by Tim Roux
I move my hand to cover the incriminating evidence.
“Now,” Fiona says with an enticing smile, “how do I persuade you?”
“Well, you could pay me £1 million.”
“Would that persuade you?”
“It would certainly take me close.”
Without hesitation, Fiona says “I am prepared to offer £1 million for you to make me pregnant. Are you prepared to accept it?”
I am speechless, which is common, but not in the sense of being lost for words.
Fiona grins at me some more. “Let me try to persuade you further.”
She eases herself up from the lounger, and positions herself in the space between hers and mine, almost touching me. Slowly she removes her clothes, until she is standing naked beside me, looking down on me.
“So you are a natural blond,” I declare, playing for time.
“That is the fun bit,” Fiona replies.
“Ah.”
She picks up my right hand and moves it towards her. “I am a natural blond who hasn’t had sex in four years. Feel for yourself.”
She guides me between her legs. She may be right. It is like warm alluvial mud in there.
“Do you mind if we go upstairs? Here is rather too exposed for me to relax.”
I look up at the sun which her seductive face is eclipsing.
“Have I said ‘yes’ then?” I ask.
She chuckles.
“I think your twitching rattle snake down there has answered for you.” She bends down to squeeze it. “Hasn’t it?”
She removes my fingers from where I managed to leave them flapping inside her, and leads me into the house and up the stairs. I cannot count how many heart attacks I have along the way, but the steep stairs suddenly become an enormous effort to climb, especially as I am forgetting to breathe.
“Which room is it?”
My voice breaks dryly as I attempt to tell her.
“OK.”
Fiona may be full of promises, but she certainly keeps every single one of them. I am too dumbstruck to respond, so she has to do most of the work, which she seems determined to do. She rapidly brings me to a climax inside her and whispers, “Squeeze, squeeze, I want every single drop of it”, as she rotates her muscles purposely in a motion that suctions off everything I can produce, leaving me feeling totally emptied. She then kisses me bounteously on the lips and in the mouth, draws away, and adds “And it will be even better tomorrow night, I promise you.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes, you and Mike are coming to stay up at the Château for a few days, aren’t you?”
“What is in it for Mike?”
She looks at me fondly. “Not as much as is in it for you. I am afraid Sarah knows nothing about this. This is between John and Peter and myself, and now you.”
“And they really don’t object?”
“Why would they object? They get a child out of it, one from a very handsome intelligent donor, if you will pardon the expression. They are ecstatic. In fact, Peter was so enthusiastic he begged to join in, but I suggested that we could do very well on our own thank you, and that there was no need to form a disorderly queue. Still, I think he may well ask again.”
Fiona can see that I am not keen on the idea. “Don’t worry, Paul. This is between us. To be honest, I really don’t want Peter rabbiting on the other side of the production line either. Will you come and stay so that we can complete our task? And, as I have agreed, if you make me pregnant you get your £1 million, which is a generous offer. After all, when I made it to John, I knew that I would get it back again. With you, there is no question of this continuing once we have been successful. Much as I like you, and I do, there is no possibility of my running away with you. I have to make that absolutely clear.”
“Fiona,” I state, getting a word in edgeways at last, “I have plans of my own. You needn’t worry. I have a girlfriend of my own right now. I don’t need two.”
“Ah, you have, have you? Won’t she object?”
“I think she very well might, but she cannot do what you have just done.”
“Doesn’t she satisfy you physically?”
“Unfortunately she can’t.”
“Are you sure? Isn’t it a question of time?”
“Far from it,” I assure her. “With time it may well become less likely.”
“How can you be sure?”
For a rare instance in my life I feel compelled to disclose the absolute truth.
“Because she is dead.”
Shock, even panic, flashes across Fiona’s eyes before she quickly recovers and banishes it.
“Dead?”
“Yes, she is dead. She was murdered a few years ago by her father. So I am now sharing her soul but not her body, and your body but not your soul. I suppose it could all work out, but I have to say that from where I am lying I do feel rather nervous.”
Fiona places her hands on my shoulders and pins me down. “Paul,” she exclaims, “has anybody ever told you that you are weird.”
“Yes, Fiona,” I respond, “but maybe I am the only sane person here who can really see what is going on.”
Fiona searches around us. “What is going on?”
“Here? Nothing much. There are no astral entities here - just you and me.”
“Phew.”
“Bit it wouldn’t matter if there was. There is nothing you can do about it, and they cannot interfere. We do what we do, and they do what they do.”
“That doesn’t go for your spectral friend though, does it?”
“No, but that is because I choose to engage with her. If I refused, there would be nothing she could do about it, and vice-versa. It is a true friendship.”
Fiona frowns. “Does she appear real to you?”
“She is real. She is merely existing on a different plane.”
“Could I meet her? I would be fascinated to meet her.”
“I could take you to her, but you could probably never see her, and she might not like you very much. She is a bit volatile. Can you see the spirits that are all around the Château?”
“So there are spirits there!”
