Perhaps pre-empting my concerns Doctor Renard says he’s aware that there is some noise around who I am and how all this happened. He tells me none of that interests him and right now none of it matters. He tells me my only concern should be getting better and that he will make sure no one is bothering me until he’s happy I’m well enough to see them. It’s very comforting to hear. He introduces me to the nurse that has been looking after me, a pretty, French girl named Laure. With that he leaves me but says he will be checking up on me regularly.
Laure is a lot more gossipy than Doctor Renard. She’s been told not to tell me anything but she starts giving me snippets of information. I start to get a sense of how much news coverage there has been on this. The police must be circling outside my room like vultures. But for everything going on outside, in here you’d never know it. You’ve got to love doctors. While everyone else in the world it feels like is reading about me and judging me they’re not interested in any of it. I’m just another patient. Thank god for the Hippocratic Oath.
11
When the doctors think I’m well enough they allow the police to come and question me. My brother isn’t allowed to be there when they do it, they’ve spoken with him separately. I still haven’t spoken to him since it all happened.
It’s two of them who come to see me. You can tell they’re not from the local police. One is a severe-looking French woman and the other a slightly bookish man. They look at me with a cold intent. I’m not the innocent victim here, not in their eyes at least. There are crimes they want answers for.
The woman does most of the talking. She speaks to me in fluent English which surprises me. She starts by telling me that they know I am Eloise de Harlois the lost daughter of Arnaud de Harlois. She wants to unsettle me but it doesn’t work. Of course I knew they’d come to interview me and the time I’ve had in the hospital has let me think about what I’m going to say to them. I know that while I’ve been recuperating their detectives will have been hard at work in the chateau so I don’t bother with any denials of what I know they will have already found there.
She asks me what happened to Arnaud.
I tell her I stabbed him.
She asks me why.
I tell her because he’d just shot me twice and he was one breath away from doing it a third and final time.
She doesn’t challenge me on this. The ballistics report or whatever forensic detectives’ document it is that they have will have told them as much. It’s about as clear cut a case of self-defence as you’ll get. They’ve realised they’re on a hiding to nothing if they go after a murder charge against me or my brother.
She tells me they’ve found the burnt remnants of the painting in the fireplace, and while the damage is so extensive that it has been impossible to salvage, the forensic examiner has been able to confirm it is the Portrait of the Lost Child. This is my first lie. I tell her Arnaud burnt it. She asks me why and I tell her I don’t know, but it was his so he could do what he wants with it.
She asks me what happened fifteen years ago, why we’ve been hiding all these years. This question is a little harder to answer. I don’t know what Jack has told them. I knew this question was going to come though and I’ve decided what I’m going to say. I tell them that Arnaud abused our mother for years and in the end she was finally able to break free from him. She asks me if my mother shot him all those years ago. I tell her I don’t know. She asks if we stole the painting. I tell her no.
She knows they don’t have even half the story here but I’m not going to give it to them. She wants a killer, she wants a thief, but she’s not going to get them. The events of history have been rewritten. Arnaud was never killed all those years ago and it’s hard for them to push for the crime of a stolen painting when the same lost painting is found (or what’s left of it is anyway) in the very room it was supposed to have been stolen from fifteen years ago.
All that’s left for them is the death of Arnaud, but it’s a formality. The two gunshot wounds in me and the way they found us, no one is debating that it was a case of self-defence. It’s a bigger headache for them to work out what to do with the paperwork for a man who’s officially died twice.
They leave when they know there’s nothing else to ask. Over the next few days I notice the security presence around me start to ease off. The constant procession of doctors and police that filed in and out of my room begins to be replaced with the next group eager to see the one woman freak show I’ve become: reporters.
This is a small town and word travels quickly. I wasn’t even in the hospital before the local newspapers got wind of what had happened at the chateau and it wasn’t long before the big boys started rolling into town too. The prospect of a story about the patricide of a French aristocrat, the reappearance of children who disappeared over a decade ago and a lost painting that belonged to Louis XIII is enough to make them all come running.
A small village of reporters takes up temporary residence outside the hospital. The hospital and the police do a good job keeping them all at bay, but a couple of them manage to get through and get pictures of me hooked up to everything.
