Her eyes fly to my face. “That’s not . . . I don’t . . .” She starts to shake her head and then stops, considering, a frown corrugating her ordinarily smooth forehead. “But I thought he was going out with you then,” she says, confused.
“He was,” I say wryly.
“Oh.” Expressions flit quickly over her face before it settles on a look of resignation. “I rather think I’d better hear about all of this from you.”
So I tell her the bare facts, bereft of any speculation, though I leave out the garden rake since that’s information I’m not supposed to possess. She listens carefully, those yellow brown eyes taking account of me throughout. At the end she blows out a breath and mutters fiercely, “Damn you, Seb.” Her words catch me and throw me years back, to a time when I would have been the one with such exasperation in my voice.
“I’m sorry,” I admit truthfully.
She doesn’t answer; she has finally picked up the biscuit and is working her way through it. “Well, it wouldn’t have been Seb,” she says definitively, when the biscuit is gone. “I mean, why on earth would he want to kill her? The police can’t possibly suspect him.”
“They might think it was an accident.”
She waves it away. “But you know what he’s like when he’s drunk—he passes out; he can’t hold his own body weight, let alone carry someone to a well.”
“Someone else might have done that bit.”
“Who?” she says, disbelieving. “Tom? Caro?” I see the precise moment the penny drops. The color leaches out of her face, and her mouth works wordlessly before she clamps her lips together. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
“Leverage,” she finally says, almost hisses, though more to herself than to me. “That fucking bitch.” She looks across at me again. “Is this what the police think happened?”
No. Luckily for your husband, the police think it was me. This is what I, Kate Channing, think happened. “I don’t know.”
“This can’t be happening,” she mutters, again to herself. Then, louder, looking at me fiercely this time: “This can’t be allowed to happen.”
At that moment my mobile rings out; I grab it as if it’s a lifeline. “My lawyer. Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” I duck outside the café before she can answer.
“Interesting,” says Ms., Miss or Mrs. Streeter, when I’ve downloaded Lara’s discoveries. “Not enough, though, even if the rake shows up your DNA, or anyone else’s. Still simply circumstantial.”
“Circumstantial enough to make it to trial?” I left my coat at the table with Alina. I wrap my free arm around myself, shivering a little. I can feel my ribs beneath my thin wrap dress. They feel worryingly insubstantial. I am too breakable for what life is throwing at me.
She’s silent for a worryingly long pause. “Ordinarily no,” she says at last. “But with the political pressure on this one, it’s hard to say. Have you thought any more about cooperation?”
“Yes.” Cooperation. A deceptive word. It sounds so collegiate, warm and friendly, yet in truth it’s slyly partisan, with its own agenda. Cooperation with the police means betrayal of someone: but who? Seb? Caro? Both? I never thought I was someone who would stoop to this, yet here I am.
“And?”
I close my eyes and speak in a rush. “Caro had cocaine. She smuggled it into France in my suitcase; I knew nothing about it. That’s what the arguments were about on the last night—I found out she’d done that. I honestly didn’t think it had any bearing, so I never wanted to bring it up.” I open my eyes. I never mentioned the drugs all those years ago, and I haven’t mentioned them up to now, but in the space of a few short seconds all that counts for nothing: it’s done. I wonder what Tom will think of me for it, and then I have to screw my eyes tightly shut again to block out the opprobrium I imagine in his face.
“Did you take any drugs that night?” Her voice is clipped, tightly professional.
“No.”
“At any point during the holiday?”
“No. It’s really not my thing; ask anybody.”
“Believe me, the police will. Have you ever taken any drugs?” she continues, unrelenting.
“What, ever in my life?”
“Ever. As in, at any point whatsoever.”
“I smoked pot once or twice at uni, but it just sent me to sleep; plus I don’t like smoking.”
“Once or twice? Be specific.”
“Twice then. Certainly not three times.”
