The French Girl(91)
“It’s useless.” Even to me, I sound hollow.
“Not at all,” says Modan, seeming oddly pleased. I suddenly realize even PC Stone is almost smiling. “We hear two people, two women, speaking. If we can hear this much, the technicians will be able to do a great deal with this, oui?” PC Stone nods in agreement, then Modan turns back to me. “Bravo, Madame.” Madame. It gives me a jolt. I am madame now, whereas Severine will always be the mademoiselle next door. It takes the edge off the swelling hope that perhaps all is not lost after all.
“Though, I have to say,” interjects the British policeman, somewhat reluctantly, his face returning to its usual granite, “it’s not strictly legal to record a conversation without permission.”
“It was an accident,” offers Tom, deadpan. “She often has the Dictaphone in her pocket, and it’s quite easy to knock it on.” I nod furiously, despite the fact that I only use the Dictaphone perhaps once or twice a month.
“Is that so?” says PC Stone dryly. He looks at Modan.
“An accident,” says Modan, his eyes gleaming. He spreads his hands wide. “A happy accident. These things happen, oui?”
“I suppose they do,” says his colleague reluctantly, though I can see a corner of his mouth twitching as he climbs to his feet. “Right, we’d better get that to the technicians. No promises, but I’m hopeful . . . if we can just at least prove she was there . . .” Tom and I watch them depart, looking even more like a comedy duo now that there is a lightness to their mood.
“It won’t work, you know,” says Tom gently. I turn to him with eyebrows raised. The bleakness hasn’t left his eyes. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. They might arrest her, but they won’t nail her for it.”
“Why do you say that?”
He sighs. “Because she’s Caro. She’ll get the best legal representation money can buy; her dad will make sure of that. You’d need physical evidence and a sworn confession to convict her; nothing less will do. And they don’t have the first, and I’m pretty sure, even after the police do their technical wizardry, that tape won’t amount to a sworn confession. I could be wrong, but . . .”
I stare at him while I think it through. Did she actually confess? It’s hard to pick through my fragmented memory. Enough to fell an elephant. So she did confess, but will the tape have caught it? Where was she standing when she said that? Where was I? I don’t remember; it’s slipped through a crack. “So that’s it. You think she gets away with it.” He nods unhappily. I try to fit the pieces together myself, to come up with a different answer, but I can’t. The injustice hollows me out. I ought to want to rail at something, or someone, but who or what? “So she gets away with it and I get left with nothing,” I say dully at last.
“Well,” he says, taking my hand and staring at it intently. “Not exactly nothing, I hope.” He looks up, and the intensity in his gaze steals my breath. “It tore me in pieces to see you in here. I can’t imagine what the hell I’ve been playing at, waiting on the sidelines all these years. I don’t intend to wait a single second more.”
I stare at him. Tom, my Tom, the Tom I should have always known he was. “All these years?”
“All these years.” There’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“But you’ve slept with Lara!” I don’t know why I’m throwing up obstacles given that I adore this man.
He rolls his eyes. “I was twenty-one and my cousin was sleeping with my dream girl. Sure, I was madly, unbelievably jealous, but that didn’t make me a monk. And anyway, you’ve slept with my cousin, many times. That’ll be much harder to explain round the family table at Christmas.”
“We haven’t even slept together yet,” I muse thoughtfully.
He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d love to remedy that immediately, but the nursing staff might not be so keen on the idea. But our first kiss held definite promise . . .” He holds my gaze, and something moves between us, a current that thickens the air into something solid enough to lean into. “So,” he whispers, in a low murmur that takes me right back to that dark, delicious corridor, “are you in?”
“I’m in,” I whisper, and then he’s kissing me, and I find I am feeling very much better indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Time passes. I can’t keep it or save it or mark it—the ribbon slips through my fingers regardless. And time shows that Tom is right, of course: the Dictaphone tape is cleaned up, but not all of it is audible. Crucially, not the part where Caro confessed to dumping roofies in my wine, if that confession truly happened at all, though it remains fixed in my memory. Despite the lack of confession, the police question Caro, and they even find her drug dealer (the unexpected casualty in all of this, as his is the only actual arrest); they leave no stone unturned. It is my repeated and most fervent wish that this investigation has completely annihilated any chances of Caro making partner this time round; surely, even more than the Severine investigation, it must be diverting her attention from that process? But in the face of the finest legal representation money can buy (Tom was right on that, too), the decision is made not to prosecute.
By that point, I am back at work—hollow cheeked but clear-eyed, with most of my cracks papered over. Paul did an admirable job of holding the Channing Associates fort in my absence by the remarkably sensible solution of promoting Julie to work alongside him and hiring a temporary secretary. Julie, it turns out, loves the role, and I can’t bring myself to demote her, so now I am up a head count with zero prospect of raising any new contracts given the impending tidal wave of gossip that is no doubt beginning to circulate. We are diligently working out the contracts we do have, but every time I talk with Paul I find myself imagining scales behind his eyes, weighing up the best time to jump. Still, I’m actually relieved to have Julie in place; the first few weeks back at work are incredibly exhausting, and I barely pull my weight. Neither of them quite understand what happened, though I suspect Tom may have told Paul more than I realize; anyway, in communications to clients Paul wisely blamed my hospitalization on an accidental blow to the head and left the rest well alone.