Cadoville (unfinished)

Chapter V

Autumn, 1792

Paris – Île Saint-Louis

It's hard to put into words the look on Dr Spice's face when I appeared at his door that night, fresh from Bordeaux, with an eyepatch and skin like old leather – 'surprise' certainly, and not a pleasant one.... Dr Spice was just as I remembered – stony eyes, shallow black beard with sharp edges, and modestly framed.... He ushered me into his office, poured me some red and listened. I told him all about the explosion – the news of my family's death shocked him. He sat in silence for a while, staring into the air, cupping his mouth with his hand and keeping deathly still, glaring into some void between us. Was I taking a risk? I didn't know.... Confrérie agent or not, he was still our old doctor, a family friend, someone I thought I could trust.

"Where's your uncle?" He asked, his voice clipped and hollow.

"I don't know...," I replied. Dr Spice looked back at me, wide-eyed and baffled. I cut him off before he could speak again. "...I came alone."

He frowned, knowing there was far more to this than met the eye.

"Why?" He asked me.

I paused, wringing my hands and wondering how to begin. After all I had been through, where does one start? I started with what I knew, at the deep end....

"I know my father was an informant for the Confrérie de Gruyères...."

Dr Spice repeated the name back to me to make sure he had heard right. I hesitated mentioning I knew he was an informant too, a creeping doubt held me back.

"Who are they, then?"

Fibres and sinews knotted in the pit of my stomach. Of all the reactions I had anticipated, that was bottom of the pile. It didn't make sense – Dr Spice's name was in the ledger I had found. I tried to fight back against the dreaded feeling that I had embarked on a wild goose chase across the Atlantic for a man who might have simply been ordering cheeses, even if I knew it wasn't true.

"Uncle Stefano said they sell secrets," I replied, flakily.

"Secrets?", he said, raising an eyebrow. He took another sip of wine. "They sound more like fromage enthusiasts to me...."

I stared at him blankly, going over the conversation I had had with uncle Stefano in minute detail, beginning to wonder if I had in fact been living some laudanum-inspired delusion. Of course not - the ledger, I had held that in my hands.... And there was no denying the explosion that killed my family, which I could prove with my own face.

"You've never heard of them?"

"I can't say I have", he replied, looking a little awkward. "But I'm more interested in why you ran away".

"You'll laugh. I know you will," I said, breaking eye contact. "I want to find who killed my family".

"I won't laugh at you", he replied calmly. "I know you're serious. People do extreme things to run away from grief."

"You think I'm doing this out of grief?" I asked, resisting the urge to ball my fists.

"I think you're in shock. You've been through something traumatic."

"Perhaps...."

I conceded I may not have been thinking straight, who would? Dr Spice looked at me like a zoologist observing and noting the reactions of his lab-monkey.... Alas, the warm assurance and hospitality of an old family friend that I was longing for simply wasn't there.

"Do you think you'll find your killer in Paris?"

"I'm trying to get to Gruyères. I want to find the Confrérie."