“I doubt it after our last conversation,” she says frankly. “He thinks I’m going to go off and screw half the men in London—the half I haven’t already screwed, that is.” She shakes her head in frustration. “When he asked before about past boyfriends, I was honest—more fool me. I didn’t expect to have it thrown back in my face. And aren’t the French supposed to be more liberal than the British on that sort of thing?”
“I’m sure French men are just as susceptible to jealousy as British men.” Poor Modan. He must be incredibly cut up to lash out like that: he doesn’t strike me as a man who usually makes such appalling missteps. “Are you? Going to screw half of London, I mean? Only maybe someone should warn the poor creatures, give them time to prepare . . .”
“Stop it,” she says, laughing again. “That was then.” She sobers and puts a hand on my arm, earnestness shining out of her. “I’m different now.”
“I know,” I say gently, though a shameful part of me wonders how long she will be different for. But I realize I’m being unfair: surely we’re all different now, from how we were in a French farmhouse a decade ago. Perhaps it just took a little longer for the impact to hit Lara.
A slight frown crosses her face. “You don’t believe me.”
“I do,” I reassure her quickly. “Of course I do. I was just . . . I was just contrasting with that week in France . . .” She cocks her head questioningly. I try to find the right words. “I mean, we’re all different now. Even Caro, maybe . . . Everyone is different, or—gone. Or maybe I’m seeing different sides of everyone . . .” When I try to think about what might have happened to Severine, it’s like trying to solve a puzzle based on the picture on the box, but the pieces have evolved—or maybe the picture on the box was never the right picture in the first place. Lara still has her head cocked to one side, the quizzical look still in place. I shake my head. “Never mind. Come on, we should go up.”
We link arms and turn toward the entrance to Tom’s block of flats. Lara buzzes to announce us. I hear Tom’s voice through the intercom, made tinny and weak. If he’s surprised at Lara’s presence it doesn’t show, other than perhaps through a slight pause before he speaks that could instead have been a result of the technology.
“I never answered your question, though,” Lara says as we start to climb the threadbare stairs. “We weren’t apart that I was aware of, except to go to the loo, but we did sleep. I don’t know how long for—maybe just a couple of hours?”
Tom has left the door of his flat ajar; we push through, and despite my now numerous visits, it still surprises me to see this oasis of light and modern style after the genteel shabbiness of the common areas. Following noise, we find him hunting down some wineglasses in the kitchen. “I presume a glass of wine wouldn’t go amiss, ladies?” he says with a grin, raising the bottle of white in his hand. He’s had time to change after work; he’s wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt that picks up the color in his eyes.
“Now that’s what I call a welcome.” Lara smiles flirtatiously as she kisses him hello. I glance away and thus am completely unprepared when he wraps his arms around me in his bear hug of old. The T-shirt is of the softest cotton, and he smells of the same aftershave from that dark, delicious corridor; for a moment the ache is blinding. When I pull myself together enough to return the hug I think I hear the stroke of his warm breath deliver Sorry into my ear. When he releases me I stare after him, trying to search his eyes, but he busies himself hunting down a corkscrew and then Lara pulls out a bar stool for me and I’m left wondering what just happened as I settle beside her on one side of the kitchen counter.
Tom is facing us, the dark granite kitchen counter between us. “So, what news?” he asks, uncorking the bottle. He’s meeting my eyes from time to time, but I’m failing to divine anything from his expression. The bar stool is an uncomfortable height: I can’t rest my elbows on the counter, and my feet don’t reach the floor, yet there’s no strut for them to rest on. I feel perched and precarious.
I shrug, leaving Lara to fill the gap. “Not much,” she says lightly. “I’ve turned celibate, and Kate is trying to figure out whether you could have killed Severine.”
She’s being flippant, of course she’s being flippant, but Tom pauses in the act of pouring, his eyes leaping to mine. “And?” he asks after a beat, placing the bottle carefully down and maintaining the eye contact. It’s clear he’s completely disregarding the celibacy comment; whether that will irk Lara or not I don’t know or care, because I currently feel like killing her for putting me in this position. I can feel her shifting uneasily beside me as it dawns on her that her comment is actually being taken seriously. “Do you think I’m capable of it?” Tom asks in a measured tone.
