I'll Keep You Safe

by Peter May

  He had taken her to lunch in a Michelin-starred restaurant where she had eaten very little, turning down all Lee’s offers of champagne, only to watch him quaff a whole bottle himself and become more loquacious by the glass.

  The rest of the afternoon had passed in a blur of Lee’s drunkenness. A wine bar somewhere, all glass and steel, and disturbing reflections of Niamh everywhere she looked. Lee had ordered more wine, but Niamh could only bring herself to drink Badoit. Vincent Dancer, she remembered Lee saying as he raised his glass for the umpteenth time, but wasn’t sure if that was the barman or the winemaker. It was as if he were drowning her sorrows for her.

  He told her he wanted to use Ranish Tweed again for his next collection. Something different this time. Classier. An appeal to the country set. But she couldn’t have cared less. Ranish meant only one thing to her. Ruairidh. And he was gone.

  She slipped the electronic key in the door of her club room and was shocked as it swung open to reveal her bedroom filled with flowers. A profusion of roses, and colourful sprays of other seasonal blooms, in bouquets and arrangements set into hand-woven baskets. They were on the bed and the floor, on the settee and the dresser. Each had a card attached to it, every one of them signed by Lee. Which brought a tearful smile to her face. What on earth was she going to do with them?

  She cleared a space on the bed and sat down, trying to think clearly. There were things she needed to do, that she had used the excuse of Lee simply to avoid. The immediate family knew about Ruairidh’s death, and no doubt others were learning about it from the newspapers and the news bulletins which had been running all day on TV. But she knew it was her responsibility to let everyone else know. She would compose a standard, unemotional account of events and email it to her address list.

  It took some minutes for her to summon the strength to stand up and retrieve her iPad from the safe.

  It wasn’t there. But she knew she’d put it safely away. Just before she had left with Lee. The safe seemed ominously dark in its emptiness at the bottom of the wardrobe. She stood up and looked around the room. Maybe she just wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe she’d put it somewhere else after all. It was difficult to see with these flowers everywhere.

  She called reception and asked for someone to come and take them away. Perhaps they could be donated to someone, or something. A hospital. An old folks home. The girl at reception said they would take care of it.

  Then minutes later they were gone, and the room seemed very empty. But there was still no sign of the iPad. Now she noticed, too, that items of clothing and make-up that she had left on the dressing table had been moved. Perhaps by the people who had delivered the flowers. But she was starting to get spooked. The iPad was gone. Someone must have been in her room and taken it.

  The phone rang and she shut her eyes in something close to despair. She really didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. But the insistent trill of it bored its way into her resolve and she eventually snatched the receiver. “Yes?”

  She waited. There was no response. Perhaps whoever was calling had already hung up. But, no. There was someone at the other end of the line. She could hear them breathing. Now she was alarmed.

  “Hello? Who is this?” Still nothing. “For God’s sake!” And she slammed the receiver back in its cradle.

  Now, for the very first time, it was fear that kicked in.

  She locked and chained the door and went into the bathroom to grab a glass tooth mug. Then out again to the room, where she crouched to open the refrigerated minibar. The door pocket was jammed full of spirit miniatures. Whisky, gin, vodka . . . She tossed them all on to the bed, then sat down beside them. The temptation was strong to work her way through the lot until she lost consciousness. But she knew she would only regret it, and the only way she knew now to keep Ruairidh close was by feeling the pain of losing him.

  With a wide arc of her arm she swept them all off the bed and on to the floor.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Saturday morning and the twins were being particularly difficult. They were seven years old now, but Braque still found it hard to tell them apart. They knew it too, and took great delight in swapping clothes and pretending to be each other. Just to annoy her. And when finally she submitted to despair, they would own up and dissolve into fits of giggling laughter. Perhaps if she had spent more time with them they wouldn’t find it so easy to make a fool of her.