“Okay.” She has finally relaxed a little; I can hear the tension easing out of her voice. “Okay. That’s good. I can definitely work with that. Anything else?”
“Well . . .” I don’t know what time Seb came to bed. Through the café window I can see a side view of the abandoned Alina, sitting where I left her at the table. One hand is resting on her crossed legs, her thumb beating out an unsteady high-speed tattoo. I don’t know what time Seb came to bed. The words are there, fully formed in my head, waiting to be sent forth into the world.
“Yes?”
I look at Alina again. She has stilled her thumb with her other hand, but her ankle is jittering now. “Sorry, uh, something just distracted me here. No, nothing else.”
“Okay then, I’ll set up a meeting with the detective and get back to you. This is good, Kate; it’s helpful.”
“Great.” The word sounds thin.
“Oh, and Kate?”
“Yes?”
“If you have anything more to offer, now’s the time. Think hard.” Then she disconnects.
The cold overrides my reluctance to return to Alina, pushing me back into the café. Alina looks up as I enter. “Sorry about that,” I say as I drop into the seat opposite her.
“You have a lawyer.” It’s almost an accusation.
“Yes.”
“Does Seb have a lawyer?” Her manner is definitely more hostile. I’m the messenger, I realize: she’d really quite like to shoot me. And Seb, too, I expect, for putting her in this position, of being the last to know.
“I don’t know. But if he doesn’t, he should get one.”
“He didn’t do it,” she says tightly. “I know him. You know him. You know he didn’t have anything to do with it.” I can’t bring myself to say anything. Her eyes widen. “Oh my God,” she says, genuinely stunned. “You actually think it was him.”
“Look, I don’t know what happened,” I protest weakly, but she’s not mollified.
“How could you? You went out with him, you know him.”
I can see the shock turning to bitter fury inside her, and I find myself mentally cheering her loyalty even as I cringe in the face of it. “I just . . . Look, I don’t think your Seb is the same as the Seb I went out with. We’ve all changed a lot since then.”
“Still,” she insists fiercely, her eyes boring into mine, “he wouldn’t have done that.” She waits imperiously for me to respond, and there is nothing else I can do: I nod. She nods her head sharply, acknowledging her win without any joy, then continues. “I bet Caro’s trying to make him think he was involved somehow, responsible even. She’s probably pretending she’s covering up for him. To make him rely on her. That’s the leverage she has. I bet she’s been doing it for years, actually—he’s always been on the booze more after she’s been around.” I cock my head: Alina may be onto something. It would be just like Caro to milk every advantage out of the situation: a confused, guilt-ridden Seb who owes an enormous debt to Caro is surely much more likely to succumb to her wiles . . . Alina happens to think the debt is manufactured rather than real, but either way, I can see a twisted Caro logic at work. I can just imagine her, late at night, sending poison-laden whispers down the phone line to slither into Seb’s ear and take residence, curled inside his desperately worried mind. At least, it would be just like the Caro I thought I knew, but now I wonder; now there’s the possibi
lity of an alternative interpretation in my mind. Maybe Caro phones Seb because she can’t help herself, because she’s hopelessly in love with him. It would be just like Seb to carelessly lead her on, to be the one delivering to her ear sweet nothings carried on whispers that really are nothing at all, except a vehicle for the ego boost he needs . . . Perhaps he drinks after she’s been around out of guilt. Then I think again of Mark Jeffers, and I’m back to Caro as poison-whisperer.
“And anyway,” says Alina in a sudden change of pace, “surely there’s an obvious alternative suspect.”
I wait dumbly. Does she mean me? Surely she wouldn’t suggest that in front of me, though to be fair I have just been casting aspersions about her husband . . .
“Theo.”
I shake my head. “Nobody thinks it was Theo.”
“Why not? Did he have an alibi?”
