The French Girl

by Lexie Elliott

  “Wait—so you never thought that was Severine at the bus depot?”

  “No. All the time we were there, do you remember her ever emerging before eleven?”

  I think about this, remembering Severine coming out to the pool in her black bikini, a chic canvas bag filled with the paraphernalia required for serious sunbathing, whilst also watching the Severine in my living room settle into a more comfortable position. “True. Sometimes not till lunchtime.”

  “Exactly. And with a hangover and a sore head? I doubt we’d have seen her till mid-afternoon.”

  I missed that point. I should have thought of it, but I missed it in my eagerness to believe Severine was at the bus depot, that her death had nothing to do with any of us. “What do you think happened now?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” he says slowly. “Modan said her bones were damaged. Consistent with a hit-and-run—”

  “The Jag!” I exclaim.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. Theo’s dad told me the police have been over every inch of the Jag for evidence; he told me he’d looked up how long it takes DNA to degrade, and apparently it depends on the conditions: takes millions of years in ideal conditions like ice, but not very long in heat or sunlight. The Jag has always been kept under cover in a garage, though, so I expect that means any DNA will be usable. I imagine right now Modan has some lab running tests on any DNA recovered. He’ll be testing against all of us, I bet.”

  “It would have to be Caro, Theo or Seb,” I say slowly.

  “Yes. I don’t know which one, or even if we’re on the right track.” He sounds strained. “It doesn’t make any sense. You’d have to be gunning the accelerator to hit someone hard enough to kill them, so then it’s hardly an accident anymore.” Now I see Severine, in the same black shift, the sandals still swinging from a single finger, except now she’s caught in headlights, turning in surprise, raising a futile arm to block her face . . . “Which means the police will probably think you have the most obvious motive.”

  Jealous rage. Spurned lover. We know so much more now, yet nothing has moved on. I’m still the prime suspect. The movie plays out in my head: Severine tossed up in the air like a rag doll, smashing down on the Jaguar’s windscreen, shattering it in a starburst. I look at the Severine in my armchair. She hasn’t reacted; her eyes are closed, and her head is tipped back against the cushion, as if she’s sunbathing in the dim light of the table lamp and the flickering television. Maybe she is, in her reality. “Wouldn’t there have been some damage to the car, though?”

  “You’d think so. Though sometimes in a crash the bumper looks perfect and all the damage is behind that. I don’t know. Seb was hammered; I suppose he could have fallen asleep at the wheel and hit her, but he’s just not that into cars. I can’t imagine him climbing in it in the first place.”

  “Theo?” I think again of Alina’s plan. I don’t want to tell Tom about that.

  He takes a moment to answer. When he finally speaks up there’s a reluctance infused in every word. “I don’t see it. But I didn’t expect him to sign up for the army, either.” He sighs again. “And Caro doesn’t make sense, either. Nobody does.”

  “Except me.” I sink back on my sofa again. “Always me,” I mutter.

  “Oh, Kate.” It’s more of a sigh than a sentence. Then, gently: “Are you okay? I’m getting worried about you.”

  “No.”

  “I—”

  “Alina wants us all to blame Theo.” I’ve cut him off with the first thing I can think of, before he can say anything else nice. If he does I’ll cry, and once I start that I won’t stop.

  “What?”

  I explain about her ambush of me.

  “Jesus,” he says when I’ve finished. “But she’s right,” he adds thoughtfully. “It would be the perfect solution. Not to save Seb, though, to save you.”

  I’m struck again by his pragmatism. “Could you even . . . Could you actually do that?” I ask hesitantly.

  “If it came to that, as a last resort?” He thinks about it seriously. “Yes. I could. I could do it for you.”

  I close my eyes, close to tears, touched beyond words that he would choose me over Theo. “When this is over . . . if this is ever over . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want you to go back to Boston,” I whisper.

  He’s quiet. He knows what I’m saying. He’s quiet for a second that becomes a minute, a year, a lifetime.

  “Say something,” I whisper to him. I turn my face to hide it in the sofa cushions.

