“Jesus, what was that?” gasps Lara, her face utterly drained of color.
The window is intact. I’m standing up, craning my neck with my head pressed against the window to look through it, past the coffee shop slogan stuck on the glass to the pavement below. “A bird,” I say. “A pigeon.” The dirty, gray-feathered body is lying in a heap on the paving. “It’s stunned itself.”
“Jesus,” says Lara again.
I straighten and glance around the coffee shop. The barista continues to serve, conversations are continuing among the paired clientele, mobile phones continue to be inspected by those sitting alone. Nobody else seems to have noticed. I look out of the window; passersby hurry on, unheeding. Severine is among them, in her black shift, blood trickling from her right temple. It doesn’t seem to be affecting either her balance or her self-possession.
“That was weird.” I grab some napkins and start to mop up our spilled coffee. “There must have been a reflection in the window; it must have thought it was flying into sky.”
“That used to happen at school in Sweden sometimes.”
I settle down again and return to my almost cold coffee. “Lara, why did you and Tom never give things a proper go?”
She looks up from her coffee, startled. “After France, you mean?”
“Yes.” I’m suddenly very self-conscious. Should I be holding eye contact, or not? What impression am I giving about how vested I am in this answer? “I always thought he wanted to but you didn’t.”
“Oh.” She’s blushing a little. It underlines how pale she’s been this afternoon. “Actually . . . it was more the other way round. To be honest, I would have been up for it—at the time, I mean, not now—but he was definitely not into anything more.”
“Oh.” I consider that. “Why did I think it was the other way round?”
“I don’t know.” But she really is too honest to leave it like that. “Except maybe . . . perhaps I gave you that impression. I felt a bit, well, rejected, I suppose. You weren’t really around at the time; right after France you and Seb were splitting up and your dad died and then you were up north for ages, and in quite a state even when you got back . . . I think you made the assumption and I never really corrected it, out of pride I guess.” I can see the guilty embarrassment squirming inside her; I can see the Lara of years ago, hardly unable to comprehend the concept of a man who doesn’t want to climb back in the sack with her. “It hasn’t messed things up for you and Tom, has it?” she asks, suddenly anxious.
“I don’t think there is a me and Tom.” Just like there was never a Lara and Tom. I got that wrong, for all those years, along with just about everything else. Am I wrong about how Modan feels about Lara? Am I being played? “Would you mind if there was?”
“No.” She says it hesitantly, like she’s testing her answer. “It feels a bit strange, but . . .” She shrugs with a hint of a rueful smile. “I’d have no right to mind, even if I did.”
An interesting response. An honest one, I think. I sigh. “Well, it’s a moot point anyway. Since I’m apparently going to jail.” A French jail, to boot. I wonder, in an abstract way, if that is any better or worse than a British jail. And then it strikes me that it’s no longer an abstract consideration.
“It’s not funny, Kate,” Lara says tersely.
“I’m not laughing.” I feel clammy and ill again; I am definitely not laughing. We’re many, many steps away from jail, I remind myself. Don’t think about being arrested. I lean toward the glass and peer out of the window again, down toward the pavement. The gray-feathered heap has gone.
“You have to speak to Alain. You have to give him something, cooperate. You have to tell him—”
“What? What can I tell him? I don’t know anything to tell him.”
“Yes, you do. You can tell him about Caro. You can tell him about the drugs.”
My eyes leap to Lara’s, and she gazes back at me, clear-eyed and unflinching. I look across the divide between us, the corridor of air, and it’s like staring down a tunnel through the years, back to where it all began, back to France and Severine. How far we’ve come, to get to this point, the point where you throw friends under buses. Except Caro is not really a friend, exactly—but I’m splitting hairs. I start to form, then discard, any number of responses.
“What are you going to do?” presses Lara.
A garden rake. “I’m going to call my lawyer.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I leave the café, already dialing my lawyer, but she’s busy and unable to take my call. Of course she’s busy; she’s a professional at the top of her game, high in demand, which is exactly the sort of lawyer one would want to have—only I want her sitting in her office, staring at her telephone and twiddling her thumbs, doing nothing of note except eagerly awaiting my call. I have half a mind to jump in a taxi to her premises, but I resist the urge and instead choose to walk back to my office.
