The French Girl

by Lexie Elliott

  “How did she sound?” I put my bag down and begin to pull on my coat.

  “I don’t know. Frustrated mostly, I think.”

  Another deep retch comes from the bathroom. My eyes are adjusting to the light; I can just make out a grimace of part distaste and part sympathy on Tom’s face. “Christ. He’s going to feel like death tomorrow.”

  “Who was the girl, Tom?”

  He knows what I mean; he doesn’t try to dissemble. He simply shakes his head tiredly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  It does, though. “Was it Lara?” We’re speaking quietly. The darkness winds its way around us, enveloping us, comforting us. It’s a blanket under which words can be uttered that would never be broached in the light of day.

  “What? No, it wasn’t Lara.” I know he’s looking at me; I can feel the weight of his gaze, though I can only discern his eyes from a slight gleam. I have the sense his head is cocked, but perhaps I’m projecting his mannerisms upon this dark canvas. “Why would you think that? That was just a holiday fling. It didn’t mean anything to either of us.”

  Not Lara. Not only not Lara, but seemingly never Lara. I file that away for future analysis. “So who was the girl?” I ask again, doggedly intent.

  He doesn’t speak for a moment. He’s so still I could believe he has fallen asleep standing. Eventually his words come, barely more than a whisper. “You know who it was.”

  Yes. I do know. There’s an inevitability about it, a permanence, even though I recognize that I didn’t know at all. I swallow. “Now I do,” I whisper. “I didn’t before.” Things I’ve been scared to acknowledge I’ve wanted and hoped for are gathering together inside me, a pressure that’s building, straining, until I’m afraid to move lest I burst open.

  His hand reaches out, and I feel the back of his fingers trail gently down my cheek. I find I’m holding my breath. “I’m sorry I was such an unforgivable shit. It’s just . . . there was a moment there, the other night, when I thought I was getting everything I’d always wanted. And then—reality set in.” His fingers drop, he turns his head away and suddenly my stomach clenches into a hard knot. I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I will have to close myself off again, stamp down on all those things so eager to burst out. “And I was so fucked off—at myself, mostly—for allowing it, for putting myself in that position. Because I knew better, really. You can say whatever you choose to say, pretend whatever you think you should feel, but I see it in you, tonight like every other night. It’s always been Seb for you, hasn’t it? You never even saw me. And I’ll always know that.”

  He has it all wrong, just like I’ve had it all wrong about so many things. “No, no,” I protest urgently, my voice rising, “that’s not fair, that’s not right—”

  But he barely notices my interruption; he’s still talking, in a low, oddly persuasive rumble. “When this—when Modan—is done, I’m going to move back to Boston—”

  A sudden crash comes from the bathroom. It sounds as if Seb has pulled something over: quite possibly the radiator judging from the metallic reverberation. Tom is already moving in that direction. “Shit. Sorry, Kate, you’d better go,” he throws over his shoulder, then he’s pulling the bathroom door open. I catch a glimpse of his face in the yellow light that leaps out to paint him, harsh lines etched round his mouth. “Shit!” he says again. Then he disappears inside and the door shuts abruptly. I’m left alone in the passageway.

  For a moment I stand there, completely at a loss. Surely I can help with whatever disaster is now unfolding—but then I realize: that’s not the point. He doesn’t want me here, and this is a convenient way to politely get rid of me. I consider that for a moment more, then take a shuddering breath, pick up my bag and quietly leave the flat.

  In the taxi on the way home I replay the night of Linacre Ball, when I first met Seb, and when, of course, I also first met Tom. I think about Tom dragging Seb along to the party, with quiet plans of speaking to a girl—me, as it turns out. I wonder where he had come across me before. I don’t suppose I’ll ever find out. I wonder how different things would have been if I’d turned back for the man-boy with the marvelously hooked nose after jumping off the wall, but I have to stop that train of thought before I come apart a piece at a time. Then from nowhere Tom’s words from an afternoon not so very long ago in his flat float back to me: Seb likes to win—and I put that together with Seb’s sly look—Yes, who was that girl? I don’t think you ever told me—and I’m flooded with such savage fury that I want to scream with it.

