The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘I said that?’ Danielle stared. ‘How cruel.’

  ‘And untrue,’ Bonnet told her.

  Danielle murmured some words of Yiddish, then explained, ‘I was days from begging our neighbours for a scrap of bread; I’m supposed to mind my manners?’ She turned back to the comte. ‘I must have knelt down to fill the stove.’

  ‘You did,’ he agreed. ‘You raked out the ashes.’

  Danielle moved her gnarled hands as if remembering a sequence. ‘The door had a handle you put on and off, to open when the stove was hot.’

  ‘A metal bar, with a claw on the end. You held it up, Madame,’ the comte said, ‘and suggested you would beat your daughter over the head with it when she came back from school, to save her from starving.’

  ‘A quick blow instead of the pain of hunger.’ Danielle touched her temple. ‘Vey ist mir. I told Alfred, “You paint another landscape nobody wants and break your promise to a man who comes all this way in the snow?” And Alfred shouted—’

  ‘“Get down to your kitchen and your cabbages.” And then he kicked you and you struck your face against the side of the stove.’

  Alix stared at the comte, then at her grandmother. ‘Mémé, no!’

  Danielle Lutzman touched the white scar beside her eye.

  The comte said quietly, ‘Kept kicking the way a madman kicks a dog. Your grandmother crawled away, whimpering, and I felt something go inside me. I took the bar from her hand and struck. Alfred fell forward, cracking his forehead on the body of the stove. I stood over him, and for a moment it wasn’t that poor, overburdened wretch I saw, it was my father, beating my mother. I realised he was dead and that moment is ingrained in my soul.’

  Alix looked at the hand holding hers. ‘You killed him?’

  The comte nodded. ‘He was kicking his wife’s ribs to kindling. I struck to protect her. Damned myself to help her.’ A sigh moved him. ‘I could have knocked him senseless, but I killed him. And you need to hear the ending. My wife has already asked me why I pursued Danielle and her child to England. Why I kept abreast of their lives and took on your education, Alix. Why I lied even about my war service to explain my persistent presence.’

  ‘Never a great idea to lie about a regiment,’ Verrian said. ‘Too many records.’

  The comte acknowledged it. ‘Alix, I met your mother the day I killed your grandfather. She came running upstairs to his studio, no idea what she was about to see. I was too slow to stop her entering the room, but I stopped her throwing herself down beside his corpse, treading in his blood. It was I who told her he was dead. Danielle was conveniently accused of the murder, which drew the attention from me. Through manipulations and bribes, my mother got her released. By the same methods, I was washed clean of my deed. But I knew little Mathilda would never get over the horror inflicted on her. So I provided for her, and later I provided for you.’

  Alix whispered, ‘You watched my mother grow up?’

  ‘I did. And if you wish it, I’ll tell you all about her. All about us.’

  ‘But you never knew my father at all?’

  ‘Never met him.’

  Alix struggled to her feet. ‘You’re worse than a liar. You’re a cheat. You could have told me everything I most wanted to know – no, I don’t want your stories now. How would I know if you were telling the truth?’

  ‘I lied to protect you. As today proves, knowledge can be dangerous.’

  ‘So can ignorance.’ Verrian said it quietly and nobody responded.

  Alix walked over to Verrian, who pulled himself straight as if he thought she was going to hit him. She felt a tremor pass through him as she put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. ‘You saw through him. You made me come here and listen. I don’t know if I hate you or love you.’

  Verrian seemed in no hurry to ask which, or to break the embrace. After a while he said, ‘Monsieur le Comte, tell me if I’m wrong, but everyone who might bear witness to Alfred Lutzman’s death is either dead or in this room. True?’

  ‘True,’ Jean-Yves confirmed.

  ‘Then if everyone agrees the matter is closed, everybody can walk away from here free.’

  ‘Why should he?’ Alix tore herself from Verrian and pointed at Bonnet. ‘He’s tried to push the blame on to others, but I know he attacked me – twice – and left Mémé for dead. I know he broke into the flat … he had a key.’ She bared her teeth at Bonnet. ‘You stole my key at Mother Richelieu’s café! I thought it was a pickpocket but it was you, grubbing around in my bag!’

