‘Maybe one glass,’ she conceded.
Oliver ordered, and when the chilled white was in front of her, she took an appreciative sip.
‘Thanks for today,’ she said. ‘I really enjoyed myself. It was good to meet different people.’
‘Don’t you meet many in Hendaye?’ he asked.
‘Quite a few,’ she replied. ‘But not socially. I like it like that, though.’
‘Have you decided how long you’re going to stay there as a cleaner?’
She shook her head. ‘It depends on René too,’ she said.
‘Imogen, I don’t want to interfere, but—’
‘People always say that but go ahead and give unasked-for advice anyhow,’ she interrupted him. ‘Please don’t try to mess with my life, Oliver. It’s fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I apologise.’
‘I’m sorry too,’ she said after a moment’s silence. ‘It’s simply that I want to live my own way. Things are working out for me at the moment.’
‘They didn’t always?’
‘Whose life works out all the time?’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I’ve had my ups and downs, but they don’t matter any more.’
‘Of course. And I didn’t mean to pry. It’s simply … Well, I’m so pleased to see you again, and I wanted to know everything about you. Like I did when we were kids.’
‘You didn’t know everything about me then either.’
‘I knew that you were utterly fearless,’ said Oliver. ‘The amount of times you climbed things or jumped off things or ran into the water even when the waves were high – I’ve never met a girl like you before or since.’
She laughed. ‘I wasn’t fearless at all. I was terrified of you boys! Terrified that you and Charles would make fun of me.’
‘We never did.’
‘Huh! Of course you did. A million times. You were boys, after all; what else could I expect?’
‘I didn’t realise …’
‘It was good for me,’ she said. ‘It toughened me up a bit, and I needed toughness.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve moved around so much and there have been so many different people in my life, I never know if I’m French or Irish or even a little bit English. No matter which country I’m in, I feel like the foreigner. And you have to be tough when you’re always the outsider.’
He looked at her, his expression serious. ‘I understand. So why did you choose to come back to Hendaye?’
‘Because I felt most at home there when I was younger,’ she replied. ‘I loved living in your house and I loved your family and I wanted to, oh, recapture that, I suppose. Which is daft, because you can’t go back, can you? And being honest with you, I’m not a small-town girl any more. Dublin has a population of over a million people. Hendaye only has about sixty thousand. I know you can’t exactly say that everyone knows everyone else, but it’s still the sort of community where you know what’s going on pretty much all of the time.’
‘So you won’t stay?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Even being here in San Sebastian is making me nostalgic for a big city.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I think I’m condemned to keep wandering around, never settling down, trying to find my place.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’ He reached out and put his hand on hers. ‘You deserve to belong somewhere. And to someone.’
She pulled her hand away. ‘I don’t belong to anyone. I don’t want to. I’m not a possession.’
‘I never thought you were.’ Oliver looked at her with concern. ‘I meant … well, it’s nice to feel that you’re part of something, that’s all.’
‘Don’t mind me, Oliver,’ she said. ‘I’m being weird, that’s all. I didn’t mean to snap at you.’
‘Imogen Weird,’ he said slowly. ‘We used to call you that sometimes.’
‘So you did, you wretches! I’d forgotten.’
In their laughter, Imogen’s words were put to one side. But as they walked back to the car park nearly an hour later, she knew that they weren’t forgotten at all.
Chapter 32
‘When will you meet up with Paul again?’ Imogen asked when they arrived at the car park and got into the Range Rover.
‘Not for a while,’ said Oliver. ‘We’ve gone through his ideas for the second draft and I want to let him run with them. But I told him to call me any time. Day or night.’
‘Literally?’
‘He does a lot of work at night,’ said Oliver. ‘I need to be there for him.’
‘Like a doctor on call.’
‘Something like.’ Oliver grinned as he started the car.
‘You sound like you don’t mind. As though it’s fun.’
‘Publishing is fun,’ said Oliver as they waited for the garage door to open. ‘At least, it can be. There are always horror stories.’
‘Have you had horrible people to deal with?’ asked Imogen.
‘I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you,’ said Oliver. ‘What on earth is keeping this door? Ah!’
It began to open slowly, and then stopped about a foot off the ground.
‘Do you need to press a button?’ asked Imogen. ‘Or put in another code?’
‘I didn’t think so. I asked Paul earlier and he said it was an electronic beam.’ Oliver looked around but he couldn’t see anything that looked anything like an exit button. ‘Let’s give it a second.’
But the door remained obstinately still.
‘I’ll get out and look,’ said Imogen.
She clambered down from the Range Rover and walked up to the door. There was a small box low on the wall, and beneath it, on either side of the door, were the inserts for the beam. She waved her hand in front of them. The door juddered for a moment but stayed where it was. There was no separate button she could see to activate it. She stood in front of the car and raised her hands helplessly.
Oliver got out and did the exact same things as she had. Why do men always have to do that? she wondered. Doesn’t he trust me to have broken the damn beam?
‘I know you did it yourself,’ Oliver told her, as though reading her thoughts. ‘But I still had to try.’
