The Women Who Ran Away: Will their secrets follow them?

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  But she wasn’t betting on it.

  When she returned a couple of hours later, Deira was still waiting for the tow truck. Grace had enjoyed her trip to the museum, which contained displays of manuscripts and books as well as models of some of the machines in Verne’s novels.

  ‘There was a small boat there too,’ she told Deira. ‘But I didn’t see a name on it. Just in case, I counted the portholes. There were eighteen. So maybe that’s the extra digit, not the 20 from Twenty Thousand Leagues, although that would mean Atlantic Lady was wrong, and it feels right to me.’

  ‘Too many options and two few guesses.’ Deira frowned.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Did you take the photo?’

  Grace nodded and took out her phone to show her. ‘I’ll get the laptop and upload it now,’ she said.

  Deira felt she should say that Grace didn’t need to try to unlock the document in front of her, but she was aching to know if they’d solved the clues, so she stayed silent.

  ‘Oh, look!’ As Grace stood up, she pointed towards the driveway of the hotel. ‘Your tow truck has arrived.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Deira. ‘I’m beginning to think they’ve forgotten me.’

  But Grace was right. The driver of the truck attached the convertible and told Deira that someone from the dealership would be in touch. She watched as it lumbered back towards the main road, and then returned to the table, where Grace was now sitting with the laptop open in front of her.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Did it work?’

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ said Grace.

  ‘Gosh, you’re patient. I wouldn’t have been able to contain myself.’

  The two women waited while the photo uploaded to the site. Grace tapped her fingers against the side of the table as she watched the progress bar move slowly across the screen.

  You have successfully uploaded your photo, said the onscreen message. Please wait.

  ‘What now?’ wondered Grace. ‘Should I—’

  She broke off as another message appeared.

  Congratulations. Your photo is a match. Your final number is 3.

  ‘So will we go with 2 for the novel, 18 for the portholes in the museum’s boat and the 3?’ asked Deira. ‘Or 20 for the novel, 5 for the portholes in the bar and 3?’

  ‘I’m not a hundred per cent convinced about the museum boat,’ admitted Grace. ‘I counted eighteen portholes but maybe I missed one. And, like I said, there wasn’t a name on it.’

  ‘How many guesses do you have?’

  ‘Seven,’ said Grace.

  ‘Plenty.’ Deira gave her an encouraging nod. ‘Go for it.’

  Grace tapped in the numbers 2183.

  Password incorrect.

  She made a face at Deira. ‘In that case it must be 2053.’

  She entered the numbers.

  Password incorrect.

  ‘What have we got wrong?’ asked Grace.

  Deira shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t understand. I was sure this had to be it. Was there anything at all on the boat you saw that might point us in the right direction?’

  Grace closed her eyes and called up the image. ‘It had three little cubes along the top with two portholes on each side of them,’ she said, her eyes still closed. The third cube – the one I thought was the bridge – had another cube on top of it with one porthole each side and two on another . . . or two on both – maybe that’s it! Maybe the three cubes had other portholes that I missed. They were very close together. What if they were like the bridge and had an additional one each on either side?’

  ‘So twenty-four altogether,’ said Deira.

  ‘Will I give it a try?’ asked Grace.

  Deira nodded and Grace entered 2243.

  Password incorrect.

  ‘For crying out loud!’ Grace was exasperated. ‘What’s wrong with this?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Deira.

  ‘Maybe I should reverse the numbers,’ said Grace. ‘Start off with the 3?’

  ‘We’ll run out of guesses,’ said Deira. ‘But it might be worth a try.’

  ‘Let’s do it on the first set we put in,’ said Grace. ‘After all, we were the most confident with that. I’m not sure about all these extra portholes.’

  She tapped in 3812, and when she got the inevitable ‘password incorrect’ message, she tried 3502.

  Password incorrect.

  ‘Shit,’ said Deira.

  ‘What now?’ Grace looked at her anxiously. ‘We have two guesses left.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Deira. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve pulled us down a rabbit hole with all my talk of portholes. Maybe it’s something else entirely.’

