‘You slept through the night.’
‘We are not moving.’
‘We’re in Marseille. The train has stopped for a crew change, I believe. I thought you might like to look out of the window and watch the sea as we travel east towards Italy. It seems to be a beautiful coastline.’
Alongside him on the seat Charlie had a wrapped paper package containing the sandwiches, and a dog-eared open copy of Animal Farm, spine turned upwards. He must be a gentleman if he reads books, she thought, as she yawned, stretching her arms and legs. Glancing at her reflection in the window, she saw that her hair was a rumpled mess. She rubbed at it furiously with her fingers.
‘Hungry?’
She nodded, and he passed over the greaseproof package. How much further? she wanted to know.
‘There will be quite a few stops from now on, so that makes it longer. But we’ll be in Nice this afternoon.’
It was Thursday morning. Her screen test was the following day. She needed to wash her hair, spruce herself up, and iron her one remaining frock. It had been squashed in her bag for several days and creased so easily. If she didn’t iron it, she would look drab and unattractive. Ill-presented – that would never do.
‘Are you going directly to your friends?’ she asked him.
‘Maybe.’
‘Are they far from Nice?’
‘Two stops before.’ He coughed, picked up his book and closed it. He was going to have to come clean with this young woman before the day was out.
‘Two stops before’ had unsettled Marguerite. She had been hoping the friends lived close to Nice. She had nowhere to stay. Everything depended on the success of the following day’s test or she would be stranded, but until then she was stranded. Even if she were immensely fortunate and found employment as a barmaid today, they wouldn’t pay her directly. She would have to wait for her wages. She must try for a live-in situation somewhere along the coast. Chambermaid in a hotel, perhaps. Nanny to a wealthy family. The wealthier, the better. Or might Charlie advance her a few more francs? How prosperous was he? She didn’t want to push him too far. And she’d need to pay him back. Quite possibly his friends were comfortably off and wouldn’t mind offering her a bed for a few nights, and the company might distract her from her escalating nerves.
They fell silent, munching on their baguettes, chewy, slightly stale, but welcome all the same.
The train had left the port city and was on the move again, curling, creaking, chugging round the coast. The sun was climbing high above the horizon as they inched along beside the sea, turquoise at the water’s edge. Marguerite had never seen the sea before. The cliffs and rocks were baked with heat and shone rust and purple. Disappointingly, there were few boats now that they had left the great harbour behind them. Even at this early hour, she could feel the power of the sun bleeding through the window, warming her tired skin. This was more like it. Without warning, surprising even herself, she leaped to her feet and began to sing ‘La Mer’ … ‘Do you know this song, Charlie? It’s my favourite … “The sea, dancing along the shores … We’re at the sea, the sea …”’ she improvised.
She was turning in circles, arms outstretched, dancing with herself, delighting in her youth, radiating happiness and the opportunities awaiting her. ‘Oh, Charlie, we’re at the sea. We’ve reached the seaside. The sea,’ she was crooning again, ‘I’m at the sea …’
Her voice was scintillating, sweet, full of grace. She sang like ribbons of silver scudding through wheat fields in the wind. Charlie chewed his sandwich; his eyes lingering on her, smiling with delight. He liked her. She didn’t threaten him; she had no interest in quizzing him or snooping into his story. This crazed girl improvising music, dancing on an imagined shore. Her small thin body waving and bending exaggeratedly. Now she was laughing almost drunkenly, head tossed backwards, glowing, unmindful of her true beauty, her inner beauty, her untapped sexuality.
‘What say we both leave the train in Cannes, Marguerite?’
Cannes, where the new film festival had been inaugurated the previous year. She could quote the date – 20 September – having drooled over newspaper photographs of the ceremony, kept cuttings of the stars disembarking the liners from America, waving to the cameras, to the resort city, the French movie industry, the unconquered territory. Even so, she shook her head, mouth full. He knew what her objection was.
‘Listen, tomorrow I’ll accompany you to Nice to the Victorine Studios, if you like. Unless you have other plans for tonight, that is?’ Charlie winked at her, which took her aback.
