Shallow Be Thy Grave (17 page)

“Brigitte?” asked Lily, clinging on to some kind of vague hope. She was rubbish at recognising faces, particularly of people she didn’t know, and she’d only ever seen Brigitte in a couple of photographs. But even Lily could see this woman was nearer forty than twenty. The woman ignored Lily, tilted her head the other way, as if there was a bad smell in the air. The two security guards stood to one aside, allowing her to leave the lift and clatter her way across the marbled floor of the communal hallway. Lily seized her opportunity and dashed into the lift, pressing the fourth floor button, but one of the doorman placed a heavy boot in between the doors to stop them from closing. Once the woman had left the building, they leaned in and grabbed an elbow each and propelled Lily in the same direction.

“Fascist,” she shouted to the elderly doorman who’d betrayed her, as the younger men pushed through the revolving doors, her feet not even touching the ground.

They held her elbows so tightly she couldn’t move her arms. She kicked her legs and felt satisfied each time one of her feet connected with a security guard. It did nothing to slow her exit.

Lily had been ejected from places in the past, but never so gracefully. She was like a ballerina, weightless, toes pointed, trying to connect with the floor. They didn’t even let her go on the pavement, instead took her down an alley, past the side entrance to a café and a load of dustbins. Memories of Amsterdam swirled in her brain and made her scream, only no sound came out. It was only when they’d got a few hundred yards down the passage that they let her go.  The thud as her feet hit the floor seemed to connect her mouth to her vocal cords. “How dare you?”

“You cannot be shouting in the building,” said the younger of the two, his dark fringe having fallen over his face in the effort of carrying Lily outside.

“The people here pay for discreet. Not for circus acts,” the other one said, looking at her with disdain. She could see him take in her dreads. She tried to make herself as tall as possible, a trick she’d seen Jo pull off a few times. She didn’t feel tall though, just desperate. The older of the two security guards gave her a dismissive glance and marched his way back towards the main street, back to the entrance of the apartment building. The younger one hovered for a moment, glancing at her with what Lily felt might be some sympathy. “You have lost your sister?”

More dread poured into Lily’s stomach while she tried to remind herself he was asking a question not stating a fact. “Fiona,” she said, her voice quieter. “Do you know her? She used to come here to meet Monsieur Beaumont. I know that for a fact.”

He shook his head. “I think maybe you have the wrong place. There is no Monsieur Beaumont here.”

Stuart had taken the photograph of Brigitte, Grace and Fiona to show to people as he knocked on doors in the neighbourhood, but Lily had the picture of Fiona and her, riding the log flume at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, tucked in her wallet. The photograph was over a year old and she’d carried it everywhere with her since, so its edges were frayed, the picture dented. The security guard stared at the picture, hesitated.

“You know her?”

He nodded. “I think, maybe she has been here, yes. But I haven’t seen her for a long time. She is a, a friend of Monsieur Chirot.”

“She’s my sister. She’s seventeen.”

The guy shook his head, like he didn’t approve of Monsieur Chirot.

“Which one is his apartment?”

“I cannot tell you that. Here, the apartments, they are mostly for men, the old men, and their… friends.” He shrugged his shoulders. “It is how it is.”

“Please,” said Lily. She surprised herself by putting a hand on his arm. She never initiated physical contact, not with anyone. “I’ve got to find her.”

“Sorry,” he shook his head and took a few steps in the direction of the main road.

Lily raised her voice and called after him, “Her grandfather’s died. It’s the funeral.”

He turned back, held both his hands out, palms upward. “I am sorry for you and for your sister.”

A long whistle came from the end of the alley. The first security guard was looking down the way at them, a puzzled expression on his face. He called to his mate, something in French, which Lily took to mean, ‘what’s keeping you?’

“Please,” Lily said again. “I’m begging you.”

The younger guard turned to leave. “It won’t help you. You won’t be able to get in there.”

Lily assumed her most beseeching look, tried to let the desperation that was in her stomach well out of her eyes.  She stopped short of throwing herself at his feet and wrapping her arms around his legs, but only just.