The fresh air fails to do me good. My mind is racing, unable to break free from a spiral track that leads inexorably to a dark pit of all the things I’m not yet ready to face. Surely there must be a way out, a bargain to be made with a God I don’t believe in . . . How can this be happening to me?
“Jesus,” says Paul. He doesn’t look up as I enter the office. “Did they have to get the coffee beans from South America?”
It takes me a minute to process the words and divine his meaning, then I glance at my watch. I’ve been gone over an hour and a half. But surely not . . . the taxi there, plus the time spent with Lara, plus the walk back: it doesn’t quite seem to add up. But my internal clock and the reckoning of my watch cannot arrive at a mutually agreeable answer. I have the sensation that time is rushing past me, rushing through me, like I’m no more substantial than a ghost and there’s nothing I can do to stem the tide. “I forgot I had a call with Gordon.” It’s hard enough to invent an excuse, let alone give it some expression. “I took it at the coffee shop.”
Paul looks up from his computer screen at that. “Not a problem there, is there?” he asks anxiously. “I thought Caroline Horridge was the liaison now.”
“No problem. Gordon just likes to keep his finger in the pie.” The words make sense, but they mean nothing to me. Perhaps in a while Paul and the business and all those small concerns that add up to mean life will catch at me with little hooks and lines, pulling me back into phase with the world, but for now I feel like nothing exists except the looming dread of a French jail. Shock, I realize. I must be in shock.
“Well, I’ve loaded the Jeffers file now if you want to take a look.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot. Someone called for you when Julie was out at lunch, wanting to know when you’d be back, but wouldn’t leave a message. A woman, posh sounding.”
“Well, that certainly narrows it down.” I’ve refound irony: I must be anchored back in the real world now. Except—I glance quickly around—Severine is not here . . . but no, I’ve got that wrong; Severine is not real, Severine is not normal . . . My head is pounding. I sit down quickly.
“Are you all right?” I hear Paul ask distantly.
“Fine,” I say quickly. “Though I don’t think my lunch entirely agreed with me.” I’m getting to be quite the liar. Tom would be proud, except why would he? After this is over, Tom is washing his hands of me. But this may never be over, not for me . . . Where the hell is my damn lawyer? I grab the mouse, determined to focus on something else, and the blank monitor springs to life.
After some time—how long? Five minutes? Twenty-five?—my vision clears and the pounding in my head recedes. Sometime after that I realize it must look odd for me to be staring at a screen, and for lack of anything better to do, I look up the Jeffers file, which is exactly where it should be and perfectly up to date: Paul is nothing if not thorough. I skim through, noting his current role, and the familiar process begins to soo
the me: strengths, weaknesses, where would he fit? Stockleys? Haft & Weil? But no, not there because . . . I stop suddenly, as a flush of adrenaline prickles over my skin. Definitely not Haft & Weil, because Mark Jeffers has already worked there, started his career there in fact. In none other than Caro’s group.
I don’t believe in coincidences.
I’m still trying to work out the implications of that when Julie taps and enters briskly, her generous mouth unusually strained. “Sorry, Kate, I have an Alina”—she checks the Post-it in her hand—“Harcourt here for you.” Harcourt—but that’s Seb’s surname, it doesn’t fit with anyone else—and then I twig. But what on earth is Seb’s wife doing here? Julie is still speaking, her eyes anxious behind the tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. “I did say you have quite a busy schedule . . .”
Do I? I check the diary, conscious it should have been the first thing I did when I got back in the office, and it’s true, I have a few calls coming up. It’s hard to reason through how I should respond to this sudden intrusion, to what would constitute a normal response when I feel so far from normal. I suppose I could legitimately send Alina away; it’s what I would prefer to do, but I can’t help wondering what has driven her here in the first place. I wouldn’t imagine she’s someone given to impulsive social calls with no warning; she’s far too well-mannered for that. “It’s okay, Julie, she’s the wife of a friend.”
