“And instead you ended up in a chateau with a Marquis. I don’t think you ended up so badly off.”
She looked at him sharply then her face softened as she laughed, bitterly, her eyes dropping to her handbag. “It was hard in the banlieues, but… I was pretty and I knew how to make men… do things. And I was pretty, you know, before I did all… this to myself.” She shook her head in disgust.
“Come on, Eloise. You’re beautiful—you know that. You could have any man you want.”
Again her glance towards him was sharp. “No I couldn’t,” she said quietly.
“Well, okay,” Hayden replied, shifting a little uncomfortably in his seat. “Maybe not every man, but… you see how things are here. I don’t… I couldn’t…”
“I understand.” Her voice was very quiet. “I’m jealous, but I do understand. You know, no other man’s ever refused me before.” Again she let out a hollow laugh. “The only reason I could get you to go so far on that first night was because I’d spiked your drink.”
Hayden looked towards the ceiling and laughed humourlessly. “Okay,” he said more to himself than to her. “I guess I should at least take satisfaction in that I’m still enough of a man to hold my drink, though that means I’m even more stupid than I thought.”
“Oh, you’re very much a man, Sebastian—or whatever your real name is.” She waved her hand as he looked in her direction. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to know. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you here, Eloise?”
She sat in silence for several minutes and Hayden watched her, aware of the struggle that was taking place within her. At last she began to explain.
“Donatien has always taken what he wanted. I couldn’t have you, but he will never… will never forgive you or Jeanne for refusing to allow him to… have her. I know I’m a bad woman, but Donatien… Donatien has no such knowledge of himself.”
Unsure what to say, Hayden continued to sit there in silence. At last she reached inside her bag and took out something small. It was several seconds later that Hayden realised she held some kind of memory card in her fingers.
“He’s always taken whatever he wanted,” she repeated very quietly. “God alone knows how many lives he’s ruined, but it has to stop.”
Her words shook Hayden and he stared at her with concern. This was not the woman he had first met only days before, but a stranger who was caught in the throes of some deep crisis.
“What is that?” he asked. Almost immediately he half regretted saying the words, but at the same time saying nothing would be to deny Eloise whatever confession it was she needed to make.
“It’s a video,” she said, and the bitterness in her voice could not be denied. “You’re aware, I presume, that de Tour is full of cameras.” Hayden nodded. “Donatien likes to watch,” she continued, her eyes rolling upwards as she suddenly sucked in air as though to stop herself from crying. “Oh, how he likes to watch. Everything. Terrible things.”
“What’s the video of, Eloise?” Leaning forward, Hayden placed a hand on her arm. She was shaking as though she was going to fall apart at any moment.
“I… I can’t say.” She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand as a tear rolled from her eye. She laughed wryly. “Look at me, what a mess!”
“You’re not,” Hayden lied. “You’ll be okay.” Again, he wasn’t sure that was the truth, but brutal honesty was inhumane at that moment.
She shook her head. “I won’t. Look at you! So… so handsome, so… perfect!” Tears began to stream from her eyes. “She’s lucky—very, very lucky!” Hayden didn’t need to ask who Eloise was talking about. “He wants her, but you mustn’t let him have her!” Eloise’s head fell into her hand and the memory card dropped to the floor as she started to weep.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Moving across to sit beside her, Hayden placed an arm around her shoulder, consoling her as she let loose her flood of tears, her head resting against his shoulder. For a while he simply sat there, saying nothing but just rocking her back and forward slightly, attempting to offer whatever silent comfort that he could. Had Karla walked in at that moment, she would have probably exploded but Hayden knew that wasn’t true: no normal human being could see another in such distress and not feel just a little compassion.
After a while, Eloise stopped crying and slowly pushed herself upright. Her body was stiff and erect now. “I can’t remember the last time someone held me like that,” she said in a small voice. “Thank you, Sebastian.” He didn’t reply and she looked at him, her eyes full of forlorn longing. Then she gave that same sad smile he had seen before. “That’s the problem with being men’s sexual fantasy: you shut up and take what they give you, but… but it’s not enough.”
Seeing the memory card, she retrieved it from the floor and placed it on the table before standing up, taking deep breaths to calm herself and returning her sunglasses into position. “What a fucking mess,” she muttered to herself, then forced a meaningless smile in Hayden’s direction.
“Thank you,” she said. “Find some way to use this to stop him.”
As she turned to leave, Hayden said: “If it’s so bad, why don’t you go to the police?”
That made her snort and she shook her head. “Nothing will happen. In any case, I’ve… fallen into some old habits. They won’t listen to me—they probably won’t listen to you. Just stop him.” Hayden started to stand up but she waved her hand at him. “No, it’s okay. I can find my own way out. Goodbye, Sebastian. Look after Jeanne.”
He watched her walk across the room. She didn’t look back as she closed the door behind her, and for a long time Hayden sat in silence, staring at the card on the table in front of him. Throw it away, he thought. Simply mangle it and get rid of it. You don’t need to know what’s on there.
