The Paramour's Daughter

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Because of her profound affection for you, Maggie.” The name came out Marg-gy, as if he had started to say Marguerite but changed his mind, shifted mid-tongue to Maggie. “She has left you in a position to influence decisions that will affect the future of the entire family.”

  “In what way?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. Just about everyone had already said some version of the same thing. I saw a flutter in one heavy eyebrow that revealed his skepticism about my innocence, and maybe my sincerity.

  “You are a well-informed woman,” he said, the old buttering up. “I don’t need to explain to you the devastation the recent economic downturn has had on people all over. Myself, for one, a developer, trying his best to salvage a very worthy project, to raise a community out of pending collapse, if you will.”

  “Antoine told me about your plan,” I said. “It’s very ambitious.”

  “You say ambitious,” he said, smiling broadly. “I say optimistic. Maggie, think of the benefits such a development would bring to the region.”

  “For example?”

  “Jobs,” he effused as if dropping a magic word. “Have you considered how many jobs we will create just in the building phase alone?”

  “Jobs?” Glasses in place, I went back to the sideboard for cutlery: soup spoons, coffee spoons, meat forks, salad forks, dessert forks, dinner knives, butter knives, cheese knives. I kept my eyes on the cutlery drawer as I counted enough of each, and did not look directly at my uncle as I said, “I think there is a big difference between a ‘job’ and temporary ‘work’ like construction. But jobs, well, those are more permanent sources of employment. If your development goes forward as described in your prospectus, when it’s complete and the construction workers go off in search of their next gig, how many jobs in this region will have been permanently lost?”

  He shrugged. “An insignificant number, I am certain.”

  I looked up at him briefly to check his expression, pausing as I laid a row of forks beside a plate. “Not insignificant to the people who lose them.”

  “My dear...”

  “I visited the fromagerie,” I said. Kelly came in from the kitchen and hovered for a moment, being nosy, before she went back. “I know that the cheese operation supports two shifts of workers every day, not counting Antoine and his family and Jacques Breton and his. How many families depend on the cider production? How many the carrots? The horses? I can’t think the loss of their jobs would be insignificant to any of those people.”

  He set the tray on the edge of the table to free his hands so that he could make a broad backhand sweep that seemed intended to dismiss my questions. “Apples, carrots, cheese: do you not see that these are remnants of a primitive era? They barely cover operating expenses and will always be dependent on some level of outside support to survive. But you must see the potential here for something magnificent. It is time for progress in this region.”

  “Maybe we don’t define progress in the same way,” I said, holding a bouquet of knives gripped in my hand, feeling dismayed. “I grew up in California. I have seen what your notion of progress does to the land. It would be a crime for you to ruin this beautiful place; once it’s gone, you can’t ever get it back.”

  “Marguerite,” he began. I could see he was surprised by my reaction and was trying to bring down the emotional level. He seemed so heedless about the catastrophe his success would be for those he claimed as his near and dear. In the end, what mattered to Gérard? “Let us discuss this at another time. We have all had a very trying day, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Forgive me.” He gave me la bise by way of apology. “I have behaved badly, and I am heartened by your obvious affection for our estate. I was a bull to introduce so delicate a topic so badly. We will talk later, and we will do what is best.”

  “I hope we will know what that is,” I said. I noticed that both Lena and Kelly were now hovering in the salon, eavesdropping, and that Gillian was standing in the kitchen door looking very apprehensive.

  The clang of the front door latch distracted us all. I heard my daughter’s voice out in the entry hall—she was supposed to be with Uncle Max in Créances—as she came in with David. There was a moment of silence, and then she said, with awe, “She is so beautiful! Who is she?”

  “Aunt Louise.” David’s voice in reply; Casey had seen the portrait of Louise. “She was my great-aunt, Antoine and Bébé’s mother. Bébé painted the portrait.”

  “Bébé told me he was a graphic artist, but I had no idea he was so-o-o-o talented.” Casey continued this enthusiastic conversational stream—uncomfortable for some to hear, to be sure. I saw both Gillian and Gérard blanch at the mention of the late Louise, the angel of the house. Kelly grinned like a happy cat.