He stared at her, looked up the street to his mate, who gestured to him.  He looked back at Lily and spoke quietly. “It’s Apartment 411. Don’t tell anyone I told you this is the case.”

Lily sat in the side doorway of the café and smoked three cigarettes, one after the other. The fact that she was so close, yet so far away, was infuriating to her but she couldn’t think of any way to get past the doorman. She could see the entrance to the apartment building from her vantage point, but not the inside. She watched as a courier pulled up on his bicycle, holding on to the rear bumper of a low truck then letting go as he came to a stop at the pavement. Nutter. She decided to make her way back to the flat. Perhaps Jo or Stuart would be able to think of something.

As she strolled down the main road, back towards the Metro station, she passed a pavement café. The sun was shining, a beautiful, warm May afternoon, the heat just a whisker away from overbearing. It seemed half of Paris was sitting at the pavement tables, drinking in the sunshine and the afternoon air. As she approached, she noticed a woman, staring in the direction that Lily had just come from. It took Lily’s brain a second to make the connection. Madame Beaumont, sitting alone, work suit on, a file open on the table in front of her, but paying no attention to it. Lily walked past, argued with herself, turned around and went back to the table. “Hello,” she said uncertainly, “Madame Beaumont?”

Lily was used to being recognised within seconds, usually way before she’d connected the person who’d recognised her. She had a terrible memory for faces, although, for some strange reason, a really good one for phone numbers. In fact, once a number had been written down, it was indelibly inscribed in her brain, and could never be erased. Faces she found much harder. If her own mother were to change her hairstyle (not that she ever did) it would take Lily’s brain a few seconds to catch on and re-file her mental notes (Fat and short hair). The problem was she didn’t see in pictures, she saw in words, or better still numbers.  She’d once spent a good part of an evening talking to some bloke, sensing, but unable to understand, his growing resentment, until he’d finally snapped, ‘You have no idea who I am, do you?’ By the time she’d got him to tell her they’d gone to the same school, been in the same class, and she’d remembered they’d had a couple of snogging sessions aged about thirteen, the damage was done. He’d stormed out of the pub with some line about how he hoped she got her head sorted out one day.

Madame Beaumont, however, was staring at her like she had no idea who Lily was. Lily coughed, unaccustomed to being the ice-breaker, the initiator of social contact. She wondered for a moment what on earth had possessed her to approach the well-groomed French woman.

“Lily,” Lily said. And then, when Madame Beaumont’s expression didn’t change, “Fiona’s sister.”

“Of course.”  Madame Beaumont seemed to pull herself together. “You must forgive me. I am thinking of other things.”

“You haven’t heard from Fiona?”

“No, of course not.” Her brow creased, and her face lost its attractiveness. She closed the file on the table in front of her. “If I hear of anything from her, I will of course tell you about it. But for now, I’m very busy.”

Lily glanced at the closed file and the half empty glass of white wine and then back at the elegant French woman. “You don’t know where I am.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“How will you contact me, if you hear from Fiona?”

 Madame Beaumont signalled to the waiter, and a moment later a bill was placed on the table next to her. She opened a purse, pulled out a banknote and laid it on top of the bill. She stood up. “I was just leaving. I have a meeting. ”

Funny, thought Lily. That was what Monsieur Beaumont had said to her – seemed like days ago, but actually was only this morning. Meetings. A code-word for, ‘I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing’? Strange that she was having a meeting not five hundred yards from her husband’s illicit love nest. Unless of course, her husband brought her here too. Lily had heard that the French were more ‘laissez faire’ about sex, particularly extra-marital sex, but even so.

“I, I wanted to ask you a few more questions,” said Lily, wishing for all the world that she’d not decided to turn back.

“Can you ask me these questions while we are walking?” Madame Beaumont stood up, threw one glance back in the direction that Lily had just come from and then started purposefully in the opposite direction.

“Ok,” said Lily, trotting along side her, wondering how to approach the subject tactfully. “Er, were you, er, pissed off, when Fiona left?”