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Grace. ‘It really can’t. And I think it’s much more likely you’re right with the ship in the bar. Is there a chance you counted the portholes incorrectly?’

  ‘No,’ said Deira. ‘I was staring at it for quite some time. There were five. Oh!’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That’s it!’ exclaimed Deira. ‘That’s the mistake.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Try 2103,’ said Deira.

  Grace stared at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘The second number is 10,’ said Deira. ‘I know it is.’

  ‘Good enough,’ said Grace.

  Both women held their breath as she entered the numbers.

  Password correct.

  ‘Oh!’ She turned to Deira. ‘You clever, clever thing.’

  ‘Ten portholes,’ said Deira. ‘Five on each side. I suddenly realised I’d only counted one side of the Atlantic Lady. And you can actually see them reflected in the bar mirror. It was stupid of me not to think of that straight away.’

  ‘I think you were brilliant to think of it at all,’ said Grace as she looked at the computer. ‘And we need that brilliance again. Because I haven’t a notion what this is all about. Do you?’

  Deira looked at the unlocked document, which was headed ‘La Rochelle’.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Grace read the clue aloud.

  Well done, Hippo. You did it! Your reward is the letter I. You need to keep that letter safe until the end, along with the others you’ll get if you solve the rest of the clues. And now for the next one. It’s no mystery that Georges spent some time here. Why wouldn’t he when it’s so beautiful, even if he did sometimes show the seedy side. You’ll need to upload a picture of his favourite café for your first number. You’ll also need the number of the place where the crime took place. Then tell me the day Brigitte arrived at your hotel. Only nine guesses this time, to keep you on your toes. Good luck!

  ‘Crikey,’ said Deira. ‘I’ve no idea. George. Brigitte. A crime. A café. Where it took place maybe? Did someone write about an unsolved crime in La Rochelle? Did anything happen when you were there with the professor?’

  Before Grace had time to reply, Deira’s mobile vibrated and took her attention completely away from the treasure hunt, because the call was from the garage, saying that they’d be in touch as soon as possible with a report about the car. Almost as soon as she hung up, the hotel manager came to ask her to sign some documents for the Atlantique’s own insurance report. She followed him inside and signed the sheaf of papers he put in front of her, even as she wondered if she should have asked for a translator to tell her exactly what she was agreeing to.

  ‘I might have absolved them of all responsibility,’ she told Grace after she’d finished with them. ‘Though he did assure me it was all about the hotel’s potential liability.’

  ‘Be positive,’ urged Grace. ‘What will be will be. Are you going to stay here for a few days?’

  ‘I don’t have much choice,’ Deira replied. ‘It’s not like I have any means of getting away.’

  ‘It’s such a pity to have your holiday messed up,’ said Grace.

  ‘I seem to be managing to make a mess of my entire life right now, so what’s one more thing.’ Deira’s words were light, but her face told a di
fferent story.

  ‘Surely not,’ said Grace. ‘But if there’s anything I can do to help . . .’

  ‘I’m fine, really,’ said Deira, although she suddenly felt close to tears. She cleared her throat and smiled brightly. ‘I guess I could spend some time thinking about your new clue to keep my mind occupied. I could text you my ideas. Not that I have any right now.’

  As she spoke, she asked herself if it was Grace’s seemingly perpetual positivity that helped her stay so calm and composed despite the tragedy that had befallen her. She wished she had some of it too, but the truth was that Gavin had sapped every drop from her.

  ‘That would be great,’ Grace said in response. ‘But I’m not in a rush to leave, so we could spend a little time brainstorming together if you like. How about some coffee to help?’

  ‘Coffee would be lovely.’

  ‘We thought the links were writers that Ken admired,’ said Grace when the drinks arrived. ‘So perhaps if we google “La Rochelle writers” it might set us on the right track.’

  The top hit on her search was a writer named Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, who seemed to have spent all his life in Paris.

  ‘The professor said Georges, not Pierre,’ Deira pointed out.

