He turns to me with a quick smile and raises a hand as if to say, No matter. “It was a long time ago. I was very junior, one of many assisting.” He looks back at Lara, then away quickly. Then he collects himself. “Miss Channing, you have a guest. We can continue another time, if I have more questions.”
“Oh. Okay. Fine.” If I’d known having a guest would roust him, I’d have arranged for an interruption long before this, I think sourly. Except I wouldn’t have, really. Better to get these things over and done with.
He turns to Lara. “À demain, Miss Petersson.” Until tomorrow.
“Oui, à demain,” she says, then follows up with something too quick for me to catch. I forgot Lara’s French was rather impressive; she’s one of those irritating Scandinavians with umpteen languages to their credit.
When I’ve closed the door on Monsieur Alain Modan, investigateur, I follow Lara to the kitchen and find her already pulling a bottle of white wine from my fridge and studiously avoiding my eye.
“What was that all about?”
She pours two glasses. Very large glasses. She seems to be giving the task more attention than it deserves. “Nothing. What do you mean?”
“Don’t give me that. Did you and he . . . ?”
“No!” She looks up, appalled. “Of course not!” I hold her gaze until she breaks and takes a sip of her wine.
I reach out for my own glass and take a sip, still watching her. She’s avoiding my eyes again. “Lara,” I say warningly.
“Oh, all right!” She folds, like I knew she would, and finally looks up. “Nothing happened, truly. He, um . . .” She takes another sip of wine, then says in a rush, “He wouldn’t. He said it wouldn’t be proper. Appropriate, I mean. Under the circumstances.” She’s blushing, more furiously than I’ve ever seen before.
“Oh my God,” I say wonderingly, a smile breaking out slowly on my face. “He’s that mythical creature. The one that got away from Lara Petersson.”
“He’s not . . . It’s not . . . Oh, fuck off,” she says, screwing up her nose prettily. She takes an unfeasibly long drink from her glass, then looks at me dejectedly. “Only it’s still not appropriate, right? Not until he clears us from the investigation. And then he’ll be back in France.”
“I can’t believe you never told me any of this.” I’m not hurt; I’m just amazed that I missed this.
She ducks her head apologetically. “Well, like I said, nothing happened. And you and Seb had just split up, and you know what a state that left you in. I didn’t want to dump my crap on you . . .”
For once the mention of Seb slides by almost unnoticed; I’m too thrown by this revelation. What else did I miss when I was licking my Seb-inflicted wounds? She takes in another large slug of wine, and I gaze at her in bemusement. Not only did the rejection matter to her then, it clearly still matters now. This is a Lara I haven’t seen before.
And then I think, Poor Tom.
CHAPTER FOUR
I dream of Severine, among others.
She has no right to be in my dreams, but that would never have stopped Severine. I’m back at the farmhouse, of course, and I’m trying to find something, or someone, but what? Who? I stick my head in the rooms, some empty, some not; some of the occupants weren’t even part of that fateful vacation, but somehow I’m not surprised to see them. I keep looking. Caro is alone in the kitchen; she’s wearing a white bikini top and a red chiffon sarong, and she looks up then laughs at me when I pass through. I realize I’m clad in jeans and a heavy-duty winter jumper, but I know I’ve nothing else to wear. Severine is smoking in the garden. She tells me something very seriously, but I don’t listen; in fact I’m picking up speed, running to the barn. The jumper is uncomfortably hot. I throw open the barn door, then catch my breath when I find Seb there. He’s wearing long beach shorts that are slung low on his hips. His hair is lighter than Tom’s, almost golden at the tips, and curlier; his muscular bare chest is tanned, and dark, springy hair makes a trail down his abdomen—a fully-fledged man whereas his peers are still leaving boyhood. Just like Caro he looks me up and down with those blue eyes that could be Tom’s, then laughs. It’s not a kind laugh.
