concluded bleakly, “he’s disappeared. Didier hasn’t seen him. Neither has Madame Dunn. Antoine doesn’t know where he is. Nor any of the people at Arobas. You were my last hope.”

  “How do you mean, disappeared?”

  “Not here. Vanished. I took him his breakfast tray this morning. His room was a mess, sheets dragged onto the floor, shoes here and there. He was gone.”

  “About time, too. This business of shutting himself up in his room was getting ridiculous.”

  “But he hasn’t come back. Not for lunch. Or dinner. He always eats at eight. It’s gone half past. It’s not like him.”

  Julian laughed. “He’ll return. When he gets hungry enough.”

  “Well, I don’t like it. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Oh, come on, Thérèse. There’s nothing to worry about. Christophe is just—well—being Christophe.”

  “Think what you like. You didn’t hear it. I did.” The old woman mumbled something that Julian did not quite catch.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said,” the housekeeper shouted into his ear, “it woke me out of my sleep last night. The Wailing Ghost. It always cries before a death.”

  At about the same time on Tuesday evening, Madame Clémentine Dupuy of Les Ronces, situated at the north end of the Sigoulane Valley, heard a disturbance among her chickens.

  “It’s that maudit fox again,” she called to her daughter-in-law, Chantal, eight months pregnant, and went for the shotgun. Her son, Daniel, a fertilizer salesman, was not at home. No matter, this time she’d have the vermin. She pulled on a pair of rubber clogs—the rain had stopped, but the short stretch between the poulailler and the farmhouse was muddy—and rushed out. She glanced up at the sky, low and bulging with clouds. More rain was on its way. The light was going fast, but Madame Dupuy could still see well enough to make her way at a trot down the little path leading to the henhouse. As she approached it, she was confronted by a sight that made her exclaim with anger. The gate to the enclosure had been torn from its hinges, and chickens were running loose everywhere. A scattering of feathers patterned the grass and clung to the gooseberry bushes that grew against the fence. A sudden breeze caused a host of feathers to rise up, almost playfully, in the air. Then she saw what lay on the ground: hens—how many she couldn’t say—mon dieu!—it looked like an abattoir. Heads were strewn about, separated from partly eaten bodies.

  Shock and fury seized Madame Dupuy, then common sense. A country woman, she had never known a fox to create this kind of carnage. Whatever had done this had killed first out of sheer savagery before settling down to its meal. With a pang, she spotted the limp body of her prize rooster, Hercule. It lay headless and eviscerated, its once-handsome plumage muddy and caked with blood.

  Her hand was on the gatepost when she smelled something that triggered a warning in her brain: a feral odor—not the musky scent of a fox, but something stronger, more unwholesome—that told her just in time not to enter the enclosure. She stood for a few seconds, uncertain what to do. Then she heard it, moving about in the shadows behind the henhouse. Fear gripped the old woman, but she raised the shotgun and held her ground.

  “Come out of there,” she whispered into the gathering darkness. Taking a deep breath and with more authority, she cried out, “God preserve me, whatever you are, come out!”

  She never had the chance to fire before the long gray form was on her. She let out a terrified yell and continued yelling as the thing struck her frontally, biting and snapping and driving her sprawling onto her back. She had the presence of mind, however, to grip the shotgun by butt and barrel and hold it before her like a quarterstaff. It was the only thing that kept the attacker from her throat. Then, as suddenly as it had erupted, the creature was gone.

  Chantal, alerted by the screams, found her mother-in-law on the ground, sobbing with terror and bleeding from the face and arms. She helped the older woman up. Chantal stared about her in horror at the torn chicken carcasses. Madame Dupuy, coming to her senses and still clutching the shotgun, shrieked, “For god’s sake, run! Get inside the house!”

  The two women ran, holding on to each other, down the path. In the house, they rushed around shuttering and locking doors and windows. Chantal called the Gendarmerie in Brames. Words tumbled out of her so incoherently that the duty sergeant had difficulty understanding her.

  “It’s out there,” she screamed. “Pour l’amour de dieu, get here fast.” She felt her first contractions as she hung up. Clutching her stomach, she dragged her husband’s shotgun into the kitchen, where her mother-in-law, in shock, had collapsed onto the daybed. With a moan of pain, Chantal lowered herself to the floor, back to the wall, the weapon in readiness across her outstretched legs.

