The Girl in the Shadows
***
‘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.
Together she and her father had explored the Weihnachtsmarkt in Berlin, Alice being led by her senses from one sugar-laden stall to the next as her father sipped on a gluhwein. He showed her how the sunset cast a different light over the river in Budapest than it did on the sea in Barcelona. He taught her about ancient people in Rome, Cairo, even Yucatán. But he never brought her to Paris.
One of the few things Alice had always known about her mother was that she was French. It was how her father explained her natural ability to learn the language, but he steadfastly refused to set foot in Paris, despite her protestations, saying that he had no desire to revisit the city that had brought him so much sorrow. At the time Alice believed he was referring to her mother’s death, but now she wondered if it was something else that had made him run from the past.
Her phone beeped with another text. Swinging her legs into the room she put her glass down on a small side table, next to her Leica that was safely strapped into its case. She bent over the bed to read the text message.
Call me. Please. I’m going crazy without you.
Straightening up she went over to the compact en suite tucked away in the corner of the room and slid open the door. Turning on the tap she watched the water circling round the plughole, descending into darkness. She held her wrists under the steady flow, staring at her flushed reflection and waiting for her blood to cool.
How was it that he had this effect on her, even hundreds of miles away? She could imagine him bent over his phone, brow furrowed, as he tapped in a message. Was he in their café? Making notes as he finished off his usual order of smoked salmon on rye with a triple espresso? Or was he nursing a pint of bitter in the Turf, tucked away in the corner table by the bar and reading a copy of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet?
Stop it, she told herself, slamming her hands against the porcelain sink. You made a decision to leave, to cut all ties. A frightened face looked back at her. But what if he knew everything? Would that make him run to me, or back to her?
Her phone began to ring and she clasped her hands over her ears, willing the noise to stop. She sank onto the bed and lay back against the soft covers, noticing a spider busy making a web around the light fitting on the ceiling. She traced the delicate lines through the air with her fingers and was rewarded with a memory of walking across the school lawn one autumnal morning. Her father had shown her the symmetry in the webs that were entangled in the holly bushes that flanked the main entrance, dewdrops hanging from every thread.
Standing up she crossed back to the window, draining her glass and leaning over the railings to watch someone exit the bar. A woman looked both ways down the street. As her head turned Alice’s eye was drawn to something on her face. Holding up her phone she took a couple of photographs, zooming in on the woman as she walked over to a girl who was smoking in the shadows.
Alice reached over and retrieved her Leica, unbuckling the straps and easing the weight of the camera into her palm. Sliding off the lens cap she checked the settings and peered through the viewfinder. She was too high up to catch any of their conversation, but the woman’s movements seemed to suggest penance, one hand resting on the girl’s arm. Then a rise and fall of her shoulders, a sigh, before she turned and walked away, the click of her stilettos echoing off the cobbled street.
Alice followed the woman with her lens, the light from a street lamp illuminating the flush on her cheek before she slipped round the corner and was gone.
Alice walked over to the far side of the room where she had pinned up a map of the city. Next to this were dozens of photographs: some new, some old. She touched her fingertips to one of her and her friends taken at her twentieth birthday party last summer. They were grinning at the camera with sticky lips and tanned arms.
Another was of her father, head tilted back to watch the fireworks from the window of the Great Hall at school. Around him were dotted memories of people and places, links to Alice’s past that pulled at her whenever she looked at them. In the centre was the one she had discovered of her and her mother, an image now so engrained on Alice’s mind that she saw it every time she closed her eyes.
She was going about this in completely the wrong way.
Think, came her father’s voice. Use your head, not your heart.
Picking up a notepad and pen Alice began to circle points on the map.
Chapter 6
Veronique
Veronique curled her fingers around the crossbar at the top of the railing and pulled herself upward. The muscles in her back and shoulders tightened as she placed her foot in between the next two spikes then lifted her other leg over to drop to the gravel below.
Crouching low she swept the park with her good eye. The moon throbbed in the clear night sky, rich in its fullness and illuminating the ground. She made towards the line of trees at the side of the path, skipping under their canopy to conceal any giveaway shadows.
Black, iron street lamps stood on either side of the path like an upright railroad track, directing Veronique’s eye towards the fountain. It was still, the pumps turned off overnight, and the police tape had been removed as the investigation in this area was deemed complete.