  As the young pair walked into the salon, each the entire focus of the other, Casey naïvely asked David, “What happened to Louise?”

  David glanced up, caught Uncle Gérard’s eye. Looking straight at Gérard, David said, “A mystery. Her car went over the cliff and into the sea at Barfleur one fine, sunny day.”

  “Casey.” I walked over to my daughter before she got both feet firmly planted in family quagmire. “I thought you were having dinner with Uncle Max.”

  “That was the plan,” she said, giving me a quick hug. “But Grand-mère sent David to ask me to come back here instead. I thought that if it was that important to her...”

  “Since you’re here,” I said, “would you help me with the table?”

  “Sure.” She unwound a long woolen scarf from around her neck and draped it over the back of an easy chair. Both she and David were in stocking feet, having shed wet shoes in the entry. She noticed Isabelle’s mules on my feet. “Those are cool. Where did you get them?”

  “Actually, they’re warm,” I said and she gave me a good-humored you-are-so-lame eye roll in response. “They were Isabelle’s.”

  Kelly came forward. “You know what they say about too many cooks, Casey. Why don’t you and David go upstairs where the rest of the hooligans are hanging out until we call you for dinner?”

  Casey looked at me for approval, I nodded, and she and David, talking all the way, went up to join the other young people.

  As I turned back to my job, I caught Lena, standing next to Kelly at the far end of the table, staring at my daughter’s back with a chilling malevolence. Why would she care enough about Casey to have such obviously strong feelings?

  Without shifting her focus from Casey’s retreating back, Lena tilted her head toward Kelly and muttered in French, “So appropriate, the bastard’s daughter together with the peasant’s son.”

  Kelly must have seen that I overheard, and understood. She flushed a furious red and buried her face in her hands, and muttered, “Hélène, jeez.”

  Lena glanced at me, quickly realized her faux pas—her lovely face transformed into a fright mask—and retreated into the kitchen. A great clattering of pans, a tantrum expressed via cookware, immediately followed.

  From the salon, we could hear Gillian’s sharp rebuke to Lena. “That will do. Stop it. Now.”

  There was a last clatter, then rapid, sharp footfalls on the stone kitchen door, followed by the slamming of the kitchen door.

  Kelly walked over and removed a plate from the table. She said, “One less for dinner, I think.”

  “Surely she’ll be back when she cools off,” I said.

  “Lena?” Kelly shook her head. “Lena doesn’t cool off.”

  Freddy came in through the front with Grand-mère, looking frail, on his arm. “Was that my wife I just saw flash out the back, or is the kitchen on fire?”

  “Is there a difference?” Kelly asked.

  “Perhaps I should...”

  “Leave her,” Kelly said firmly as she wrapped an arm around Grand-mère. Gently, she escorted the older woman toward the easy chairs in front of the fire. She looked over her shoulder. “Freddy, will you give the fromagerie a buzz and tell Antoine, Jacques, and Bébé that it’s
time to come in for dinner?”

  Grand-mère touched my arm as they walked past. “Sit with me, my dear.”

  I took charge of Grand-mère from Kelly and settled her into a cushy chair facing Grand-mère Marie’s napping spot. With some effort, Grand-mère put her feet up on an ottoman. I spread a hand-knitted afghan over her lap.

  “Thank you, my dearest Maggie.” That was the first time she did not call me Marguerite. While I was still bent over her, tucking in the afghan, she reached up and caressed my cheek. “Please, stay here beside me.”

  The big chair next to hers felt warm and lovely; I hadn’t realized how tired I was. Jet lag, certainly, but so much more. If I was tired, Grand-mère, more than twice my age, had to be exhausted.

  I asked her, “How are you?”

  “Feeling every one of my years.” She smiled in a sweet but self-deprecatory way. “And how are you?”

  I thought about the question for a moment before I answered. “I’m confused. I think I understand what Isabelle wanted me to do, but I can’t be sure what the correct thing is.”

  She nodded as she took my hand in hers. “I have confidence in you.”

  “That makes one of us.”