  Bonnet got up fast but Verrian moved faster and his blade crossed the painter’s neck. He said softly, ‘You’re a parasite, Bonnet, and you could spend the rest of your life in prison being kicked by bigger parasites. D’you want that, Madame?’ he asked Danielle, but she was fiddling with her gloves so he put the question to Alix.

  Alix pictured the endless sequence of police interviews and court hearings if they made this official. ‘No. I want him to leave Rue Jacob, go away for ever. I never want to see him again. But I need to know why he hurt Mémé. Why he … ? Just tell me, Bonnet.’

  Bonnet looked down and said in a low, thick voice, ‘I never meant to hurt anyone. I came to St-Sulpice that night, you’re right, and let myself in with your key. I supposed you’d both be in bed, asleep. I didn’t expect Danielle to come home so late and make herself hot milk, or you to be out on the town with your man.’ He sent Alix a look that was almost resentful.

  She stared stonily back.

  ‘I needed money.’ He made a helpless gesture. ‘That is all. I needed money.’

  ‘But you nearly throttled me! You split Mémé’s scalp open.’

  ‘It was a mistake. Things sometimes get out of hand.’

  ‘Did you break in to steal?’ Alix asked. ‘Was it really only about money?’

  ‘You’d told me your rent was going up, and I guessed you’d be stowing francs away. Like me, you never had a bank account. I searched your living room, your bedrooms, all the places people put money. I turned Danielle’s workbox upside down. Even pulled the pictures off the wall. All I found were a few lousy centimes. You were poorer than I was!’

  ‘You searched while my grandmother lay bleeding.’

  ‘I was desperate!’ Bonnet made a plea with his hands. ‘All the money I ever got went to pay those robbers who own the gambling clubs on the Butte. You’ve no idea how it feels to be a slave to the roulette wheel, to owe people everywhere –’

  ‘Spare us.’ Verrian pulled Bonnet up off his seat and turned him towards the door. Alix thought he was about to hurl the man down the stairs. But he checked himself and turned Bonnet back to face the comte. ‘Make your peace with this gentleman. Never again to blackmail or speak ill of him. Say it.’

  Bonnet muttered a response. Verrian opened the door and shoved him out. ‘Two hours to clear out of Rue Jacob. Hope we never come after you.’

  Verrian left the door open and cool air rushed into the room.

  The comte waited until the click of the street door told them that Bonnet was gone. ‘And so the soul of a blackmailer is laid bare.’ To Danielle he said gently, ‘One last time, Madame: did you tell that man the facts of your husband’s death?’

  Danielle gave Verrian a twinkle. ‘He asked me that before.’

  ‘Perhaps you need to answer him.’

  Danielle obediently wriggled in her chair so she was facing de Charembourg. ‘Yes, I told Bonnet.’

  The comte closed his eyes. ‘Why did you not say so?’

  Danielle considered a moment. ‘Because when I told him, we were on the boat crossing the English sea. Ach, the waves, the rolling side to side. I was so sick he gave me schnapps to cure my stomach. That is when I told him. I had drunk too much and we were in bed and, what was it, your business?’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  ‘When we sat by the river, the night I found you again, I told you what I did in Spain. Now I want to know what you got up to in Paris.’

  They were i
n the Apricot Suite, the larger of Lord Calford’s two suites at the Polonaise, in a drawing room decorated like a country-house conservatory. Bowls of peach-pink roses bled their fragrance. They sat either side of a table, Verrian watchful, Alix trying to digest the last few hours. The meeting on Rue du Sentier had not ended politely.

  Rhona de Charembourg had sought her husband’s arm, though there was nothing wifely in her grip. ‘This has been enlightening, my dear husband,’ she said with false amusement, ‘but one question remains. We’re all gasping to know –’ she gestured to Alix – ‘is this your daughter?’

  Alix tried to shout, ‘No!’ but all that came out was a distorted squeak.

  ‘Do you wish me to say, Alix?’ the comte asked her.

  She shook her head. She wouldn’t let him replace John Gower. Nobody was going to reduce John Gower to a footnote in her life.

  ‘In that case,’ the comte continued in a flat voice, ‘I shall say nothing.’