And yet the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge had always been too much of a temptation. Eventually he stood up and went to the dining room where a notebook lay on the table. Bringing it back through to where Eloise had been sitting, he booted it up and inserted the card.
The footage was obviously amateur and from a fixed position, showing rough stone walls and floors. There was some sort of device in the picture, which was fairly clear but also rather dimly lit, and a person on it. The furniture looked like an old vaulting horse and the female seemed to be strapped to it. It was only after a few moments that he realised she was crying softly, and that she was probably a lot younger than he had first thought.
A man came into view, naked to the waist and wearing some kind of leather apron around his lower half, as well as a black hood which covered his head like an executioner’s mask. He carried a riding crop in his hand and, as he lifted it, Hayden recognised Valmont’s emerald ring.
Hayden thought he was about to be sick and quickly closed the lid of the computer. His breath came in fast, panicky bursts, and all around him the room seemed to spin, as though he was standing on the edge of an abyss into which he would fall. “Oh God,” he moaned to himself quietly. “Oh God!”
He was still sitting there when Karla entered the room, striding in cheerily with a greeting for her lover that froze on her lips when she saw him.
“What’s wrong, Hayden? What’s going on?”
He let his hand fall from his eyes and smiled at her weakly. “Hi,” he murmured. “How was your day?” He simply didn’t know what to say, but Karla’s green, piercing eyes regarded him with concern.
“What’s happened, Hayden?”
He sighed. “Eloise was here.”
She bristled at this, and he could see her beginning to snarl at the thought of La Lupa in the same house.
“It’s not what you think,” he said calmly. “She’s left Valmont.”
“What’s that got to do with us?” Her words were sharp, but already she was moving to sit beside him, realising that something important had taken place.
“She brought something.”
“What? Is she trying to threaten us?”
“What is it, Hayden?” Her voice was calm, consoling, querying.
“It’s a video,” he started to explain, but the words choked off in his throat.
“Of us? Is Valmont going to blackmail us? But we were careful, weren’t we? I mean, okay, perhaps I was a little stupid that one night but—”
He shook his head. “You don’t need to see it,” he said. He tried to take it from her grasp, but all his strength seemed to desert him and she held onto it.
As she flipped open the lid he stood up and went across the side of the room. He heard Karla gasp and, looking over his shoulder saw her raise her hand to her mouth. “Don’t…” he started to say, but it was her turn to shake her head.
“I need to see this,” she said, her voice trembling but also filled with a terrible anger.
At least she had the decency to turn the sound down when the screaming began, and Hayden paced back and forth on the other side of the room. The bastard! The sick, evil bastard! He was going to kill him—he didn’t know how, but he was going to get Valmont if it was the last thing he did.
At last he heard the notebook lid close. Turning, he saw Karla sitting bolt upright, her face white, her features rigid.
“Karla…” he tried to say something, to tell her it was going to be alright, but he couldn’t. He could lie to Eloise, but not to Karla, not now.
“We’re going to get him,” she said at last, icy and cold. “We’re going to get him, and we’re going to make him pay for what he’s done!”
Chapter Fourteen: Coilin
Coilin Macnamarra sat in a private business room that had been hired for the morning in Monaco. He’d been somewhat surprised by Karla’s decision to return to the city but, realising her reasons why, he’d also suggested that they avoid one of the flashier hotels in Monte Carlo and instead choose somewhere more anodyne and faceless.
In one corner was a desk, but that always reminded Uncle Coilin too much of the job he was meant to do, either that or sitting beside some defendant in a police cell while they were being questioned. Instead, he’d slumped into a sofa on the other side of the room next to softer chairs and was struggling to remember enough French to read the newspaper. When he came across one story, he folded the sheets back on each other and scrutinized it more closely.
“A bad business,” he told himself. “A very bad business.”
At that moment the door opened and Karla and Hayden entered the room. She was dressed smartly but casually in Saint Lauren jeans and a Roland Mouret top, while Hayden wore a Savile Row blazer and slacks, still evidently dressing for the role of Sebastian Rider. Coilin still disliked the English man, but since Karla had contacted her uncle regarding the video that Eloise Bissette had given Hayden, Coilin had begun to perceive a more serious side to the younger man. He still couldn’t forgive him his good looks, though: perhaps if he was just a little less handsome she wouldn’t be quite so infatuated with him.
“Thank you for coming, Uncle,” she said, walking over to the sofa and kissing him. Hayden gave him a wary nod and sat down on the other side of the low table.
“You found more than you expected,” Coilin answered grimly. “We all found more than we expected.”
“Had you heard anything about this?” Hayden asked.
Coilin frowned for a moment. “I hadn’t thought so, but when you put pieces together, they take on a very different appearance. I’m pretty sure that video you sent me is not the only time it happened.”
“Eloise tried to warn me,” Hayden said. “When we were at de Tour.” At the mention of that name, Karla looked at him sharply and he shrugged apologetically. “It was that night when you and Valmont were… playing cards.” Before she could interrupt he continued quickly: “She said that the chateau was like Bluebeard’s castle and the old tower was where he kept his secrets.”
Coilin reclined backwards thoughtfully in his seat, placing his fingers together beneath his chin. “Bluebeard,” he said. “Now that’s interesting.”