The dream doesn’t fade when I wake; it presses on my temples and adds to the throbbing left by one too many glasses of wine with Lara. Getting out of bed—in fact, all of what the day requires—seems a supreme effort, but then I imagine Paul and Julie at the office wondering where I am, and that provides the necessary impetus. By the time Tom calls my mobile that afternoon, the headache has dulled but the effort remains.
“How was it?” he asks. I can hear a very particular hubbub in the background: sharp orders and staccato words in the male register. He’s on the trading floor at his bank; Tom trades interest rate derivatives. I’m on Oxford Street myself, en route to meet a prospective client; I expect my own background noise is equally loud.
“How was what? Please tell me you’re not rigging the markets while chatting to me.”
He laughs. “No, I have people to do that for me now. And for the benefit of the recorded line: that was a joke. Anyway, I meant how was the thing with the French detective.”
“Pretty awful actually.” I look around, then back at the map in my hand. New Bond Street is a big street. It can’t have disappeared.
“How so?” he asks cautiously.
“It’s . . . well, I don’t really want to think about what might have happened to her.” I don’t really want to think about her at all. I look around again. There’s a disappointing lack of street name signs. “Jesus, where is this place?” I mutter. I spy something that might be a sign and march in that direction.
“Lost?” asks Tom, amused. “Where’s your legendary sense of direction?”
“Lara drowned it in wine last night. It’s her turn with the detective today, actually.”
“Yeah, I know, I spoke to her this morning,” he says easily. I stop walking. Lara must have given him her number. “It’s tomorrow for me. Listen, I have to jump. I’ve got a dicey option expiry approaching, but I was wondering if you fancy coming down to Hampshire for Sunday lunch. My folks would love to see you.”
“Um, sure. I don’t think I have anything on. Sounds lovely.” Which it does—I’ve met his parents half a dozen times over the years, though never at their home; his dad is charmingly eccentric and his mum is lovely. “Is Lara coming, too?—oh, she’s in Sweden this weekend, I forgot.”
“Yeah, she’s away.” He already knows what her weekend plans are. “I’ll drive us down. I’ll call you on Saturday to figure out timings.” I hear someone calling his name in the background. “Yeah, just coming,” he calls back, then to me, “Speak Saturday.”
“Saturday.” I pocket my phone and look around again. New Bond Street is right there, where it’s always been. I still have a headache.
* * *
—
Sunday. Tom turns up at ten thirty in something retro, white and low-slung that he’s visibly excited by. Cars mean nothing to me, but Seb would be envious, I think, then I shut down that train of thought.
“Am I supposed to be in awe?” I ask Tom teasingly.
“The salesman promised me the mere sight would make women drop their knickers,” he deadpans.
“I would, but it’s a bit chilly today and I don’t fancy a draft up my skirt.” I walk around the car. Even to the uninitiated, it’s a very cool car. “How old is it?”
“Considerably older than both of us. It’s a Toyota 2000GT; well, mostly. Some of the parts have been replaced, which reduces the value.” The sun makes a brief appearance, bouncing off the immaculate white paintwork. “I picked it up this morning.” He can’t keep the smile off his face as he talks. It’s infectious. He reaches out a long arm and opens the passenger door, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Can I take you for a ride, Miss Channing?”
I laugh and fold myself into the
seat. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The seat is uncomfortable and the heating intermittent, but the sun comes out and stays out. That, and the car, and Tom’s mood have me giddy for the first half hour, which carries us through the London traffic. When the roads open up and the car settles into a steady thrum through increasingly green countryside, our chatter tails off into comfortable silence.
“Do you want some music?” asks Tom, glancing across at me. His lips are tugging upward at the corners; I wait for the punch line. “Cos if so, you’d better start singing—the radio doesn’t work.”
“Will you get one fitted?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. It would reduce the value, but I didn’t buy this purely as an investment, otherwise I wouldn’t even be driving it.” His eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’ve always wanted this car.”
“A psychologist would have a field day with that. Given the timing and all.”
“They’d probably be right to,” he admits, with a sheepish grin. “I’m basically driving the deposit I’d saved for a house with Jenna.”