It feels like a challenge, though over what I’m not sure. Still, I rise to it. “Yes,” I say simply.
“Kate!” I hear Lara exclaim, but I’m still locked in a gaze with Tom. There’s nothing I can read in his eyes. Then he inclines his head a little and returns to pouring the wine.
“I’m not saying he did,” I explain in an aside to Lara, though my eyes keep darting back to Tom, looking for something, anything, that tells me what he’s thinking. I try to hook one ankle round the leg of the stool, searching for some balance. I need an anchor. “I’m just saying he’s capable of it. Under the right circumstances.” I take a sip of the wine that Tom has pushed toward me. “Probably all of us are under the right circumstances.”
“Not all, I don’t think,” says Tom thoughtfully. He has a beer instead; he takes a long pull of it. “Well, maybe everyone is capable of an accidental murder,” he concedes. “But the cover-up—that’s the crucial bit. Not everyone would have the self-possession to do that rather than calling the emergency services.”
You would, I think immediately; then I realize he’s watching me and have the uncomfortable feeling he can read my mind as he smiles thinly and raises his beer in a mock toast.
“Well,” says Lara after a pause. “We’ve certainly bypassed the small talk this evening.” She picks up her own wine and takes a long draft.
“Have either of you eaten?” asks Tom abruptly. “I’ve already warmed the oven; shall I shove some pizzas in or something?”
The process of deliberating over the food options dispels the atmosphere; for a few moments this might be simply a social evening. But once the oven door has been swung shut, Tom takes another swig of his beer and I see him change gear.
“Right,” he says decisively, looking at Lara and me in turn. “I think it’s cards on the table time now. What do you guys think happened that night?”
“My cards are on the table,” Lara complains. “They’ve always been on the table. I never thought it was one of us.” She spreads her hands wide in exasperation, almost knocking over her glass. “Oops, sorry, I already had a glass or two after work with some colleagues . . . Anyway, so . . . unless you, Tom, managed to kill Severine, get rid of her body, clean yourself up and get back into bed with me in the space of a little more than an hour, maybe two, then I have absolutely no information.”
I’m taken aback by the casual way in which she can mention being in bed with Tom—with Tom—in public, to Tom himself, without an iota of a blush. I glance at him quickly, but he doesn’t appear fazed in the slightest. “I’m good,” he says with dark humor, “but not that good.”
I try to stamp down my swelling sense of injustice—that Lara, who casually slept with him then tossed him aside, gets entirely forgiven, yet I am held out to dry for a mere kiss—but there’s a thread of irritation that leaks through into my words. “But you’re presuming the same person did it all,” I declare bluntly. “It’s possible more than one person was involved. Maybe an accidental killing by one, then one or two more involved in the cover-up . . .” This discussion is so abstract, so passionless, that it’s hard to remember the girl it relates to. I glance around for her, but she’s not in attendance. I feel
an extra prickle of irritation: what kind of ghost wouldn’t be interested in discussions on their own death? Though I suppose it’s not as if she doesn’t know the punch line . . .
Tom nods. Somehow I feel an unexpected sense of approval from him. “Sounds like you have a theory.”
“No, I just . . .” I shift awkwardly on the very awkward stool. I don’t have a theory. I have a collection of disquieting observations that add up to a maelstrom of unease, but nothing that could be called a theory.
Lara shifts herself so she’s half lolling on the counter and cocks her head in sympathetic listening mode. “It’s just us, Kate.”
“Come on, Kate,” says Tom. He’s standing with his hands on the granite surface, leaning toward me. With his height the body language sends a curious message of encouragement mixed with intimidation. “You have to trust someone.”