She felt her cheeks and neck grow hot, a flush rising pink as candy floss. ‘No plans,’ she replied softly.
From the railway station at Cannes, they walked with their luggage to the illustrious promenade known as La Croisette in the early-afternoon sunshine. Palm trees and tropical shrubs bordered the wide sea-breezed boulevard. Its full length on the inland side seemed to be constructed with impressive hotels painted white, like freshly starched linen. Tourists motored by in open-top cars exuding a carefree air. They passed a shop, Rémy’s Chemisier. It faced directly towards the water and was stocked with elegant handmade shirts. Striped, silk, fine Egyptian cotton. Outside, gleaming in the sunlight, was parked an open-top Bentley, the colour of sucked toffee.
‘It’s another world,’ breathed Marguerite, solemnly. ‘Wondrous and so glamorous.’ A world she lusted to be a part of. Strolling onwards, awe spinning them in circles, they came to a standstill outside the Carlton Hotel; their heads craned in amazement, as they exclaimed at its grandeur, its sophistication. Marguerite closed her eyes and the spectacle of women in backless floor-length frocks swam into view, strappy high heels of satin, spinning, swaying by starlight on the terrace. An orchestra flanked by potted palms, seducing the guests with easy-going swing rhythms.
Although they were both tired, Charlie took her by the hand and led her alongside a stretch of beach where clusters of people were seated beneath striped parasols to keep the sun off their heads. Others were swimming in the sea, calling to companions, rising like seals as the water danced off their suntanned limbs, or playing ball games at the foam’s edge. It was the beginning of the holiday season, he explained to her. The overexcited, high-pitched yells of children wading into the sea brought Marguerite to a halt. She held her face skywards.
Charlie watched her, thrilling to the grace of her movements, her long lashes when she closed her eyes. She seemed to be a flower opening, a bud unfolding, before his eyes.
Marguerite moved her head back and forth lethargically, basking in the sun’s rays caressing her skin. There was a mood of joy, mirth, of ebullience about this seaside town that eased her tensions, soothed her emotional scars. She was determined to stay in the present. The past was gone. The war was over. Now mattered, and tomorrow. ‘Where are your friends? I’d like to meet them, may I?’ she asked him suddenly.
‘No friends.’ He grinned. ‘Like you, these are my first footsteps along the Riviera. So, we have to find ourselves somewhere to sleep.’
‘No friends!’
‘But you have given me a reason to be here.’ He laughed. ‘It was high time to leave Paris in any case.’
She looked up at him, alarmed, then studied him, appraising him. He seemed to know the world, know what he was about. He was a classic English gentleman. Not that she had met any before, but she had recently seen Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter and been dazzled by his penetrating gaze and respectful manners.
Was she angry with Charlie for the lie he’d told her before they boarded the train?
‘You have beautiful eyes.’ He smiled. ‘A film star’s eyes.’
‘It’s what I dream of, Charlie. It’s all I want. Nothing else.’
No, she wasn’t angry. In fact, she rather liked him. Aside from Bertrand, no one before had ever shown her such consideration. Perhaps she could persuade him to teach her the rudiments of English? The Americans in Hollywood spoke English, didn’t they?
My, but
she had fallen on good luck with Charlie! He had booked her a room of her own at the pension and paid for it. It was a modest but clean refuge they had found in a narrow street set back from the station. What was more, she would be able to iron her crushed frock. She had asked the desk clerk, who had shown her to her tiny chambre up in the eaves and he had politely assured her that it was certainly not a problem. In fact, the housekeeping would be done for her. She was here, finally here, in the south, just a bus ride from Nice. A little tired and dishevelled, but she didn’t care. Not tonight. All boded well for her screen test the following morning. Luck was smiling down on her. She could be confident at last.
‘La mer …’ She hummed softly as she hung up her raincoat in the armoire, skipped a step or two, unpacked her scruffy little bag, carefully unfolding her few remaining possessions onto the iron-framed single bed. Life was improving by the minute. All she needed was to triumph at the studios.
