The Paris Affair

by Pip Drysdale

  ‘This was taken late September,’ Luneau says.

  I nod.

  ‘We also found some videos on Sabine’s iCloud,’ he says, slowly, reaching for the iPad and scrolling. ‘I’d like you to take a look at them and let me know what you can tell me about them.’

  He swivels the iPad and pushes it towards me, and I brace myself to see the video of me and Noah having sex. But when he presses play I realise it’s not that at all.

  ‘That’s Le Voltage,’ I say, looking up at him, and he nods. I look back down and watch the stream of images. It’s the night of Noah’s exhibition. I recognise his paintings on the wall, the people in the crowd – there’s the guy with the thick grey hair, Agnès Bisset and the mousy-haired girl by the door handing out champagne. The camera moves through the crowd. Now the camera moves to the doorway and heads outside. A long, unbroken shot. It scans the street. Focuses on the sky. Then a streetlight. Then a figure in the dark, looking down the alleyway where Noah and I were smoking. The camera creeps towards him – I recognise the jacket, the tiger – and then comes a giggle and ‘Coucou!’. The figure swivels, his face in a state of shock. And Sabine says in French, ‘Wait, I know you.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Thomas replies in English.

  ‘I do. From the bridge. I know you.’

  The camera is still rolling, Thomas’s eyes are wide. And then he says, ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘Here’s my card, I’ll send you the footage, it’s cute,’ comes Sabine’s voice. And then the screen cuts to black.

  I look up at Luneau. ‘That was the night of Noah’s exhibition. I’d seen Thomas just the night before and I’d posted about it on Instagram. He must have followed me there.’

  Guilt pulses through me as Luneau makes a note on his pad.

  Because poor Sabine. She really was the wrong girl in the wrong place at the wrong time… he got rid of her because she recognised him. He feared she could link him to Matilde.

  My stomach clenches.

  Luneau reaches for the iPad, scrolls through and presses play then pushes it back towards me.

  ‘This is from the next night, on the fifteenth.’ He says.

  I watch the images of the crowd in Noah’s studio. I can almost smell the turpentine and dust in the air. She’s videoing, people are dancing. And I’m there. Noah leads me onto the dancefloor and my hands reach around his neck. I blink hard as I watch. My face is clear as I look over to the lens. Then I go to the kitchen and Noah follows me. Sabine keeps videoing, she wanders through the crowd, turning in circles in a way that makes the footage hard to watch without getting dizzy. And then she stops and simply films. I’m watching people move around, talk to each other. The guy in the green velvet jacket is in frame now.

  Luneau presses pause.

  I glance up at him, then back down at the screen. His finger points to a face in the background.

  My breath catches in my throat as I take in the features.

  ‘That’s Thomas,’ I say, almost a whisper.

  And now I’m thinking of the white fabric found at the scene of the body. Thomas was there, at the studio. There were sheets of it covering all of Noah’s paintings. How easy it would be to take one. To use it to move the body. Then to plant it later, when Noah was in the papers as the main suspect.

  His number plate: AA.

  His white car parked on the bottom section of Rue Chappe.

  ‘Sabine posted a selfie on Instagram the night of Noah’s party,’ I say, my words coming out fast. ‘It had Noah’s street sign in the background. If Thomas already had her business card he would have known to watch that account. How to find her.’

  Luneau nods. He already knows what I’m telling him. And my mind is filled with images of how it all went down.

  Thomas waiting outside for Sabine to leave, him following her and Noah to the bottom of the street. Waiting as they fought. Noah returning to the party. Sabine carrying on to the metro. I imagine her looking down at her phone, watching the footage she’d taken that night. It was a quiet street. Nobody was around, I remember.

  He could have waited until she was almost at his parked car.

  Thirty seconds. That’s all it would have taken to knock her out and bundle her into it like a drunk girlfriend, put his hands around her neck while she was still unconscious and squeeze. Then all he had to do was speed away.

  I bite down on my lower lip and tears burn in my eyes.