  Grace changed her search to ‘Georges writer La Rochelle’.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s Georges Simenon. Ken was a fan of his too. I should’ve remembered.’

  Deira nodded. As with Jules Verne, she’d read a number of Simenon’s books, but not since her college days.

  ‘He wrote the Maigret detective novels,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen them as a TV series too. The crime must be something to do with one of his books, don’t you think? Maybe the café is fictional or maybe it’s in the town. D’you recall the professor mentioning one when you were there? Or could it be in the hotel he’s booked for you?’

  ‘It’d be a bit odd of Ken to book me into a crime scene, even a fictional one,’ said Grace. ‘The hotel is called the Fleur d’Île. We’ve never stayed there before, but it certainly doesn’t say anything on its website about it being the setting for a crime. Or a crime novel, for that matter.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it would,’ said Deira. ‘It wouldn’t want to advertise that its guests might get murdered over their breakfast.’

  Grace laughed. ‘It actually seems like a very nice hotel. Better than the ones we stayed in when we had the kids with us, that’s for sure. In fact most of the hotels he’s booked me into are nice.’

  ‘You’re on a very exact itinerary,’ commented Deira. ‘Every night accounted for. No room for diversions.’

  ‘You think it’s weird, don’t you?’ said Grace.

  ‘A bit,’ admitted Deira. ‘He’s not really allowing you to do your own thing, is he?’

  Oh for heaven’s sake, Hippo. Leave it to me. You need organising, you know you do.

  Deira was right, Grace thought, as she heard her late husband’s voice in her head. But the thing was, she’d never minded letting him set the agenda. She was OK with being told what to do. It made sense that he’d be the one to take charge. Deira was being judgemental without knowing what their lives had been like. So many people were these days. Grace and Ken had met in simpler times.

  ‘I like having it planned out for me,’ she told Deira. ‘One less thing to worry about.’

  Deira nodded, even though she couldn’t help thinking that Professor Harrington had been a total dinosaur where his treatment of his wife had been concerned. She hadn’t given his attitude much thought in college. But that was because she’d considered him an old-fashioned man even then. His enthusiasm for male writers and his very male points of view had seemed endearing at the time. But she reckoned they would be wearing to live with.

  She turned the laptop towards her and typed in ‘Simenon café’.

  ‘Voilà!’ she exclaimed as she angled it so that Grace could see the page. ‘Café de la Paix,’ she read aloud. ‘Simenon was an habitué.’

  ‘So basically you’ve solved two parts of it already,’ said Grace. ‘The crime scene has to be one of his novels, and you’ve found the café too. You’re far more in tune with Ken’s thinking than I could ever be. I knew about Simenon. One of his books was on the curriculum when I was at school. I realise that was over forty years ago, but I should have made the connection.’

  ‘You would’ve worked it out.’

  ‘Ken set out this entire treasure hunt for me,’ said Grace. ‘But if you weren’t here, I’d be heading to La Rochelle with no idea of what I was looking for. As it is, I now know I’ve to go to the Café de la Paix and take a photo – I’m presuming that’s the one Ken means. And I know I’ve to read one of his books, although which one, I’ve no idea.’

  ‘He could hardly expect you to read them at all,’ remarked Deira. ‘Certainly not in one night! And in French, too. It has to be something more obvious.’

  ‘A title?’ suggested Grace.

  Deira clicked on a link to Simenon’s books and began to scroll through them. Then she stopped.

  ‘The Crime at Lock 14,’ she read.

  ‘And once again she comes up with the goods.’ Grace beamed at her.

  ‘Teamwork,’ said Deira. ‘We’ve solved most of the La Rochelle clue before you even get there. The photo of the café will give you the first number, then 14 from the book. Presumably there’ll be something in your hotel about Brigitte, whoever she is.’

  ‘It must be Bardot,’ said Grace. ‘She has to have stayed there.’

  ‘You’ll have time to enjoy yourself there now instead of fretting about clues,’ said Deira. ‘Is it a nice town?’

