The Perfumer's Secret (30 page)

Suddenly there was a swirl of scarlet before me. ‘Go to hell, Aimery,’ I heard Graciela say in a guttural version of her normally smoky voice. For just a heartbeat both men stopped struggling; Sébastien even straightened. She took that moment to gather some spittle and hurl it into her lover’s face. Graciela let rip with another stream of angry Spanish that I didn’t understand and yet my heart somehow understood it perfectly. His insult of earlier had been too much to bear. She had suffered enough humiliation from him and she had debased herself long enough to prove her love. But his dismissal and disdain had lit her volatile Spanish temper as though he had thrown fuel onto simmering flames.

I only realised when she pulled the trigger at near point-blank range that she had picked up the revolver. It seemed Graciela had taken a shooting stance in planting both feet firmly and using both hands to steady her aim and to ensure little recoil. I was in a state of amazed horror to witness Aimery’s head snapping back against the rug atop the parquet and, although the hole in the middle of his forehead looked quite small and neat for the tremendous noise of yet another gunshot, I dreaded to imagine the state of the back of his head. His formerly angry, sore and streaked eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling with a look of dismay as his final expression. I agreed with him – who would have thought the one person who loved him in this world would kill him? Blood quickly spread from beneath his head, viscous and so dark it looked black against the oriental rug of our sitting room.

The flames that had witnessed death danced merrily on in the fire and the snap and crackle of wood was now the only sound in the room.

The eerie silence of shock was punctured by rapid movement as we all, in the same instant, left dead Aimery to his maker and gave full attention to my shallow-breathing brother.

‘Felix?’ I whispered and his eyelids opened slightly. He gave me one of his radiant smiles.

‘Am I dead?’

‘Never,’ I said through helpless tears, although even I could tell it would not be long before he made a liar of me.

We heard urgent, scared voices approaching. Graciela moved first. ‘I will get help and find the mayor.’

Sébastien grabbed her gloved hand. ‘Graciela,’ he snapped, pronouncing her name perfectly. ‘Say nothing to incriminate yourself. Leave this to me.’

She frowned and shook her head slightly. ‘I am prepared to take full —’

He made a hissing sound of disapproval. ‘Listen to me now! Say only that you arrived to find this scene.’ He shook her. ‘I mean it. Repeat it!’

‘I don’t have to. But you also don’t have to —’

‘Let me handle it! Now go! And rub that powder off your sleeve.’

She held his stare a moment longer, then nodded and was gone, closing the doors behind her.

‘Fleurette,’ Sébastien whispered, touching my hand.

I moved at his touch as if burned and my anger surely showed but my attention was firmly on Felix and the dying light in his eyes.

‘Fleurette, look at me,’ he demanded again, softly but more firmly now. I raised my watering gaze. He shook his head deliberately to say what I was trying to deny in my mind. He was right; of course he was, for he would have seen wounds like this before. The bullet had done its damage, not killing my brother outright but it was claiming his life all the same. The angels could only save one life today and they had clearly chosen Sébastien’s, protecting him twice, once with my brother. I gathered my brother’s hands together in mine and kissed them.

‘It’s so cold in here, Ettie,’ he murmured.

‘It’s winter, my darling,’ I said, trying not to lose control of my voice. ‘Think of spring, Felix. Think of the harvest and us lying down in perfumed petals.’ He broke a fresh smile at the memory. His gaze was becoming unfocused, unable to hold on to me as it roamed across the patterned ceiling.

‘Ettie?’

‘I’m here.’

‘You don’t have to tell anyone now about the Delacroix–De Lasset sin. It ends here with us.’ He coughed blood and I had to swallow not to scream my despair as Sébastien put his arm around me, urging me to stay strong for Felix.

‘The sin dies with Aimery,’ I agreed, my voice small and pathetic, but he heard me.

His smile widened to break my heart because he looked so like our father in that moment. ‘Now you are free to marry the right De Lasset, and no one’s memory needs to be stained.’ He suffered another life-draining spasm and his blood oozed through my fingers from his wound and dribbled from his mouth. The doors opened hurriedly and three people spilled in: Graciela, our local policeman and the mayor, but Sébastien forbade them to come any closer. The two newcomers glanced first at our trio and then Aimery’s corpse and fell bleakly silent.

‘Bring our two families together properly,’ Felix said, only vaguely recovering from his exertion. His breathing was so ragged and shallow I knew we had only moments left together. He looked at Sébastien. ‘Be very sure I’ll haunt you if you don’t take care of her.’

‘I give you my solemn word that she will be treated as the most precious woman on earth,’ Sébastien promised my brother and raised his injured hand to his chest as an oath. It too was bleeding again, bandages falling away from where Aimery had sliced into them.

‘I am only half a person without you,’ I said, openly weeping now.