  Moor goes to a desk in the corner and brings me back a couple of tissues.

  ‘Did you find a copy of that video of Matilde and Thomas on the bridge?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ Luneau says. ‘But there was a second phone in his apartment. The same one we found those photographs on.’ He nods to the iPad, ‘There were texts from you on it.’

  I think back to his iMessage.

  This is why my texts weren’t there with all the others. With my neighbour’s. Mine weren’t going to his real phone, they were going to a burner phone.

  ‘And also a text from Matilde’s number,’ Luneau continues, interrupting my thoughts. He reaches into the pile of papers in front of him and pulls out a photograph. ‘One of these belonged to Matilde. Do you recognise anything in this photograph?’

  It’s all forensic lighting and a sterile tray with a selection of jewellery on it.

  I glance down at it: a gold necklace with a seashell pendant, an evil-eye bracelet, a silver bangle and a red kabbalah string.

  ‘That’s Sabine’s,’ I say, my voice small as I point to the red string.

  And as I say it, the world warps around me. Because I know why Thomas helped me with my story, with finding out information about that bond. It was never about me or the story. It was about the picture I showed him. Sabine’s hand was in frame. That red string was right there. No wonder he was so keen to know where I got it.

  He knew Sabine had videoed him. He was worried that if that hand was hers and I’d seen that video, I’d see the others too; that I’d see the one of him and Matilde on the bridge.

  ‘So nothing of yours?’ Luneau asks, bringing me back into the moment.

  I shake my head and think of my earrings. How easily they could have ended up in that forensic photograph too.

  It’s all a blur after that. Luneau says something about Agnès Bisset but I’m not really listening anymore.

  And then I stand up and he leads me to the door, walks me back down those corridors, and rides with me in the elevator until it’s time to shake hands and go outside.

  It’s as I stand there, waiting for my Uber, that the notification pops up on my screen: Killer dead. Abducted woman escapes.

  And that’s when I know it’s time to go home.

  Because, as it turns out, Paris is not always a good fucking idea.

  Chapitre quarante-deux

  I’m at Gare du Nord at 10.55 am the next morning, my suitcase beside me as I sip coffee and scan the crowd. I tell myself I’m looking for Mr Tall and Creepy, that it’s a matter of safety, and in part that’s true. But the full truth is never that simple. So here’s the other part, the part I’d never admit out loud, not even to myself: I can’t help but search for Noah’s face in the crowd too.

  Of course, it’s entirely illogical. Yes, he has been released, but he doesn’t know I’m leaving, so why the hell would he be here? And I could call him. Tell him. Make some big rom-com out of the whole thing. But what then? What, we’d run off into the sunset, get the dum-dum-da-dum-dum and the place in the suburbs and live happily ever after? If only it were that simple. If only that would make me happy, make him happy. But even if we started with the best of intentions, a team of two that would defy convention, stay wild and all that, suburbia and low-level resentment is where we’d end up. That’s where it always ends up eventually.

  So instead I finish my coffee, take my suitcase and head upstairs to the Eurostar, London and Camilla.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later I’m boarding the train, putting my luggage in the r
ack and scanning the seat numbers for thirty-four. I pull out my phone, put in my earbuds and silently pray nobody sits next to me. I scroll through to a podcast and close my eyes until the narrator is running through things I don’t want to hear about right now, and so I pull out my earphones and close my eyes until the train is moving.

  It’s a beep that has my eyes flick open. A text message. From Camilla. A photograph of the spare room she usually Airbnbs out, all made up with throw pillows and a Harrods bear with a green ribbon around its neck we bought together a few years back on a whim.

  On your way?

  I type back: Yes, see you soon xxx

  The seat beside me remains empty, so I put my handbag on the chair and scroll through Instagram. But every post reminds me of something I don’t want to remember: a jewellery advert reminds me of that gold necklace, evil-eye bracelet, silver bangle and red kabbalah string; of all the corpses still unfound. A shot of a sunset reminds me of the apricot sky behind the Seine in Sabine’s video. A positive quote reminds me of Thomas’s bookshelf. A shot of a gallery reminds me of that painting on his wall and a shot of a Parisian café reminds me of all the dreams I’m leaving behind.

