CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I leave the café, already dialing my lawyer, but she’s busy and unable to take my call. Of course she’s busy; she’s a professional at the top of her game, high in demand, which is exactly the sort of lawyer one would want to have—only I want her sitting in her office, staring at her telephone and twiddling her thumbs, doing nothing of note except eagerly awaiting my call. I have half a mind to jump in a taxi to her premises, but I resist the urge and instead choose to walk back to my office.

The fresh air fails to do me good. My mind is racing, unable to break free from a spiral track that leads inexorably to a dark pit of all the things I’m not yet ready to face. Surely there must be a way out, a bargain to be made with a God I don’t believe in . . . How can this be happening to me?

“Jesus,” says Paul. He doesn’t look up as I enter the office. “Did they have to get the coffee beans from South America?”

It takes me a minute to process the words and divine his meaning, then I glance at my watch. I’ve been gone over an hour and a half. But surely not . . . the taxi there, plus the time spent with Lara, plus the walk back: it doesn’t quite seem to add up. But my internal clock and the reckoning of my watch cannot arrive at a mutually agreeable answer. I have the sensation that time is rushing past me, rushing through me, like I’m no more substantial than a ghost and there’s nothing I can do to stem the tide. “I forgot I had a call with Gordon.” It’s hard enough to invent an excuse, let alone give it some expression. “I took it at the coffee shop.”

Paul looks up from his computer screen at that. “Not a problem there, is there?” he asks anxiously. “I thought Caroline Horridge was the liaison now.”

“No problem. Gordon just likes to keep his finger in the pie.” The words make sense, but they mean nothing to me. Perhaps in a while Paul and the business and all those small concerns that add up to mean life will catch at me with little hooks and lines, pulling me back into phase with the world, but for now I feel like nothing exists except the looming dread of a French jail. Shock, I realize. I must be in shock.

“Well, I’ve loaded the Jeffers file now if you want to take a look.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, I nearly forgot. Someone called for you when Julie was out at lunch, wanting to know when you’d be back, but wouldn’t leave a message. A woman, posh sounding.”

“Well, that certainly narrows it down.” I’ve refound irony: I must be anchored back in the real world now. Except—I glance quickly around—Severine is not here . . . but no, I’ve got that wrong; Severine is not real, Severine is not normal . . . My head is pounding. I sit down quickly.

“Are you all right?” I hear Paul ask distantly.

“Fine,” I say quickly. “Though I don’t think my lunch entirely agreed with me.” I’m getting to be quite the liar. Tom would be proud, except why would he? After this is over, Tom is washing his hands of me. But this may never be over, not for me . . . Where the hell is my damn lawyer? I grab the mouse, determined to focus on something else, and the blank monitor springs to life.

After some time—how long? Five minutes? Twenty-five?—my vision clears and the pounding in my head recedes. Sometime after that I realize it must look odd for me to be staring at a screen, and for lack of anything better to do, I look up the Jeffers file, which is exactly where it should be and perfectly up to date: Paul is nothing if not thorough. I skim through, noting his current role, and the familiar process begins to soothe me: strengths, weaknesses, where would he fit? Stockleys? Haft & Weil? But no, not there because . . . I stop suddenly, as a flush of adrenaline prickles over my skin. Definitely not Haft & Weil, because Mark Jeffers has already worked there, started his career there in fact. In none other than Caro’s group.

I don’t believe in coincidences.

I’m still trying to work out the implications of that when Julie taps and enters briskly, her generous mouth unusually strained. “Sorry, Kate, I have an Alina”—she checks the Post-it in her hand—“Harcourt here for you.” Harcourt—but that’s Seb’s surname, it doesn’t fit with anyone else—and then I twig. But what on earth is Seb’s wife doing here? Julie is still speaking, her eyes anxious behind the tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. “I did say you have quite a busy schedule . . .”

Do I? I check the diary, conscious it should have been the first thing I did when I got back in the office, and it’s true, I have a few calls coming up. It’s hard to reason through how I should respond to this sudden intrusion, to what would constitute a normal response when I feel so far from normal. I suppose I could legitimately send Alina away; it’s what I would prefer to do, but I can’t help wondering what has driven her here in the first place. I wouldn’t imagine she’s someone given to impulsive social calls with no warning; she’s far too well-mannered for that. “It’s okay, Julie, she’s the wife of a friend.”