  Rhona made a noise of disgust. ‘Whatever she is, your attentions have done her no favours. Education without breeding – she’s Serge Martel’s prostitute.’

  The comte had bundled his wife away. Verrian had flagged down taxis to take Mémé and Celestia back to Rue Jacob, and Beryl Theakston home. He secured a separate taxi for himself and Alix. They’d said nothing much since. Rhona de Charembourg’s words sat in the room with them.

  Alix muttered, ‘I need a bath.’

  Verrian got up. ‘I’ll show you where.’

  She’d never before seen a bathtub with gold-plated taps. When Verrian turned on the hot water, it gushed a steaming jet.

  ‘You have first go,’ he said. ‘Unless you’d like to share. I’m still waiting to hear if you love or hate me.’

  She escaped into the bedroom adjoining the bathroom. In front of the dressing table mirror, she unpinned her hat and used the hotel’s hairbrush set. Verrian watched her. She knew he wanted her, knew how much he wanted her, but Rhona’s comment must surely have torpedoed his respect for her. ‘Prostitute’ was not a word to brush under the carpet. Not to a man. She’d learned a lot about male nature in the last year.

  Male desire had the hunter’s gaze. It fixed on the object. A woman could tell how much she was wanted by checking if the flame guttered or burned steady. Alix took off her jacket then sat down at the dressing table. Pushing her skirt to mid-thigh, she unhooked a stocking.

  She knew Verrian was transfixed. Why was she doing this … a game, to punish him for manipulating her? Or to prove Rhona’s horrible words were true? Or escape a conversation she dreaded … her year with Serge?

  She rolled off her stocking, unhooked the second and rolled it down, taking her time. She heard Verrian’s breathing change and glanced through her lashes. He hadn’t moved from the doorway. He took her look as an invitation and came to her chair, taking the stocking out of her hand. He put it to his face. ‘Jasmine.’

  ‘I always massage in jasmine oil after a bath.’

  A groan escaped him. ‘Every day in Spain, I thought of you. Your voice. And your legs.’ He knelt to run his lips along her calf, over her knee to the tender flesh each side. ‘Thoughts of loving you were my escape. You, waiting in Paris, took the place of water, sleep, food and reason.’

  ‘How could you remember my legs? You never saw them.’

  ‘Well …’ Amusement glimmered, though it didn’t dilute desire. How could it when his lips were moving by degrees to the inside of her thigh? ‘Occasionally you came out in something slinky and legs were implied.’

  All she wanted to do was wind her arms around his neck, but that word ‘prostitute’ wouldn’t shift. He mustn’t think her a pushover, or they’d never get rid of it. She stood and presented her back. ‘Unbutton my waistband.’ He made a poor job of it and she teased, ‘You haven’t had much practice.’

  ‘The buttons are too large for the loops.’

  ‘No, they’re not. They’re designed not to gape.’

  ‘Then they’re working.’

  When he’d undone them, she slithered out of the skirt, out of her slip, shivering as Verrian’s lips made butterfly touches to her spine and shoulder blades. For twenty heartbeats she stood in satin and lace, leaning into him as he caressed the back of her neck.

  ‘Thank God I found you again. Thank you for waiting.’

  It took every particle of resolution to pull away and say, ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Verrian. Perhaps you would like to make love to your rifle, or your Spanish friends. I’m going to have my bath.’

  Ignoring the harrowed protest that fell from his lips, she stalked to the bathroom and locked the door. Testing the temperature of the water, she gave herself marks out of ten. If her aim was to strip all the love from her life, then ten.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They were coming to the end of a long lunch at a restaurant on Place Pigalle. Alix was nervous. They’d invited Rosa to join them, and let her choose the venue, and by ill luck she’d picked Serge Martel’s favourite eating place.

  Blissfully unaware of Alix’s discomfort, Rosa raised her brandy glass and told Alix how much better she was looking. ‘Last time I saw you, you were bleary-eyed from too much you-know-who.’ Not noticing that Verrian’s expression iced over, she winked. ‘Up all hours, then comes home smelling like a Turkish harem.’

  ‘Leave Alix her dignity.’ Verrian lit cigarettes for them and ordered coffee. The glitter in his eye told Alix this was her last chance. He showed it by saying, ‘Alix, I heard you tell Celestia that you might not keep your business going much longer. I may need to go home to London and don’t want to leave her and Pepe in the lurch.’