  13

  WEDNESDAY MORNING, 5 MAY

  Julian appeared at the winery early, prepared to show the Crotte that he meant business. Not only did he have a revised plan, this time he was accompanied by his sometime assistant, Bernard, a young man with huge arms and thighs. No more haggling. They were there to break ground.

  They found things in an uproar. Someone had hurled a small boulder through one of the big windows of the pavilion. The words Assassins, Voleurs, and even Loups-garous had been crudely scrawled in orange spray paint across the side of the building.

  Julian braked the van and climbed out. “Wait here, will you, Bernard?”

  “Sure.” Bernard grinned, dug out his cigarettes, and settled back to read the morning paper. Butchery at Les Ronces! The headline marched blackly across the front page. What Stalks the Sigoulane Valley? In answer to the question, Clémentine Dupuy made this brief statement from her hospital bed: The creature that had savaged her chickens and attacked her was some kind of huge, hairy beast. It also smelled like the devil himself. Her life had been spared only because the thing had taken off at her daughter-in-law’s approach. It was Madame Dupuy’s belief that pregnant women have a kind of positive power that evil things cannot abide.

  A knot of people—locals, Julian guessed—milled about the entrance to the pavilion. A winery worker appeared to be exchanging insults with the crowd while sweeping up broken glass. He punctuated his words with thrusts of his broom, to which the crowd responded with shouts and catcalls. The mood reminded Julian of a stew afloat with unknown ingredients, coming to the boil.

  Off to one side, a wiry old fellow in dungarees, a plaid shirt, and a floppy black beret was having a separate, energetic conversation with Antoine. Denise, off to another side, was engaged in an exchange of her own with a stout man in a suit and a bosomy brunette. Or, rather, the couple talked while Denise looked as if she were being assailed by an unpleasant smell. Then another worker appeared in the frame of the broken window and began banging the remaining glass out with a hammer. Shards flew everywhere. The man with the broom threw up his arms and began to yell. The crowd jeered. Antoine also threw up his arms and strode into the pavilion. The man in the black beret shouted after him, “This won’t end here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” shoved his hands in his pockets, and strolled away.

  Denise spotted Julian and immediately detached herself from the couple.

  “Bit over the top, isn’t it?” he said as she joined him, indicating the grafitti. “Why werewolves? Or assassins and thieves, for that matter?”

  Denise’s upper lip twisted in a sneer. “The good people of Sigoulane like to cover all the bases. They’re blaming us for that kid’s murder—”

  “Baby Blue? How?”

  “We’re de Bonfonds, don’t forget. And something hit a henhouse in Les Ronces last night and attacked the owner. The locals are saying Baby Blue has unleashed bad luck in the valley and we’re to blame.”

  “Old crimes will out,” the bosomy brunette called out, loudly enough for all to hear.

  The man in the
suit said smugly, “What she means is that we’re naturally concerned—”

  “Concerned!” Denise’s dark eyes sparked dangerously as she swung about on him. “Gloating becomes you, Guy. It gives you that full-up, baby-go-potty look. And it’s Christophe’s damned crime, in case you forget. Go plague him.”

  “That’s no way—” The brunette pushed forward, but Guy pulled her back.

  “Mariette and I have expressed our solidarity—”

  “Mon cul,” Denise said sweetly, referring to a part of the anatomy that well-brought-up French women did not mention. She turned away sharply, pulling Julian with her out of range of their hearing.

  “Where is he?” she hissed.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play dumb. Christophe! Thérèse says he’s gone missing.”

  “Ah,” said Julian. “I don’t know.”

  Denise gave him a skeptical glare. “I could kill that calf’s head for bringing this down on me.”

  “Oh, be fair, Denise,” Julian defended his friend. “He hardly did it on purpose.”

  “But he’s not here to take the heat, is he? Look at this shit. The press are all over it. I had a con of a reporter from Sud Ouest out first thing this morning. How do I feel about having an infanticide in the family? Do I think Baby Blue has anything to do with the thing that’s prowling the valley? Some of the local growers are saying this year’s harvest will be blighted because of us. And to top it off, that puke-making Guy Verdier and his tart of a wife are hanging around, shaking their heads, and maundering on about the good name of the family. All I need!”

  At that moment, Denise’s cell phone rang. She slapped it to her ear, listened, and stalked off in another direction, waving her free hand. Guy and Mariette stood by looking huffy for a moment. Then, with a resentful glance at Julian, they left. The crowd hung around talking and gesticulating until Antoine came out again and bellowed for them to get back to their jobs, those who worked there, or to get lost, those who did not.