Reluctantly leaving my desk to greet my unexpected guest, I find her looking out of the window in the outer room, a sleek gray wool coat buttoned almost to her neck, the belt highlighting her as-yet slim waist. Above the collar her long dark blond hair is coiled into a smooth roll. She turns her head as I emerge from my office, and I see her quickly rearrange her features into a smile. Her makeup is impeccable. She must have taken a great deal of care over it.
“Alina!” I say, finding a smile from somewhere. I kiss her on both cheeks after a slight hesitation that I hope is imperceptible. That’s the point of etiquette, I think—to provide a framework of actions to cling to even when your world is falling apart. I need to rely on that. “This is a surprise. How are you?”
She doesn’t answer the question. “I’m so sorry for turning up unannounced.” She glances around; a quick frown crosses her face before she smooths it away.
“You’re not a lawyer, are you?” I ask, conscious of Julie hovering behind me.
“Oh no. Lord, no. I capital-raise for private equity.” Alina glances round again. The practicalities seem to be catching up to her. Perhaps she hadn’t been expecting me to share an office.
“A social call then,” I say. Alina’s eyes fly to my face; they’re hazel, almost yellow. “Come on, then, let’s nip out for coffee where we can chat freely.” Whatever she has to say, I’m quite sure I don’t want Paul or Julie to hear it.
Alina nods swiftly. “Perfect,” she says, relief evident even in her clipped tones. “I am sorry to disturb you, but as I was passing, it seemed silly not to drop in.” She’s a smart girl; she’s caught on.
I ask Julie to reschedule my calls and then grab my coat, which seems very shabby next to Alina’s sleek number, and Alina and I head across the road to the nearest coffee shop. I have to stretch my mind to think of what one might ordinarily say in this situation. Follow the rules, stick to the etiquette: the ordinary steps of life will pull me through. “How are you feeling?” I ask. “Are you still struggling with morning sickness?”
“That,” she says without looking at me, her mouth a thin tight line, “is the least of my worries.” Then she relents, perhaps realizing how combative she sounded. “But yes, I’m still struggling. God knows what this poor thing is surviving on; I can hardly keep anything down.”
We’re at the door of the café now. I sit Alina down at a table and queue to buy her a cup of tea and some plain biscuits, ignoring her protestations that she should be the one paying. When I return to the table she has peeled off the tailored coat to reveal a white silk blouse and a neat pencil skirt. The effect is simple, understated: elegantly attractive but not sexy. It entirely suits her. She reaches for the biscuits immediately. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I study her as she peels open the packet, trying to fit her into Seb, like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.
She looks up as if she feels my eyes on her, picking over her hair, her clothes, the way she holds herself. “You must be wondering what on earth I’m doing here,” she says, without a trace of a smile, when she has finished a biscuit. Her delicately prominent collarbones spread like open wings from the two raised nubs at the base of her throat; her wrists are slender, leading to long, slim fingers. It seems like her very bones have been carefully crafted to fit the image she wishes to portray: refined, elegant, unmistakably upper class.
“Yes,” I say. I glance at my mobile phone, which I have placed faceup on the table. My lawyer hasn’t rung.
“You used to date my husband.”
I blink. “Yes.”
“Is that a problem?” Her eyes are an unusual hazel color and fixed unswervingly on my face.
I almost laugh; for a moment I’m tempted to paraphrase her own words: that’s the least of my problems. Instead I say evenly, “Not for me.”
She eyes me carefully without speaking for a moment, then reaches for another biscuit. “Good,” she says, with some satisfaction, as if I’ve confirmed something important to her. “I didn’t know anything about your history with Seb until the other day,” she remarks. “Caro told me.” There’s an unmistakable twist of her lips on Caro’s name. “Actually, I’d rather assumed you were with Tom.”
I don’t want to hear his name yet I’m also greedy for something, anything, that relates to Tom and me, to an us that has never been; I have to stop myself from asking why she assumed that. Instead I say mildly, “I wouldn’t think you’re here to ask me that, though.”
