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‘You’re way off. You should go talk to the people she works with. Bunch of losers dealing in all sorts, not just drugs.’
‘So you never gave her anything?’
He came closer. ‘I only ever give women what they want.’
Veronique moved away from the table. ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t date boys.’
‘Really?’ Frederic grabbed her hand, forcing it against his crotch. ‘You think I’m a boy?’
Veronique tilted her head to look up at him and smiled. The hand that was curled around his groin squeezed, gently at first but with increasing pressure.
‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she whispered, releasing her grip.
He drew on his cigarette, flicking it past her head whilst his other arm shot out, grabbing at her neck and pushing her back onto the table. Pressing his mouth against hers he forced her lips apart with his tongue. She returned his kiss, hearing him moan as the hand around her throat travelled down towards her chest.
She bit down hard on his bottom lip and he shot backward, bringing fingers up to his mouth as she eased herself off the table.
The back of his hand struck against her cheek.
‘So you like things rough?’ he snarled at her.
‘You have no idea,’ she replied, curling her hand into a fist as she shifted her weight onto her back leg, leaning her whole body into the uppercut that made contact with the bottom of his nose.
‘You crazy bitch!’ he roared as blood spurted from his nostrils. He lunged at her but she dodged under his arm, spinning around and punching into his kidney as he fell against the table.
He shot round, one hand gripping the end of a pool cue. Veronique faced him, her own hands raised.
‘Is that such a good idea?’ She nodded towards the bar, where a dozen or so people were turned in their direction.
Frederic’s eyes flickered towards his friend who was returning from the bar. He made as if to lower his arm then swung out, lips curled back in a snarl. She tried to duck but the cue caught her across the shoulder, tipping her off balance. She turned her face to see him raise the cue again.
‘Jesus, Frederic, what are you doing?’ His friend grabbed on to Frederic’s arm, pulling him away from Veronique.
‘Casse-toi!’ Frederic struggled against the other man, bloody spittle collecting at the corner of his mouth.
Two barmen appeared on either side of Frederic and together they dragged him through the crowd of people, his angered cries calling back to her.
‘You okay?’
Veronique looked over at Frederic’s friend, opening her mouth wide and touching her fingertips to her cheek. She could already sense the beginnings of a bruise.
‘Oui, I have had far worse.’
‘I feel like I should apologise for my friend.’
Veronique smiled. ‘I get the impression you have to do that a lot.’
He shrugged, offering her a beer.
‘Non, merci.’ She shook her head. ‘But thank you for stepping in when you did.’
Leaving the swell of revellers behind Veronique walked outside and checked her phone. Still no news from Christophe. By refusing to respond to any of her messages throughout the day she was certain that not only did the necklace belong to Mathilde, but the police had found something more as well. She needed to speak to him, to find out where the investigation was headed, because all she had come up with so far were more questions.
Frederic was a bully, and a violent one at that. But what he’d said about Mathilde, about her and Agnes not being friends, made her think that there was another side to Mathilde’s life she hadn’t yet touched upon. A darker, more dangerous side that had nothing to do with Frederic and everything to do with whoever was supplying her.
If Christophe wasn’t going to talk to her then she would have to go to the crime scene herself. If she left now she could squeeze in a few hours’ sleep and still get to the park before it opened.
Looking down the street in the hope of a vacant taxi, Veronique noticed the girl from the bar, huddled in a doorway. She shook her head; there was no point in trying to talk to her. But then again she was partly responsible for the girl’s pain, something she had no desire to pass on to the undeserving.
‘Hey,’ she called out as she crossed the pavement. The girl snapped her head up in response. Her navy-blue eyes were ringed with smeared mascara, her lips chewed.
‘Go away,’ she sniffed, flicking a cigarette butt into the gutter and slouching against the wall.
Veronique sighed. ‘Look, I know you probably won’t believe me, but guys like Frederic aren’t worth the effort.’
‘Seems like you found that out the hard way.’
‘That was work, nothing personal.’
‘Whatever.’ She put a fresh cigarette in her mouth, cupping her hands around the tip as she tried to light it.
‘Those things will kill you.’
‘Who are you, my mother?’
Veronique laughed, one short burst of irony. ‘Frederic thinks he’s untouchable, that his good looks and charm will give him everything he dreams of. But in ten years’ time he will still be coming to this bar every Friday night, clinging on to the youth that is slowly slipping away. Do you really want to spend your life following a man who will never love you in return?’