  Getting them ready for dance school was a nightmare. She had put their costumes through the washer earlier in the week, but forgotten to take them out of the drier. Now they were all crushed and the girls had been close to tears. Braque stood at the ironing board, still wearing her passion killer, spraying the skimpy little pink outfits with water and working the creases with a hot iron. But they remained stubbornly evident, and she could only hope that once they were on, the twins’ body heat would do the rest.

  Claire sat up on a high stool by the breakfast bar watching her with dismay. “We can’t wear those, maman!”

  Braque looked up, harassed. She had stayed awake half the night going through the Vetrov–Macfarlane file. Interim reports back from forensics; a report from the first SDAT officers on the scene who had ruled out terrorism; background reports on Georgy Vetrov and Niamh Macfarlane; an initial autopsy report from the médecin légiste who had carried out a post-mortem examination of the human remains recovered from the vehicle—a short document.

  “Go and brush your teeth,” she said.

  “I already have.”

  “No you haven’t!”

  “Have, too.”

  “Claire . . .” The warning tone in her voice was clear.

  The child laughed. “Maman, I’m Jacqui. Claire’s in the bathroom brushing her teeth right now.”

  “Well, get dressed, then.” She tossed a pink ballet outfit at the child. Jacqui examined it critically and pouted. “Everyone’ll laugh at us.”

  “No they won’t. Those creases will be gone by the time you get there.” Though she wasn’t so sure. She raised her voice. “Claire, get dressed! Madeleine will be here any minute.”

  “Co-oming! But I’m Jacqui, maman!” the little voice chirruped from the other end of the apartment, and Braque glared at Claire.

  Madeleine was Braque’s best and oldest friend from school. Her daughter was six, born prematurely as the result of the condition called placenta previa, and Madeleine had been told that a second pregnancy would be unwise. She treated the twins like an extension of her own family and probably spent more time with them than Braque. She had offered to take the girls to dance class that morning, because the demands of the murder investigation meant that Braque had to work. Again.

  It was all Braque could do to get the girls ready in time for Madeleine’s arrival. Unlike Braque, Madeleine seemed always to be in total control of her life, and invariably arrived at the agreed hour.

  Miraculously, Jacqui and Claire were dressed and ready, sitting at the table playing with their iPads when the doorbell sounded. They left the table in a clatter of excitement, and Braque’s murder file went flying. Papers and notes all over the floor. Braque groaned inwardly. She would tidy up after they were gone.

  The girls greeted Madeleine and little Patsy enthusiastically, and Madeleine kissed Braque on each cheek. She stood back and looked at her friend critically. “Sylvie, you look terrible.”

  Braque forced a smile. “Thanks. That makes me feel so much better.”

  Madeleine shook her head. “You need to rethink your life, girl. You can’t go on like this.”

  Braque waved a dismissive hand. “I know, I know, I know. I need to find a rich husband with a steady job and give up working altogether.” Which was not an inaccurate description of Madeleine’s life. From which her friend recoiled as if slapped.

  She masked her hurt. “Life’s all about choices, Sylvie. You’re just making the wrong ones.” Then her smile returned as she looked down at the gaggle of girls running around her legs. “Come on, girls. We d
on’t want to be late.” A quick look flashed at Braque. “See you later.”

  And they were gone. Braque found herself breathing a deep sigh of relief.

  One by one she retrieved all the spilled papers from the floor and reorganized them in her folder. Among them, the release documentation from the Procureur’s office for the remains of the victims. Which seemed premature to Braque. But that wasn’t her call.

  She lingered instead over the report on Georgy Vetrov, and sat down to reread it. His military experience might, or might not, have equipped him for making the bomb himself—his role with Russian ground forces in Chechnya was unclear, and unlikely to be clarified by the Russians. He had worked, however, in IT for a French mobile phone company for several years, having acquired a computer science degree in Moscow before emigrating to France in 2003. What had brought him to France was also unclear, but there was little doubt that he would have been only too well equipped to access the Dark Web if he so chose, as well as possessing the skills to disguise the origin of an email.

