The French Girl(12)

I nod again. He assesses me with his dark eyes and sits silently, waiting for more. I sigh: monosyllabic responses are not going to get me through this interview. “Theo’s family and hers were on quite friendly terms. Both families had been spending most of the summer down there for years. Severine’s parents’ place didn’t have a pool, but Theo’s parents let them use theirs whenever they wanted.”

Severine has appeared, swept in on the flow of words. She’s facing away from me on the steps of the pool in a black bikini, knee-deep in the cool water, her narrow back perfectly straight. Seb, Lara, Caro and I have just arrived, and Theo, who arrived earlier, is showing us round; the unexpected sight of a girl in the pool draws us all up short. “Severine!” exclaims Theo, bounding toward her. “I didn’t expect to see you.” She turns her head and regards us all, then climbs out of the pool to treble-kiss him hello, apparently completely unselfconscious despite her scant attire. I find it hard to look away. The narrowness of her hips is a marvel; her belly is flat yet soft, like a child’s. Her shoulders and arms shimmer with the sheen of sunscreen. “Theo,” she says solemnly, her English heavily accented. “I did not know I would be here, either.” She looks at the rest of us, weighing and measuring. “I am Severine,” she says. “The mademoiselle next door.”

“You saw her every day?” asks Alain Modan. I’m grateful for the question; it dissolves Severine’s presence.

“Yes. She would come to the pool, and often she would eat dinner with us.”

He nods. “How was she?” I look at him blankly. He snaps his fingers repeatedly, frustrated with himself as he tries to find the right words. “Her . . . emotions, her . . . temperament, how was she?”

“Well, she was . . .” I stop, trying to find the right words myself. “She was a very . . . self-contained girl. If there was anything bothering her I wouldn’t have known.”

“Was she closer to one than another? Perhaps she spent more time with Theo, since they already knew each other?”

“No, not Theo.” He looks up sharply from his notebook at my tone and raises his eyebrows. “I mean, not with anyone specifically,” I add quickly.

His eyebrows have not quite descended fully, and his eyes remain on me. I work hard to hold his gaze and I don’t think of Seb.

After a moment he gives a minute shrug and looks at his notebook again. “Did she speak about her plans for after she left the Dordogne?”

“Not with me. Though Caro said that she told Theo she was heading back to Paris.”

He cocks his head to one side. “Caroline Horridge? She said that?”

I nod. “The other night.”

He is making notes again, in his little book. His handwriting is like tiny spiders multiplying across the page. “So. The well. There was—how do you say, workings?—going on?”

“Building works.” It’s a relief to move on to something less personal. “Theo’s parents wanted to rent the place out. They needed a few things done to comply with the safety regulations.”

Modan is nodding. “Oui. A fence round the pool. And the well filled in.”

“Probably.” I shrug. “I remember the builders doing the pool fence.” Suddenly the significance of what he’s saying hits me. “Oh. The well. She . . . God, she must have been in there before they filled the well.” The skull appears, but it’s no longer gleaming. Sand fills the eye sockets and spills out of the grinning mouth. I find my hand is at my mouth and carefully remove it to descend to my lap. “Is that why you didn’t find her? I mean, till now?”

“We didn’t find her because we were looking in the wrong place,” he says simply. His eyes are fixed on me again. I can’t fathom his expression.

“Do you think it was her boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend, I mean?”

“We’re looking at all possibilities—”

“Yes, but you must be looking pretty hard at him in particular,” I say impatiently, suddenly fed up with the one-sided nature of this interview, even though that’s how interviews are meant to be. “There was a history, right? Severine said she’d had to call the police about him before.”

“There’s no record of that.” He’s looking at me as if he’s waiting for something.

I pause. “No record?” Severine lied. Why would she lie about that?—but I instantly know the answer. To appear more mysterious, more alluring. The kind of woman a man would literally go insane for.

“None,” says Alain Modan calmly. “And the ex-boyfriend, he was doing a science project, some very intense work for his thesis. He was in the laboratory every day in June, even weekends, attending to his cultures or some such . . .” His hand waves expressively. “So.” He is still watching, waiting for me to catch on to something. I shake my head dumbly. He tries again. “So . . . unless the well was not filled in until July—”

The doorbell buzzes, cutting him off. He cocks his head questioningly at me. I shrug then raise myself up from the sofa to go and answer, and find that I’m stiff. I’ve been sitting unnaturally still for a very long time now.

I know it’s Lara before I open up; I can hear her rustling in her bag for the spare key she keeps. “Lara, the detective is here,” I say quickly as I unlatch the door, forestalling her greeting.