Katherine Debona - The Girl in the Shadows

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.