“No.” She puts down the biscuit without having taken a bite. Once again I’m caught in her hazel gaze. She ticks all the boxes I had always imagined Seb’s wife would have to tick, but still she is not what I expected . . . She’s more reserved, more intelligent, more herself. I wonder if Seb has gotten rather more than he bargained for. “I rather think Caro is trying to steal my husband,” she says without preamble or apology. “He’s in quite a bad place at the moment: his job, the drinking . . . I know you were at Tom’s last night so I hardly need to bring you up to speed on that.” Only two red spots high on those perfectly sculpted cheekbones reveal the humiliation I know she must feel on discussing her husband’s failings with a near-stranger. “The thing is, it’s Caro who is getting him so worked up about it all. Ever since they reopened the investigation on that girl, she’s been on the phone nonstop, trying to get her little tendrils into him—” She stops abruptly, cutting off the passion that was threatening to spill into her words.
I stare at her. This is so far from what I was expecting—not that I knew what I was expecting, but this isn’t it—that I have to mentally shake myself into responding. “They’re not having an affair,” I say at last. Perhaps it’s a good thing this is such a strange conversation: I can be forgiven for being a little slow on social cues. It wouldn’t be appropriate to say what I’m thinking: I’m about to be arrested for a murder that in all probability was your husband’s fault, so please excuse me if I can’t get worked up about the state of your marriage.
“I didn’t think they were—not yet, at least. Though I’d be interested to know what makes you say that.” One part of me notes that the control she has of her emotions is terrifyingly impressive.
“Caro kept ringing last night. He wouldn’t pick up. Tom asked why she kept calling, and Seb told him he wasn’t sleeping with her, if that’s what he was thinking. He said he never had.” I remember the words escaping his mouth in the dim living room, and more besides. Barely even kissed her. So he did kiss her, at least once then. I wonder when. Probably sometime when they wer
e teenagers. Not that it matters. Not that any of it matters. But she’s here, and so am I, and there are motions I should go through. I shrug. “So if you believe in the old saying in vino veritas . . .”
“I do, actually,” she says thoughtfully. Perhaps I detect a slight relaxation within her, but equally I could be imagining it. She looks at the biscuit carefully for a moment, as if considering if it’s worth the risk, but it remains on the table in front of her. She looks at me again. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I’m still puzzled as to what she’s here for.
“Tom said you and Caro don’t really get on.”
Tom. “Well, we certainly didn’t in the past, but that was a long time ago.”
“I thought perhaps you would be a good person to speak to.”
“My enemy’s enemy is my friend?” But I see Caro again, admitting to her own mother’s disapproval, and I feel that moment of warmth between us. Caro is not an enemy. Nor a friend, either. I’m not sure I know the correct word in the English language to describe what she is to me. Though if she really is to blame for the Mark Jeffers situation, I’m sure I’ll find one.
“Exactly.” Alina smiles briefly, a genuine smile, not one out of politeness. On another day, I know it would feel like a gift: I don’t believe Alina offers a genuine smile terribly often. “I don’t really know what happened in France: Seb doesn’t like to talk about it. He says he doesn’t want me to worry about anything with the baby coming.” She frowns. “But whatever happened, I think it’s somehow giving Caro some, I don’t know, leverage over him. And quite frankly I find that rather more irritating than the investigation. I mean, it’s not as if Seb would really have killed a random girl, is it? He should have nothing to worry about. But she has him all worked up; he’s talking to her and not to me, and I need to find a way to put a stop to it.”
I look at her blankly. Surely as Seb’s wife, she must know more than this? But there is no artifice in her face, simply frustration and a hefty dislike of Caro—Seb really hasn’t filled her in. It’s probably not my place to do it, either, but in spite of my preoccupation, my distance, I do have some empathy for her. She shouldn’t be left in the dark. “Alina,” I say carefully. “You do know that Seb slept with Severine, don’t you? The girl who died? That he was the last person to see her alive?”
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