The French Girl(51)

He glances round as if performing a head count. “Alors, we are complete. Please, sit.”

So we sit, Modan at the head of the table, Lara and I on one side and Tom, Seb and Caro (and her BlackBerry) on the other. It’s a split that’s reminiscent of the divisions during that fateful week in France; it doesn’t feel accidental. Caro is the last to choose a chair: I see her evaluating the options. The artificial light reveals shadows under her eyes that even her careful application of concealer has failed to hide, and there’s a gray tinge to her skin: exactly what I’d expect for a lawyer in the run-up to partnership. As she settles into the seat next to Seb I try to step outside of myself, to see her as I might if she was a prospective candidate to be placed through my firm, but I can’t do it. My dislike of her is too pervasive.

I disliked Severine, too, but that was in life. I’m growing accustomed to her in death. I can’t imagine that she would miss this, and sure enough, there are only five chairs too many: Severine has settled herself in one at the far end of the table. Her face doesn’t betray any interest—of course it doesn’t, this is Severine—but there’s a stillness within her that gives her away.

“We are complete,” says Modan again, when everyone is settled. I see Tom glance around the group, and a brief flash of despair crosses his face before he schools it back into submission. Perhaps there are only four chairs too many. I don’t expect Severine has the monopoly on haunting. “Alors, thank you, all of you, for coming.” He looks around the table slowly, his long face grave. Opposite me, Tom and Seb have both pushed their chairs back from the table and have their long legs stretched out. I wonder if they teach it in public school, this ability to take ownership of a room by an elegant display of casual relaxation. For whose benefit is the display in Tom’s case? Mine or Modan’s? “I wanted to tell you all together that we now have the results of the autopsy on Mademoiselle Severine.” I glance across the table and see Seb look up sharply, his hand tightening on the coffee cup. By contrast Tom continues to look as if Modan is merely discussing the weather, and not terribly interesting weather at that. “The conclusion is that she died by what you here call foul play.” I wait for him to continue, but he simply looks around the room again, overlooking no one.

“You didn’t get us all here just for that,” I say abruptly. I’m tired—at least I’m tired of the showmanship—and I’m upset and I’m not censoring myself quickly enough. Lara puts a hand on my arm, but it fails to halt me. “Seriously, she ended up concertinaed at the bottom of a well. How could it not be foul play?”

Modan frowns. “Concertinaed. What is this?”

Lara reels off something in rapid-fire French.

Modan’s expression clears. “Ah, I understand.” He tries out the new word. “Concertinaed. Yes, indeed, a fair point, though of course we always have to rule out suicide or accident.” He pronounces the last word in the French fashion, but I’m still caught on the incongruity of suicide. I stamp down on the highly inappropriate urge to laugh: had he seriously considered the possibility she stuffed her own self in the well? I glance down the table, and Severine’s dark eyes gleam as they meet mine: quite apart from the logistical difficulties of that particular theory, we both know she’s not the suicidal type.

“But you are right; there is more.” Modan continues, unaware of the weight of Severine’s dark eyes upon him. Across the table, Caro has her head cocked, her body leaning forward and BlackBerry forgotten, a textbook example of a person listening intently: because she is, or because that’s what she wants to portray? Tom and Seb are still sprawled out, but the tension in Seb is obvious; he doesn’t have Caro’s inherent artifice. “After this length of time, unless the body is somehow preserved, the autopsy can have, ah, nil result. Inconclusive, yes? In this case, we have a body that spent ten years in a warm, mainly dry, environment, which is the most efficient environment for leaving just the bones.” Beside me Lara shudders, the most minute of movements, but nonetheless Modan picks up on it. I wonder if he would have had it been Caro or myself doing the shuddering. “I apologize, this is not a pleasant topic, but it is necessary. So, as I was saying, there are just bones.” He spread his hands. “Broken bones.”

“Broken?” asks Lara. “From what?”

“We cannot tell if the breaks are pre-or postmortem.” He shrugs, his fingers flexing out briefly in a synchronized movement. “They would fit very well with a car crash, a . . .”—he searches for a word for a moment, then snaps his fingers—“a hit-and-run.” Across the table I see Tom’s gaze sharpen and jump sharply to Modan. In less than a blink that honed focus is gone, and once again he’s the only-casually-interested observer he has been all along. Tom is surprised by something. It’s the first time I’ve detected surprise in him since Severine was found.

“Or,” continues Modan, “they could have occurred when the body was put in the well. Concertinaed, as Kate says.” He inclines his head in my direction. There’s no smile lurking around his mouth—that would be in terribly poor taste—but I know it’s inside him.

“So you’re saying,” says Caro, her expression clinically professional, “that you have no evidence of cause of death? In which case shouldn’t you pack up and go home?”