  His passport had not been recovered from the apartment he shared with Irina, but neither had it rung alarms at any international ports of departure. Although, assuming he had planned the car bomb well in advance, he would have had several hours to make good his escape by car. He could easily have crossed the border into Belgium before police had even placed his name on a suspect list. Within twenty-four hours he could have been back in Russia, where, in all likelihood, he would simply vanish below the radar never to reappear. Such were current relations with Moscow that cooperation from Russian law enforcement could not be relied upon.

  He was gone.

  The girl at reception in the Crowne Plaza glanced up at Braque, embarrassed, the phone still pressed to her ear. She looked down, then, at her computer screen as if something of great interest had caught her attention. Finally, she shrugged and hung up. “I’m sorry there’s no reply.”

  Braque glanced towards the dining room, then at her watch. It was after eleven. “I don’t suppose she might be at breakfast?”

  “Breakfast finished serving at ten.” She hesitated. “The club room, perhaps.”

  “Which is where?”

  The girl indicated to her right. Just along the hall. “But I’d need to let you in.”

  Braque waited, but it was several long moments before the girl sighed and muttered to the young man at the club checkout desk that she would be right back. Braque followed her, then leaned into the club room as the girl held the door open for her. Several guests lifted heads from newspapers and coffees, but Niamh was not among them.

  Back at the reception desk Braque said, “And there’s no way you can tell if she is in the hotel or not?”

  “No.”

  “Call the room again, then.”

  The girl sighed theatrically and redialled Niamh’s room. She was preparing to hang up and cock an insolent eyebrow in Braque’s direction, when the phone was lifted at the other end. Her expression immediately changed. “Madame Macfarlane, Lieutenant Braque is here to see you.”

  There was something about the way she said Braque’s name and rank that conveyed a hint of contempt. Braque rarely felt that her rank received the deference it merited. Although it had also occurred to her that it was perhaps not the rank but the gender behind it that failed to command respect.

  The receptionist put her hand over the phone. “She asks if you could give her a few minutes.”

  “No. Tell her I’m on my way up now.”

  Niamh looked dreadful when she opened the door to Lieutenant Braque. Her hair was a tangle of blonde curls, eye make-up smeared around her upper face, eyeliner clinging in coagulated clumps to her lashes. Tears and lack of sleep. The eyes themselves were bloodshot and gummy. Her skin was more grey than white, tinged green around the eyes.

  She was fully dressed, but it was apparent from the dishevelled nature of her clothes that she had not undressed since yesterday. A glance beyond her revealed to Braque a bed still made up, but rumpled as if slept on rather than in. Unopened bottles of spirit miniatures lay scattered about the floor. A pair of shoes kicked off and lying at odd angles at the foot of the bed.

  “Come in.” Niamh held the door open and stood back listlessly.

  Braque walked into the stale warmth of the room, and for the first time put herself in Niamh’s shoes—the ones she had kicked off at some point during the night. How would she have reacted to the death of her own husband? Even if he was her ex. Or worse, if something had happened to one of the girls. That veneer of professional propriety that somehow got her through life would have dissolved into the mess that lay beneath it. She knew, without doubt, that she would simply have disintegrated. But none of that conveyed itself to Niamh. Braque unslung her leather satchel and placed it on the bed to open it. “You are free to leave Paris, Madame.” She retrieved Niamh’s passport and a handful of papers.

  Niamh seemed startled by the news. “What? Why? Have you caught the killer?”

  “No.”

  “But I’m no longer a suspect?”

  Braque shrugged. “You are free to leave Paris, that is all.”

  Now Niamh was confused. “You mean, I can go home, right? That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  Niamh walked unsteadily towards the window, absorbing the news. She swept the hair back from her face with both hands and turned to confront Braque. “What about the email? Do you know who sent it?”

  “No.”

