The French Girl(25)

“At least we’re done with Modan,” Tom says, out of the blue, unless I missed the segue—or perhaps I’m not the only one who cannot ignore Severine. Lara is peeling the label from a bottle of San Pellegrino. For a moment her hands still, then she takes up the task again.

“You are done with him, right?” Tom persists, looking at me.

I don’t look at Lara. “I think so.”

“Did he interview Seb?” Lara asks; now it’s her turn to avoid looking sideways. She sounds brittle and self-conscious; I wonder if she already knows the answer.

Tom looks at me carefully, if a little blearily. “Yep, today,” he says mildly.

Lara is looking at me warily too. “It’s okay,” I say testily. “You’re allowed to mention Seb’s name around me. I’m not going to freak out.” They’re still looking at me. “Seriously, guys,” I say in exasperation. “It was a long time ago. And we’ll be living in the same city, so . . .” I shrug, unwilling to complete the sentence. So . . . what? So . . . we’re bound to run into each other? So . . . we’ll have to be civil? So . . . we’ve both moved on? Severine turns her black eyes on mine, and for once the expression within them is entirely clear: scorn. It jolts me.

“In that case, how is Seb?” Lara asks Tom.

“Traitorous cow,” I say, tongue in cheek. Tom gives a short bark of laughter, then frowns a little and peers at the red wine in his glass, as if uncertain what it might be. Beer before wine, makes you feel fine . . .

“I don’t know, actually,” he admits. “I saw him the other night, but only briefly, and Alina was with him and we couldn’t really talk.” He frowns again, slumping down even farther in his chair. “There’s something . . . You know, he’s not in great shape. Physically, I mean, which is unlike him; you know how he likes to work out. I don’t know . . .”

I see Seb, what used to be my favorite image of Seb, wearing jeans but his chest still bare—the classic Levi’s model look. His beauty is heartbreaking; it’s too much, he’s too vital, it’s impossible to look at him without an awareness that it cannot last. An awareness of mortality.

Tom is still musing. “Caro’s seen him, too, a couple of times I think. I should ask her what she thinks.”

Caro has seen him a couple of times. Severine looks at me deliberately, a secretive smirk lurking near her mouth. I search for something to say to keep up my end of the conversation. “So you haven’t managed to show off your car to him yet.” Tom smiles and shakes his head. “He’ll be envious.”

“I don’t know why,” says Lara, still busy with the bottle. “It’s not like he would ever have bought it himself. He wouldn’t be that original.” I look at Tom and see my own surprise registering on his face. Lara lifts her head on our silence. “What? He’s not. He likes to follow the trend, not set it.”

“That’s not entirely fair,” begins Tom, then stops.

I’m still gazing at Lara. She’s right, it’s entirely fair, but I would never have seen it that way myself. Lara is a very smart girl, academically speaking, but she’s not usually overly given to psychological analysis. “When did you get so insightful?” I murmur.

She ducks her head and turns her attention to shredding a napkin. Alarm bells ring in my mind, and I feel the reverberations in my stomach. “Have you been talking about us again?” I ask urgently.

She turns her head and gives me an accusatory look; I wince internally as I belatedly remember our audience. It’s too late now: Tom sits up a little, aware he’s missed something.

“What?” he says, when neither of us speak or break our shared eye contact.

After a beat or two she concedes, rolling her eyes. “Go on then,” she says, turning back to her napkin.

I turn to Tom. There is no easy way to say this, but I try to find one. “Lara has become . . . friendly . . . with our favorite French detective.”

He’s already sitting still, but on hearing my words it seems as if even the blood in his veins has stopped moving. After a moment he says, “I see,” his face blank and his voice emotionless.

“No, you don’t see,” says Lara, suddenly close to tears. “Nothing is happening, nothing will happen, until this bloody investigation is cleared up, and now that’s going to take even longer—” She stops abruptly, then balls up the napkin and pushes it away from her, not looking at either of us.

“Why is it going to take even longer?” I ask uneasily. She doesn’t answer. “Lara, why?” I demand more urgently.

She shakes her head, but she’s still Lara, she’s still the sunshine girl and she can’t keep a secret, either from us or from Modan. “Because they managed to speak with the brother,” she says miserably. “The builder brother, I mean. He said he filled in the well on the Saturday. The day we left.”

“But—” I’m abruptly cut off by the appearance of the waitress with our long overdue pizzas. I look at Tom in consternation as she busies herself laying them in front of us. His face is still blank, shuttered tight, presumably against revealing his feelings about Lara and Modan. Still, it crosses my mind that he doesn’t seem surprised about the well; that he hasn’t seemed surprised about anything, right from when he first called me.