  “You chose Seb.” He’s whispering, too. “I’ll always know you chose Seb.”

  “Because I didn’t know. You didn’t even try; you just stepped aside for Seb. You can’t hold it against me when you didn’t even try.” Another second, another minute—I can’t bear for the silence to lengthen any further. “Don’t say anything now. Just think about it. I’m going to be in a French jail anyway—”

  “It won’t come to that,” he interrupts fiercely, but I ignore him.

  “— so it’s probably a moot point, but . . . please just think about it.”

  “I . . .” He trails off. “All right, I’ll think about it.”

  “Night, Tom.”

  “Night, Kate.”

  * * *

  —

  In the morning I almost don’t go to work. I’ve slept abysmally—God knows when I last slept well, which I know is a sign of mental stress, but in this case I think it’s rather eclipsed by the fact that I’m regularly seeing a ghost—but at 9 A.M. I’m still in bed, not sleeping, not moving, not doing anything except existing, and I can’t even see the point of that. It’s a call from Caro that rouses me from my apathy. Pride, it turns out, is a powerful motivator.

  “Julie said you weren’t in yet, best to try your mobile,” says Caro breezily. “Having a lie-in, are you? I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  I can sense her sly glee at the idea, and I can’t bear to allow her the pleasure. “Actually no, I’ve just finished a breakfast meeting with a client,” I lie, remarkably glibly. “Julie must have overlooked it in the office diary.”

  “Oh. Right.” She sounds temporarily put out—yes!—but she rallies. “Well, I really need to meet with you. How’s your diary today?”

  I grab my BlackBerry from the bedside table and flick through. “Today is not great, actually.” It’s true; it would be a pretty busy day even without the lawyer-and-Modan meeting that looms, darkly implacable and immovable, in the middle of the afternoon. “Monday would be better.”

  “It really needs to be today,” she insists. “What about the end of the day?”

  I can see I’m not going to be able to put her off. “Well, yes, I suppose I should be able to manage six thirty,” I say reluctantly. “Is there a problem? Have you had second thoughts on anyone we’re negotiating with?”

  “No, no, it’s not that at all. Actually, it’s more a case of some professional advice. You know, with the partnership process . . .”

  That almost floors me. Caro would like to ask my advice: really? Yet again she has me wrong-footed. “Sure, happy to do whatever I can. I know you’re up against tough opposition.” I’ve done some digging, and from what I understand, Darren Lucas is fighting for the same partnership spot. He’s a small, wiry man with a shock of dark hair, a nose to rival Tom’s, and a good line in self-deprecating wit. Clients love him, colleagues adore him and he’s a very savvy lawyer. Even when I try to take my own personal bias out of the equation, I can’t see how Caro can win this one, unless the firm bows to gender pressure.

  “Darren? Oh, don’t worry about him,” she says dismissively. I blink. Surely Caro is not so naive as to underestimate Darren? “No, I’ll explain it all later. See you at my offices at six thirty.”

  I put down my phone and look around my bedroom. The digital clock reads
9:11. If I’m quick with my shower, I can be in the office before the ten o’clock call that’s in my diary. It’s touch-and-go; I almost pull the covers over my head, but the thought of Caro (old or new?) gloating at my slide into depression pushes me out of bed and into the bathroom. Follow routines, stick to etiquette, I tell myself. It’s all that I can think to do.

  In the warm streaming water of the shower it takes me a minute to remember what I’m supposed to do. Shampoo hair. Rinse. Condition hair. Rinse. Apply body wash. Rinse. Another routine, something else to cling to. I pick up my razor, but I don’t have the slightest inclination to apply it to any part of me, no matter how fuzzy my legs or underarms might be. Shaving is a hopeful act. I think of Tom on the phone: All right, I’ll think about it. I put the razor back down, unused. It doesn’t seem as if shaving is called for.

  As I dry myself off, I see Severine in the mirror, leaning against the bathroom wall behind me, but when I turn round she isn’t there. I wonder again why Caro doesn’t see Darren as a threat. I’m missing something. Now there are two things I don’t understand where Caro is concerned: this, and what she has to gain by spreading gossip about me, if indeed she is the culprit. It makes me uneasy, or even more uneasy.