  I know I’m an unholy mess. I wish beyond all reason that my dad was still alive. But he’s not here, and I am, in a taxi driving through the deserted streets of London. So I go home to an empty flat—truly empty, as Severine is nowhere to be seen—and crawl into bed with all my clothes on, craving the oblivion of sleep.

  * * *

  —

  When I was growing up my mother often used to say that things look better after a good night’s sleep. I’ve always been my father’s child, and he was never so blindly optimistic. In the morning, I’m still under suspicion of murder and my love life still has not improved. And I remember that I still haven’t found out what Tom saw all those years ago at the farmhouse.

  The office provides little respite. A potential client—big job, looking to flesh out their whole litigation team, but we’re in stiff competition with two other recruitment firms—asks me diffidently about any “events in the private lives of the key personnel of Channing Associates that could be potentially reputation damaging” were they to enter into a contract with us; I know immediately that the rumors aren’t confined to Mark Jeffers.

  “Ah,” I say with what I hope is a knowing laugh. “You’re actually asking about the completely ridiculous rumor that I’m about to be sent down for murder.”

  “Well, I . . .” I can practically hear the squirming down the line.

  “To tell you the truth, it’s all horribly sad. A girl disappeared in the neighboring farmhouse to where I was staying on holiday in France ten years ago, and her body has just been found. Naturally the police have spoken to all of us who were staying there, and naturally we’re all keen to do anything at all we can to help.” I pause and add meaningfully, “As I’m sure you would be, if you were in my shoes.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. We just have to be very careful. As a firm we pride ourselves on our unimpeachable reputation . . .”

  It’s hard not to zone out. No matter what I have said or can say now, we’ve lost this one. It was a tight race anyway, and rightly or wrongly, this just gives a reason for them to pick another horse. They won’t say that, of course. I’m mildly curious to see what excuse they will come up with. My money is on them labeling us “a comparatively new firm that has yet to be sufficiently proven.”

  Paul comes in, his face grim, just as I’m putting down the phone.

  “I know,” I say to forestall him, moving around my desk to rest my backside on it. “I just had chapter and verse on reputation from Strichmans.”

  His mouth is in a thin line almost as pale as his eyebrows. “What did you say?”

  “The truth, as it happens, but we’ve lost it anyway.”

  “They said that?”

  I shake my head. “No, but they will.”

  He pulls out his chair and flops into it, dispirited. “This isn’t going away, Kate.”

  “It will.” But even I can hear that I lack conviction.

  “Can’t they arrest someone already?”

  “I’d be fine with that. So long as it isn’t me.”

  He almost bursts up out of his chair. “What the fuck, Kate? You said—”

  “Joke, Paul. Just a joke.”

  “You can’t joke about this stuff,” he says stiffly, but at least he subsides back into his seat. “It’s serious, Kate.”

  “I know. We just lost Strichmans. Though we may never have g
ot that one anyway.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  The you in his question rings out like a bell, loud and clear, reverberating in my brain. Paul is dissociating himself, preparing for the worst. “We’re going to do our jobs, and we’re going to do them very well.” I’m careful not to put stress on the plural pronoun.

  “Sure,” he says with no vigor. He leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees and hands hanging in between, staring at the floor.

  “Paul.” I speak sharply, pulling myself upright. He doesn’t look up. “Paul!” This gets his attention. “Don’t build this up to be something it’s not. We’re quite some distance from finished. I hired you because I knew you’d get out there and hustle. So get out there. Hustle. Otherwise you’re absolutely no good to me.”

  He stares back at me for a moment. I refuse to break eye contact. I have the advantage of height since I’m standing; it puts me in mind of wolf pack behavior, fighting to be alpha male. Then I see a small gleam in his pale eyes. “Pep talk over?” he asks dryly. “Or do you want to give me another kick up the arse?”

