Daisy giggles. “Yes. I slipped in and got something for each of us.”
“You saucy wench, Daisy.”
“I’ve never used anything like that before in my life, but now that I’m single I thought it was time to experiment.”
“Well, I’ll have to wait to use mine. I still have to be careful.”
“Ah, but I thought of that, Pearl. Yours isn’t,” she lowers her voice to a tiny whisper, “a dildo…it doesn’t penetrate, it vibrates. It’s called the something deux, for the two of you. It splits in half – you’ll see how it works.” She giggles again. “The ‘hers’ part is convex and the ‘his’ part is concave, apparently. Or is it the other way round? Anyway, the saleswoman told me it was very popular with couples, and a best seller.”
“So when Amy and I were innocently eating our chocolate mousse you were out buying sex toys?”
“I know, isn’t it outrageous?”
“Where are they?”
“I left the bags in the closet by the entrance. I hope Amy doesn’t find them.” She slurps another mouthful of soup. “God this is good, you wanna try some?”
“No, it’s okay, thanks.”
Daisy studies me for a minute and suddenly comes out with, “Pearl, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have multiple orgasms?”
I don’t need long to recollect my memories. “Once or twice it has happened. Only with Alexandre, though. But the truth is, I feel so satisfied…so satiated after one, I really don’t feel I need another. Why?”
“Oh, just because you’re always reading about them and you feel like a kind of freak, you know, just having one, like all other women are having such fun and you, well, you’re just…I don’t know.”
“What’s your favorite dish?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Just hear me out. What’s your favorite thing to eat?”
“Well, I do love a good Sunday roast with Yorkshire pudding and roast potatoes”
“Okay, imagine you’ve just eaten a full Sunday roast. And it was absolutely delicious. You are full. Best meal you’ve had for ages. Maybe years. And then you’re offered another plate piled high with more of the same. Would you be able to wolf all that down, too?”
“I see your point.”
“Believe me, you should be happy with one, good orgasm. Very happy. A lot of women - and it was how I was for so many years - are starved and don’t even get the one, so count yourself blessed. Lots of women don’t climax at all during intercourse. Don’t believe all you read about multiple orgasms, anyway.”
She considers what I’ve said. I can see the invisible cogs of her mind turning. I know what she’s wondering – she’s wondering if it’s because Alexandre is a god in bed and that’s why I’ve had multiple orgasms, or if I was born that way.
“So no word from Alexandre?” she asks.
“No.” Uh, oh, the food is sobering her up; I need to change the subject. “So, tell me more about Zac; we hardly discussed it the other day because of Amy being around.”
“Oh my God, Pearl. I mean, when Zac kissed me it made me realize what I’d been missing all these years, you know? He’s so sexy…so…buffed up.” She laughs too loudly and covers her mouth. Maybe she isn’t sobering up, after all.
“Funny. You, Natalie and I have all ended up with younger men. Well, that’s if you take Zac up on his offer.”
“You’re right! I hadn’t thought of that!”
“We’re getting our revenge on the world.” I wink at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s always been guys who get the young girls. Now the tables are turning. There’s so much more Girl Power about, have you noticed?”
She sips another large spoonful of soup and sighs at its deliciousness. “Like so many amazing women singers now, and stuff?”
“Exactly. Men need to watch out. Gone are the days when they can sit around getting beer bellies and think their women will be happily waiting for them if they behave like assholes. Women are beginning to call the shots now. I mean, look at you. You’re not crying your heart out, feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve moved on. Moved on to a hot, sexy younger model!”
“Don’t ya love it?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I hate that word, ‘cougar’ though, don’t you? I find it offensive”
Daisy nods her head as if weighing up the options. “I don’t know. I quite like the idea of being a cougar. It’s a compliment. Cougars are beautiful creatures.”
“That’s exactly what Alexandre says.”
Our girlie chit-chat is interrupted by the phone ringing. Thank God, it’ll finally be him. “Oui, hallo?” I say, giving it my French touch.
“Pearl?”