Paris, November 2015
By close to 2 a.m. on Saturday morning the killings were over. The incessant spit of gunshots had been gagged. Although for some this was just the beginning of a different kind of nightmare. Those who had survived the onslaught, who were not dead, seriously injured or traumatized, were liberated from the concert hall, free to make their unsteady way to another part of the city, anywhere else, for refuge, comfort, the healing power of loved ones. The perpetrators of this hell, the terrorists, were dead. Three jihadi males, clothed in black, had blown themselves up after triggering suicide vests when the RAID, an elite law-enforcement team, the task force of the French national police, had eventually gained access to the venue and intervened.
Kurtiz remained outside in the grey street with its charcoal sky. She was shivering in diminishing temperatures. Shivering from fear and shock. A wind was whipping up. Blood and vomit graffitied the paving stones, and the rank odour of sulphur, accompanied by the sweeter, cloying scent of blood, hung in the air. Hints of faeces, too. A physical reality of terror.
‘You can smell fear. It’s pungent, no doubt about it,’ Alex had once said to her.
The interior of the concert hall was out of bounds to all but the special services and medical workers. Their task now was to unravel the carnage, gather up the bodies strewn about the floor. Locate any whose hearts were still beating and transport them without delay to one of the city’s hospitals. The dead required preparation before the gurneys could wheel them out.
There was no Lizzie. So far, no Lizzie. Kurtiz had looked into the face of every injured female she could get close to. She had badgered officers and care staff to scan their lists, which were scant of confirmed information. Oliver had been tracked down.
A woman logging the names of victims whose identity cards were on their person yelled his name. Kurtiz elbowed her way through waiting crowds. ‘Yes, here,’ she called. ‘Here!’
Identity papers. British passport. Age forty-seven.
‘Yes, that’s him. How is he?’ She was hopping alongside the gurney. ‘Was he on his own?’
Condition: critical.
Two bullets had ripped through his coeliac – or solar – plexus; bullets fired from a Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle.
Kurtiz gazed upon his unconscious, blood-stained body, his face ragged and pale as alabaster as they transported him across the street.
Shot twice, he was marked down for intensive care.
‘Which hospital, s’il vous plaît? May I come with you?’
‘Désolé, Madame.’
‘Is my daughter on your list? Lizzie Ross? Was she at her father’s side?’
‘Madame, please keep back.’
‘Which hospital is my husband being treated at?’
The paramedics were requesting she liaise with the hospital for further updates on Oliver’s condition. ‘Step away, make space for the services to do their jobs.’
‘Yes, but which hospital?’
‘Malheureusement, Madame, we have no directive yet as to where he’s being taken.’
She watched impotently as they loaded him into an ambulance along with two other victims. Metal doors closed hard; the driver pulled away.
Should she try to follow or wait for Lizzie? She was so tired it was as though someone had slugged her, beaten and coshed her. Clubbed her into insensibility. Coordination of thought felt impossible. She didn’t know where to turn, who to turn to, where to go. She needed sleep, coffee, guidance, every kind of sustenance, but more than anything she needed reassurance that Lizzie was alive and that they would be together soon.
Every hospital in Paris was operating at full tilt. Plan Blanc, one of the aid workers informed her, had been déclenché. Kurtiz had never heard of Plan Blanc. The White Plan? Alex, if he were here, would know of it. How she craved his solidity and wisdom right now.
A woman whom Kurtiz quite literally stumbled over, crouched on the pavement, drinking beer from a can, rolling a cigarette, waiting for news, ‘like all of us here’, told her that Paris was a graveyard of decimated bodies and victims. Many had not yet been identified. Six targets had been established, six locations, all within the eastern suburbs of the city.
The smell of tobacco drifted to her, warm and reassuring. Kurtiz begged a cigarette. She didn’t smoke, hadn’t rolled a ciggie since she’d been a student. Her fingers were clumsy, cold and numb, but she took comfort, consolation from the company of another whose anguish must equal hers. They hunkered on their haunches side by side, puffing silently.
‘Who are you waiting for?’
‘My son, Michel. He’s sixteen. We live off Richard Lenoir, just round the corner. I’ve been here since quarter past ten. As soon as I heard the news, I came running. You?’