  Grand-mère glanced at her old friend, made certain that Grand-mère Marie was still asleep. And then gripping my wrist as if I were a flight risk, she asked, “Will you tell me the truth if I ask you a difficult question?”

  “I won’t lie to you,” I said. “But whether I answer depends on the question.”

  “Fair enough.” The chair seemed to engulf her, made her seem very small, indeed. Her eyes filmed with tears. “I keep thinking about the questions that fool Dauvin asked you at the church. There was no need for them, unless... My dear, was my Isabelle murdered?”

  “Yes.” No reason to equivocate. Dauvin’s investigation was about to descend on these people.

  “Do you know by whom?”

  I shook my head. “Detective Longshore—you spoke to him—believes it was a hired assassin. But who hired him and why? I’m still a stranger here. I can only guess.”

  Her calm acceptance surprised me. “Do you know that we watch your television reports?”

  “Kelly told me her parents send them over.”

  “From what I have seen of your work, I know that you have probably formed a fair guess based on the information you have already learned. Am I wrong?”

  “I have a few ideas about why, none at all about whom. But are those ideas worth anything?” I shook my head. “I promised Detective Longshore that I would leave everything to the police.”

  A sharp cry from upstairs, a male voice, stopped all conversation in the salon as all eyes went toward the broad staircase. Sergei, a streak of good suiting as he flew down the stairs, crossed the salon without another word and fled out the front door, slamming it shut behind him as if he needed to make a last comment.

  “Gérard!” Grand-mère called to her son. “See to the boy, please.”

  But before Gérard could get his shoes on and raise the front door latch, there was a roar of massive Italian car engine coming to life, and then the churning of mud, ice and gravel as it sped past the house, headed toward the road.

  Gérard came back into the salon, looked at his mother and shrugged with both palms up, as in, He’s gone.

  Several of the youngsters wandered down the stairs in the steamy wake of the Russian prince, curious, aroused by the drama. Kelly spotted her daughter. “Lulu, tell the others to come to the table. Now, please.”

  Casey wandered down in the middle of the pack. When I caught her eye, she came to me, sat on the arm of my chair.

  “What happened?” I asked her quietly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We heard someone shouting, but it came from down the hall someplace.”

  Jemima was getting a similar questioning from her father, and seemed to give a similar negative.

  I asked Casey, “Were Sergei and Jemima arguing?”

  “God, no. She was with me and David. She says she hates Sergei.”

  “But she told Bébé he was her boyfriend,” I said.

  “She only said that to get Bébé off her back,” Casey said. “He’s always teasing her. She wanted him to stop.”

  “Dear God,” Grand-mère said. “I will have a word with Bébé.”

  “Not necessary, Grand-mère,” Casey said, laying her cheek against her grandmother’s. The affectionate gesture brought new tears to Élodie’s eyes. “Jemima can take care of herself. That black eye Sergei has?”

  “What about it?” I asked.

  “Jemima gave it to him.”

  17

  Gérard was just serving the soup when Inspector Dauvin knocked on the door. I thought he might have chosen that post-funeral family gathering as the time and place to formally drop his bombshell about Isabelle’s manner of death, though that piece of news had already leaked from Dauvin to Antoine to Kelly and Jacques, and from me to Grand-mère. Probably better that they knew and had time to prepare themselves before he said anything officially.

  Dauvin had a bombshell to drop all right, just not the one I expected.

  “Yes, I know who drove the yellow Lamborghini that was here earlier,” Antoine told Dauvin in answer to his question. “A young man named Sergei Ludanov.”

  “Sergei Ludanov?” Dauvin scowled, skeptical of the answer. “Surely not. Ludanov is a middle-aged man.”

  “Junior,” Bébé chimed in, glancing sidelong at Jemima. “Sergei Ludanov, Junior. What’s the young pup done now?”

  “He’s wrapped that yellow car around a tree, not a mile from here.”

  “Dear God.” Uncle Gérard rose to his feet as if pulled upward by a string attached to the top of his head. “He isn’t...?”

  Dauvin shook his head. “Not yet, anyway. He was taken to the clinic in Lessay by ambulance. Surgeons are working on him. I don’t know the extent of his injuries. But the car is finished.”

