Sparkles

by Louise Bagshawe

  Housekeeping. It had been a while. Of course, with her new salary Judy could have bought a townhouse—someplace far nicer. But she would never give this place up. It would be her pied-à- terre forever. It was her connection with Pierre, the solid, enduring proof that he had loved her, that whatever Sophie and Katherine said, Judy wasn’t just another girl.

  Pierre bought her this apartment, and when she looked at its cool grey walls, Judy chose to see love.

  She nodded to the attendant in reception, whose head did not lift from Paris Match, and climbed into the ancient elevator, the twin of the creaky Victorian beauty in the office. It stopped at the top floor, and Judy got out. She had a two-bedroom penthouse and her own roof terrace; she had cherished her glass of wine there in the evenings, watching the sun sink over Paris’s lovely roofscape, dreaming of Pierre, dreaming of a great future. . . .

  She slung her overnight bag over her shoulder and turned the key in the lock. She braced herself for the stink of decomposition and pushed the door open, dropping her bag in the lobby.

  Judy’s eyes flickered to the living room couch.

  And she screamed. And screamed, and screamed.

  Pierre Massot was sitting there.

  He looked at her. And he smiled.

  Chapter 49

  “This is perfect,” Natasha said. She looked around the tiny, cramped apartment. It was the basement of an apartment building in the fourteenth arrondissement. Almost windowless, it had one tiny slit, three feet by six inches, that rose above the pavement; you could watch the heels of people walking past. But it was central and dry; there was a tiny shower cubicle, with hot water, and a lavatory that worked, a steel frame double bed, a refrigerator, and a heat lamp.

  And most of all, it was cheap. Pyotr had hired it for a few hundred dollars, no questions asked, for a year. He had given his full name to the landlord. Natasha, of course, was listed as Aud Vladekovich, citizen of France. She had thrilled to hear him call her “my wife.”

  “It’s a dump. We’re not staying here.”

  She knew better than to argue.

  Pyotr tossed her a few francs. “Go to the market and buy something to eat. Make sure you talk to the stall owners.Tell them you have just moved to the neighbourhood, from Finland. Tell them the building we are living in. Complain about the apartment.”

  “But why?”

  Natasha twined her manicured fingers nervously through the hair at the nape of her neck. Pyotr had been strange, lately. Going places in the middle of the night. Away for hours, every day. Not speaking to her. Yet then he would come back, push her down on the bed, and make intense, dizzying love to her. Pyotr scared her, thrilled her, and confused her; he was like a drug, and she was hooked.

  “Don’t ask questions,” he said. “Just do it.”

  And then he walked out.

  It was a warm, pleasant spring day. The breeze was attractively cool, the city sparkling in the sun; the long, formal facades of the university in the Latin Quarter pleased his sense of beauty. Pyotr strode along the streets, his eyes taking it all in. It belonged to him, he thought; it was his destiny.

  There were no more thoughts of London or New York. Those places were vulgar—beneath him. Pyotr saw Paris and desired it intensely, desired France like a lover. Here the women were unfailingly chic, the food excellent, the public spaces unsurpassed. It was worthy of him.

  He changed direction. He would walk to the place Vendôme, his favourite spot in the city. The glorious open square, a vast column in its center upon which perched a statue of Napoleon, pleased him. Napoleon was an interesting man; Pyotr had no desire to risk his skin in battle, but otherwise . . .

  It was a new world; there were easier ways to build empires.

  But first, he had to erase the past.

  He turned aside before reaching the square. Vendôme was the great center of the Parisian jewellery trade, and in the little side streets and cobbled alleys that surrounded it were satellites of the industry: gem merchants, hiding behind tiny, unmarked store fronts; leather goods salesmen; and watchmakers.

  And there were also jewellers. Small timers, those who could not afford the high rents and luxury addresses of place Vendôme itself. Pyotr had been exploring the area for two months, very discreetly; he had worn caps, and glasses; he had gone early in the morning, late at night. He knew how to blend in. Already, his French was perfect.