I can’t help laughing. He doesn’t join in, but he’s grinning.
“You’ve been lucky settling back into London,” I comment. “Back in your old flat, back on your old desk at work, except a few rungs up the ladder . . . Did you think about staying in Boston?”
He shakes his head. “Boston is a great city. But I never felt . . . settled there. Maybe it was my fault; I didn’t properly commit to staying long-term. Once Jenna and I split up, there was nothing to keep me there.” The sun is streaming directly through the windscreen; he finds some sunglasses and puts them on one-handed with remarkable dexterity. “What about you? What made you go out on your own? Starting your own business in this climate can’t be easy. I don’t remember you even mentioning the idea when you came out to Boston.”
I close my eyes and rest my head back against the seat, feeling the sun soak into my face. “Oh, you know me,” I say airily. “I’m basically unemployable.”
“Rubbish. You have a first from Oxford and the best CV of anyone we know.”
“Slight exaggeration, but anyway, I didn’t say I was unhirable. I’m unemployable. As in, unsuitable for employment.” My eyes are still closed.
“Ah,” he says, understanding. “You mean, much better suited to being the employer.”
“Exactly.” I open my eyes and turn my head, still resting on the headrest, to look at him. I can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but I know what they look like. Seb doesn’t freckle, though. “I got fed up of being overlooked in favor of inferior lawyers who had the right accent and went to the right school.” I grimace. “I may have been vocal about it from time to time.”
“How can you spot a balanced northerner?” asks Tom. He goes on before I can answer: “They have a chip on both their shoulders.”
He’s teasing me, but I know he understands, at least in part. Tom’s whole upbringing has put him on the outside looking in: looking in on Seb, whose father is some kind of nobility—a marquis or a baron or an earl, I forget exactly what—with the stately home and vast grounds one might expect along with such a title. Tom grew up in a cottage on the estate, gifted by the earl-or-marquis-or-baron to his little sister, Tom’s mother, when she married a penniless academic.
“Anyway, one day one of the partners told me I was the best candidate for partner he’d ever come across, but if I couldn’t learn to shut my mouth and put up with some crap from time to time, there was no way I’d even make the short list. I’d be turfed out.”
“What did you say to that?” Tom asks.
“Not much at the time. I was too furious to say anything at all really. But then I thought about it . . . and he was right. There’s no way they could make me partner the way I was; it would be like . . . like putting itching powder on everyone’s skin.”
“And you didn’t want to change?”
“I could have changed . . . well, maybe . . . but not for that firm. Too traditional, too old-school. It got me thinking about how important it is to get the right fit when you hire someone. I mean, they should never have hired me in the first place. I expect they were trying to fill some diversity quota: female, went to a state school . . .”
Tom remains quiet. I close my eyes again and turn my face to the sun. The thrum of the car is soporific. Time becomes elastic; I have no idea how much is passing.
“You never told me much about your meeting with the detective,” I hear Tom say.
I open my eyes again reluctantly. I don’t want Severine to intrude today. She doesn’t belong in the sunshine. “Not much to tell. He just went over the timings of when we left, really.”
“Nothing else?” he asks casually.
“No,” I say, bemused. I think back to the meeting; it doesn’t seem my place to tell him about Lara’s fascination with the detective. Though perhaps I should if Tom is going to get hurt . . .
“What?” asks Tom, noticing my hesitation.
“Nothing.” I grope around for something to cover with. “Just—well, he said he didn’t think it was the boyfriend.”
Tom is nodding. “Yeah, Theo’s dad told me he’s out of the picture.”
“Modan was a bit more conditional than that. It seems to hinge on the timing of when the well was filled in, I think.” I frown. “But surely they know when that was done.”
Tom shakes his head and says carefully, “There’s some confusion.” He appears to be intent on the road; with his sunglasses on, I can’t read his expression at all.