  I can’t remember when I was last at ease.

  * * *

  —

  I don’t have long to wait to find out why Caro doesn’t think Darren is a threat. It’s the first thing Paul says to me, beating even a traditional good morning. “Darren Lucas is under investigation at Shaft & Vile for fraud. Can you believe it?”

  My eyes fly to his face, which is filled both with shock and excited importance at being the first to deliver news. “Actually, no,” I say thoughtfully, mulling it over as I unbutton my coat. “I can’t. There must be some mistake. What type of fraud?”

  “Fiddling his expenses.” He shakes his head, disbelief tracking across his face. “I can’t believe it either.”

  “His expenses? Jesus. What could he get out of that? A couple of thousand a year, maybe?” Caro, I think. Caro. Then I check myself: would she really? If it is her, she’s playing a very dangerous game. But if it’s not her, it’s a hell of a coincidence. I consider for a moment approaching . . . who? Gordon? Caro’s father is hardly going to take kindly to the suggestion that he investigate whether his daughter is framing her rival.

  “A couple of thousand, absolute max,” Paul is saying. “Not even that, I would think. And he’s in line for a pay rise of a few hundred thousand if he makes partner. Why on earth would he jeopardize that? He’s just not that stupid. But”—he frowns—“if it was a simple mistake surely they would have cleared it up straightaway. This’ll scratch him off the slate. For this year at least.”

  One year is all Caro needs. “He’s being stitched up,” I say flatly.

  Paul looks at me sharply. “That’s quite a statement.”

  I shrug and avoid his eyes by pulling out my chair and switching on my monitor. “I’m just saying it looks that way to me.”

  He continues to look at me, something odd in his eyes. “Did you go to the gym or something?” he asks abruptly. “Your hair is wet.”

  I put a hand to my head. He’s right. Did I forget to dry it after my shower? My glance at the window reveals bright sunshine outside, so it didn’t rain on me on the way to work. It occurs to me that I can’t actually remember getting to work. “My hair dryer is broken,” I improvise.

  “Oh,” he says, but I can feel he’s still watching me.

  “What?” I say, looking up from my screen.

  “Nothing.” He gives an odd shrug. “It’s just . . . Julie’s a bit worried about you. She said you hadn’t been acting yourself.” He pauses, then his words trip out over themselves. “I just wondered if everything is okay. With the murder investigation, I mean.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s all fine. Nothing to worry about. I’m just . . . feeling a bit run-down, is all. I think I’m getting a virus or something.” My words don’t seem to be enough to convince him; something else seems to be required. I try a smile, and it does the trick. He looks relieved.

  “Oh. Okay. Well, don’t give it to me; I’ve got a wedding to go to at the weekend.”

  His words ring in my head as I pull up the files for my ten o’clock. She said you hadn’t been acting yourself. Acting. Is that all we humans ever really do? Act, and play, and present an approximation of something that becomes ourselves?

  I touch my wet hair self-consciously, frowning. If acting is what’s required, it seems that at present I need to pull out a better performance.

  * * *

  —

  Modan again.

  I sit in a chair in front of the now-familiar chipped desk and watch him apply his easy, dangerous charm to my lawyer, whilst I grit my teeth semi-consciously. If this was all over, could I come to like this man, this man who wants to be my best friend’s other half? I wonder. I respect him, I admire him even, but perhaps I will never be able to hold a conversation with him without the sense that he’s quietly analyzing, observing, filing information away for a rainy day. Though it’s unlikely to be a big problem for me given that my future social life contains a lifetime of inmates.

  I shudder. Even my own black humor is failing to amuse me today.

  “Miss Channing?” From the attention both Modan and my lawyer are giving me, it may not be the first time Modan has spoken my name. He’s looking at me quizzically, and I almost think I detect sympathy in his chocolate brown eyes, but I can’t imagine why that should be. How can he do his job if he feels sympathy for those he believes to be guilty? For some reason this puts me in mind of Caro, and my own ambivalence toward her: feeling sorry for her, almost liking her at times, yet so often barely able to stand her . . . I think again of the Russian dolls. “Shall we begin?”