The girl stared at her.
‘You know what, you’re right, you’re not my responsibility and I have better things to do with my time.’ She looked again at the girl, recognising in her expression some of the naivety she used to carry around.
Before him. Before it all went horribly wrong.
‘Just be careful, okay?’ she said, laying a hand on the girl’s arm before turning away and crossing the street, heels clicking against cobblestones as she disappeared into the night.
Chapter 5 (#u7aaf70d3-75c5-5b1a-8fe8-4f5bd9e35db5)
Alice
Evening was settling on the city and the streets were busy with people easing themselves out of work and into the weekend. The bar opposite her apartment was filling up. Alice’s image reflected back from a dozen pairs of sunglasses as she passed the tables outside.
The barman raised his head as she walked towards him.
‘Oui?’ he asked, setting down the glass he was pretending to polish.
‘Avez-vous une bouteille de champagne?’
‘Champagne?’
‘Oui, champagne. Je suis censé célébrer.’
‘You’re supposed to be celebrating?’
Alice pulled her hair away from her neck with one hand and fanned her face with the other. ‘I don’t suppose you have any Bollinger?’
‘That’s an expensive bottle for someone celebrating alone.’
Alice shrugged, searching the wall of bottles behind the bar. ‘My father’s buying.’
‘Your father?’ The barman looked beyond Alice to the street outside.
‘Oh don’t worry, he’s not here, but I feel that I should include him in this in some way. After all, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.’
‘And why are you here, in Paris? A beautiful young woman shouldn’t be alone in Paris.’
Alice met his eye, half a smile on her lips. ‘Just the champagne, please.’
The barman watched her for a moment then stood. ‘Okay, but we only have Laurent-Perrier. Is that good?’
‘Absolutely,’ she replied. ‘Any chance I can borrow a glass as well?’
***
Alice opened the window, pushing aside the wooden shutters and allowing the warmth of the air to seep into the dusty room. She dangled her legs over the lip of the windowsill, sneaking bare toes in between iron railings that saved her from a four-storey fall to the pavement below. Reaching back into the room she picked up her glass of champagne, raising it in mock toast before taking a long sip. The text she had received earlier from her friend Emily still circled her mind.
You got a first!!! I always knew you could do it. Your dad would be so proud. Hope the search is going well. Call me x
Would her father be proud of her if he knew she had spent the day searching for clues to uncover the lies he’d told? Would he congratulate her as she looked into the face of every middle-aged woman she passed, hoping to miraculously bump into her mother? Or would he sigh and stroke his beard, leaving the room without uttering a word?
She scrolled through her other messages, most of which were from Stefan, each of them near identical. They were all about how he was missing her, how she was hurting him, how he was beside himself all alone. Nothing about her, asking why she was in Paris and not on her way to Africa as planned. Did it ever occur to him that once, just once, life might be about something other than him?
Her fingertips found the chain around her neck, slipping down to the angel figurine that rested against her breastbone. It was one of the few gifts she had ever received from Stefan. He bought it for her after seeing a postcard of two cherubs and exclaiming that was what their daughter would look like. This had followed a particularly heated argument about his wife.
Not for the first time Alice had announced she wouldn’t see him any more, that she’d had enough of skulking in libraries and sneaking from his room in the early hours so as not to be caught by prying eyes. The fact his wife still lived in Stockholm, that their marriage was now merely one of convenience, did nothing to quell Stefan’s resolution that he could not be seen with another woman, let alone one he was supposed to be mentoring.
Alice’s father wasn’t the only one who had secrets. Stefan wasn’t technically a professor, rather a graduate teacher who was assisting Professor Mitchell, but still. It was against the rules and Alice didn’t do against the rules. At least, that’s what people were supposed to think.
To the outside world she was the girl who never put a foot wrong. She came home straight from school, got good grades, even joined the debate team and never questioned why. She didn’t have a boyfriend because her father considered it a distraction, but also none of the boys at school managed to catch her interest. Then she went to university and a whole new world opened up.
On a cold Tuesday morning at the end of her first term, Stefan stopped Alice as she was leaving a lecture and asked if she wanted to go for coffee in order to discuss that week’s essay.
Sitting opposite one another in the cramped café – his smooth, tanned hands curled around a cappuccino – he asked innocuous questions about the course and whether Alice had a preference for English or French literature. She told him that in fact Nabokov’s Lolita was her all-time favourite, whilst she imagined those fingers trailing down her spine.
