Scott Mariani - The Alchemist’s Secret

They sat in silence while the waiter popped the cork, poured out their champagne and placed the bottle in the silver ice bucket. Luc waited until he was gone. ‘Well…happy anniversary.’ He clinked his glass against hers.

She was silent, watching him. This wasn’t going too well. ‘Here.’ He fumbled in his pocket and took out a small packet. He placed it on the table.

‘I got you something. Go on, open it.’

Hélène hesitated before unwrapping the gift with her long, slender fingers. She flipped open the jewellery box and looked inside. ‘An Omega Constellation?’

‘I know you always wanted one,’ he said, watching her face for a response.

She stuffed the watch back in its box and tossed it into the middle of the table. ‘It’s very nice. But it’s not for me.’

‘What do you mean? Of course it’s for you.’

She shook her head sadly. ‘Give it to the next woman.’

His face darkened. ‘What are you talking about, Hélène?’

She looked down at her hands, avoiding his eye. ‘I want out of the marriage, Luc. I’ve had enough.’

He paused for a long time. Their champagne stood untouched, losing its fizz. ‘I know things have been crazy lately,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘But it will get better, Hélène, I promise.’

‘It’s been four years, Luc. It’s not going to happen.’

‘But…I love you. Doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘I met someone else.’

‘You certainly picked a great time to let me know about this.’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve been trying. But I never see you. We had to have an appointment just so we could sit and talk like this.’

He felt his face go into a spasm. ‘So you met someone. Nice. Who is the fucker?’

She didn’t reply.

‘ I–asked–you–who–the–fucker–is ,’ he exploded, banging his fist violently against the table at every word. His glass toppled, rolled, and smashed on the floor. The restaurant went quiet for a few seconds as everyone turned to stare.

‘That’s right, make a scene.’

A waiter approached, looking sheepish. Simon turned to glare at him.

‘Monsieur, I must ask you to respect–’

‘Get away from this table,’ Simon said quietly through clenched teeth. ‘Or I will put you through that fucking window.’ The waiter backed off quickly, and went to have a word with the frowning manager.

‘See? Always the same. Your response.’

‘So perhaps you’d like to tell me who you’ve been screwing while I’m out there up to my chin in blood and shit.’ He knew that talking like this was only making it worse for both of them. Calm, stay calm.

‘You don’t know him. You only know cops, crooks, murderers and dead people.’

‘It’s my job, Hélène.’

A tear rolled down her face and he watched it trace out the perfect contour of her cheek. ‘Yes, that’s your job, and that’s your life.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s all you ever think about.’

‘You knew what I did when we met. I’m a cop, I do what cops do. What’s changed?’ He fought to control his voice as he felt his temper rise again.

‘ I’ve changed. I thought I could get used to it. I thought I could live with the waiting and the worrying that one day my husband’s coming home in a coffin. But I can’t, Luc. I can’t breathe, I need to feel alive again.’

‘He makes you feel alive again?’

‘He doesn’t make me feel like I’m dying inside,’ Hélène burst out. She mopped her eyes. ‘I only want a normal life.’

He reached out and took her hands. ‘What if I gave it up? If I was just an ordinary guy…I’ll hand in my notice, get a job doing something else.’

‘Doing what?’

He paused, realizing that he couldn’t think of a single thing in the world that he could be doing instead of police work. ‘I don’t know,’ he conceded.

She shook her head, and snatched her hands away from his. ‘You were born to be a cop, Luc. You’d hate anything else. And you’d hate me, for making you leave the thing you love most.’

He was silent for a few moments, thinking. He knew, deep down, that what she was saying was true. He’d neglected her, and now he was paying for it. ‘Then what if I just took some time off, say a month? We could go away somewhere together–wherever you like, how about Vienna? You always talked about going to Vienna. What do you think? You know, the opera, take a ride on a gondola, all that stuff.’

‘Gondolas are Venice,’ she said dryly.

‘Then we’ll go to Venice as well.’

‘I think we’re a little past that, Luc. Even if I said yes, then what? After a month it would all start up again, same as before.’

‘Can you give me a chance?’ he asked quietly. ‘I’ll try to change. I know I have the strength to change.’

‘It’s too late,’ she sobbed, looking down into her glass. ‘I’m not coming home with you tonight, Luc.’

The place wasn’t quite what Ben had expected to find. To him, the term ‘laboratory’ conjured up images of a modern, spacious, purpose-built and fully equipped facility. His surprise had mounted as he followed the directions the guy on the phone had given him and arrived at the old apartment building in central Paris. There was no lift, and the winding staircase with its tatty wrought-iron banister rail carried him up three creaking floors to a narrow landing with a door on either side. He could smell the musty, ammonia smell of damp.

As he climbed the stairs, he kept thinking about the incident at Notre Dame. It haunted him. He’d been cautious on the way here, stopping frequently, looking in shop windows, taking note of people around him. If there was a tail on him now, he couldn’t spot it.

He checked the apartment number and rang the buzzer. After a few moments a thin young man with curly dark hair and a sallow complexion opened the door and showed him into what turned out to be just a pokey little flat.

He knocked at the door marked LAB, paused a beat and went inside.

The lab was no more than a converted bedroom. Work surfaces sagged under the weight of at least a dozen computers. Piles of books and folders everywhere threatened to tip over. At one end was a sink unit and an array of battered scientific equipment, test tubes on a rack, a microscope. There was barely space for the desk, at which sat a young woman in her early thirties, wearing a white labcoat. Her dark red hair was tied up in a bun, giving her an air of seriousness. She was attractive enough to wear no makeup, and her only adornment was a pair of simple pearl earrings.

She looked up and smiled as Ben came in.

‘Excuse me. I’m looking for Dr. Ryder?’ he said in French.

‘You found her,’ she answered in English. Her accent was American. She stood up. ‘Please, call me Roberta.’ They shook hands.

She watched him for a reaction, waiting for the inevitable raised eyebrow and mock-surprise ‘oh–a woman!’ or ‘my, scientists are becoming prettier these days’ kind of comment that virtually every man she met came out with, to her great annoyance. It had almost become her standard test for gauging men she met. It was just the same infuriating knee-jerk response she got when she told guys about her black belt in Shotokan karate: ‘ oh, I’d better watch my step ‘. Assholes.

But as she invited Ben to sit down, she didn’t notice a flicker of anything cross his face. Interesting. He wasn’t the typical sort of Englishman she’d come to know–no pink jowls, beer belly, awful taste in clothes or combed-over bald patch here. The man opposite her was tallish, something under six feet, with an easy grace in jeans and a light jacket over a black polo-neck that hung on a slender but muscular frame. He was maybe five, six years older than she was. He had the deep tan of someone who’d been spending time in a hot country, and his thick blond hair was bleached by the sun. He was the kind of man she could go for. But there was a hardness in the set of his jaw, and something in those blue eyes that was cold and detached.