  I glanced at Jemima, curious to see her reaction. No dramatics, no great surprise there either. A sort of quiet disgust crossed her face as if she were thinking, The dumb shit, what now?

  Dauvin flipped open a pocket notebook. “The car is registered to Zed Entertainment, Limited. Is the boy an employee of the company?”

  “Fat chance of that,” Jemima muttered as she folded her napkin and tucked it delicately under the edge of her plate. “Employee? Sergei work for a living? As if.”

  The interpretation of that statement took Antoine a couple of tries before Dauvin understood: Sergei was not employed. Through Antoine, the inspector asked Jemima, “Did Ludanov say where he got the car?”

  “He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask,” she said. “It’s not as if we’re together.”

  “But Jemima,” Gillian began, apparently surprised to hear that bit of news.

  Bébé’s face registered both confusion and some disdain as he asked his half sister, “Then why was he here? He’s hardly an old family friend.”

  “That’s what I asked him,” Jemima said, glaring at Bébé. “He only met Isabelle once. At Easter.”

  I said, “Jemima, maybe you would prefer having a private conversation with Inspector Dauvin.”

  “Thanks,” she said, giving me an appreciative nod. “But it’s not necessary. There’s no big secret or anything. Look, Sergei came by our flat day before yesterday. I wasn’t expecting him. We broke up a week ago—he started behaving like an unbearable braggart, so I cut him loose. Then he suddenly showed up and wanted me to come over with him, but I said no. He drives like a maniac.” She dropped her eyes when she realized the awful truth of her last remark.

  “But that doesn’t answer my question,” Bébé said. “If he wasn’t here as your boyfriend, why was he here?”

  “He told me he had some sort of business deal in Normandy to finish—he didn’t say what it was—and because he would be in the area, he would drop by to pay his respects. I told him not to bother, but he came anyway, didn’t he?”

/>   Jemima met Casey’s eyes, a question in her expression, an appeal for support. Casey said, “You might as well tell them, Jem.”

  Jemima looked at her father, Gérard. He gave a small shake of his head, a caution, but she continued, anyway.

  “When I told Sergei that I wouldn’t come with him, he got very angry, vile actually. He wouldn’t tell me why it was so important for him to be here. He just said that it was, that’s all. At one point he grabbed me, tried to force me into his car.” Again she glanced at Casey, who nodded encouragement. “So I hit him in the face.”

  There was a moment of quiet. Gillian was the first to speak. “You should have—”

  “Should have what, Mummy?” Jemima challenged heatedly.

  Dauvin broke in: Did Jemima have a number to contact Sergei’s family?

  “I only have Sergei’s mobile,” she said.

  “Just a moment. His father...” Uncle Gérard shuffled through a stack of business cards he pulled from his wallet and selected one, which he handed to Dauvin. When various members of his family seemed puzzled or concerned that he had the personal card of Sergei’s notorious father, he said, “Sergei’s father and I sit together on the Greater London Youth Football Council.”

  I doubt many bought his explanation; Gérard was not very popular with this crowd.

  Dauvin took the card, put his notebook away and apologized for interrupting the meal. As he turned to leave, Grand-mère asked him, “Who is with the boy now?”

  “Clinic staff,” Dauvin said with a shrug. “And a district gendarme, in case he is able to make a statement.”

  “Then he is alone among strangers,” Grand-mère said, looking from one face to another, making a circuit of the table, challenging us all. “The boy was a guest in this house.”

  “Yes, of course.” Antoine kissed Kelly on the cheek as he rose from his seat. “I’ll call you when I know anything.”

  Dauvin turned to me. “You left a message. What is it you wish to discuss?”

  “Young Sergei,” I said.

  He gestured over his shoulder with a thumb, as in, You come, too. As I rose, I leaned close to David, who sat on my right, and asked him to make sure that Casey got safely back to Grand-mère’s house after dinner. Then I asked Grand-mère to excuse me, and hurried to catch up with Antoine and Dauvin. On my way out I borrowed my daughter’s boots from the rank of shoes in the entry. They were too big for me, but they were dry and warm.