  Ah, here it was, the store of his target: shabby, run-down, with peeling paint on the doors and dirty windows facing the street. The stencilled name on the wooden sign said GILES MASSOT.

  He pushed open the door. The little bell tinkled, and as he waited, glancing around at the almost bare shelves, the sawdust on the floor, the dust that lay thickly on the tops of the cabinets, he was rewarded; the terribly slow, dragging sound of old footsteps came down the wooden stairs in the back of the store.

  It was the old man. He stumbled a little on the last step, and Pyotr rushed forward; he was in time, and Giles Massot clutched at his strong, wiry arms.

  “Merci, merci mon brave.” The old fool smiled toothily at him. “You’re a good boy, Pierre. And I’m getting old . . .”

  You certainly are. Pyotr lifted him up, returning the smile with a warmth he did not feel. He despised weakness in others more than anything. This man was a senile fool, and he was dirty. There was no pride in this house, or this shop.

  “Thanks, my dear uncle,” he said. “I’m glad to see you so well. Where is Aunt Mathilde?”

  “Preparing our breakfast.” Giles nodded proudly. “Why, you are just in time. She is laying out the patisserie now. You must come, you must join us.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” Pierre said truthfully.

  It was time. Why put it off? There was an optimum moment for action, and the moment was now.

  “Mme Minette came to visit her yesterday.”

  “Oh?” he asked with interest. Minette, the baker’s wife, was the biggest gossip in the quarter. When not boasting of her grandchildren who had emigrated to Quebec, she was tattling about her neighbours.

  “You did say she would be a good friend for Mathilde . . .”

  “She’s full of lively conversation; my aunt needs the company, don’t you think, Uncle Giles?”

  “But of course, of course. You are a clever lad.”

  Indeed, he had encouraged the friendship. It was important that the whole place be intimately familiar with the return of the Massots’ long-lost “nephew.”

  “Mathilde told her all about you and your dear mama . . . we can’t wait to meet her.” Giles beamed. “It is so good to have Jean-Paul’s boy here, after all these years. When we had no children of our own ...”

  He followed Giles up the stairs into the tiny apartment that sat over the shop. It was old, and rather beautiful, in a faded way; the seventeenth-century structure of the house used mature, thick oak—oak that muffled small and reedy noises.

  Pyotr closed the door carefully behind him. The wife was clucking around in their tiny kitchen; he heard the whistle of a kettle starting as the water hissed over the stovetop. Perfect. He crossed to the window—the street was empty; the delivery men had gone on their rounds, but it was not yet time for work.

  Mathilde walked into the apartment and smiled; she peered at him over her glasses.

  “Pierre!” she croaked. “What a joy to see—”

  Pyotr stepped forward smartly and punched her in the temple. It was a precise blow, and the old woman crumpled to the ground, noiselessly.

  For a second Giles Massot hesitated. He could not take it in. His mind scrambled to put the pieces together. Then he gazed at his fallen wife and looked back at Pyotr with horror.

  “Who are you?” he screeched. And then, “Why?”

  Pyotr shrugged. Really, what a pointless question. As Giles Massot feebly swung at him, he shoved the old man to the floor. He screamed, so Pyotr kicked him in the groin, which winded him. The noise became a dull moan. Pyotr went to the bedroom and fe
tched a pillow; then he put it firmly over Giles’ working mouth and held it there for some minutes.

  Eventually the man stopped moving.

  He went downstairs. There were some old grey sacks in the back of the store, moth-eaten but serviceable. He bundled each corpse into a sack and positioned them into balls—once rigor mortis set in, an awkward position might be noticed.

  The old man’s car keys hung on a rusty nail by the kitchen sink. Pyotr calmly turned off the kettle. Then he slung the first sack over his shoulder, went down to the alley by the side of the house, and opened the door of the Renault. The woman fit into the trunk; the man he placed on the backseat. He reversed carefully into rue Lunette. Then he drove back to the dingy basement. The best thing about that building was the underground parking lot. He had selected it with his usual caution, and that painstaking preparation was about to pay off. Nobody would see him unload these two. And nobody would see him leave.