“Millions of them – well, maybe not quite that many, but there are a lot.”
“What are they doing there?”
“I haven’t asked them yet.”
Fiona’s shoulders shudder. “That is rather unnerving.”
“Why?”
“They’re ghosts.”
“So?”
“Aren’t ghosts scary?”
“Not if you are not scared of them. You simply have to change your expectations. After all, we are surrounded by billions of microscopic creatures all the time. If we magnified them up to a size where we could see them, we would be horrified because most of them are extremely ugly. We know that from science classes, we have even seen them in photographs, but we cannot see them ordinarily, so it doesn’t matter. They are doing their thing; we are doing ours. We do not interfere much with one another at a conscious level. It is the same thing with invisible entities. They have no real interest in us most of the time. However, it just so happens that Alice does … ”
“Alice?”
“Yes, Alice.”
“The girl who disappeared from Freyrargues?”
“Exactly.”
“And she was murdered by her father?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Alice is sure. She was there.”
“So shouldn’t her father be arrested?”
“We are working on that. The big question is how we get the police to go to Montauban to dig up her remains.”
“I am sure that they would if my father asked them to.”
“That might save me hanging around Freyrargues village for days on end, and even endear you to Alice.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“No.”
“Do you know where the body is?”
“Alice is going to help me draw a map tomorrow.
She has a plan that I accost her father.”
“No, don’t do that. Get the map and leave the rest to Father. He will know what to do. He is not a particularly practical man, but he is very decisive and persuasive.”
“But what will you tell him?”
“What you have just told me.”
“Surely he is not going to believe that.”
“Father? Of course he will. He spends more time with ghosts than you do. Except his are ancestral relations. He has no problem believing in ghosts. He will quite understand. Trust me.”
“Well, if it works, it will get me off the hook.”
Fiona leans forward, nestling her breasts against my chest. “Don’t worry, Darling. If you can get an accurate map, it is foolproof.”
Chapter 6
Alice is extremely agitated. She can barely stay still for one second. She is shaking with an anticipation which is almost sexual. She has discovered her taste for revenge, it has given her a sense of purpose, and she wants it now.
If you ask me, it is all a huge mistake. She isn’t going to like what she has achieved when she has finally prosecuted her father into submission. If she is around for it to matter to her, she is going to feel severely conflicted – a sense of triumph poisoned by sharp pangs of guilt. She loves her father, whatever she now believes, as a hostage comes to love her torturer. Destroying the torturer does not bring liberation. It is like killing a part of yourself.
Anyway, she has been busy. I can barely get through the barn door before she is all over me like man’s best friend, licking and wagging.
“Are you ready?” she throws at me as I cross towards her. “I have it all worked out. I followed him all yesterday afternoon. I overheard their arranging to meet today at fifteen hundred. It’s a shame that we cannot get Maman to be there. Let’s work on that one. Maybe you have an idea, Paul. Anyway, forget that. With him it is usually turn up, have sex, snore for an hour, get up, get dressed and leave. That makes about an hour and a half, so he will be on the way out of M. de Belletier’s house around sixteen-thirty. So that is when you have to be in position. Actually, you should get there by fifteen-forty-five because he doesn’t always siesta there. I’ll show you where her house is. It gives directly onto the street, and you can hide in the park opposite, reading a book or something. Have you got a book with you in the car? If not, can you get one? So you see Papa sneaking out, and you cross the road and greet him as you would any passer-by. That’s it. You do not pay him any specific attention. Then you leave it for fifteen minutes, and you go to our house, and you say that you would like some information about me for the guy who rents her house here because he is curious but doesn’t speak much French. You can say that he thinks he has seen my ghost and wants a description of me, photographs etc., because if it is me, he wants to be able to talk to me through you. Maman will be sceptical, naturally, but she is also going to be intrigued. If I am a ghost at the house here, she is going to want to visit me here, so I am sure that she will cling onto you in order to persuade you to take her back with you to the guy here who is her lodger anyway, but she will want you to be there to turn the conversation in the right direction, which she can’t do with the amount of English she speaks. Yeah? However, you must stay at her house until you see my Papa. Then you say, ‘Oh, hello. I bumped into you coming out of Mme. de Belletier’s house, didn’t I, half an hour ago (or however long ago it was)?’ That will raise Maman’s hackles. I am pretty sure that she suspects Papa of being ‘sweet’ on Mme. de Belletier, as she would say. Papa may deny it all, in which case you insist (‘I could have sworn I saw you there. You know, just outside. I was reading in the park, and I decided to go and have a coffee in the café, and I was passing the house and you came out in front of me looking a bit hot and bothered,’ something like that), or he will make up a feeble excuse for being there which you ignore. Then you will have done everything you need to do for the second. The seeds of destruction will have been sown. Well, I will go there and check. If Maman is choosing to remain blind to the whole issue, you will have to repeat the exercise another day (‘Oh how funny,’ you will say, ‘I saw you coming out of Mme. de Belletier’s house yet again, and this time I know it was you.’). Sooner or later Maman is going to get the point, and Papa is going to become very angry with both you and Maman, in which case you have to get Maman out of there and bring her to the house here. Maybe she will be able to see me if she is looking for me. I don’t suppose she will be able to hear me, but she may catch a glimpse of me, and then she will be receptive to anything you have to say about me. You can tell her the whole story. I have thought it all out. She can stay at Auntie Lilliane’s for a few days. Uncle Jean is as tough as they come and he hates Papa ever since Papa cheated him over a business deal where they were investing in something. I have never understood what happened but Uncle Jean never stops growling about it. However, he is very fond of Maman, and of me, so he will take care of her. Then I need you as a go-between to persuade Uncle Jean, Auntie Lilliane and Maman to go to the police and to demand that they search for my body outside Montauban. You have to get all three of them together. I am not sure that you will be able to convince Maman by herself. She will want to sweep everything under the carpet, even if she does believe that Papa murdered me. It will be too depressing for her, and too dangerous, and she will feel too guilty to do anything about it. But if Uncle Jean and Auntie Lilliane are there, Uncle Jean will take the lead, as long as he is convinced by Maman that my story is true. He won’t funk it. He will go straight to Capitaine Herbert and demand action. He and Capitaine Herbert have known each other for years. They weren’t at school together because Uncle Jean must be at least ten years older, but they are thick as thieves anyway. And then that will be that. Capitaine Herbert will contact the Montauban police, you will have the detailed map we are about to draw together, I will be dug up, and Papa will be buried in prison for at least twenty years. Justice for all! What do you think, Paul?”
“Good morning, Alice,” I quip, smiling sweetly.
Alice scrunches her forehead, baffled.
“So what do you think?”
“I think that it is a neat plan.”
Relief wipes itself across her face. “Phew! Do you really think so?”
“I do.”
“Is there anything wrong with it? Where could it go wrong? I have been thinking it through ever since you left. There must be something. We cannot make mistakes.”
“Well, obviously, your father may not go to Mme. de Belletier’s today …. ”
“… he will. I heard them arranging it.”
“Well something may come up.”
“Yes, that is possible.”
“Then I have to recognise him. I might meet M. de Belletier coming out.”
“Oh they look quite different. You couldn’t possibly mistake them. Besides, he is not there during the day. He owns a smart clothing shop in Montpellier and he is always there chatting up the customers while my Papa chats up his wife, and more. Silly man.”
“Still, what do they look like?”
“Well, Papa is a lot shorter than you, very thickset, dark, has a moustache and smells of sweat.”
“And M. de Belletier?”
“He is short too, less well-built, a bit darker, and he too has a moustache come to think of it.”
I raise my eyebrows. Alice is disconcerted.
“I wish I had some photos here I could show you,” she professes. “They really do look very different, but I don’t know how to describe the difference to you. I could spot them apart instantly, even from a distance. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. M. de Belletier won’t be there.” She pauses for a brainstorm to pass through her. “Ah, I know what. Why can’t I be with you in the park? Nobody would see me, and I can brief you as to who it is. In fact, I can follow you all the way. I keep forgetting that I am invisible. Then what?”
“What?”
“What else could go wrong?”
“What if I don’t s
ee your father at your mother’s house? What if he doesn’t even go there?”
“Then you are going to have to wait until he is.”
“But that could take hours, days.”
“You’ll think of something. Then what?”
“What if he doesn’t react at all?”
“Provoke him until he does. I will give you some clues as to what to say. There is one thing about my Papa – he is very easy to provoke.”
“And what if he reacts so strongly that he takes us all hostage and locks us in, maybe knocks me out. It sounds like he is a pretty beefy man.”
“He is. He can pack quite a punch. I saw him knock M. Philips out once. Bam! It was so funny. M. Philips lost three teeth and couldn’t afford to replace them, so he walked around with gaps between his teeth for about five years.”
“That’s encouraging!”
“But he can’t hold you hostage forever. Sooner or later he will have to release you, then you simply follow the rest of the plan.”
Clearly for Alice that is now it.
“There is perhaps one more thing that I can contribute,” I offer.
“What is that?”
“My friend Fiona up at the Château … ”
“What does she look like?”
“Blond, about thirty, very pretty, about your height.”
“Do you like her?”
“Yes, she is lovely.”
“How much do you like her?” (Obviously ghosts do not lose their female intuition).
“She is married, Alice, to two men in fact, John and Peter.”
“OK.” (But they can be fooled).
“Have you ever seen her?”
“I am not sure that I have. There are always lots of pretty blonds tripping around that Château. The English seem to collect them for trophies. Anyway, you were saying …. ”
“Fiona says that she can talk to her father, the Earl of Affligem, who owns the Château, and he can address himself directly to the new commissaire who is in charge of your case now, except that it is closed, and demand that he search for your body near Montauban.”
“Do you think that the commissaire would listen to him?”
“Fiona is certain that he would. That is why he was brought in on the case – to keep the Earl happy.”