Reluctantly leaving my desk to greet my unexpected guest, I find her looking out of the window in the outer room, a sleek gray wool coat buttoned almost to her neck, the belt highlighting her as-yet slim waist. Above the collar her long dark blond hair is coiled into a smooth roll. She turns her head as I emerge from my office, and I see her quickly rearrange her features into a smile. Her makeup is impeccable. She must have taken a great deal of care over it.

“Alina!” I say, finding a smile from somewhere. I kiss her on both cheeks after a slight hesitation that I hope is imperceptible. That’s the point of etiquette, I think—to provide a framework of actions to cling to even when your world is falling apart. I need to rely on that. “This is a surprise. How are you?”

She doesn’t answer the question. “I’m so sorry for turning up unannounced.” She glances around; a quick frown crosses her face before she smooths it away.

“You’re not a lawyer, are you?” I ask, conscious of Julie hovering behind me.

“Oh no. Lord, no. I capital-raise for private equity.” Alina glances round again. The practicalities seem to be catching up to her. Perhaps she hadn’t been expecting me to share an office.

“A social call then,” I say. Alina’s eyes fly to my face; they’re hazel, almost yellow. “Come on, then, let’s nip out for coffee where we can chat freely.” Whatever she has to say, I’m quite sure I don’t want Paul or Julie to hear it.

Alina nods swiftly. “Perfect,” she says, relief evident even in her clipped tones. “I am sorry to disturb you, but as I was passing, it seemed silly not to drop in.” She’s a smart girl; she’s caught on.

I ask Julie to reschedule my calls and then grab my coat, which seems very shabby next to Alina’s sleek number, and Alina and I head across the road to the nearest coffee shop. I have to stretch my mind to think of what one might ordinarily say in this situation. Follow the rules, stick to the etiquette: the ordinary steps of life will pull me through. “How are you feeling?” I ask. “Are you still struggling with morning sickness?”

“That,” she says without looking at me, her mouth a thin tight line, “is the least of my worries.” Then she relents, perhaps realizing how combative she sounded. “But yes, I’m still struggling. God knows what this poor thing is surviving on; I can hardly keep anything down.”

We’re at the door of the café now. I sit Alina down at a table and queue to buy her a cup of tea and some plain biscuits, ignoring her protestations that she should be the one paying. When I return to the table she has peeled off the tailored coat to reveal a white silk blouse and a neat pencil skirt. The effect is simple, understated: elegantly attractive but not sexy. It entirely suits her. She reaches for the biscuits immediately. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I study her as she peels open the packet, trying to fit her into Seb, like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.

She looks up as if she feels my eyes on her, picking over her hair, her clothes, the way she holds herself. “You must be wondering what on earth I’m doing here,” she says, without a trace of a smile, when she has finished a biscuit. Her delicately prominent collarbones spread like open wings from the two raised nubs at the base of her throat; her wrists are slender, leading to long, slim fingers. It seems like her very bones have been carefully crafted to fit the image she wishes to portray: refined, elegant, unmistakably upper class.

“Yes,” I say. I glance at my mobile phone, which I have placed faceup on the table. My lawyer hasn’t rung.

“You used to date my husband.”

I blink. “Yes.”

“Is that a problem?” Her eyes are an unusual hazel color and fixed unswervingly on my face.

I almost laugh; for a moment I’m tempted to paraphrase her own words: that’s the least of my problems. Instead I say evenly, “Not for me.”

She eyes me carefully without speaking for a moment, then reaches for another biscuit. “Good,” she says, with some satisfaction, as if I’ve confirmed something important to her. “I didn’t know anything about your history with Seb until the other day,” she remarks. “Caro told me.” There’s an unmistakable twist of her lips on Caro’s name. “Actually, I’d rather assumed you were with Tom.”