‘I saw you the other day,’ he said, head bent forward and dark blonde hair falling over his brow. ‘In the faculty library.’
‘Oh?’ Alice replied, blowing into her tea.
‘Why did you do it?’
‘Do what?’ Placing the cup on the table she met his gaze. Technically she had done nothing wrong, but the university frowned upon students swapping their work, said it only encouraged plagiarism. Alice knew that even if the other student chose to copy her essay, she could feign ignorance, claim she had no idea that’s what they wanted it for; but putting yourself under scrutiny wouldn’t be the smartest move.
He smiled. Alice smiled back.
‘You know, I could report you. Get you into all sorts of trouble.’
‘But you won’t.’ Resting her chin on her hand she noticed his eyes lingered on her mouth.
‘No, I won’t.’
Alice reached out her hand to steal a lump of sugar from the bowl between them, dipping it into his coffee and watching the slow spread of brown over white. Bringing it to her lips she sucked at the bitter juices followed by a kick of sweetness.
‘Where’s your room?’ she asked.
The angel necklace he gave her was from the shop opposite the library. It was his way of reeling Alice back in, reminding her that he was fully aware of her own dirty little secret. And she was powerless to resist. For all her common sense, despite everything her father had taught her, she couldn’t walk away from the one person who broke her heart every time they kissed. Every time he smiled, his face creasing against the pillow. Every time he whispered against her ear whilst they made love, hidden away from the world in his attic room.
Alice tried to convince herself it was nothing, just an affair. A clandestine affair that could be stopped at any time. She flicked through the hundreds of photographs on her phone, pausing at a closeup of his face in profile, a stolen moment during a lecture one morning. Her finger hovered over the delete button.
It had been over a fortnight now since they had spoken, nearly a month since they had lain encircling one another. Alice knew it would end when she left the city. She had promised her father it would end. His disapproval when he found out was almost as painful as learning of his diagnosis. Things changed in that moment and he began to distance himself, as if he were ashamed of her in some way.
***
‘You have to end it.’ Her father sat forward, allowed Alice to place another pillow behind him.
Roles reversed, she now the carer instead of the child. She knew how much he loathed being indebted to anyone, hated how the medication made him physically weak, especially when his mind was still raging.
‘Why?’
‘Because people are beginning to talk.’ He winced as he lay back, the pain that was never vocalised now etched all over his clean-shaven face. ‘It’s been going on for too long, Alice, and you deserve better.’
‘Define better.’ She couldn’t help it, toying with him even though she knew he was right, even though he was sick. She was so used to him fighting her battles alongside her that it irritated when he pointed out her mistakes.
‘Just because they’re no longer living together doesn’t mean there isn’t something between them. Don’t be the reason for ending a marriage.’
‘What would you know about marriage?’
‘More than you.’ His eyes closed and she understood the conversation to be over.
***
When he died part of her was desperate for Stefan, for the familiar comfort of him, but it was impossible to speak to someone with a ready-made family waiting back in Sweden whenever he wanted. And now? Now more than ever she yearned for space, a never-ending stream of space stretching out between them too far for him to claw her back to his bed. She avoided his calls, deleted his messages without listening to them – afraid at the fragility of her heart and what it would mean if she allowed herself to hear even one utterance, one exhalation of breath that she longed to feel against her skin.
***
Alice looked across the street to the bar. She didn’t need to hear what anyone was saying; the pitch of their voices, the scent of the air, it was full of clues, telling her where she was in the world. It was yet another thing her father had taught her, taking her to different cities and impressing on her the importance to understand a culture from personal experience. He said it was necessary to taste the atmosphere, to wrap yourself up in the feel of a place in order to truly know it.
He encouraged her to find her own truths: what made each city special to her. She did so by taking photographs. Her father would often turn around to find she had wandered over to take a picture of a dog tied to a lamp post, waiting for his owner to return. Or an abandoned newspaper next to an empty coffee cup in a café. He would smile then, watching as she collected memories in the things that made her take a second look.
For her eighteenth birthday they had travelled to Venice where he bought her a vintage Leica from a shop hidden in amongst the multitude of tourist traps. The walls were covered in photographs taken by the shop’s patron, hair slicked back from a face lined with stories. He had smiled at her choice of camera, telling her that a true photographer could capture a moment without the need for a filter or Photoshop.