“Sophie, is that you?”
“I’m in ze lobby, I’m coming up.”
“Great-” The line clicks dead before I get a chance to say anything more.
Daisy arches an eyebrow. “Sophie’s here? At this hour?”
“I know. A bit odd. Oh, well. We’re friends now so…”
“Maybe she wants to come and hang out.”
“You think?”
“I can’t imagine why. She’s so sophisticated. We’re such…children compared to her.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, too. She’s five years younger than I am but I always feel so… so girly next to her.”
Daisy laughs. “That’s because you are girly, Pearl – you’ll never be a real grown-up, not even when you’re eighty. You’re young at heart. You’ll always be that way, no matter what happens.” She starts singing Young at Heart in Frank Sinatra’s croon. Actually, she does a pretty good imitation.
“I can hear a knock, that’ll be her. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
When I open the door I can see from the dour expression on Sophie’s face that something is wrong. Very wrong. My first fear is that Alexandre has died in a car crash or something.
“Is he okay?” My eyes are already pooling with tears. “He’s not dead?”
Sophie’s lips twitch into a limp smile. “No, he’s fine. I mean not fine, but he’s not dead, not injured, don’t worry.”
My heart starts beating normally again. Well, almost. At least he’s still alive. “Come in.”
She walks in, casts off her sumptuous, cashmere overcoat and slumps herself onto the nearest armchair. “I need a drink.”
“Sure, what would you like?”
“A whiskey. Make it a double.”
“No problem. Is Alexandre okay?”
“Give me a drink and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Sure.” Crap, the news must be really bad. “On the rocks?” I ask her.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you like ice with your Scotch?”
“Yes, lots.”
I fix her the drink and gauge her movements from the corner of my eye. I don’t know if she has a cold or if she’s crying. I slip quietly next door to see Daisy. She has her iPod playing Young at Heart and she’s spinning about in circles doing a strange sort of ballet. I whisper, “Daisy, I think you’d better stay in here; I have a feeling Sophie’s not in the mood to socialize. Do you mind?”
“Actually, I think I’m off to bed now, anyway.” She stretches her arms in the air and does a gazelle-like leap. “See you in the morning.”
“Don’t fall over.”
I get extra ice from the kitchen, put some in a bowl and finish fixing Sophie’s Scotch. I have no idea how strong a double should be.
I come back into the room and she’s still sniffling, biting her lip as if to suppress full-blown sobs. I’m getting frightened now. “Here we go,” I say, handing her the drink, my hands trembling. “It might be a little strong.” She has been crying. Her dark eyes are like black coal, smudged by mascara. She still looks beautiful and put together, despite it all. “Tell me what happened,” I ask, dreading the answer.
“Alexandre has been arrested.�
�
Laura immediately comes to mind. “Oh my God. Why?”
“Don’t worry, he’s got a hotshot team of lawyers wiz him. Zey have nuzzing on him. I’m sure he’ll be released soon.”
“But what is he being accused of?”
“In England zey are very quick to arrest, you know? It means nuzzing. They’ll let him go soon.”
“But what-?
“Laura is dead.”
My heart feels as if it’s about to leap out of my chest. My first reaction is relief – how wicked is that? But then panic engulfs me as I wonder if Alexandre killed her. Sophie wipes her eyes and relays the story; tells me how Laura either fell down the stairs, or was pushed. How Alexandre slipped in from the back door. And that he and James practically collided into one another, seemingly spotting Laura at the same time, dead at the foot of the stairs; each accusing the other of murder or ‘manslaughter.’ That James called the police, and because of his finger pointing at Alexandre, they both ended up being suspects.
Sophie begins to weep out loud and I feel awkward. I hardly know her and her tears come as a shock because I have always had her in my mind’s eye as a tough-nut. But she looks so tiny and vulnerable, like a fragile bird; and my heart is heavy with sympathy and surprisingly (given our history together), a sort of sisterly love.
“I love Alexandre so much, you know? He is everyzing to me. My bruzzer, my best friend. He is everyzing, Pearl.”
