Katherine Debona - The Girl in the Shadows

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

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.