  And so we do. Ms. Streeter, wearing a different lipstick in an equally garish color but thankfully much less greasy in application, does some wonderful verbal gymnastics, laying the groundwork; Modan is, I think, genuinely appreciative of her professional skill. At the end of her monologue, one might be forgiven for pushing for instant canonization of one Kate Channing, on account of her selfless and unstinting cooperation. Except that we all know I’m about to sell someone down the river. And then it’s my turn, to do just that.

  I know I can’t match Ms. Streeter for linguistic virtuosity, but it turns out I don’t need to. She shepherds me gently in the right direction each time: a sentence pushing me here, a comment tugging me there, the words flowing from her mouth to jostle against me, encircling me as if they alone can keep me safe. Modan, for his part, is unexpectedly kind. I’m completely lost as to the subtext of this meeting. When I baldly declare Caro’s cocaine smuggling, Modan pauses for the merest second, then continues fluently. He doesn’t dispute that Caro put the drugs in my bag; he simply asks about my own cocaine use, as my lawyer warned he would. I say I don’t, repeat that I never have; I tell him he can ask anyone, they will all say the same, and he nods briefly. I don’t know if that means he agrees with me or that he will indeed ask around; perhaps both. He asks about other drug use: I confess the marijuana dabbles, but he’s clearly not the least bit interested in that. Caro’s cocaine habits come under discussion, but I don’t have much to say. I don’t know how much she used back then, and I don’t know how much she uses now, though I rather suspect she does still use from time to time. But I have nothing to base that on, and I tell Modan so. We talk about the others at the farmhouse, whether any of them used drugs—but if they have I’ve never seen or heard of it. Would any of them have shared the cocaine with Caro that night? I think about it. I can’t say for sure, but it seems unlikely to me. Alcohol was the drug of choice for the rest of us. I think of Seb, unable to take his eyes off that slim brown ankle. Not just alcohol. Sex is a drug, too.

  The discussion moves abruptly to the long drive back. I must have been tired, Modan suggest
s, perhaps even hungover—surely the drive home was shared. I shake my head, tell him no: I repeat that I was the only one insured, and besides, I wasn’t that tired—probably out of all of us I’d gone to bed the earliest. And I don’t remember being very hungover on that drive back; I suppose I must have stopped drinking when we all started arguing. I remember the gulf between Seb and me in the front of the car, so much wider than the gap between our two seats. I remember Caro and Lara sleeping in the back. I remember being furious at Caro for making us leave late. I remember that fury dissipating as I drove, leaving me utterly, desolately miserable. But I don’t tell Modan all of that. I just explain why I wasn’t tired and why I wasn’t hungover.

  Not a single one of the questions are specifically about Theo. He hovers peripherally; I mention him obliquely from time to time, but Modan never pays him any attention. Even if I wanted to throw some red-haired Theo-shaped red herrings into the mix, I can’t see how I could achieve it with any degree of subtlety.

  When Modan’s stock of questions appears to dwindle to nothing, I look across at Ms. Streeter. Her neat, cropped head gives me a little nod, which I interpret to mean I’ve done well. I’m surprised to see we have been here for over an hour and a half, but not surprised to feel exhausted. Ten minutes of Modan’s questions does that, let alone ninety minutes.

  “Bien,” says Modan. He closes his notebook and stands, adjusting the cuffs of his suit. “Merci. Most helpful, Miss Channing.” He turns his charming smile on me, and it is charming. I want to laugh at myself. How is it that he can pose the danger he does, and yet I am not immune to his appeal? “That is all. For now.”

  For now. I look at Ms. Streeter, but she’s already charging into battle. “My client has been nothing but thoroughly cooperative from the start of this process.”

  “Your client forgot to mention Class A drugs on several occasions.” Modan is smiling, but his eyes are steely.