I walk over and sit on the arm of the chair and rest my hand on her shoulder. I stroke her soft, dark hair, pulling a few salty strands from her tear-stained face. “It will be alright, I’m sure, Sophie. At least the attorneys are there.” I say this calmly but I also have tears in my eyes. I picture the evidence in the safe deposit box, the note to Laura’s lawyer if anything should befall her - a life sentence for their mother, even if Alexandre gets let off. Should I tell Sophie? No, I’ve been sworn to secrecy. “What can I do to help?” I ask in a quiet voice. “Should we go to London now? Get on a plane?”
She takes a gulp of Scotch. “Let’s wait until tomorrow morning. If zey haven’t let him free, zen we’ll be in trouble. Ze lawyers will tell me more. We’re waiting for ze forensic report.”
I think of CSI and Dexter and am aware that we are now dealing with real life, not genius, fictional super-sleuths with state-of-the-art equipment that can solve cases within minutes and hours. This could drag on forever.
“What do you think happened?” I ask her.
“I don’t care what happened. I don’t care if he killed ze beach. I just want him home.” She scrapes her slim fingers through her hair agitatedly.
I nod. She wouldn’t care, either, if their mother went to jail, by the sound of it. She was her step-mother, anyway, not her own flesh and blood, and had betrayed them both when they were minors. From what Alexandre has said, Sophie has never quite forgiven her. I’m itching to tell Sophie about the IVF saga but worry that if I do, I could put my big wooden spoon in a broth with far too many cooks. I bite my tongue. I can do nothing more than comfort her. I wish I knew what Alexandre had told his attorney. Or rather, attorneys, plural. Let’s hope his money and power will work miracles. How much, I wonder, do they know? How much of this crazy story has Alexandre revealed to them?
“So Laura’s husband James suddenly reappeared, then?” I think of how, in my mind, I’d accused Laura of poisoning him. “Where’s he been all this time?”
“Apparently, he went to rehab. He was a heroin addict.”
“Heroin? But I thought he was an upper-crust banker!”
“You’d be surprised how people wiz lots of money and connections are ze biggest junkies of all.”
What she says makes me remember what her old job was. She used to be a high class call girl, once upon a time, who mixed with the rich, famous and powerful. I guess she would know. “Do you think James pushed Laura down the stairs?”
“I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”
I don’t know what else to say, so I offer, “Are you hungry, Sophie? The food’s delicious here.”
She gets up. “No. I’m leaving now, zank you. I just wanted to come by to see you in person. I’ll call you when I have news. Meanwhile, here are ze numbers and emails of ze lawyers.” She hands me a business card with extra, hand-written numbers scrawled on them in pen. “My driver’s waiting outside. You know, Pearl, you could stay at my house next time. No need to get a hotel.”
“I’d love that.” Next time. Will there be a next time? Or is Alexandre going to spend the rest of his life locked up in British jail?
Chapter Eighteen
I can’t sleep. The purple sex toy is lying next to me on my pillow. I thought it would be a good distraction but I wasn’t able to bring myself to play with it. I need Alexandre, himself – nothing else can even come close. I need his flesh on mine, the scent of his skin, the taste of his sweet breath. The idea of spending my life without him is horrifying. It has taken me forty years to find true love and now it’s being snatched away from me.
Did he kill Laura? Did he push her down the stairs in a rage? It’s not his style but he does have a dark side to him; traits about his personality that I will never really know. He kept secrets from me. His Taekwondo, the fact he was in the Foreign Legion. He likes to keep the dark side in the shadows. Yes, he’s capable of killing, but if he did kill Laura, I feel like Sophie. I don’t care; I just want him safely home.
I mull over James. Not that I have ever met him, but he sounded like a stalwart citizen. Maybe he’s the killer; the nervous junkie who just couldn’t take anymore of Laura’s antics. He must have gotten wind of the IVF stuff. Maybe that’s what drove him to use drugs in the first place. Yes, James could have been her killer. Or was it a simple accident? What are the odds, though, of falling down stairs twice in your life?