  So instead I go to my emails.

  There’s one at the top from Hyacinth.

  An article is attached. I click on it and glance through the text, the indictments against Agnès Bisset, minus of course anything implicating her in Sabine’s death. It’s entitled: ‘The Paris Affair’.

  Her message reads: It’ll be live from 2 pm.

  I got my scoop after all. So why don’t I care anymore?

  My phone is right there in my hands and I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help myself. I pull up Safari and type in Thomas Jamison. I’m met with a long list of articles and his face, his eyes with those long lashes that are pale at the tips, staring back at me. My breath catches in my throat as I click on the first one. It was published yesterday.

  Thomas Henry Jamison, 38, who died two days ago in a fire after allegedly abducting a woman, Harper Brown, has been implicated in the death of Sabine Roux after her DNA was found in his car and number plate recognition software placed him at le Bois de Boulogne on the night of 15 October. Investigation into the death of Matilde Beaumont continues… colleagues and neighbours describe Mr Jamison as a nice, helpful, caring man.

  Maybe one day I’ll write about Thomas too. But not now. Because even seeing his face staring back at me from my phone makes my hands shake.

  I sit back, listen to nothing but the hum of conversation around me and look at my reflection in the windows as I wait for the darkness of the Chunnel to end.

  Chapitre quarante-trois

  The next year passes in a blur: soon after my name finds its way into the press, the media figure out which is my Instagram account and so I delete it and every other social media platform too. I follow the story in the papers, and every time I learn a new detail I catalogue it with a forensic detachment that makes no sense to me. Like: Thomas worked in the same large, mirrored building as Matilde Beaumont. The papers speculate that’s where he first saw her. He stalked her. He approached her. He spent that evening on the bridge with her. And then, one night, he grabbed her and killed her. Just like I hypothesised. The papers speculate about lots of things, really. But I’m the only person aside from Thomas who’ll ever see that photograph of her on the bed in that dark room. Crying. And it haunts me.

  Harrison’s second album bombs. Melody gets pregnant. They break up. He texts me a long, sad missive, which at first I think is sweet (that he’s seen the press) but, then, in true Harrison style, turns out to be selfish (he hasn’t written anything since we broke up and needs his muse back). I don’t text back. Instead I tell myself I’m strong, independent, don’t need anybody, and then mope around the house, scared to go outside, looking out the window for Mr Tall and Creepy. I commit to a daily green juice. That commitment lasts three days. I mope some more. I apply for jobs. I write to Hyacinth to tell her there may be reference calls on the way and find out that The Paris Observer has closed its doors. Hyacinth’s shitty moods make so much more sense now. This makes me sad on one hand but happy to think that Stan will now have to find a new job and may end up ‘freelance’ like me. I consider sending him a ‘how to write a blog’ post but don’t. Instead, I apply for more jobs. I get an interview. I have a panic attack on the Tube because someone near me is wearing perfume with a strong note of orange blossom, and as I breathe it in I think of that morning I discovered they’d found Sabine’s body. I get a job. I immediately start planning a trip to Japan I won’t be able to afford for eighteen months. I have flashbacks all the time. I imagine a world where Thomas wasn’t caught, where he moved from amateur to seasoned killer. Would he have developed a calling card? An initial? A flower? Or would he have continued to walk this earth unnoticed, blending in seamlessly with the good and obedient people of the world?

  And then I think of his concerned text message that morning after I gave him the flick: Hi Harper, I’m not sure what happened yesterday but I think you’re right, it’s best we end things. Just let me know you’re okay. T. And I run through all the reasons he might have sent that. Maybe it was part of some sick ploy to get me to trust him and he got off on duping his victims. Maybe he wanted to feel in control. Or, the scariest of all, maybe Thomas genuinely saw himself as a good man.