“It’s not relevant at all!” Karla snapped. “That’s a silly folk tale and this… this is real!”
“Ah, but Bluebeard wasn’t fiction, or rather, the person who he was based on was very real.” Both Hayden and Karla looked at him peculiarly, waiting for an explanation.
“Have you ever heard of Gilles de Rais?” he asked. Hayden shook his head but Karla frowned, searching her memory. “Joan of Arc!” she exclaimed at last. “He fought the English and then…” her voice trailed away.
“Gilles de Rais was once one of the most important men in the country,” Coilin explained. “The Marshal of France, and one of the bravest by all accounts. He did indeed support Saint Joan, but that didn’t stop him after her death from performing black magic, as part of which he would murder children to offer up their body parts.”
Hayden scoffed at this. “That’s preposterous! No one would ever believe such a thing.”
“Nor did Gilles, it seems,” Coilin continued calmly. “Apparently he gave up after a few attempts to raise a demon. But he had, so the stories go, got rather a taste for sexually abusing and then killing his victims.”
Karla’s face was stern, granite like. “Charles Perrault turned him into a fairy tale, an evil nobleman who kills his wives and locks them in a secret tower. You don’t mean to tell me…” Her eyes widened as she looked at her uncle. “He couldn’t get away with that.”
“I don’t know,” Coilin admitted, parting his hands and shrugging. “I do know there are a lot of secrets around this Marquis, though. From what little I’ve been able to gather, any girls who would have visited his chateau were poor—immigrants. Not the kind to be missed. Children like that disappear all the time.”
“She knew,” Karla hissed. “Eloise knew and yet she did nothing.”
“Wait, wait,” Coilin said, waving his hand in the air to attract his niece’s attention, to calm her down. “She may not have known, not exactly, but from the sound of it she suspected something.” Hayden sat silently, his face grave.
“We can find her!” Karla suddenly burst out. “We can make her testify. She’ll be able to prove it was Valmont!”
Coilin blew the air from his cheeks and lifted the newspaper he’d been reading when they arrived. He tossed it across to Karla.
“This morning a woman was found dead at an apartment in Clichy-sous-Bois,” she translated. “Marianne Lambert, more commonly known as Eloise Bissette, or La Lupa, had been an actress in many adult films before retiring two years ago. The cause of death was a heroin overdose, but police are not treating the incident as suspicious.” She let the paper fall into her lap and stared blankly into the air. “Poor woman,” she said at last.
“I thought you hated her,” Coilin remarked.
“I did hate her. But that doesn’t matter anymore, does it.”
“I guess not,” Hayden intervened, his own face stern at that news. “What does matter is getting Valmont. I still think we should go to the police.”
“And I agree with you,” Coilin replied, “which a year ago I never thought I’d hear myself say. But you know that it won’t do much good.”
“I don’t see why not,” Hayden grumbled. “This other way is madness.”
“And I agree with that as well. Bloody Nora, I don’t think I’ve agreed so much with an Englishman since that slimy bastard Blair apologised for the Potato Famine.”
“I think you’ll find he was born in Scotland,” Hayden growled.
“Oh, that’s right. How could I forget? The grandson of a fecking Orangeman. That makes me feel so much better.”
“Will you two shut up!” Karla hissed. “A woman is dead and this… pervert is still doing unspeakable things.” Her face had flushed with anger
and she made an effort to control herself. “Uncle, you said that going to the police won’t help.”
Coilin slumped in his seat, ashamed of his bickering. “They might arrest him, but they’ll never convict,” he grumbled.
“But we have evidence!” Hayden exclaimed. “You’ve seen the video, haven’t you?”
“As much as I could stomach. He never removes that weird hood he’s got on.”
“So?” Karla was staring at her uncle intently. “We know it’s him.”
“And how do you know it’s him?”
“Well, he’s wearing his ring—the emerald one—for a start.”
“I could wear that ring,” Coilin replied, “but it still wouldn’t make me the Marquis de fecking Valmont.”
“There has to be some way to link him,” Hayden said, staring away into the window as looking for inspiration.
“The way I see it,” Coilin began to say wearily, leaning forward and clasping his hands together, “the only person who could make a positive identification of that man, the kind of positive identification a jury might accept, is dead. And to be honest, she was never going to be much of a witness. I know I’d have made mincemeat of her in court. Look, I hate to say this, but the last purpose of the law in a case like this is to protect the innocent. Valmont is going to have lawyers crawling all over this, and they’re going to get him off scott free.”
“That’s assuming he can afford the lawyers,” Karla said calmly. Hayden turned to face her and started to slowly shake his head.
“No,” he said. “It can’t be done.”
She looked at him levelly. “That’s not what you said before,” she replied.
“I was angry, I wasn’t thinking straight. It’s impossible. Okay, okay, it’s not strictly speaking impossible, but it’s so bloody complicated it might as well be.”
“I presume you two lovebirds are planning on telling me what this is all about at some point,” Coilin said. Hayden turned away, his eyes expressing his infuriation. Karla faced her uncle.
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