Costume has been cleaned of red paint, Christophe texted in the early hours. Someone also left a wig behind in the wind section of the orchestra, which has been vacated.
Veronique bemoaned his attempt to communicate in code. Even using his mobile within police headquarters was a sackable offence, let alone if he was caught passing on information to an outsider. Sometimes she questioned whether having him as her informant was such a good idea, but his access level was worth the risk.
According to Christophe’s message, no body had been found, but DNA taken from blood on the necklace and a few strands of hair caught in the fountain’s pipes gave a clear indication that Mathilde had been here.
A car’s brakes cut through the shroud of silence and a creature in the tree above hissed its objection at Veronique.
Approaching the fountain she scoured for the patrolling night watchman and his unpredictable Alsatian. Time wasn’t about to wait for her to set her own pace so she slipped off her trainers and stepped into the water, registering its bitterness as the chill spread over her skin.
The fountain had been drained, its water already replaced in an attempt to hide the truth once the park was reopened. A PR stunt designed to cover up the fact the police had potentially ignored a murder, which made her own investigation all the more difficult.
Draining the fountain was a mistake in her mind. In so doing the police could have wiped away something that lay hidden in the debris at the bottom. But they were looking for physical evidence, not subtle clues. Once the press got hold of the story there was a danger of it turning into a full-scale murder hunt.
Guillaume would be under a lot of scrutiny, forced to explain how his task force dismissed the claims of a mother that her daughter hadn’t simply run away. He would be doing everything in his power to find Mathilde and fast, so Veronique needed to stay one step ahead of him if she were to win.
Is that all this was: a desire to prove him wrong? To prove that her methods, no matter how ruthless, were more effective than ticking every box, following every lead to the point of exhaustion? That what happened to Pascal wasn’t his fault and he needed to stop trying to make up for it every day of his life?
She should go and see Pascal. Ever since she and Guillaume broke up she had been avoiding him, refusing to visit due to her workload and ignoring all attempts by the family to contact her. It wasn’t Pascal’s fault. But she needed to cut all ties; it was the only way she could cope with the chasm that opened up in her the day Guillaume left.
Reaching the statue at the fountain’s centre she bent down, easing her arm into the water and feeling for the opening of the pipes where Mathilde’s hair had been found. The pumps being idle allowed her to push her hand inside of the pipe, wiping around the inside with her fingertips as she searched for any scrap of a clue.
Pulling her hand out she tugged at her sleeve, fabric clinging to wet skin as she looked around, deciding where next to go. The presence of hair alone would not have made the police take notice, but coupled with the blood found on the missing necklace they were compelled to investigate further.
As she turned to walk back through the water its surface rippled, disturbed by a movement nearby. A low rumble emerged from underneath and behind her, the vibrations too subtle to feel in her own body but visible as they spread out in circles towards the edge of the fountain. A droplet landed on her shoulder, followed by several more and she looked skyward as the pipes sucked water into their belly and propelled it up and over her.
Squatting down she shoved her arm back into the water, feeling the pull against her hand. She stood, staring into the water and watching it swirl around her legs. The fountain could not have been turned on if a body was here, otherwise the force from the pipes would have pressed skull against the metal’s edge, hair becoming further entangled and leaving traces of skin or blood.
She checked her watch. It was just before 6 a.m. The park closed at 11 p.m., giving seven hours in which to move the body. But how? The park was surrounded on three sides by eight-foot-high fencing and the only open exit was by the Place de la Concorde where someone dragging a body would be noticed no matter what time of day or night. Which meant either Mathilde was hidden in the park somewhere or she was still alive.
The water lapped in a false tide around her calves as she returned to the fountain’s edge and stepped over its ledge. The soles of her feet stuck to the damp earth, leaving behind two clear imprints. Next to them, facing away from the stone was another, fainter footprint. The edges weren’t clean, but Veronique could identify the outline of a heel and five toes, the second of which was longer than the first. It was the same footprint she had often seen on her bathroom floor as its owner dried himself with an oversized towel.
‘I should have known he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.’
Veronique turned to see a besuited man sitting on a bench not ten feet away, lacing up black brogues.
‘Who?’