I don’t want to hear his name yet I’m also greedy for something, anything, that relates to Tom and me, to an us that has never been; I have to stop myself from asking why she assumed that. Instead I say mildly, “I wouldn’t think you’re here to ask me that, though.”

“No.” She puts down the biscuit without having taken a bite. Once again I’m caught in her hazel gaze. She ticks all the boxes I had always imagined Seb’s wife would have to tick, but still she is not what I expected . . . She’s more reserved, more intelligent, more herself. I wonder if Seb has gotten rather more than he bargained for. “I rather think Caro is trying to steal my husband,” she says without preamble or apology. “He’s in quite a bad place at the moment: his job, the drinking . . . I know you were at Tom’s last night so I hardly need to bring you up to speed on that.” Only two red spots high on those perfectly sculpted cheekbones reveal the humiliation I know she must feel on discussing her husband’s failings with a near-stranger. “The thing is, it’s Caro who is getting him so worked up about it all. Ever since they reopened the investigation on that girl, she’s been on the phone nonstop, trying to get her little tendrils into him—” She stops abruptly, cutting off the passion that was threatening to spill into her words.

I stare at her. This is so far from what I was expecting—not that I knew what I was expecting, but this isn’t it—that I have to mentally shake myself into responding. “They’re not having an affair,” I say at last. Perhaps it’s a good thing this is such a strange conversation: I can be forgiven for being a little slow on social cues. It wouldn’t be appropriate to say what I’m thinking: I’m about to be arrested for a murder that in all probability was your husband’s fault, so please excuse me if I can’t get worked up about the state of your marriage.

“I didn’t think they were—not yet, at least. Though I’d be interested to know what makes you say that.” One part of me notes that the control she has of her emotions is terrifyingly impressive.

“Caro kept ringing last night. He wouldn’t pick up. Tom asked why she kept calling, and Seb told him he wasn’t sleeping with her, if that’s what he was thinking. He said he never had.” I remember the words escaping his mouth in the dim living room, and more besides. Barely even kissed her. So he did kiss her, at least once then. I wonder when. Probably sometime when they were teenagers. Not that it matters. Not that any of it matters. But she’s here, and so am I, and there are motions I should go through. I shrug. “So if you believe in the old saying in vino veritas . . .”

“I do, actually,” she says thoughtfully. Perhaps I detect a slight relaxation within her, but equally I could be imagining it. She looks at the biscuit carefully for a moment, as if considering if it’s worth the risk, but it remains on the table in front of her. She looks at me again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I’m still puzzled as to what she’s here for.

“Tom said you and Caro don’t really get on.”

Tom. “Well, we certainly didn’t in the past, but that was a long time ago.”

“I thought perhaps you would be a good person to speak to.”

“My enemy’s enemy is my friend?” But I see Caro again, admitting to her own mother’s disapproval, and I feel that moment of warmth between us. Caro is not an enemy. Nor a friend, either. I’m not sure I know the correct word in the English language to describe what she is to me. Though if she really is to blame for the Mark Jeffers situation, I’m sure I’ll find one.

“Exactly.” Alina smiles briefly, a genuine smile, not one out of politeness. On another day, I know it would feel like a gift: I don’t believe Alina offers a genuine smile terribly often. “I don’t really know what happened in France: Seb doesn’t like to talk about it. He says he doesn’t want me to worry about anything with the baby coming.” She frowns. “But whatever happened, I think it’s somehow giving Caro some, I don’t know, leverage over him. And quite frankly I find that rather more irritating than the investigation. I mean, it’s not as if Seb would really have killed a random girl, is it? He should have nothing to worry about. But she has him all worked up; he’s talking to her and not to me, and I need to find a way to put a stop to it.”

I look at her blankly. Surely as Seb’s wife, she must know more than this? But there is no artifice in her face, simply frustration and a hefty dislike of Caro—Seb really hasn’t filled her in. It’s probably not my place to do it, either, but in spite of my preoccupation, my distance, I do have some empathy for her. She shouldn’t be left in the dark. “Alina,” I say carefully. “You do know that Seb slept with Severine, don’t you? The girl who died? That he was the last person to see her alive?”

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 possibility 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.