The Designer(25)

The ‘motorcar’ that Dior had promised turned out to be a most extraordinary vehicle – an antediluvian, black Simca that had been adapted to run on firewood; petrol having been unobtainable since the start of the Occupation. It had a huge, stove-like apparatus bolted on to the rear from which pipes ran all over the bodywork, culminating in a tank mounted on to the front. Copper had seen the things all around Paris, but she was aghast at the idea of travelling in such a dangerous-looking contraption herself. Dior was enraptured.

‘Our own car! I haven’t been in a car for four years.’ He spoke as though it were a Rolls Royce.

Copper had brought the Frightful Bounder’s camera along and took a photograph of the vehicle. ‘It looks like one of the flying bombs the Germans are using on London. Are you sure it’s safe?’

‘Of course. It belongs to a good friend and she has kept it in immaculate condition.’

The Simca was rusted and dented in every panel, and the outlandish wood-burning apparatus seemed to have been fixed on in a distinctly amateur fashion. It hardly bore the hallmark of a well-maintained vehicle. Copper thought longingly of the army jeep that Amory had taken away. ‘If you say so.’

‘I’m so excited,’ Dior said, beaming. ‘Let’s be off.’ He was wearing an old tweed jacket with corduroys and a jersey, and he looked like a country schoolmaster. She saw that he was holding the driver’s door open for her.

‘Aren’t you driving?’ she demanded.

‘Me? Of course not. I never learned. I hate mechanical things. I can’t even ride a bicycle.’ He frowned. ‘Surely you know how to drive?’

She bit her thumb nervously. ‘Well, I got a licence in the States. But I’ve hardly driven at all. Only the jeep a bit. And I wouldn’t even know how to start this thing.’ She peered inside. The back seat had been removed and the space was piled with wood.

‘Extra fuel,’ Dior said proudly. ‘We can travel a hundred and fifty kilometres.’

A passer-by, scornful of their lack of mechanical knowledge but willing to help, showed them how to start the Simca. This involved lighting the stove on the back with a bit of rag soaked in cooking oil and waiting for the fumes to build up with a lot of hissing and roaring. Eventually, the engine chugged into life, the whole vehicle lurching to and fro on its ancient springs.

‘You see?’ Dior said triumphantly. ‘She is magnificent.’

Copper’s heart was in her mouth as they set off, the stove fuming and rumbling on their tail. She clutched the steering wheel in a death grip, fighting the machine’s apparent desire to veer in any direction except straight ahead. What would happen if the whole thing exploded? The Simca jolted along at thirty miles an hour or so, with an occasional loud bang from the exhaust.

Their first stop was the house of Madame Delahaye, the fortune teller Dior set so much store by. She lived in a smart little apartment in the 16th arrondissement that did not look in the least supernatural. The woman herself was impeccably middle-class, with shrewd eyes, her hair oiled back into a bun and pearls at her throat. However, Dior behaved towards her with great respect. He evidently took her completely seriously.

Copper was presented to the clairvoyant, who stared into her face, then nodded slowly, as though confirmed in something she had long suspected.

‘This is the young woman who brought you the gift – as I predicted?’

‘Yes, Madame.’

‘Show me your palms, Mademoiselle.’

Copper held out her hands, which were shamefully sooty from the Simca. Madame Delahaye inspected them carefully, tracing the lines and occasionally wiping off smut. ‘I see much money, much love – but also much trouble. There is a golden-haired woman who casts her shadow over you. We must read your cards, my dear.’

The cards came out and were carefully shuffled and laid out on the gleaming table. Madame Delahaye pored over them.

‘This young lady will bring you luck,’ she announced to Dior. ‘Keep her close to you.’

‘I intend to. Will she get her husband back?’

Madame Delahaye pushed forward a card showing a man riding a horse. ‘He travels far away,’ she replied enigmatically. ‘He thinks of her, but the road back to her is long and he is set in a thicket of thorns. He cannot see the way. And she’ – Madam Delahaye pointed at a card showing a woman in a garden – ‘she turns her back on him.’

Copper winced.

‘But there is a hand coming from the east,’ Madame Delahaye went on, ‘which places a crown on her head.’

‘How wonderful,’ Dior sighed. ‘And my Catherine?’ he asked.

Again, the clairvoyant shuffled the deck and laid out the cards. Dior watched anxiously as she studied them. ‘It’s clear,’ she announced briskly. ‘Your sister is alive, she is well and she will soon return to you.’

‘You are sure?’

‘Look.’ Madame Delahaye pushed a group of cards forward. ‘It’s as clear as day, Monsieur Dior. There she is. The cards never lie.’

Dior put his hand over his mouth, overcome. His eyes were shining with tears. ‘Thank you, my dear friend,’ he said, when he’d got himself under control. ‘Thank you a thousand times!’

Copper was touched by Dior’s emotion, but also somewhat suspicious of the clairvoyant’s certainty. She was holding out a hope that she could not possibly guarantee. Catherine, she knew, was his favourite sibling. With his mother dead, one brother in a lunatic asylum and the other a suicidal eccentric, Dior’s family was shrinking. That was, of course, why he clung to foolish tokens like Madame Delahaye’s prophecies. What a lot of strange fancies and ideas knocked around in that supposedly solid Norman head of his.