‘Don’t pretend to be stupid.’ He rose from the bench, sipping from a polystyrene cup. ‘It doesn’t suit you. Christophe can’t afford another stain on his record and you know it. He’s a phenomenal forensics expert, one of the best we have, and yet due to some misplaced loyalty towards you his career is constantly being put on hold.’
‘Shouldn’t you be at the station, Guillaume?’
‘Shouldn’t you be running along the riverbanks rather than scaling fences?’ He walked towards her.
‘Touché.’ She smiled, trying to ignore the suggestive aroma of tea tree that accompanied him as he drew close. Did the amber glass bottle still sit on his window ledge? Did he think of her when he rubbed the ointment into the persistent psoriasis at the edge of his scalp? How many more weeks until he would need to replenish his supply, to retrace steps taken together upon their chance discovery of an apothecary shop hidden behind their favourite restaurant? The wooden drawers hiding treasures used over the centuries to treat ailments even modern medicine could not cure.
‘What happened to your face?’ A raised hand, her step away in response.
‘Nothing, just a boxing accident.’
‘Now why do I find that hard to believe?’
‘Believe what you want. It’s hardly your concern any more.’
A twitch, his eyes shifting. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘You shouldn’t have dropped the case.’
‘Stop goading me, Veronique. You’re way over the line here and you know it.’
‘Did you find a body?’
Even in the half-light of dawn she saw the shadows underneath his eyes, shadows that hadn’t been there a few months ago. Was it Pascal? Had something happened to him?
‘You know I can’t tell you.’ He turned his head, showing her the temptation of hair that curled against the nape of his neck.
‘Does the mother know?’
‘So that’s the connection.’ He faced her. ‘Why this case? It doesn’t fall within your usual remit. What happened? Did all the one per cent disappear to their tax havens for the summer, leaving you without any clients?’
He was taunting her, the tone of his voice like a petulant child’s.
‘Has Madame Benazet been informed of the findings?’
‘Stay out of it, Veronique.’ Guillaume threw his cup into a nearby bin. ‘Don’t force me to fire him.’
‘You don’t have the authority to do that.’
‘No? Set foot on one of my crime scenes again and you’ll find out if that’s true.’ He stared at her for a moment, a thought left hanging. ‘Take the exit by the Musée de l’Orangerie.’ He indicated behind her with a nod of his head. ‘That way you won’t be seen.’ His phone rang and he pressed it to his ear, one quick glance at her permitted before he walked away.
Like a magician he had managed to unravel her careful work of the past months, reaching down inside of her to pull everything back to the surface.
She left the park, crossing the river and heading west along its banks. The top of the Eiffel Tower was like a lighthouse, guiding her as she tried to push all thoughts of Guillaume away.
But no matter what she did, he was there. Whenever she drank her morning coffee, made using a machine he bought her as he didn’t understand how she could spend a fortune each morning at the café down the street. When she browsed the Marché Mouffetard, just as they had most Sunday mornings, never buying anything but part of her hoping he would be there too.
The familiar scent of his aftershave on someone else’s skin, making her turn her head in hope. The feel of his arms around her, drawing her close and blocking out all her nightmares. He was there when she closed her eyes at night, the space in the bed next to her cold because she couldn’t bring herself to cross the invisible line over to his side.
You couldn’t simply brush away the best part of two years. Close the door on all the memories made together and expect them never to come back. She still remembered the first time she saw him, would cling to that picture in her darkest moments and try to recall the exact curve of his lip as he held out his hand to her.
***
‘Guillaume,’ he said with a smile that stretched the full width of his face as he strode across to her. ‘Enchanté.’
‘Veronique,’ she replied, registering the warmth of his palm and how it enveloped hers completely. His grip was assured, eyes the colour of forget-me-nots, and he had a smattering of stubble along his jaw. She was lost in an instant, the sensation of falling through time and seeing herself as an old woman with him sat beside her.
‘Christophe was just telling me about what it is that you do.’ He kept hold of her hand and with reluctance she let go, moving around the table to put a barrier between them. ‘About how you have a knack for finding things, people, and getting them to talk.’
‘Was he now?’ Veronique looked over at Christophe, at the way he was hopping from one foot to the next like a child who needed the toilet. Add to that the two thumbs up he was giving her as he left the office and she had a feeling that she wasn’t here to take Christophe out to lunch. ‘And what is it you do?’