  Niamh sighed her exasperation. This monosyllabic French policewoman was infuriating. “Someone came into my room and stole my iPad yesterday, did you know that?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “I reported it to reception. And someone called me last night.” She nodded towards the bedside table. “Phoned the room. And when I answered it there was nobody there. Well, there was, but they didn’t speak. Wouldn’t answer me when I asked who it was.”

  Braque said, “I’ll speak to reception about the iPad.” She held out the papers she had taken from her satchel. “The pathologist has finished with your husband’s remains.” And she realized how cold she must sound. But how else to put it? “As next of kin they will be released to you by a state-appointed undertaker in the Boulevard de Ménilmontant who will have prepared them for air transportation.” She hesitated. “There are very strict rules that govern the shipment of bodies on commercial aircraft.”

  Niamh felt sick. Reluctantly she took the sheaf of papers and glanced at the stamps and signatures on the half-dozen official documents which had been processed by a bureaucracy that would, no doubt, have applied the same degree of efficiency to ensuring the provenance of cheese.

  “Under no circumstances,” said the lieutenant, “are your husband’s remains to be cremated. They are, and remain, evidence in a murder investigation.” Implicit in this was the warning that they could at any time in the future ask for Ruairidh, or what was left of him, to be disinterred.

  Niamh said sullenly, “You needn’t worry about that. There is no crematorium on the islands.” And she recalled a decision that she and Ruairidh had made many years earlier which she had regretted ever since.

  Braque saw a darkness cross her face, like the fleeting shadow cast by a cloud passing before the sun. A knock on the door broke the moment.

  Niamh brushed past the policewoman to open it. A tall man in, perhaps, his late forties or early fifties stood awkwardly in the hall. Inclining to plumpness, his pale skin spattered with countless tiny freckles, his ginger hair going white at the temples and close-cropped across his skull.

  “Oh my God, Donald!” Niamh threw her arms around him, and he stood holding her, emotional but embarrassed as she sobbed into his chest. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  His green eyes darted about in discomfort, and he offered a face to Braque that lay somewhere between acknowledgment and apology.

  Niamh broke away and took his hand to lead him into the room, brushing away her tears. “This is R
uairidh’s big brother, Donald.” She glanced at Braque. “This is the police officer investigating the murder. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Lieutenant Braque.” Braque turned to Niamh. “I have your contact details.” She laid a business card on top of the dressing table. “If you need to contact me for any reason . . .”

  Niamh nodded and said to Donald, “They’ve just released the body. We can take him home now.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The taxi had gone before Niamh realized that it had dropped them in the wrong street. They were in the Rue des Rondeaux instead of the Boulevard de Ménilmontant, which sounded very different to her. But perhaps the confusion had been with the name of the pompes funèbres. The Rue des Rondeaux was full of funeral parlours, but not the one they were looking for. All the streets around Père Lachaise, possibly the most famous cemetery in Paris, were full of shops offering funeral services. A map at the Porte Gambetta revealed that the Boulevard de Ménilmontant ran along the bottom end of the cemetery. The most direct route to it was through the cemetery itself.

  This was where the rich, and the famous, came to rest their bones for eternity. Writers, musicians, singers, poets. Even the transient and relatively insignificant American pop star Jim Morrison of The Doors had found unexpected celebrity by being buried here.

  Père Lachaise seemed shrouded in a silence incongruous in the heart of the city. Visitors walked its cobbled streets in hushed reverence, passing among the tombs and mausoleums as leaves fell prematurely from trees which had not yet surrendered their greenery to the colours of autumn. But it had been a long, hot summer, and the foliage was burned and bone-dry.

  Niamh and Donald stopped briefly to look at a guide to the locations of all the famous names residing here in this city of the dead. Balzac and Maria Callas. Chopin and Edith Piaf. Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, Oscar Wilde. A roll-call of names celebrated across centuries of Western European culture. Ruairidh would not be joining them. He was just passing through.