But then he remembered something, something important:
‘Claudine? Claudine Eddé?’ The name came out with a croak. ‘She came in with me. Is she here? Is she okay?’
Dr Parri moved to the bedside table, poured some water. His eyes tried to follow her but she was always just ahead of him. He felt a hand come behind his head . . . a glass tilted to his lips. A hard rim that caught his lips. And cool, fresh water. It seemed to sluice into his mouth, and he felt it spill down his chin before he worked out how to contain it, swallow it.
‘One floor below,’ the doctor was telling him, as she lowered his head to the pillow, returned the glass to the bedside table. ‘She will be pleased to hear you are back with us,’ she continued, taking a tissue to wipe away the spill of water on his chin.
Back with us . . . Back with us . . .
Another overlapping smile.
‘And Midou? Midou Bécard, her daughter?’
‘Also one floor below, and also on the mend. The baby too.’
Again the last three words seemed to come after the doctor had finished speaking.
The baby too . . . The baby too . . .
The words took a moment to register.
Baby? Baby?
Midou? Pregnant? It couldn’t be.
Jacquot felt himself frowning, trying to work it out – the when, the where? The who?
It seemed the doctor sensed his uncertainty. She coloured slightly and faltered.
‘Your wife Claudine is pregnant, Chief Inspector. Four months. Didn’t you know?’
Didn’t you know . . . ? Didn’t you know . . . ?
Jacquot took a breath, was suddenly quite unable to order his thoughts.
Claudine, pregnant? She was pregnant?
Jacquot felt tears brim and his throat thicken.
‘I . . .’
About the author
Martin O’Brien was educated at the Oratory School and Hertford College, Oxford. He was travel editor at British Vogue in the 1970s and has written for a number of international publications. After twenty-five years on the road Marseilles remains one of his favourite destinations. He is the author of five previous crime novels – Jacquot and the Waterman, Jacquot and the Angel, Jacquot and the Master, Jacquot and the Fifteen and Confession.
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