Finally, I drift off into a delirious sleep. I know I’m dreaming when I smell Alexandre on me, when I feel him part my thighs and run his hands along my breasts. I know I’m dreaming when I feel his lips on mine, pressing sweet kisses along my neck and my jaw-line, and when I hear his deep, sexy voice whisper in my ear, “I love you, Pearl. You are my life, my love, my rare, precious pearl.”
I open my eyes but wonder if I am still in my dream. He’s there, leaning over me, his dark hair flopping in front of his face, his five o’clock shadow framing the beauty of his even features, his peridot-green eyes twinkling with humor. “You look so serious, baby,” he tells me and smiles; his dimple on one cheek furrowed with amusement. Serioose.
“I’m dreaming,” I reply to the sexy phantom who has tricked me before. Who has given me orgasms in my sleep and even fooled me into believing he spanks me. This ghost is not the real Alexandre. He looks a little thinner in the face, a touch less hungry for sex.
“You’re not dreaming, chérie. I swear.”
“I know your tricks,” I murmur. “Because I’m feeling it between my legs and my heart’s racing. You’re just a sexy spirit in my dream,” I drift back to my other dream, the one about Rex. Rex is swimming in the sea, his doggie-paddle legs, wild with excitement. I have to spin him around and swim behind him so I don’t get scratched.
The phantom crawls into bed beside me and trails kisses along my bare arms. His lips press my hand like a knight in shining armor. He is a knight; his name is Chevalier. Alexandre Chevalier. “Alexandre?”
“Yes, baby. I’m here. I’m back from London.”
“But you were in jail,” I mutter.
“Not jail, chérie, just at the police station giving a statement. They let me go.”
I stir from my hazy slumber and sit up. “You’re real? This is true?”
He laughs. “Yes, I’m real. This isn’t one of your crazy dreams.” He lays the back of his hand on my cheek. “Everything’s been sorted out.”
“But what about Laura?”
He exhales as if all that pent up fear of spending time behind bars is expelled in one long breath. “Someone made a confession.”
“No, not James. He was telling the truth; he’d just got back from rehab, from The Priory.”
“Who then? Who killed Laura?”
“The stairs killed Laura. Aided by lots of very slippery furniture polish.”
I jolt up and lean back against a pile of soft pillows. I’m well awake now.
Alexandre goes on, “Mrs. Blake, the housekeeper, came to the station to make her statement. She’d polished the stairs that day. Laura was tottering about in kitten-heeled slippers. She fell down the stairs; slid down on her back, ending by crashing her head on the bottom, stone step. It was confirmed by forensics that there was polish all over the soles of her shoes.”
“Who polishes stairs? Wasn’t that a bit stupid?”
“Stupid or clever, depending which way you look at it.”
“Mrs. Blake did it on purpose?”
“She told the police that Laura had asked her to polish the staircase but as you say, who polishes stairs?”
“But hadn’t she been working for James and Laura for years?”
“Exactly. She hated Laura’s guts. Secretly. But stayed because of her loyalty to James. She’d been working for his mother before. Years ago, when I was over there once, I heard Mrs. Blake complaining to the cook. After she made her statement, she asked the police if I could stop by the house. They’d given the case the all clear by that point and somebody had been sent over to clear up the blood. When I stopped by, she told me she had something that belonged to me. At first, I thought she must mean something to do with the Aston Martin. But no, it was the titanium hip parts and teeth.”
“But Laura said it was in the safe deposit box.”
“She was bluffing.”
“But how did Mrs. Blake know that they were yours? How did she know that?”
“She said to me, ‘Mr. Chevalier, I don’t know why this stuff is important to you, or what it all means, but what I do know is that Mrs. Heimann was blackmailing you.’ Household staff usually know what’s going on where they work. She would have heard Laura make phone calls, probably eavesdropped here and there. The ironic thing is that it was stored in the garage, all along. I even had the key.”
Shimmers of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 3) Page 22