“How come? Can’t they check with the builders?” I can see the two builders in my head: both in their thirties, unmistakably brothers, with the same swarthy complexion, dark hair and heavy eyebrows. I remember watching them watch us; I remember the resentment in their eyes and the sense of unease it put in me. I could see us from their perspective: the careless, awful presumptions of privilege. I wanted to say, “But I’m not one of them!” Only I was, at least for that week.
“Haven’t tracked them down again yet. But according to the records that the police looked at then, the well was filled in on the Friday.” He glances across at me. Oddly I have the same feeling as with the detective: he is watching me, waiting for something. I shake my head dumbly. He elaborates. “Friday, Kate. The day before we left.”
“But that’s . . . that’s impossible.” I’m no longer sleepy. “Severine was with us on Friday night.”
“I know that. You know that.” He shrugs.
I am upright in my seat now, twisted sideways to stare at Tom’s profile. He’s calmly focusing on the road ahead. “There’s CCTV footage of Severine at the bus depot on Saturday morning,” I argue heatedly. “And the bus driver remembered her getting on at the stop by the farmhouse. So she obviously wasn’t, you know, stuffed in a well at that point.” The skull is there, with the dirt and the sand and the insects; I shake my head violently. It doesn’t dislodge.
“I know, I know.” Tom takes a hand off the wheel and spreads it out, palm up. “I’m just saying, there are inconsistencies. Things like that, they muddy the waters. Which could be rather . . . inconvenient for us, until it’s all sorted out.”
I’m still staring at him. He turns his head and takes in my expression. “Kate,” he says gently. “It’s going to be fine. I just wanted to bring you up to speed. It will all be fine.”
He smiles in what’s meant to be a reassuring manner. But I can’t see his eyes behind those sunglasses.
* * *
—
Lunch is a pleasure, or should be a pleasure, but I can’t shake a sense of unease. It flows beneath every conversation and fills every silence. Tom’s parents don’t notice—his mother is glowing to have her son at home again, however temporarily, and his dad’s gruff welcome belied the delight in his eyes—but Tom’s gaze rests on me frequently. I can’t read what his eyes hold,
which only adds to my unease. Tom’s dad has a heavy hand with the wine; by dessert I’m surreptitiously drinking as much water as possible in mitigation.
“How is your mum, Kate?” asks Tom’s mother kindly. “Do you get up north to see her much?”
“She’s well, thanks.” Tom’s mum has her head cocked on one side, listening to me sympathetically. I can see Tom in her. It makes me more open than I might otherwise be; that, or the wine. “She seems happy. She remarried last year. I guess I don’t go up now as much as I used to.”
“You don’t get on with her new husband?”
I shake my head. “No, he’s fine.” I hear my words and correct them. “He’s nice, actually. Dad’s been gone a long time.” Almost ten years. I got the news only weeks after Seb and I broke up. “It’s great to think that she’s not on her own anymore. But it’s just . . . different, I guess.”
Both Tom and his mother are looking at me. I duck my head and take a swallow of wine.
After lunch, Tom’s parents won’t hear of us helping with the clearing up; instead they shoo us out to walk off our overindulgence on the estate grounds. We climb a small ridge and are suddenly presented with an uninterrupted view across a lawn to the main house. Seb’s house. Well, his father’s house.
“You would think—” I say, stopping to stare at the enormous white-painted building. It’s from the Regency era, I seem to recall. There are columns and wings and more windows than I could reliably count. I start again. “You would think I would’ve been here.” I look at Tom. He isn’t meeting my eye. “Don’t you think?” I challenge him. “Wouldn’t you think that if you went out with someone for a year, you might see where they live when they’re not at college?” Tom doesn’t answer. I persist. “Wouldn’t you think that?”
“I don’t think it was intentional,” Tom hedges. “He didn’t deliberately not invite you.”
“Maybe.” I find a large rock to sit on. I’ve had too much to drink. I think of Caro, in France. Of course, you’ve met Lord Harcourt, haven’t you? Such a dear. Her sharp eyes watching me, birdlike, readying to swoop in on any tidbits I give away. You haven’t? Really? “Then again, maybe not.”
The French Girl Page 5