‘I’m a Capitaine for the National Police here in Paris.’
She couldn’t help but widen her eyes.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Only that I’m not used to requests from the police.’ Normally they were trying to block her investigations rather than hire her. ‘Christophe hasn’t mentioned you before. I assume you work together – that’s how you know one another?’
‘Non, I have only recently transferred across from the Ministry of the Interior. Christophe and I met here, at the clinic.’
And it all fell into place. The impossibly handsome man Christophe had, with the subtlety of an axe, been dropping into conversation of late. The new Captain who voluntarily gave up his post at the Ministry to help with an on-going narcotics investigation. A man who had also been attending rehabilitation sessions at the clinic with his brother and then asking questions about the increasing number of patients being admitted with similar symptoms.
‘You’re Pascal’s brother, n’est-ce-pas?’ Veronique asked, the shroud that came across the Captain’s features too apparent to miss.
‘I am.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In a way it’s him I wanted to speak to you about. Specifically the drugs he was taking when he overdosed.’
‘Ecstasy?’
‘Yes. No doubt you are aware that there have been several cases in recent months of young people overdosing from MDMA laced with lethal quantities of methamphetamine.’
‘It’s been all over the news.’
‘What hasn’t been in the news is that we suspect each batch is coming from a single supplier. One who is bringing the drugs in from outside of France and mixing them here, in Paris.’
‘Based on what evidence?’
He broke eye contact for the first time since she walked into the room. ‘That’s confidential.’
‘With all due respect, Capitaine, if you’re asking for my help you’re going to have to give me more than that.’
The look on his face – one that she would come to recognise without the need for words – it was an internal process, a weighing up of the odds and potential risks involved, a process she never would be able to understand or empathise with. Especially when it involved family.
Guillaume’s brother ended up in a coma after taking what he thought was a pure ecstasy pill on a night out. He was only seventeen years old and under the care of his older brother whilst their parents were at a wedding in Toulouse. The end result was that Pascal now required round-the-clock care, his future wiped out through one bad decision. A decision that Guillaume felt responsible for.
If the same thing had happened to Christophe, Veronique didn’t know what she would have done, what lengths she would go to in order to find, and obliterate, the people responsible.
But Guillaume was a veritable knight in shining armour. His mistake that night, allowing Pascal to go out even though he had a test at school the next day, was the driving force behind all subsequent decisions. He would not allow himself to make any more errors in judgement, and that meant following the rules to their absolute limit.
It was something they argued about, over and over. His refusal to go with her, to punish the drug dealers in a way far more appropriate than prison. He’d stopped her then, just as he’d tried to stop her every time since.
***
Coming to a halt she rested her palm against the wall, its bricks soaking up heat from the threatening sun. She leaned against the door, waiting for her heartbeat to return to a more normal level as a wet nose found her shin. She bent down to ruffle behind the dog’s ears.
‘Bonjour, Barney.’
‘Barney! Allez!’ An elderly woman shuffled across the small courtyard, waving at the dog.
‘Delphine, how are you today?’ Veronique enquired as Barney continued to jump at her like a small child, desperate for attention.
‘Pas mal, pas mal,’ Delphine replied between heavy breaths and Veronique couldn’t help but notice the yellow tinge to her skin.
‘Have you been outside lately?’
She avoided Veronique’s eyes. ‘Now and then,’ she said, walking back to an armchair positioned in an open doorway. She sank into its battered cushions, swollen ankles spilling out of stained ruby slippers.
‘And what does the doctor say?’ Veronique reached inside the door and poured Madame a glass of chilled lemonade from the turquoise ceramic jug set on a narrow table in the hallway. She took it with shaking hands, chapped lips sucking the liquid into her mouth.
‘What do they know? Barely old enough to write their own name and yet they want to pump me full of drugs I can’t even pronounce.’
‘Has your son been to visit this week? I thought he was going to take you to the house near La Rochelle?’
‘He is busy with his work. I understand he will come another time.’
More likely busy with another woman, Veronique thought. He probably lay in bed at night, imagining the size of his bank balance once the cancer destroyed what was left of his mother.
‘Why don’t I take Barney for a run tomorrow?’ she offered, squeezing Delphine’s hand.
Delphine smiled in response. ‘Yes, he would like that. Tires him out for the rest of the day.’