The French Girl(76)

“In my car?” I sit up, somehow personally affronted, despite the fact that I know this never happened. I almost know this never happened. I can’t keep track tonight.

“No, not yours. You were asleep; I didn’t believe anyone would have had the guts to go raking through your bags for your keys with you right there in the bed. I thought they used the Jag.” I blink. The Jag. It was Theo’s dad’s pride and joy; it had been impressed upon us all never to go near it. In my mind the Jag was a museum display piece; it hadn’t even occurred to me that it could actually be driven. “As far as I know the police never checked the Jag over because they thought she went to the bus depot; I always wondered if they would have found her DNA in it. And then when she was found in the well, I figured the same logic applied, just without the Jag.”

“Wait—so you never thought that was Severine at the bus depot?”

“No. All the time we were there, do you remember her ever emerging before eleven?”

I think about this, remembering Severine coming out to the pool in her black bikini, a chic canvas bag filled with the paraphernalia required for serious sunbathing, whilst also watching the Severine in my living room settle into a more comfortable position. “True. Sometimes not till lunchtime.”

“Exactly. And with a hangover and a sore head? I doubt we’d have seen her till mid-afternoon.”

I missed that point. I should have thought of it, but I missed it in my eagerness to believe Severine was at the bus depot, that her death had nothing to do with any of us. “What do you think happened now?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he says slowly. “Modan said her bones were damaged. Consistent with a hit-and-run—”

“The Jag!” I exclaim.

“Yes, that’s what I thought. Theo’s dad told me the police have been over every inch of the Jag for evidence; he told me he’d looked up how long it takes DNA to degrade, and apparently it depends on the conditions: takes millions of years in ideal conditions like ice, but not very long in heat or sunlight. The Jag has always been kept under cover in a garage, though, so I expect that means any DNA will be usable. I imagine right now Modan has some lab running tests on any DNA recovered. He’ll be testing against all of us, I bet.”

“It would have to be Caro, Theo or Seb,” I say slowly.

“Yes. I don’t know which one, or even if we’re on the right track.” He sounds strained. “It doesn’t make any sense. You’d have to be gunning the accelerator to hit someone hard enough to kill them, so then it’s hardly an accident anymore.” Now I see Severine, in the same black shift, the sandals still swinging from a single finger, except now she’s caught in headlights, turning in surprise, raising a futile arm to block her face . . . “Which means the police will probably think you have the most obvious motive.”

Jealous rage. Spurned lover. We know so much more now, yet nothing has moved on. I’m still the prime suspect. The movie plays out in my head: Severine tossed up in the air like a rag doll, smashing down on the Jaguar’s windscreen, shattering it in a starburst. I look at the Severine in my armchair. She hasn’t reacted; her eyes are closed, and her head is tipped back against the cushion, as if she’s sunbathing in the dim light of the table lamp and the flickering television. Maybe she is, in her reality. “Wouldn’t there have been some damage to the car, though?”

“You’d think so. Though sometimes in a crash the bumper looks perfect and all the damage is behind that. I don’t know. Seb was hammered; I suppose he could have fallen asleep at the wheel and hit her, but he’s just not that into cars. I can’t imagine him climbing in it in the first place.”

“Theo?” I think again of Alina’s plan. I don’t want to tell Tom about that.

He takes a moment to answer. When he finally speaks up there’s a reluctance infused in every word. “I don’t see it. But I didn’t expect him to sign up for the army, either.” He sighs again. “And Caro doesn’t make sense, either. Nobody does.”

“Except me.” I sink back on my sofa again. “Always me,” I mutter.

“Oh, Kate.” It’s more of a sigh than a sentence. Then, gently: “Are you okay? I’m getting worried about you.”

“No.”

“I—”

“Alina wants us all to blame Theo.” I’ve cut him off with the first thing I can think of, before he can say anything else nice. If he does I’ll cry, and once I start that I won’t stop.

“What?”

I explain about her ambush of me.

“Jesus,” he says when I’ve finished. “But she’s right,” he adds thoughtfully. “It would be the perfect solution. Not to save Seb, though, to save you.”

I’m struck again by his pragmatism. “Could you even . . . Could you actually do that?” I ask hesitantly.

“If it came to that, as a last resort?” He thinks about it seriously. “Yes. I could. I could do it for you.”

I close my eyes, close to tears, touched beyond words that he would choose me over Theo. “When this is over . . . if this is ever over . . .”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to go back to Boston,” I whisper.