Suddenly they heard the purr of another car’s engine on the ramp outside. The door moved up a centimetre before stopping again. They heard the door of the other car open and close, then saw a pair of trousered legs approaching the gap.
‘It’s stuck!’ Oliver called out in French.
‘Qué?’
‘It won’t open.’ He spoke in English this time.
‘There is a way to open it.’ The owner of the legs bent down so that Oliver and Imogen could see his face. He was a middle-aged man in a suit. ‘Near the ground. A yellow box.’ His English was highly accented but perfectly understandable.
‘I see it.’ Imogen bent down to look at it more closely. ‘But it needs a key.’
‘The key should be in the lock of the box.’
‘Well it’s not,’ said Imogen while she scanned the immediate vicinity for any other place the key could be concealed.
‘Joder.’ The man swore, then straightened up and walked away from the door. Imogen and Oliver heard him getting into his car and the sound of the engine revving up.
‘You don’t think he’s going to ram the door, do you?’ asked Imogen in alarm.
‘Of course not.’ But Oliver ushered her away from it all the same.
The engine revved more loudly and then faded.
‘He’s bloody well driven off!’ Oliver was outraged.
‘Maybe he’s gone for help.’
‘I’ll put the car back in the space and give Paul a buzz from outside. He might have a number for the maintenance people.’
Imogen waited for Oliver to return the Range Rover to its original position and the two of them went up the stairs again. Outside, she gave a squeak of dismay as she spotted a large oil stain on the hem of her red dress. It must have happened when she’d hunkered down
to look at the yellow box.
‘I’m sure it’ll come out,’ said Oliver, but Imogen was doubtful. She was about to speak but realised that Oliver was pointing to a couple of cars parked directly in front of the ramp to the car park, both drivers speaking urgently on their phones.
‘Calling the cavalry, I presume,’ said Oliver. ‘Maybe I won’t have to bother Paul after all.’ He walked over to the middle-aged driver who’d first tried to come into the garage, the man recognisable by his shiny shoes. He told Oliver he’d phoned the maintenance company and that somebody would be there shortly.
‘Shortly?’
‘Within the hour,’ said the man.
Imogen and Oliver exchanged glances.
‘I guess we may as well go back to the beach till then,’ said Oliver. ‘I can’t walk another step.’
‘Me neither. But nor can I eat or drink any more.’
‘Let’s sit on the sand,’ Oliver said. ‘We can watch the sunset.’
‘I hope they manage to open it before then!’ exclaimed Imogen. ‘I wasn’t planning to be here all night.’
‘Have you something you need to get back for?’ asked Oliver. ‘Am I messing up your day?’
‘Well, no,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve enjoyed myself immensely.’
‘Let’s eke out a little bit of extra enjoyment before we have to go back,’ said Oliver.
They crossed the road and went down the steps to the beach, which, in the long summer evening, was still crowded with locals and holidaymakers alike.
‘D’you want to sit here?’ he asked, stopping at a shaded spot. ‘Would you like a sun lounger or anything?’
‘Don’t be silly, this is fine. It’s like the barbecue at Hendaye.’
‘That was a fun night,’ agreed Oliver.
‘Did you know many of our group already?’
Oliver shook his head. ‘Bastarache, of course,’ he said. ‘I see him occasionally because I call in to the office at least once a year to chat about the house maintenance. And I know his former wife, although not well. I think she worked with him for a while.’
‘She has a café in town now,’ said Imogen.
‘And of course Virginie,’ he said. ‘I dated her when we were younger.’
‘Ah.’
‘I lost my virginity to her.’ His tone was matter-of-fact.
‘Oliver!’
‘What?’
‘Too much information.’
‘It’s true, though. She was way more experienced than me.’
As Imogen shook her head, he leaned towards her. She jolted backwards, but he reached out and wiped her cheek with his thumb.
‘More oil,’ he explained.
She said nothing, but she was suddenly conscious that she was sitting closer to him than was strictly necessary.
‘We’ll give them a bit more time to sort out that garage door.’ His tone was light, as though he hadn’t talked about sex with Virginie and hadn’t wiped her face with the gentlest of touches. ‘Hopefully it won’t take much longer.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said steadily. ‘Like I said, I had nothing else planned.’
‘How would you normally spend a Saturday afternoon?’ he asked.
‘That depends. In the garden – there’s a nice one at my apartment. On the beach. Reading usually.’
‘Not exploring?’
‘I can’t really do much of that,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a car, and although the buses and trains are great … well, I prefer to stay away from them at the moment.’
He gave her a curious look but made no comment.
‘You could always come to the Villa Martine,’ he said. ‘Use the pool if you’d like.’
‘That’s kind of you,’ she said. ‘We already have a pool at the apartment. Thanks for the offer, though.’
‘And if you want to see some places – Bayonne, Biarritz – I’ll happily take you there.’
‘That’s even kinder,’ she told him. ‘But I’m sure you’ve other things to do. Work on Paul’s book, for example.’
‘That’s for the week,’ he said. ‘Never on the weekend.’