  Of course, there’s another one too: he thought my mother had a photograph of him. So, if one day she got hold of my phone records, he wanted it logged that not only was our fling over but he was fine with it. Just fine.

  But I try not to think about that one. Because when I do, I know what comes next: even though Thomas thought my mother had a photograph of him, even though I posed a mild risk, he didn’t just let me go, didn’t just pick another victim instead. And I am left asking: why couldn’t he let me go?

  Why did it have to be me?

  Which then leads to thoughts of Sabine, and how if she hadn’t seen him and recognised him, she’d be alive now. And then: guilt. Because Sabine saved me in a way. After her death, I was put on ice until things calmed down.

  That is, of course, until one night, I arrived on his doorstep…

  Those sorts of thoughts will fuck you up at 4 am, it’s almost impossible to make them stop, and when I manage it’s only to think other equally shit things like, What would have happened if Camilla hadn’t called me that night I went to Thomas’s house for help? The night I showed him that picture from Sabine’s video with her hand in frame? What if he hadn’t heard me tell Camilla, ‘I’m just at Thomas’s house’? Would he have killed me then?

  Mum and Neville break up for good and she meets a new Neville – this one is called Marc. Camilla realises the guy on the fourteenth floor is not her soulmate but she hasn’t had her identity stolen yet either, so maybe both of us were wrong. She gets the job at Vogue and is constantly bringing me tops a size too small from sample sales.

  Agnès Bisset goes to trial. Her messages are dissected as part of the investigation. It turns out she would have disposed of Sabine herself if Thomas hadn’t done it for her.

  The Klimt isn’t recovered, she claims it was a fake but that doesn’t matter because I was right about that not being her first foray into white collar crime. A vast number of artefacts from questionable origins are seized from Geneva Freeport. It turns out she was using emerging art, selling pieces she bought cheap for seriously inflated prices, to move said artefacts. Not once do I read the name Philip Crawford-White in the papers, of course.

  DNA extracted from Thomas is added to the UK National DNA Database. There’s a positive match with the DNA taken from a 2015 UK murder scene.

  I recognise the victim immediately. It’s the young blonde girl in that photograph I saw at the cabin. Though she’s older in the pictures in the papers, she still has the same eyes, hair and smile. And she’s the right type: she looks just like me and Matilde. The newspapers tell us that she was his babysitter years before. That she
had a small textiles business hand-painting unique designs onto articles of clothing. They find an email from Thomas in her inbox professing his love. They find her rejection.

  And they close the case.

  As for me, I’m healing. I’m not healing. I’m healing again. It’s a process. I take up jogging. I take up yoga. I take up Pilates. I take up barre. I do none of them. Instead I sit every day and stare at the blinking cursor on my screen and do my best. Because work is the only thing I really have these days.

  And I’m okay with that. Work doesn’t bundle you into the boot of a car and handcuff you to a bed. Work has a beginning, a middle and an end, and the end doesn’t involve tears (mostly). Work is something I can do indoors.

  The doorknob rattles and I look up.

  ‘Heya,’ Camilla says as she comes inside. ‘Please tell me you put on pants today?’

  She says this line a lot so I don’t take it too seriously.

  ‘Maybe,’ I say.

  ‘It’s not healthy. Get dressed, it’s Saturday night. We’re going out.’

  She disappears into her bedroom.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Surprise,’ she yells and then reappears holding up a navy lace top. ‘But I’m dressing you.’

  I close down my computer and stand up.

  ‘I’m not really feeling like it,’ I say.

  ‘Harps, please. How many things have I done for you?’

  I roll my eyes, take the top, and go through to my room where I get dressed and run a brush through my hair.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, in the back of an Uber, it’s a blur of traffic lights and headlights and shop windows and beeping and Camilla chatting happily about someone at work.

  Then the car slows down and I look outside. Soho. I can see one of my favourite jazz bars up ahead – is that where we’re going?

  I get out of the car and stand on the pavement.

  ‘Bye, give me five stars!’ Camilla instructs the driver. And then he’s gone, and Camilla is taking my hand and saying: ‘Ready?’