“No—well, I mean, yes, he was with Caro, I think, but I suppose that he went to bed at some point—”
“He’s dead,” she interrupts bluntly. “Which is obviously quite horrible for him and his parents and everyone who loved him, but all of you are still alive, with lives ahead of you to live. Surely if the blame is to fall on any of you, you might as well make it fall on him.”
The brazen suggestion takes my breath away. “What you’re suggesting . . .” I trail off. I should finish with is immoral, or is illegal, or is an obstruction of justice; but somehow I can’t bring myself to spell it out. Theo as prime suspect. Alina thinks she’s simply getting rid of the Caro problem, but it would get me off the hook too, of course. A wave of longing sweeps over me, a longing to be free of the weight that presses down on me, beating me a little smaller, a little weaker every day; to be free of the broiling sea of fear that sits in my stomach and threatens on occasion to erupt from my throat and overwhelm me.
“Yes,” Alina says, her steady gaze fixed on my face despite the blush that betrays her emotions. “I know what I’m suggesting.” I look at the cold fire within the yellow brown eyes, and I don’t doubt her. Seb is so very lucky to have her, grimly fighting in his corner despite no doubt being utterly furious with him. But this particular sally seems too well considered to have just come to her whilst I’ve been braving both the cold and my lawyer’s interrogation outside. “Is this what you wanted to speak to me about?”
She considers denying it but evidently plumps for the truth. “Yes.” She shrugs, a glorious sweep upward of the tips of the outspread wings of her collarbones. She should have been a ballet dancer. She has the frame for it, and something else, too, something in her every gesture, each leading seamlessly into the next, that makes it seem like she’s moving through a larger choreographed whole. “It doesn’t really matter whether I’m right about what Caro’s leverage is; if all of this goes away, then so does she.”
And you think you’ll get your husband back. “Tom will never go for it,” I say at last. And now I’ve skipped over the morality, too: I’m focused on whether her plan can actually be executed. I wonder when I lost faith in the legal system, French or otherwise. Or perhaps it’s not a lack of trust in the legal system that’s to blame. Perhaps it’s just that I know all too well that life isn’t always fair; therefore, how can you expect the law to be? I shiver. Don’t think about being arrested.
“He won’t?” She raises her eyebrows. “Not even for Seb?”
“I don’t . . .” I realize I don’t know. Even yesterday I would have said that Tom would do anything for Seb, but now? The bitterness in Seb’s voice last night, the tightness of Tom’s face when Seb revealed he’d known all along that Tom was angling for me . . . I don’t know who Tom would choose, Theo or Seb. “I don’t know.”
“And you?” She watches me closely, those slender wrists sweeping up to clasp together by her chin, a picture of poise. Once again I’m in awe of her control, all the more because I have an inkling of what’s beneath it.
What would it take to push Modan down this road? I imagine him strolling along the dusty lane by the farmhouse, sunshine beating down on the shoulders of his immaculate suit as he ambles and constructs an argument in his mind for Theo as murderer. Perhaps that could indeed come to pass if he were the recipient of a few well-chosen comments, a few hints . . . Lies. Lies, all. Lies and a betrayal of Theo. Would that betrayal really be any worse than revealing Caro’s cocaine use? I could claim that was only what she deserved given I’m sure she’s spreading rumors about me through Mark Jeffers, but the truth is that as soon as I felt cornered I barely hesitated; I’d have done it without the Jeffers info. Again, I wonder what Tom will say about that.
“Kate?” prompts Alina.
“I’ll think about it.” At the least, I have given her a genuine response. I will probably think about little else.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I’m saved from having to bring Tom up to speed; it appears Lara has done that for me. He calls me that evening and sounds almost desperate. “Jesus, Kate. The garden rake. I’ve just been looking up the French for it—râteau! I thought she said bateau. It was râteau.”
“What? Who said? What do you mean?” I’m on my mobile in my living room; I quickly hunt for the remote to kill the sound of the television program that I’d been hoping would hold my interest sufficiently to calm the vicious storm of my thoughts. As the characters turn abruptly silent it occurs to me I have no idea what I’ve been watching.