  Alix inhaled cigarette smoke. ‘I’m trying to stay open until Christmas. Then who knows?’

  ‘Aw, no, ducks.’ Rosa raised her cigarette holder in protest. ‘You can scrape through, surely?’

  ‘Not on the clientele I have. If I’m to survive, I need to plan a spring–summer show that erases all memory of last summer’s disaster, but I have no money to fund it. You can’t be in this business with no cash.’

  ‘I’m on, if you want me.’

  Alix blew out smoke. ‘I can’t design any more, Rosa. I look at blank paper and it laughs back at me.’

  ‘Know what you need? Bit of fun.’

  No doubt Rosa meant ‘a sex life’. Alix agreed – if only she could get over her terrors. She hadn’t realised until Verrian’s lips were touching her thigh how deeply Serge Martel had scarred her. She wanted Verrian, and there was Serge, etched in her brain. The more she pushed Verrian away, the more Serge invaded and the more rigid she became. The power games were over. She was just frightened.

  Rosa was looking at her narrowly. ‘You need a holiday – a few days with no customers, no grandma, no pins and needles.’ She left them after that, saying, ‘I need a strong cuppa and a lie-down. You two want to talk.’

  ‘Just the two of them’ felt like pillars either side of a cold doorway. Alix said, ‘Any moment, Verrian, you’ll look at your watch.’

  He took her cigarette and stubbed it out along with his own. With a soft knuckle, he brushed her bottom lip, spreading tingling heat that made her open her mouth slightly. ‘Do you know how it grinds me up to think of you with Martel?’

  ‘Then don’t think of it.’

  A flash of anger. ‘How – when I see him in your eyes all the time? Was it so damn good with him?’

  ‘Don’t.’

  An accordionist outside began playing ‘Vous, qui passez sans me voir’. Verrian gave a painful smile. ‘“You walk by …” Give me the truth.’

  All right, she thought. ‘What Rosa said about me living half-drugged in a harem …’ his gaze shot up to meet hers, ‘I did. I did things I didn’t want to do with someone I didn’t always like. But you had left, everything had fallen apart and living like that dulled reality.’

  ‘Weren’t there other ways … country walks or something?’

  ‘This is Paris, not a Hampshire girls’ scho
ol. Maybe you don’t want to go on seeing me – Verrian? Don’t look away.’

  But something had taken his attention. Waiters were scuttling. The doorway filled with a wide-shouldered silhouette. Alix’s heart tripped a beat. Oh God, not him.

  Serge Martel sauntered up to them. Verrian stood. Alix felt the atmosphere electrify and guessed she wasn’t the only one calculating the odds of Serge producing a knife. That was a glint of metal in his hand, wasn’t it?

  Serge said in a grazing whisper, ‘Alix, I’ve come to ask this bastard to give you back.’ There was a shiny scar under his lip.

  ‘Alix is free to leave,’ Verrian said.

  She read the warning signs. Serge’s slowed-down voice, the flat gaze. But did Verrian see it? She breathed, ‘Take care.’

  Verrian had the advantage of height. Serge had meat-market shoulders. And a knuckleduster on his punching fist. Alix saw it the second before Serge drove it into Verrian’s ribs. So hard Verrian collapsed. She tried to get to him but was trapped by the table, which his fall had pushed towards the wall. All she could do was dash her coffee in Serge’s face. Serge grabbed her hair, twisting it until she thought her scalp would tear off.

  ‘You bring another man on to my patch?’

  She screamed so piercingly he let go. He yanked the table aside to get at her, his voice strangely gentle as he said, ‘He’s dead if you aren’t back with me –’ he lifted her hand and put her finger into his mouth in the most suggestive of moves – ‘by nightfall. You were getting so good at pleasing me, why waste it?’

  ‘Serge –’ she went very still because he was holding her finger between his teeth – ‘I won’t come back to you.’

  He let her pull her finger free. ‘Alix, Alix. Big baby eyes one moment, then cold as a fishmonger’s gloves. You’re punishing me for going with Dulcie. Hey – she can’t do any of the things you can do, and the Rose Noire misses you …’