‘Without the accent?’ asked Hogarth.
‘It’s not as easy to maintain as you might think!’ returned Elodie. ‘Soon, I got involved with family life. I was more than happy to help out in any way. I began painting wooden furniture and knick-knacks. It was fun and I took to it like a duck to water. They gave me my own little studio. Anything that needed painting or polishing, they gave to me. I liked to contribute but, actually, it was a relative of theirs, a Madame Charpentier of the Maison Chapeaux Charpentier, who paid for my upkeep.’
‘That’s wonderful to hear, Elodie. But how did you cope with what you’d been through all those years, and the way it ended?’
‘Well, I now had a good life. Except for the nightmares and the flashbacks. Then I began to be treated by a doctor. Madame paid for that too. In time, through Madame, I met Vera and Harry. The Charpentier family told them my story. Vee and Harry spent time with me, invited me to go back to Spain with them for holidays. Before I knew it, I was spending more time with them than in France. Vera taught me to use a camera, and I started painting artwork.’
‘Ah, so that’s where your talent started to really show itself.’
‘I suppose so. Vera and Harry offered to pay for my college education, studying art. Just to be on the safe side, I changed my name again, to Lucia Palomo.’
***
‘So Elodie is Lucy?’ interrupted Amanda. ‘But why not call herself Lucy — Lucia? It’s on the bell after all.’
Hogarth simply looked at her enigmatically until she calmed down, apologised, and asked him to carry on.
‘That’s quite alright, my dear. I have nearly finished for this evening. My sister and brother-in-law put their house extension on the back burner, and Lucy’s university fees were secured. She lived at college and spent the hols with Vee and Harry or with the Charpentiers. Vee and Harry also arranged for Lucy to continue treatment with a doctor they trusted. After fourteen years of therapy, Lucy was a resolved case. The doctor had died the previous year so was not readily available for an interview! Lucy’s father died of a heart attack, and the mother moved abroad on the strength of the life insurance money, thereby providing further closure. And that brought us up to the then present time. I said,
“Thank you for sharing your story with me. I cannot express my appreciation more deeply.”
At that, Zoe popped up.
“You can buy me an ice-cream.”
“I most certainly can and shall,’ I replied. Then Marielle spoke:
“But it isn’t really what you want to know, is it?”’
***
‘Yes, there we stop for tonight,’ Hogarth finished.
‘How exciting it all is,’ observed Amanda, ‘and how dreadful. Also, how wonderful to hear of so much kindness. Oh, but how about the family’s name? Charpentier! Carpenter and French ones too. That’s what the Cadabras were. What if we were “Charpentier” back then before we came to England?’
‘You never know,’ said Hogarth encouragingly.
Chapter 23
On the Stairs
However, the next evening when Trelawney came to collect her, Amanda was less enthused.
‘I got all excited when I heard about the Charpentiers, and how part of the family went to England during the Revolution. Then I ran the numbers. Charpentier is a very common name, like Carpenter is in the UK, and thousands of émigrés came to England at that time. Nothing special about any of it.’ She sighed. ‘Never mind. I’m still looking forward to the next instalment.’
Later, Amanda told Hogarth, who appeared to have stripped the carpet from the stairs, the same thing,
‘The name Charpentier seems to be a dead end. Never mind .... So, Marielle had just said that hearing their story isn’t what you really wanted to know. And you said ...?’
***
‘It isn’t, expressly, what brought me to your door,’ Hogarth admitted.
‘Of course, you want to know what happened on the night of the fire. How Mordren Dowrkampyer met his end.’
‘Yes, and the others who perished that night.’
‘I expect you would like to hear the account again,’ suggested Geoffrey calmly.
‘Perhaps a diagram might help,’ Peter offered, producing paper and pencils, and kneeling to draw at the coffee table.
‘Thank you, Peter,’ responded Hogarth.
‘All right.’ He cleared his throat. ‘This should make it plainer.’ He drew a rectangle. ‘So, fire above. People outside both of the sides of the building and maybe the front too — judging only by what we could hear, mind. So here, here and here,’ said Peter, drawing a few blue crosses to the top, left and right of the oblong.
‘Ok.’
‘The side doors’ — Peter added small arcs to the border — ‘were open, I think. We came down the stairs, here, from the second floor to the first floor.’ He added several parallel lines to the bottom right of the rectangle. ‘Then stopped and looked and the stairs were clear, so ran ahead to the next flight, but the landing door here on the right opened and Dowrkampyer,’ — here Peter drew a red cross, — ‘came out onto the landing just here near the door. With me so far?’
‘Yes,’ Hogarth confirmed.
‘He looked up at the fire above and to his left, then down the last flight of stairs’ — another set of parallel lines was added —‘in this direction,’ Peter drew an arrow from the landing up the image into the hall. ‘There were sounds behind, in the hall and on the stairs: one or more people, then the sound of a sizzle and someone falling. Then Dowrkampyer spotted the children up on the flight above, pointed his wand at them, said something threatening but before he could do any damage, he, well ... exploded. Then we all