  ‘It’s very pretty, especially at night. Lovely to walk around. Lively and fun.’

  ‘Not quite Maigret territory, so.’

  ‘Was he part of your English lit course too?’ asked Grace.

  Deira shook her head. ‘But Professor Harrington urged us to read widely. He liked Simenon’s style. It was quite pared-back.’

  ‘Like Hemingway?’

  ‘A bit, I suppose.’ Deira nodded. ‘The professor did seem to favour men who wrote in an almost journalistic way. And of course most were from, or writing about, very different times.’

  Grace nodded. ‘For all that he thought he was a modern man, Ken had some pretty antiquated views.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Me working, for one. He hated it. Thought he should be able to provide for me and the family. Which was the prevailing view back then, I suppose. But later, after the children were a bit older, he still wasn’t mad about me going back to work. And even though he was proud of Aline when she graduated, I don’t think he ever considered her as someone who could get a serious job. Mind you, he was right about that. She faffed around after college and then went into something that was nothing to do with her degree. To be fair, I think her priority was always to be a mum, and even though she works part-time now, I know she’ll give it up if she has another baby. Regan is an entirely different proposition. She loves what she does and she never really saw eye to eye with her dad.’

  ‘He seemed old-fashioned to me when I was at college,’ admitted Deira. ‘Although in a nice kind of way. But then I suppose I seem old-fashioned to my niece and her friends, no matter how I feel inside.’

  ‘You’re a stripling in comparison to me.’ Grace laughed.

  ‘But I’ve still wasted the best years of my life.’

  ‘Deira!’ Grace stared at her. ‘How can you possibly think that? The best years of your life are still to come.’

  ‘No, they’re not.’ Deira leaned back in the wooden chair and rubbed her aching side gently. ‘I know we like to say things like that. To believe there’s always everything to live for. But I fucked it all up, Grace. And there’s no coming back.’

  ‘How?’ asked Grace.

  ‘I believed a man,’ Deira said. ‘And it was the stupidest thing I ever did.’

  Chapter 16

  Nantes to La Rochelle: 136 km


  ‘Tell me,’ said Grace. ‘I told you my story. You have to tell me yours.’

  Deira hesitated. ‘It’s not a story like yours. It’s not something you can sympathise with me over.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

  ‘Seriously . . .’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Deira. Just tell me.’

  Deira took a deep breath, then brought Grace up to speed with how she’d first met Gavin.

  ‘I felt guilty about Marilyn and the girls, of course,’ she said. ‘Especially Mae and Suzy; I didn’t want them to have a bad relationship with their father and I encouraged him to see them as much as possible, but I was absolutely a hundred per cent convinced that the marriage itself was over and that Gavin and I were forever. I’d never loved anyone the way I loved him.’

  Grace nodded.

  ‘We were blissfully happy,’ Deira continued. ‘It was a bit awkward initially at work, but eventually that evened itself out. Nobody else was bothered by it and our business relationship evolved over time anyhow. The company’s corporate responsibility strategy expanded and I took control of that; meantime he grew more involved in the pensions side of things. We were specialising in different areas so our work and private lives didn’t clash. We both moved ahead and it was great.’

  ‘A power couple,’ observed Grace.

  ‘Sometimes I thought that,’ agreed Deira. ‘We bought a mews house near the canal, we spent a lot of time out at functions, we lived a kind of glamour life.’

  ‘You said before that you bought the house, not both of you,’ Grace reminded her.

  ‘Well, yes, I took out the mortgage. It would’ve been messy otherwise, especially as it took so long for him to get the divorce. We didn’t want the house to get mixed up in it all. Afterwards, he said it was right that it should be my place. I thought it meant that he was a good person. I loved him.’

  ‘You were happy,’ said Grace. ‘Why didn’t you marry?’

  ‘Mainly because of the girls,’ said Deira. ‘They hated the idea of their dad marrying again. If it had only been Marilyn, I’d have done it like a shot simply to annoy her. She was so bloody difficult about it all. I know it was hard for her, I do, truly, but she never let up.’