  My lips twitch. “That’s it for now.” Then a thought crosses my mind. “Oh, pass me the Mark Jeffers file, would you?”

  “I haven’t loaded it all onto the network yet. Why, do you have something suitable?”

  “We’ll see,” I say evasively.

  “I should have it up there by the end of today. Unless you’re in a hurry?”

  “No rush,” I tell him breezily, and circle my desk to sit back at my station, but Severine has planted herself in my chair. I should sit down anyway, I know I should, but I find myself saying to Paul, “I’m running out for coffee. Want anything?”

  “No, thanks.” He doesn’t look up from his screen. “I’m trying to cut back. Though that’s kind of like holding back the tide in this job.”

  It’s true. We move from meeting to meeting, mirroring our candidates and clients: if they want a drink, we drink; if they want to eat, we eat. We are a service industry, and the service we provide is confidence. Through the medium of hot beverages and sustenance, every meeting has to whisper, We’re like you, we understand your problems, your needs, we feel your pain and we can solve it. But how can the clients be confident I can solve their problems when they think I can’t solve my own?

  My phone rings before I’ve crossed the road: Lara. “Hi, hon—”

  “Can you meet for a coffee? Right now?” There’s a note of blind panic threaded through her blunt question; it dredges up the unease always waiting inside me, curled quietly in the depths of my stomach. Lara is not melodramatic, or given to wild fits of runaway imagination; those things take too much energy, and Lara would freely admit she’s a little too lazy for that.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just had a late lunch with Alain; I’ll tell you in person. Can you meet?”

  I glance at my watch, running through the afternoon’s schedule in my head. “Yes. I’ll jump in a cab toward you. Usual place in ten minutes?”

  “Yes.” In the uncharacteristic terseness of her reply I can hear her native accent begging for release. I start looking for a cab immediately.

  Once ensconced in a black taxi, the unease becomes corporeal, taking on the body of twisting snakes that are no longer confined to my stomach: now they’re swaying upward, encircling my lungs, slithering through my throat, threatening to choke me of words and breath. The thunk of the automatic door locks when the cab speeds up makes me jump, heart racing, adrenaline prickling through my skin. Severine appears beside me in the cab, scrutinizing me expressionlessly in her take-it-or-leave-it manner, but I deem her presence a gesture of solidarity; whether it’s intended that way, I’ll never know, but I may as well take whatever comfort I can get from this creation of my own mind.

  The driver is unwilling to cross the traffic flow, so I leap out of the taxi on the other side of the road to the café and spot Lara immediately, already sitting at a table by the window with two tall mugs in front of her. Even through the logo-emblazoned window I can see her face is pinched, but she manages an approximation of a smile and a sketch of a wave when she sees me crossing the road. She gets up to hug me as I enter, and I feel the tension clinging to her frame.

  “What’s up?” I ask, as soon as we’re both seated. She’s wearing a dress I haven’t seen before, a fitted sheath with a pattern like a snowstorm in the dark. I wonder if the lunch was planned, if she wore the dress especially for Modan. She looks stunning as ever, but older, somehow. Not in her face, which is exactly the same, but in less tangible ways: her carriage, her demeanor, her very self.

  “I had lunch with Alain. He wanted to apologize. He was hurt, lashing out. He still wants . . . well, you know.” I do, or I can imagine; I can extrapolate from what I know so far. And if I know anything about Alain Modan, it’s that he won’t give up on Lara. “But I keep telling him, not until this—the investigation—is all done. I told him that again today, and he said that I shouldn’t have to wait too long, things were coming to an end. Only he looked very grim about it. I asked if he meant he was dropping the case, and he shook his head and asked if you have a lawyer yet.”

  “What?” The café fades away instantly; all I have in my focus is the beautiful, desperately worried face of Lara.

  She nods, a fast bob. “Yes. He asked if you have a lawyer. I said I didn’t know—I didn’t want to give anything away—and he said you really ought to get one.”