‘My daughter.’ The nicotine caused her head to spin. She coughed and heaved.
The woman offered her a slug of beer. Kurtiz was grateful for any liquid.
‘No sign of Michel yet. He must be among those pinned to the floor inside. A young girl who’d been hiding under the stage and managed to escape through a fire exit while those bastards were reloading their guns told me the assassins had ordered everyone to get down on the floor. Anyone who moved, they shot. I pray to God Michel’s still breathing.’
Kurtiz closed her eyes, barring the possibility.
‘He saved for weeks to buy this ticket.’
Was Lizzie somewhere on the floor, perhaps clinging to Michel, or was she in a mortuary? Kurtiz dragged on the roll-up. Just a girl whom no one could put a name to, who’d gone to a concert.
She scrambled to her feet, thanked her companion for the smoke and began to walk along the lines of bodies, the rows laid on the ground outside the concert hall, praying not to identify Lizzie, praying that, after all her hopes of being reunited with her precious girl that evening, she had, for whatever providential reason, decided at the last moment not to attend.
Or might she have been among the few who escaped early? Had she caught sight of her dad and fled at the outset?
No, Kurtiz could not entertain this last scenario. If Lizzie knew that her father had been present at the Eagles of Death Metal concert, even if she guessed that he was there on a quest to find her, if she knew that her flight had saved her life, she would be questioning the fate of her father. She would come forward. She would want to know his fate. Wouldn’t she?
And soon his identity, his condition, would be public, one on a list of more than a hundred of those gunned down, more than eighty fatally, during this night of hell. No matter Lizzie’s circumstances, no matter where she was or what anger she might still harbour towards her mother, for her father’s sake, her beloved dad, she’d make herself known. Wouldn’t she?
Kurtiz, London, July 2011
Kurtiz bent to the floor and picked up a CD. The jacket pictured a close-up of a female’s backside in tight jeans, and two fingers, the pinky and index, extended. The Death by Sexy album. Blues or garage rock, Kurtiz wasn’t sure which. Oliver had taken Lizzie to that concert at the Brixton Academy in June, a couple of yea
rs back. The group had gone directly to the number-one slot on the list of fourteen-year-old Lizzie’s Favourite Rock Bands. From there on, Eagles of Death Metal had become a bond between father and daughter. She was crazy about the ginger-haired singer-songwriter, Josh Homme. ‘Almost as old as Dad,’ she’d teased, ‘but fit.’ The posters of him were still pinned to her bedroom wall. One with Homme playing his Maton BB1200, dated 2007. Homme was also a contributor to the Arctic Monkeys’ albums, another fave of Lizzie’s.
No matter the dissent between Kurtiz and Oliver, he had never been less than caring and attentive to his daughter. He idolized her.
What exactly Kurtiz was looking for, she couldn’t have said. A clue obviously. Her mind was running in circles. Where was Lizzie’s mobile phone? On the bedside table? No. At her work desk? Also negative. So, she must have taken it with her. Had Oliver tried calling her? Could it be traced by its in-built GPS? Had the police been given her phone number?
Why did the knot, tight as a brick, in her stomach, and the palpitations of her heart, signal to Kurtiz that this was no jaunt for a few days to a concert, to Glastonbury or the coast with a carload of juveniles playing truant? Her sixteen-year-old daughter had not simply decamped for a long weekend to hang out with hipper, happier companions than her forever wrangling parents. Something intangible, an invisible absence, a deadness in the room, sounded an alarm. Lizzie had gone.
Kurtiz sank to her knees and began to scrabble and dig for the umpteenth time, excavating the chaos that was Lizzie’s existence, throwing up scarves, underwear, trainers, socks, CDs, scratched and lacking jackets, coloured biros. She was rooting for clues, for a scribbled note, an address book, her daughter’s iPad, laptop. Anything that offered an indication, a spoor to follow. A message. A message on her own phone? She scrambled to her feet and scooted from the room in search of her handbag on the hall table. Inside was her phone. She stabbed at the screen, awakening it. No messages. She fast-dialled the local police station and was connected to DI Blackwell.
The Lost Girl Page 13
