The French Girl(59)

—

Tom’s flat. I loiter outside and try not to think about the last time I was here. I’m waiting for Lara: at the last minute I chickened out and called in the cavalry. And in truth Lara should be here, too; she’s already shown her colors by overthrowing Modan, and Tom has made it perfectly clear he only wants to talk about the case. Though I haven’t failed to notice the desperate, clichéd irony of my support system being exactly the person Tom wants instead of me, which is why I need the support in the first place . . .

Lara appears from the direction of the tube station in a powder blue dress, her blond locks lit luminous red gold by the evening sun that bleeds red ribbons of cloud across the horizon. Severine is beside her, walking barefoot with a loose feline grace in the familiar black shift dress, her hair wrapped in the red chiffon scarf. Her sandals are dangling from one finger. I walk down to meet them, marveling at the tableau they present with the setting sun behind them. Lara and Severine, one light, one dark. Are these two really all I can trust in the world?

“How are you, honey?” I ask as I hug her. It’s not a pleasantry; I pull back to search her face as she casts around for an answer.

“Okay,” she says, with a slight rueful twist to her lips. She looks a touch pale, and she’s wearing less makeup than usual, but her cornflower eyes are clear with no telltale red rims. “Not great, but . . . okay.”

We head back toward Tom’s flat, chatting about this and that. She’s Lara, but a dimmed version; I can’t feel her usual vibrancy, and the lack of it makes me ache for her. At the bottom of the steps, I can delay no longer, and I stop her for a moment. “One thing I’ve been meaning to ask . . .”

“What?” she prompts as I hesitate.

“That night in the farmhouse . . . with Tom . . . was there ever a time you were apart? And . . . well, did you sleep?”

She assesses me shrewdly, her eyes narrowing. “You’re trying to figure out if it could have been Tom.”

“I’m just looking at every angle,” I say stiffly. I honored the thinking hour this time, and this question is one of the consequences.

“What about me then?” she challenges. There’s a wild light in her eye that I don’t recognize. “If you’re willing to accuse Tom, why not me?”

“Of course it wasn’t you.”

“Why not?” The light flares into anger. “Why does nobody consider me? Pretty, vacuous Lara—she’s not even capable of a murder. Best not trouble her pretty little head with all of that.”

I look at her in astonishment. I know this is tied up with Modan somehow, but I’m not quite sure how to navigate it. “Well . . . okay, then, tell me: did you murder Severine?”

“Of course not,” she says, the anger suddenly leaving her. “I couldn’t possibly do such a thing.”

The absurdity strikes us both at the same time, and we start to giggle. When the last bubbles of laughter have died out, I say quietly, “It’s not a bad thing, Lara. You’re full of light, you think the best of everyone, we all see it, it draws us in. But nobody thinks you’re vacuous.” She inclines her head a little ruefully, not entirely accepting my words. “Did Modan say something to you? Are you still talking to him?” I ask cautiously.

“I doubt it after our last conversation,” she says frankly. “He thinks I’m going to go off and screw half the men in London—the half I haven’t already screwed, that is.” She shakes her head in frustration. “When he asked before about past boyfriends, I was honest—more fool me. I didn’t expect to have it thrown back in my face. And aren’t the French supposed to be more liberal than the British on that sort of thing?”

“I’m sure French men are just as susceptible to jealousy as British men.” Poor Modan. He must be incredibly cut up to lash out like that: he doesn’t strike me as a man who usually makes such appalling missteps. “Are you? Going to screw half of London, I mean? Only maybe someone should warn the poor creatures, give them time to prepare . . .”

“Stop it,” she says, laughing again. “That was then.” She sobers and puts a hand on my arm, earnestness shining out of her. “I’m different now.”

“I know,” I say gently, though a shameful part of me wonders how long she will be different for. But I realize I’m being unfair: surely we’re all different now, from how we were in a French farmhouse a decade ago. Perhaps it just took a little longer for the impact to hit Lara.

A slight frown crosses her face. “You don’t believe me.”

“I do,” I reassure her quickly. “Of course I do. I was just . . . I was just contrasting with that week in France . . .” She cocks her head questioningly. I try to find the right words. “I mean, we’re all different now. Even Caro, maybe . . . Everyone is different, or—gone. Or maybe I’m seeing different sides of everyone . . .” When I try to think about what might have happened to Severine, it’s like trying to solve a puzzle based on the picture on the box, but the pieces have evolved—or maybe the picture on the box was never the right picture in the first place. Lara still has her head cocked to one side, the quizzical look still in place. I shake my head. “Never mind. Come on, we should go up.”

We link arms and turn toward the entrance to Tom’s block of flats. Lara buzzes to announce us. I hear Tom’s voice through the intercom, made tinny and weak. If he’s surprised at Lara’s presence it doesn’t show, other than perhaps through a slight pause before he speaks that could instead have been a result of the technology.