I don’t speak to any of them but it doesn’t stop them from writing about me. I ask Jack to bring me the papers, I want to see what’s being written about me. He tells me it’s not a good idea but I’m insistent. Begrudgingly he obliges.
When he shows me I can see why he didn’t want me to have them. They’ve splashed my face all over the front covers. They use the pictures of me from the magazine article, it seemingly didn’t take very long for them to find me.
I read through all the column inches. I’m just news fodder for the masses now. They’re not quite sure what to make of me. For some I’m an evil gold-digging killer, for others I’m an innocent victim. And the rest just want to put it down to the fucked up world of the privileged. I don’t feel very privileged right now.
I tell myself just to ignore it, that in a month I’ll be old news. It’s probably true but it’s hard to believe it right now. But the hospital is a relative haven away from the uncomfortable reality and lets me recover and rehabilitate. It’s a big day when the doctors deem I’m strong enough to travel and give me permission to transfer back to London to continue my rehabilitation there. They move me to St Thomas’ on the Southbank. They give me a private room and out of my window I’ve got a stunning view of the Thames and the Houses of Parliament.
The people from work come and visit me. They’ve orchestrated a carefully choreographed order of attendance, someone’s clearly concerned about whether all this could be bad for the auction house.
First through the door is Jo. After what’s happened I assumed my job at Roth was finished. Even if I somehow managed to walk away from all of this without being charged with anything, I lied to Roth about who I am. Strangely though Jo doesn’t act like she’s about to fire me, in fact she’s quite the opposite. She brings me flowers and a card from the team. There’s no talk of contracts or misrepresentation, she just tells me about what’s been happening in the office in my absence and how everything will be there waiting for me when I feel ready. The closest we get to talking about what happened to me is when she brings up whether I’ve decided what I want to do with Kim. I tell her I haven’t decided but I’m leaning towards giving her another chance. She tells me she’ll go with whatever I decide.
After Jo the rest of the team are given the okay to come and visit me. Sam, Charlie, Abbi and Alex all come the following day. They look at me slightly differently now. I’m going to be the salacious gossip at all their dinner parties for the foreseeable future. They’re all going to be sharing their own insights to captive audiences of what I’m like, that they always had suspicions about me.
“There’s no way in hell they’re getting rid of you. You’re all anyone wants to talk about.” Sam tells me emphatically.
“That’s probably not a good thing.” I tell her.
“Hey, there’s no such thing as bad press, and you’re
getting a lot of press, Roth too. Viktor must be loving it.”
So I’m this public object of notoriety now, at least for a brief moment in time until the world’s gaze moves on to the next bit of tabloid fodder. They tell me Victoria got a new job as Head of Private Sales for a boutique Parisienne auction house. I’m pleased for her.
The British police come to interview me but I can see they’re just going through the motions now. They’re not going to charge Jack, me or our mother. None of them have the appetite to drag up the history of what happened fifteen years ago. My mother, my brother and I are all free citizens. We could even go back to calling ourselves de Harlois if we wanted, but there’s no chance of that ever happening.
The road to recovery is long and progress slow. Jack comes and visits me most days. He seems to be doing better than he was. I tell him he’s no longer the killer in the family which makes him laugh.
It’s a big day when I make my first expedition outside the hospital gates, though they tell me I’ve got to be back in time for my medication and physio at four. Jack is with me when I cross the threshold. There’s a million different places he wants to take me but he knows where I want to go, he takes me to see our mother.
After everything that’s happened so much of my world seems very different now, but walking into the care home and seeing her in her room, just as she was the last time I left her, it feels like nothing’s changed.
I sit with her there in silence, Jack gives us some time alone. It’s a cool, crisp day outside but the sky is clear and the sun’s rays feel warm through the window. I feel the best I’ve felt in a very long time. I look at my mother and take her hand, squeezing it gently. I whisper in her ear, “We’re free Mum.”
I don’t know why I say this. I guess I want her to hear it.
I lean back and close my eyes. I realise it’s the first time I’ve admitted to myself that it’s over. I feel a lightness in me radiating from my core and I know what I feel is something good. I feel hope.
About The Author
Willa Bergman
Willa Bergman lives in London with her husband and two children. Lost Children is her first novel.
Lost Children Page 22