  “But who are they?” Natasha asked, almost pleading.

  She stared in fascination as Pyotr laid each body out on the bed: the man looked distressed, his face livid with blood, his eyes red; the woman simply frozen and slack-jawed. She knew he had killed them. She did not care. She gazed at Pyotr, feeling her passion mount. He trusted her enough to show her what he had done. She was his partner. His woman.

  Natasha thought of Aud, briefly, and with hatred. Her fingers tightened on Pyotr’s sleeve. No woman would ever be to him what she would be. He shared this with her, and only her.

  “How can you ask that?” Pyotr said, grinning. “That’s your brother. And sister-in-law.”

  She stared at him, not daring to ask more.

  “Step back.” He produced a small can of petrol from the back of the car, doused the two bodies with it, and sprinkled the bed and the heat lamp. “Move towards the door. We don’t want any of this on your pretty dress.”

  She obeyed him.

  “Walk out onto the pavement. Cross the street, and wait for me by the Café d’Argent. Go.”

  A minute later, hovering on one foot, she saw him, Pyotr, walking fast, and intently, and smiling. Natasha glanced towards the window slit—smoke, black and thick, was pouring up from it.

  “Turn around,” he said, not looking at her. “Walk down the street. Keep going until you get to the Métro station. Then get in and ride to the Tuileries. There’s a restaurant there, Il Greco. A table is booked under the name Pierre Massot.”

  Natasha stared at him, nervously.

  “If the maître d’ should ask, your name is Katherine Massot,” he said. “And you’re my mother.”

  She opened her mouth to ask a question. But he had gone, vanished down a side street. She hesitated, but then heard shouts—people had noticed the fire; a woman yelled, and the acrid scent of smoke hit her nostrils.

  She put her head down and walked in the direction he had commanded her.

  “Please, Pyotr . . .”

  “Pierre,” he replied sharply. “Get used to it . . . Maman.”

  “Pierre.” Natasha felt sick. “Please, darling . . . tell me something . . . what is happening . . . ?”

  He nodded.

  “I know you are intelligent, Katherine,” he said. She winced as he used that name, but her eyes did not leave him. “So I will tell you this only once.”

  “I understand . . . Pierre.”

  He smiled coldly. “Good. It was necessary that we should fashion a new life for ourselves here. For obvious reasons, that includes a new identity.”

  She nodded.

  “Pyotr and Aud Vladekovitch, if anybody ever traces them to Paris, were burnt to a crisp in an illegal basement apartment.”

  “I see.”

  “I have been paying visits to my aunt and uncle, Giles and Mathilde Massot. They own a jewellers shop near place Vendôme.”

  She nodded, intently.

  “It is a small place and poorly run, but they have some stock, some money, which they store in the house, and no close living relatives.” A shrug. “Except us. I am the son of Giles’s brother, Henri Massot, who moved to Morocco years ago and disappeared. You are his wife. He died of malaria before he could write to Giles about us.”

  He’s brilliant, Natasha thought. But the story stuck in her craw.

  “How can I play your mother ... Pierre ... when we are lovers? People will notice . . .”

  She laid her hand on his arm. Angrily, he brushed it away.

  “Listen.” It was a hiss; she recoiled. “Katherine . . . you and I will not be lovers. You cannot be my wife. You are too old. I want another kind of woman to bear my heirs.”

  “What?” she asked. Tears prickled in her eyes. “What are you saying?”

  His eyes held hers, with that unearthly calm.

  “You were the first woman I singled out,” he said. “And you have been loyal. I prize loyalty above other qualities. Beauty is never enough; it’s only a start. Katherine, any other female I would have cast aside.”

  Through her tears, she shuddered. She thought of her niece, screaming. She knew what that meant.

  “I have a destiny,” he said. “And you can be at my side. I will found a dynasty, and I offer you a position other women cannot have.” A shrug. “I have appetites. I will satisfy them. There will be many, many girls.”