‘I thought you said that you were there for him day and night.’
‘Hopefully he won’t call at midnight on a Saturday,’ said Oliver. ‘But if he does, I’ll be there for him.’
‘You like what you do, don’t you?’
‘Of course. We live one life. It’s good to enjoy both your work and your leisure time.’
‘I love your attitude. If only it was that simple.’
‘I’m lucky,’ Oliver admitted. ‘Also that I can work whenever and wherever I chose. It’s great to be able to come to the Villa Martine when I need solitude. But there won’t be much this time of the year because we’re all there. Back and forward between Hendaye and Paris. Me, my brothers, my mother – and my father too, of course.’
‘But your dad doesn’t come in the summer, isn’t that what you said?’
‘Occasionally he does,’ said Oliver. ‘It depends on who has free time. We check in advance so that there isn’t a bloodbath.’
‘Is your mother planning to come any time soon?’
‘Oh, Maman always turns up when we least expect it,’ said Oliver. When he noticed the expression on Imogen’s face, he added, ‘Does it bother you that she could be here?’
‘A little,’ confessed Imogen. ‘After what happened.’
‘Get over it,’ advised Oliver. ‘If you meet Maman again some day, I hope you will say hello to her and not feel embarrassed.’
‘Possibly …’
‘However, I really do think you should be coming to the Villa Martine as a guest and not a cleaner,’ said Oliver.
‘Would you stop with all that nonsense?’ she demanded. ‘I’m proud of the work I do. And I’m happy to be able to do it in your house as much as any other.’
He said nothing, but stood up and brushed the sand from his body.
‘I’ll go and see if they’ve had any success with the garage door yet. You can wait here if you like.’
Imogen stood up too. ‘It’s OK. My bum is getting sore. I’ll go with you.’
The area around the car park was devoid of people and cars, which they both took as a positive sign. Oliver punched the code into the keypad.
‘Et voilà!’ he cried as the door opened. ‘Thank God for that.’
Thank God indeed, thought Imogen, as they walked down the ramp to the Range Rover. The day in San Sebastian had been interesting and fun. But she couldn’t help feeling that it had brought her a little too close to Oliver Delissandes. And that wasn’t a good idea, for a thousand different reasons.
Chapter 33
It was after eleven by the time René Bastarache woke up for the second time that morning. His eyes were gritty from too much wine and too little sleep. He stretched his arm out to pull Céline closer to him, before remembering that she’d turfed him out of her bed more than four hours previously, muttering that Imogen would be coming to clean the house and saying that she didn’t want her to find him there. René had accused her of bourgeois sentimentality and Céline had snorted and told him that it had nothing to do with bourgeois anything, it was simply polite for him to leave before his employee – and hers, she added – turned up for work. There was no need to embarrass Imogen, she said, and undoubtedly the girl would be embarrassed to find them cavorting beneath the sheets.
‘We have time for some more cavorting first,’ René had said, but Céline wasn’t having any of it and had told him in no uncertain terms to get dressed and leave. René had kissed her on the head and told her he’d call her and she’d said not to bother. But she hadn’t meant it, he thought as he stretched in the bed. She’d enjoyed the night as much as he had. They’d always been good in bed together. That wasn’t what had driven them apart.
The shrill sound of the doorbell startled him, and he realised that that was what had woken him in the first place. He got out of bed, pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, before
pressing the button on the intercom.
‘Oui,’ he said.
‘René Bastarache?’
‘Oui.’
‘My name is Vince Naughton. I want to talk to you.’
René yawned. He didn’t know any Vince Naughton and he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Especially an English-speaking someone who’d jolted him out of bed when he’d been having pleasurable dreams about his ex-wife.
‘What do you want to talk to me about?’
‘My wife,’ said Vince.
For a split second, René wondered who the hell he’d slept with recently, but there had been no one in the last few weeks, and he was pretty sure that Céline hadn’t got herself married to anyone in secret. Besides, surely Art would have been at the head of the queue if that was the case. Not that she’d thought much about him last night one way or another. René smiled to himself with quiet satisfaction.
‘I’m sorry, mon ami,’ he said. ‘You’ve got the wrong man.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Vince. ‘Your name was given to me by …’ There was a pause, and then he spoke again. ‘Bernard Biendon, the owner of Le Bleu restaurant.’
‘What!’ René was confused again. What the hell was Céline’s father up to? Did he know he’d spent the night with his daughter? Was he trying to land him in some sort of trouble?
‘I spoke to Mr Biendon yesterday. He gave me your name. I called around last night but you weren’t here. I’m hoping you weren’t with my wife, but I can’t be sure that you didn’t spend the night with her.’
‘Look, I’m sorry, Mr Naughton,’ said René, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar surname, ‘but I don’t know you and I don’t know your wife. You’ve clearly mixed me up with someone else.’
‘According to Mr Biendon, you do know my wife,’ said Vince. ‘Her name is Imogen.’
‘Imogen!’ René didn’t know what to say. ‘Imogen.’
The Missing Wife Page 33