  “Jesus.” I am staring at her in abject disbelief. This can’t be happening. “But—”

  “Wait, there’s more. He had a file on the table, one of those yellow cardboard things. It had her name on it, and yours, I could see it. He tapped it and then said he was off to the bathroom, just leaving it there with me.” She spreads her hands wide. “It was like he was inviting me to look at it.”

  “Did you?” Please say you did.

  She nods again—yes!—even faster, guilt written on her face. “I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he meant me to . . . I just had a quick look.” I’m nodding, wordlessly urging her on. “There was a report on the top. I didn’t have time to read it all, I could only skim, but basically—oh, Kate, basically the whole thing was about how he thinks you killed her.” The words are tumbling out of her; she can’t keep up with them, and her accent is slipping. “Motive, opportunity, the whole nine yards. He reckons Seb passed out in the barn with Severine. You found him there and were enraged; you hit her with something—there was something about an old garden rake still having her blood on it; I didn’t know that, did you? Apparently nobody ever washes garden rakes . . . Anyway, they’re testing it for other DNA and fingerprints. So you hit her with the rake then dumped her body; you knew the well was being filled in—”

  She stops abruptly, and we stare at each other. I can barely think. I can barely breathe. A garden rake. Slowly the rest of the café returns: the hum of conversation, the sound of the coffee machine, the disturbance of the air when the door is opened. A garden rake with blood still on it after ten years . . . I feel clammy and ill; the hand that reaches out to pick up my mug of coffee is trembling, but my brain is starting to function again.

  “And you think he wanted you to look?”

  “Yes. He tapped the file.” She spreads her hands wide again, her eyes pleading for absolution. “He tapped it.”

  “Don’t feel bad. He meant you to look,” I say decisively. “We’re talking about Modan; he doesn’t just accidentally”—I sketch quotation marks around the adverb—“leave a sensitive file in plain view of someone with a vested interest in it.” Which begs the question as to why he chose to do just that. Focusing on the strategy is making me feel better. Don’t think about being arrested. Don’t think about being arrested.

  “He’s using me,” she says with sudden fierceness. She’s almost vibrating with the intensity of her em
otions. “He shouldn’t be doing that. He shouldn’t be putting me in this position.”

  “I know. I don’t think he would if he had another option.” But so much hinges on whether that is really true. If he really cares about Lara, he would only use her as part of a last-ditch attempt to try and help her friend: ergo, I’m in real, undeniable trouble. But if Lara is merely a passing fling, then he might well use her if his investigation is stalling, to try and flush out more information. Here I am questioning that which only moments ago was an incontrovertible truth—wasn’t I only just thinking that he would never give up on Lara? He loves her, he loves her not, he loves her, he loves her not . . . I find myself examining the woman sitting opposite me again, as if I can read the truth of Modan’s feelings for her in the tilt of her nose, the curve of her lips, the sweep of her cheek. A garden rake. How does one accidentally kill someone with a garden rake? Don’t think about being arrested.

  “Either way he thinks I know more than I’m telling,” I say aloud. What if it wasn’t an accident? I see a long wooden handle whistling through the air, landing squarely on Severine’s temple. A garden rake.

  “Either way?” Lara wrinkles her nose, puzzled.

  “Nothing,” I say quickly. Clearly Lara hasn’t considered the possibility that she is being used for ill rather than good. She at least is convinced of his affections. Does that signify? I wonder what Tom will make of it all; there’s no question in my mind that I will tell him. Tom may not want a relationship with me, but presumably I can trust a man who was once in love with me to be on my side. Will Tom trust in Modan’s feelings for Lara? It suddenly strikes me that I’ve been wrong before where Lara is concerned; wrong for years, in fact.

  “Lara, when—” Something slams into the window right beside us with a loud thud. We both jump, knocking the table; our coffees slop everywhere. I feel the instant prickle of adrenaline sweeping over me again.