  She flinched; his words stabbed at her chest.

  “But they will not mean anything to me. I am offering you a place in my house, forever; as my mother, as grandmother to my children. I will be rich; I will have the kind of wealth your husband never dreamed of. And you will be a great lady, and you will stay close to me.”

  “Yes,” she said, weeping. “Never leave me, my darling. . . .”

  “My wife, the mother of my heir, must be young, and virginal,” he said. “Pure ...” A cruel smile. “Which you, my dear, are not.”

  “But I love you,” she said, in a small voice.

  “I know. And this way, you can share your life with me.” He gazed at her, the dark eyes fathomless. “But you will be, from this moment, my mother. Even when we are alone. Always. With no breaks. That is careless; that’s how lesser minds get caught. You must think of yourself as Katherine Massot. Mother of Pierre Massot, and sharer in his fortunes.”

  She brushed her hand in front of her streaming eyes.

  “I will see how much you love me,” he said. “You can leave here, and my life, as Natasha, or you can remain as Katherine. This one time, I will permit you a choice.”

  She fought down the lump in her throat, dabbed away her tears, and when she raised her head she managed a haughty toss of her head.

  “I am Katherine Massot.”

  He took the bottle of Chablis from its ice bucket and poured her a glass.

  “We will eat a fine meal here, Maman,” he said. “And then we will go to the store my uncle left to me, while he took my aunt to visit her relatives in America.” Pierre raised his glass in a toast. “We have work to do.”

  Chapter 50

  “Good evening,” Pierre said.

  Judy swayed, clutching at the door handle. She thought she might faint. Every cell in her body flooded with fear and adrenaline.

  There was a rustling of chain, and M. Kelo, the old man in the apartment down the hall, opened his door. He peered at Judy.

  “What is the matter?” he asked peevishly. “What is going on?”

  That snapped her out of it. Judy wrenched her gaze from Pierre, and turned around.

  “Noth . . . nothing,” she stammered. “I saw a spider. I’m afraid of them.”

  “You should grow up,” he said, annoyed, and slammed the door.

  She stepped gingerly into her apartment and closed her own door behind her.

  “I am not a ghost,” Pierre said, calmly.

  Judy flushed. In one wild instant, the thought had crossed her mind.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded.

  “How did you get in here?”

  “You did not think I would buy you
a property and not retain a key.”

  Her heart slowing a little, she stared, drinking him in. His body was thin beyond its usual leanness; he looked emaciated, and she saw dark welts on his skin.

  “I must get you to a hospital,” she said.

  “No. No hospital.” He shook his head. “I will recover here, with you. I anticipate it will take a week for me to be restored to health. You will supply me with everything I need.” His tone held an unmistakeable threat. “And you will, of course, be discreet.”

  “What happened? Where have you been?”

  “Your drinks cabinet was locked.”

  “It’s new.” She heard her own voice, apologetic, eager to please. It was the Judy she had always been with him. “I’ll open it . . .”

  “Do you still have the Château Lafitte ’68?”

  Thank God, she thought. She had retained it; Pierre had remarked on it once . . . and she hadn’t wanted to let it go. Wild gladness replaced the terror. He was truly back! And he was here! With her!

  “It was your favourite.” She fumbled in a drawer, found the tiny silver key. Words tumbled out of her as she nervously retrieved the bottle and uncorked it. “So I kept it ... Pierre, my darling . . . I waited for you to come home.”

  He accepted a glass, breathed in its fragrance, and drank deeply.

  “Good,” he said.

  It was a single word. Yet Judy sensed in it some long, intense yearning. Whatever had happened, it had been very dark. . . .

  “I am hungry. Get me some food. Filet mignon.”

  “Of course, darling . . .”

  Judy scrambled for the phone. She quickly selected the best restaurant close by that she could count on—the Chèvre Rouge, they did a lot of corporate business for Massot. She ordered a meal, and demanded that it arrive within twenty minutes. After their grovelling assurances she hung up, and turned back to Pierre.