I look across at him, meeting those familiar blue eyes that are Tom’s not Seb’s, above that unmistakable nose, and I am suddenly so blindingly angry with him that for a moment I can’t speak. I used to trust him, I even want to trust him, so why won’t he let me? He knows something, I know it, and by now he must realize I know it given Lara’s comment, yet he won’t let me in, and now I wonder if he’s Tom, if he ever was the Tom I thought I knew, and if I got that wrong, what else have I been mistaken on? A cold fear is twisting my insides, and a raw anger spears through my throat at Tom—Tom—for putting it there. “Really?” I say bitingly, when I recover my voice. “I have to trust someone? That’s rich. Who do you trust, Tom? The only damn things that I’m sure of in this whole macabre debacle are that Seb and Caro are hiding something, and you know a hell of a lot more than you’re letting on, yet somehow it’s my life that’s getting trampled on. So if we’re talking about trust, how about we start with you, Tom?” Tom’s eyes are widened in surprise at my attack; I catch a glimpse of Lara staring at me, completely nonplussed, and it halts me: I bite off the vitriolic torrent that’s just gaining momentum. If I let it free, I may never stop. I grab my wineglass and focus on it determinedly in the suffocating silence that follows my words while the remaining anger subsides along with my breathing, leaving me in acute danger of bursting into tears. The immediate urge to apologize for my un-British outburst is offset by a streak of rebellion fueled by the remaining anger that claims this was merely a fraction of what he deserves. Of what is inside me right now, of what this world deserves.
It’s Lara who breaks the silence, which has grown so thick, so heavy that I’m almost amazed anything can penetrate it. “I shouldn’t have come,” she says quickly, slithering down from the stool. “I really think you two need to talk and—”
“No, stay. Please. Stay.” I put out a hand to keep her there, still focusing on the wineglass. “I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and look up at her. She’s half turned to go, uncertainty and concern in her eyes. I’m resolutely not looking at Tom, but I know he’s watching us; watching me, mostly. I can feel it on my skin: through my skin, even, like a pressure on my bones. “It’s not—that—anyway. It’s . . .”
“What?” she asks.
“My life—my business—really is getting trampled. There are rumors in the market that I’m about to be arrested for murder,” I say miserably. “Mark Jeffers, this associate candidate at—well, never mind where he’s at—anyway, he told Paul. And if he told Paul of all people how do I know he’s not telling the whole world?”
Lara sits down again, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath. We all know this isn’t the sole reason for my abysmal lack of composure, or even the main reason for it, but they’re both kind enough to tacitly redirect their attention. Tom finally speaks his first words since my outburst. “How did Paul react? Do you think he will jump ship?”
I feel my mouth twist sourly. How typical of Tom to be able to set aside my diatribe and focus. It forces me to respond with a civility I still don’t feel. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, not yet anyway. We’ve got two very prestigious contracts . . . but if the rumors escalate and we lose one of those, then yes, he’s Paul, he’d jump ship.” I shrug. “He was upset I hadn’t told him about it.” I take a sip of the wine then look at both of them curiously. “Have you guys told anyone about all of this?”
Tom shakes his head. “It’s hardly something I want to bring up on the trading floor. I can just imagine the fun they’d have . . .” He grimaces, no doubt imagining the taunts that would inevitably haunt him for the rest of his career. As a mob crowd, traders are not known for their sensitivity. “And I don’t want to worry my folks. I’m not sure Seb has mentioned it to his parents, either, unless it’s to get a recommendation of a lawyer from his dad.”
“I spoke to a couple of girls at work,” says Lara, “but never any details. I certainly didn’t mention your name, if that’s what you’re—”
I shake my head. “God, no. I was just curious.” Curious as to whether my reluctance to talk about it is another sign of too much solitude, or actually perfectly normal.
Tom is still analyzing. His eyes are fixed on the falling darkness outside the kitchen window as he scratches his head thoughtfully. The clouds are now inky smudges against a marginally paler sky. “And this chap, Mark Jenners—”
“Jeffers.”
“Mark Jeffers told Paul you were about to be arrested?”
“So I understand.”
Tom is frowning. “Just you.” I shrug. “Maybe it’s nothing but Chinese whispers, but it seems a bit odd. You couldn’t put it together from just the newspaper articles, I don’t think. Our names have never been mentioned.”