‘No, Ettie. Take it all,’ he said, struggling on each word. ‘I’m happier this way. I’ll be with Henri and Father – we’ll cheer you on and watch over you as you make your first perfume. What does it start with?’ he said, his dying grin emerging. ‘Talk to me of flowers – let me smell them in my mind once more.’

‘It always starts with our May rose, the rose of one hundred petals,’ I began, ignoring the tremble in my voice. ‘Can you smell them? Dewy and honeyed?’ I kissed his lips farewell, felt his blood cling to my mouth and I tasted its metallic sweetness.

His eyes shone with a strange clarity as his spirit prepared to disentangle itself from this life but it gave him a final burst of prescience that Sébastien and I witnessed. ‘We have to run to the fields, pick our blooms on the morning they open so we don’t lose their brilliance. I smell first the lemony-apple citrus before honeysuckle and raspberry sweetness, and there’s the clove and pepper running deep.’

‘That’s right. We begin there, Felix,’ I promised.

I had to lean close to hear his next words. ‘Plant roses above me, Ettie,’ he whispered, and the last breath of my beautiful brother sighed past my ear and I felt his fingers slacken beneath my grip.

‘He’s gone,’ I warbled in a whispering voice to Sébastien. He nodded, his face a mask of sympathy, and I wondered in that moment how many last breaths Felix and Sébastien had witnessed, themselves still so young.

I felt new arms around me. I was being lifted, urged towards an armchair. A blanket was placed around my shoulder. From somewhere a glass of cognac was put in my hands and through no effort of mine the small tulip-shaped glass ascended to be tipped against my lips. It was a woman’s hand guiding mine.

‘This will help,’ Graciela urged.

I smelled first the volatile liquor before the movement of the glass swirling the cognac released the vapours of linden flower and old grapevine, a fleeting sense of violets before I noted vanilla and tobacco. The syrupy liquid slid into my mouth and down my throat in a tiny stream of nut and caramel flavours that heated me.

‘All of it,’ my friend pressed, tilting the glass until I’d swallowed the entire slug to burn its way past my gullet. I hated it.

She squatted beside me. ‘You must be very brave now,’ she encouraged. ‘For his sake,’ she said, and we both looked at Sébastien. He was in earnest conversation with the mayor and policeman, who was already grilling him for details of what had happened. I glanced at Felix, now covered by a dustsheet someone had kindly picked up from the neat pile we’d folded earlier this morning but forgotten to pack away; his feet poked out and they wore a pair of wool socks I recognised that I had knitted for him soon after he and Henri had left for the Front. I had to look away and my gaze fell on Aimery, who was covered by his cape. The ooze of his head wound had crept beyond the cape’s reach and I shifted my feet so that I didn’t have to have any contact with him, especially that sticky stain that pointed towards me like a finger of guilt.

The cognac worked its fiery path through me to enliven and I found I was arriving back in the moment and paying attention to the conversation.

I watched Sébastien shaking his head in answer to a question. ‘Well . . . I don’t know, sir,’ he said in his flawless French, although I could hear how disturbed he was in the soft tremor quavering in a tone that was normally steady. ‘Aimery was making some wild accusations here.’ He ran a hand through his hair, making it look especially unruly. I wanted to stand up and smooth it back for him, let him know that none of this was his fault, although I sensed he felt the blame was clinging to him like a bad smell. We’d both snarled at Aimery and helped his mood darken, no doubt. Don’t go there, I told myself. There’s a lifetime of blame down that path when it was Aimery who lost his temper, reached for a weapon and took deliberate aim twice.

‘I don’t know what was in his head to say all that he did,’ Sébastien admitted.

‘But to accuse you of being with Mademoiselle Olivares?’ the mayor wondered aloud.

Sébastien shrugged. ‘Mademoiselle will no doubt assure you that today is the first time we have ever laid eyes on one another; we were introduced by Felix when she arrived at the house moments before Aimery fired his fateful shots.’

Graciela had moved away from me to approach the men. ‘This is true,’ she said in her thickly exotic accent. ‘I didn’t even know Aimery had a brother. I was shocked when he was introduced to me by Felix Delacroix.’

The policeman frowned. ‘So all of you were on the porch.’

Sébastien gave a soft sigh. ‘I shall tell you again, shall I?’ he offered in a generous voice.

‘Please, Monsieur,’ the policeman agreed with a slight bow.

‘I had escorted Madame De Lasset to the station pre-dawn to meet the train. You are aware that her eldest brother was killed, died a hero just days before he was given leave?’

The policeman and mayor bowed their heads in melancholy. ‘We were deeply saddened to hear of Monsieur Delacroix’s passing, yes.’ the mayor replied.

‘And now this,’ Sébastien added, gesturing at Felix. ‘It’s all a terrible shock for her.’

‘Yes, yes, forgive us . . . er, Mademoiselle Olivares, would you like to escort Madame De Lasset to —’

‘No!’ That was me. I hadn’t been aware I was paying enough attention because I thought I was still drifting in my thoughts, the smell of liquor strong around me. I had discovered it wasn’t just my cognac, it was Aimery still strongly reeking of alcohol.