“I saw Severine. I saw her go into the barn with Seb, but I saw her again after they . . . you know. She was coming past the pool, and she had blood on her face; not much, just a bit, nothing to cause alarm.” I’m not sure I have ever heard Tom—steady, reliable Tom—talk in such a stream of consciousness. “I asked her if she was all right; I didn’t really get the gist of it at the time. She didn’t have the right English word; she kept saying bateau. At least I thought it was bateau, but it must have been râteau.” I see a brief image of Severine in the darkened barn, her slim foot stepping on the fanned-out prongs of the garden rake, the other end flipping up to smack her in the face Abbott and Costello style; it ought to be funny, but it’s not. “I just thought she wasn’t making a lot of sense—there wasn’t a boat around for miles, but then we’d all had a lot to drink, so I put it down to that at the time. And she waved me away fairly forcibly and headed off, so I thought she was rather sensibly putting herself to bed.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police? Then, or now, even?”
He sighs down the phone. “I thought I was protecting Seb. I mean, I see a girl with blood on her face, who subsequently disappears. In retrospect I started to wonder if she wasn’t drunk; maybe she was severely concussed—I mean, she was babbling about boats! Except she wasn’t . . . Fuck! But given she was coming from the barn, with Seb, I didn’t want to implicate him in any way, so I just . . .”
“Kept silent,” I finish for him. I sink back on my sofa, the phone pressed against my ear.
“Yes. Yes.” He seems to have run out of steam; he takes a deep breath, then blows it out down the phone. It’s an intimate sound. I can imagine his breath stroking my cheek. “But at least they won’t find any of your DNA on the rake.”
“True.” I’m silent again, remembering the police taking our DNA samples years ago—in order to easily rule us out, we were told. I didn’t demur at all; I simply opened wide for two large cotton swabs. I wonder if I would be more reluctant now in the same circumstances. “But isn’t there a saying? The absence of proof is not proof of absence . . . Something like that, anyway.”
“Fuck, I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I’ve made it worse for you,” he mutters, half to himself.
I don’t know yet if he has or hasn’t; I’m still trying to work it all through. The police have a murder weapon that isn’t really a murder weapon—it’s an inciting item in slapstick comedy. “So what did you think happened to her?” I ask at last. “I mean, what did you think at the time?”
“I thought her head wound must have been much more serious than I realized, one of those freak accident things; that she collapsed and died from it.” As he speaks I see it happening: Severine in her black shift, sandals hanging loosely from a single finger of one hand. She’s passing the pool, barely visible in the darkness, lit only by the shimmering reflection of the moonlight off the water. She takes a step and stumbles, her other hand going to her bloody temple, and then she crumples without a sound. But no, that isn’t what happened, because Severine is here with me, lounging in my armchair. Only that’s not right, either, because Severine is dead, except not how Tom is describing . . . I find I’m rubbing fiercely at my forehead; my head is throbbing. I’ve lost the thread of what Tom is saying, but he’s still speaking: “I thought Seb found her and panicked, wanted to hide the body, but he’d have been in no fit state to do anything on his own. So someone helped him, Caro or Theo, I thought. Or both. I thought they’d driven somewhere and dumped her.”
“In my car?” I sit up, somehow personally affronted, despite the fact that I know this never happened. I almost know this never happened. I can’t keep track tonight.
“No, not yours. You were asleep; I didn’t believe anyone would have had the guts to go raking through your bags for your keys with you right there in the bed. I thought they used the Jag.” I blink. The Jag. It was Theo’s dad’s pride and joy; it had been impressed upon us all never to go near it. In my mind the Jag was a museum display piece; it hadn’t even occurred to me that it could actually be driven. “As far as I know the police never checked the Jag over because they thought she went to the bus depot; I always wondered if they would have found her DNA in it. And then when she was found in the well, I figured the same logic applied, just without the Jag.”
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