I nod. “That’s what I thought.”
Lara’s cheeks are flushed and her eyelids a little droopy. The glass or two that she had earlier, plus the large one Tom poured for her, are taking their toll. “Big mouth for a lawyer,” she comments, finishing in a catlike yawn that she neatly smothers. “Aren’t they supposed to be discreet? And aren’t you supposed to butter up your headhunting firm, not spread scurrilous rumors about them? I can’t imagine this has you and Paul dying to find him a good placement.”
It’s another of Lara’s unexpectedly perceptive moments, though she hasn’t followed through to the implications. Tom’s gaze and mine jump to lock together, and for a moment it’s like the darkened corridor never happened, like I’ve never ever doubted him, and I can see exactly what he’s thinking. “But who?” I say to him.
“I don’t know.” Tom shakes his head, then frowns again. “I can’t see who could possibly benefit.”
“Who what?” asks Lara, thoroughly lost.
“Who put him up to it,” I explain. “You’re right, it’s extremely odd behavior. So either he’s an irredeemable gossip, or someone put him up to it.” I think for a bit. “I can take a look in his file and ask Paul about him. If he’s known to be the town crier then maybe it’s just incredibly bad luck that he’s got hold of this.”
Tom turns his attention to the oven. The last few moments have stripped away some of my distrust, or perhaps my growing exhaustion has done that—suspicion is so damn tiring. Things would be so much simpler if Tom was on my side. I’m almost sure he is; I’m almost sure Tom is Tom and all the rest of it is just noise. It’s certainly what I want to believe. “That night . . . with Severine,” I start hesitantly. Tom looks up in the act of removing the pizzas, with a lightness in his eyes that warms me: he recognizes the olive branch. “At first I thought—well, I thought she went to the bus depot the next morning, so I thought it was nothing to do with all of us. Then afterward, when Modan said it wasn’t her, then I started thinking. And the thing is, I don’t know what time Seb came to bed. I was pretty upset, and pretty drunk, to be honest; I think I just passed out, so I really don’t know. But then Seb was really insistent that he was there all night . . .” Lara and Tom are both watching me, letting the words run out of me. “And he and Caro are acting so strangely, so . . . complicit, I actually w
ondered if they were shagging, but I think actually—I think it’s all to do with this. With Severine.” I take a deep breath, looking at Tom. If I say this it becomes possible. If I say this, I can never take it back. “So I guess I’ve been wondering if Seb killed her—by accident—and if Caro helped cover it up.”
I hear Lara mutter, “Jesus,” and in my peripheral vision she reaches for the wine bottle, but I’m focused on Tom. He nods calmly. Thoughtfully. He’s not surprised, and by now I’m not surprised about that.
“Caro,” he says. He’s speaking dispassionately, simultaneously carving up the slightly burned pizzas with a circular cutter, as if we’re discussing interest rates or car insurance. “Not me for the cover-up?”
In the moment I am unable to think of anything to say but the truth. “It could have been you. But like you said, I don’t think you would have had enough time to manage it without Lara suspecting something. And . . .”
“What?” His cutting of the pizza continues unhurried, and his question is casual, but his eyes on me are anything but.
I shrug again. “I guess I think that if it had been you, it would have been a better cover-up.”
“Thank you, I think,” he says dryly, but the tension has left him, and a smile lurks round his mouth.
“Was it such a bad cover-up?” asks Lara. “It took ten years for the body to be found.”
Severine has perched her bottom on the granite surface beside the sink. She crosses her legs and supports her upper body with her arms braced behind her. She doesn’t shock me with her sudden appearances anymore. I wonder if I would miss her if she were to go wherever ghosts go when they’re done haunting.
“If it was a random stranger, then it’s a poorly executed cover-up that just got lucky,” says Tom. “You’d have to expect the well to be searched sometime early on, and a stranger wouldn’t know it was due to be filled in soon. But we knew that. Even so, even with it being filled in, you’d have to think it would be searched sooner rather than later.”
The French Girl Page 19