‘Madame?’ the mayor enquired, looking between the men with surprise.

‘Aimery was drunk,’ I said, not caring at my raw bluntness. ‘Come over here. You can smell him from where I sit. Not just intoxicated, sirs, he was so soused he was seeing and hearing demons.’ Even in my haze I had picked up Sébastien’s train of thought and now I hooked my carriage to his engine. ‘Aimery was making the most ludicrous charges. He must have arrived off the train drunk, although if I’m honest, I took it for fatigue initially. He barged in here, irrational, making the strangest allegations. You would be aware his train had arrived earlier than any of us had expected?’

The mayor nodded. ‘Yes, I was there to meet both trains. I saw you meet Monsieur Delacroix.’

‘That’s right. And I was going to escort Madame back to meet her husband but it came in early,’ Sébastien remarked.

‘I met it,’ Graciela added coolly. ‘Let’s not play coy, sirs. We all know, including his good wife, that I was Aimery’s mistress before his marriage. And the truth is that I loved him and wanted to see him arrive home. However, he paid me little attention. I didn’t expect any, frankly. I just wanted to see him safely back. Nevertheless, he spoke to me, perhaps you noted that?’ She glared at the mayor.

He gave a sheepish nod. ‘We did, Mademoiselle.’

‘Would you like to know what he said to me?’

‘No, Mademoiselle, unless it is relevant to his death.’

‘He wanted to know whom I had been sleeping with in his absence, gentlemen.’

I couldn’t know if this were true or not. But she was convincing, as both men blushed. Aimery’s affair with the Spaniard was known but their embarrassment was for me.

‘It’s all right; I told you his wife knows and we have made our peace over this, as there was clearly no intention on Monsieur De Lasset’s part to be unfaithful once he was married.’ I admired her putting together the lie so masterfully. ‘The point is,’ Graciela continued smoothly, ‘she also knows – as did Aimery – that there was never anyone else for me. His question was that of a man in his cups, not thinking clearly, acting jealously and out of character.’

I rejoined their questioning. ‘I wasn’t at the station because it had only been a short while since I’d brought my brother home. We were still sharing coffee, with at least an hour to spare before Aimery’s train was due,’ I said, pointing to the upended tray and its contents from Aimery’s struggles. ‘He arrived angry, unannounced and, as I’ve told you, drunk. I think he had seen too much on the battlefield. The letters home attest to his heroism,’ I said, finding my stride now. I stood shakily and accepted the helping arm of Graciela. ‘But heroism comes at a price, gentlemen. You only have to look at Sébastien De Lasset’s injuries, or to hear Felix speak of our brother, Henri. What Felix didn’t do this morning was speak of himself but even in Aimery’s single lucid moment when he greeted Felix, he admitted he’d heard of how heroically he’d acquitted himself. But these men had witnessed so much suffering, it is little wonder my brother reached for the cognac decanter within moments of arriving home, and it’s clear Aimery had started much earlier and drank far too much on the journey home. I forgive him only that much, but not his accusations, and as he has killed my beloved and only remaining brother, be careful I do not spit on his grave,’ I said, aware that my breathing was becoming more visible as my passion and bitterness moved from disguising the truth of events to describing the reality of Aimery’s actions.

‘He was going to kill Madame De Lasset, you see,’ Sébastien interjected smoothly, surprising me. I hadn’t thought of that scenario but it was plausible, and it certainly added weight to the claim of defence.

‘You’re sure of that?’ the policeman said. Both men turned to Sébastien in astonishment.

He nodded, calm. ‘Even Mademoiselle Olivares realised this – she flung a vase at him to distract him.’ He pointed to the shattered pieces against the stone of the hearth. ‘Felix knew when a man was serious about using his weapon and leapt in front of her to take the bullet. We all watched him fall and my brother, calm as you like, took aim again to have another shot. It was my turn to step in front of Madame De Lasset. I’m making this sound as though we were all thinking clearly. To tell the truth, I wasn’t thinking at all – simply reacting to Aimery’s next threat, and it wasn’t as though we couldn’t tell he meant to kill by now. His first shot had told us everything we needed to know about his murderous intention. Anyway, I stepped in front of his wife.’

I nodded, putting a hand to my mouth to stem the sob, as the memory flooded back. I wasn’t acting either now. Emotion was taking over from the initial shock. I had to hang on before I began to fully understand that Felix had gone, had died in my arms as Henri had died in his – and all because of Aimery’s hateful temper. I felt myself beginning to tremble. Hold on, I begged inwardly.

Sébastien was still explaining. ‘ . . . but his firearm bucked badly in his hand and that saved me a bullet to the body.’ He pointed to the shattered timber in the door. ‘I put his bad aim and lazy firing down to the alcohol.’