“What is pissed off? I was angry with her of course, because I worry about the boys and the upset. But a person can leave their job, after all.”

“Did you,” Lily began and then paused. She was already feeling breathless trying to match Madame Beaumont’s pace. “Did you have any concerns about, about anything?”

Madame Beaumont didn’t answer. Didn’t appear to even hear the question. Lily screwed up her courage and stopped, stood still. She was sick of feeling like a little kid trying to catch up with its mother. She raised her voice, “Did you know about Fiona and your husband?”

Madame Beaumont stopped and Lily worried for a moment that this was in order to smack her in the face and for a moment Madame Beaumont stared at her like she was considering it. But she didn’t. She began walking again, only faster.

“I’m sorry,” said Lily. And for a moment she did feel sorry. Sorry for destroying this woman’s image of her husband. “But I need to find my sister.”

Madame Beaumont wheeled around. “And what has this got to do with my husband?”

“I don’t know,” said Lily, quailing slightly under the older woman’s fiery gaze. ‘If in doubt, lie’, a catchphrase of Jo’s, came to mind. She took a deeper breath before continuing. Madame Beaumont was poised to turn and continue walking but Lily raised her voice after her. “Jo has gone to the police. And I’m sure they’d be quite interested to talk to a forty year-old man who’s been having an affair with a sixteen year-old girl.”

That got Madame Beaumont’s attention. She turned back to Lily. “This is all lies.”

“We’ve got her diaries.”

“The stupid fantasies of a lovesick teenager.”

“So, you knew she was having fantasies about your husband?”

“You are so young,” said Madame Beaumont, spittle flying from her lips. “I envy you. For you the world is black and white and you are invincible. So it was for me when I was your age. You have a long way to fall. I only hope it doesn’t break your bones.”

She stormed off down the street. Lily watched her go for a moment, then broke into a run after her. She could only run for about six paces before her lungs felt like they were on fire, so she stopped running and shouted, “It doesn’t matter how old I am. A middle-aged bloke having sex with a sixteen year-old girl is sick. I’ll still think the same when I’m fifty.”

Madame Beaumont stopped marching and turned back to face her. She advanced on Lily, “You don’t know this is true.”

Lily held up her fingers and counted her points off, one by one. Index finger, “It’s in Fiona’s diary.” Middle finger. “Her friend Grace told me. She’s been to the flat where they meet.”

Madame Beaumont’s eyes flickered back up the street and Lily couldn’t ignore the coincidence any longer, it suddenly planted itself at the front of her brain. “That’s why you’re here isn’t it, to catch him at it? The flat’s only there,” she pointed up the road.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Madame Beaumont’s voice was quieter now, not so shrill.

Lily bent back the third finger, her ring finger on her left hand. “I spoke to your husband,” she said quietly.

“Liar.”

Lily looked up and down the street and saw a hotel with seats outside two blocks down. “Why don’t we go and sit down somewhere?”

“So you can tell me more lies?”

Lily wrestled with her conscience. A picture of Fiona, when she first saw her, those stupid pigtails and her school uniform, it didn’t even seem that long ago – eighteen months - the schoolgirl oblivious to everything, Walkman on, oblivious to the fact she had a half-sister, oblivious to the fact her dad wasn’t Superman, oblivious to the lies, the cheating. Lily wished for a moment she could turn back the hands of the clock, go back to that first time she’d seen her and have just walked away. Instead she’d let her anger and her jealousy explode and everything that had happened since was a result of that moment of deciding not to walk away - to not let sleeping dogs lie.

She looked back at Madame Beaumont. She kept her voice low and monotone. “He was hanging around outside Brigitte’s flat. He took me to a bar. Bought me a shot of this disgusting aniseed drink. Began with P.” Lily knew then that she had the woman’s attention. The devil was in the detail, as Aunt Edie always said. “He told me he was having an affair with Fiona. He thinks she’s left Paris because she’s broken-hearted he won’t leave you. And what he said to me was he wants her back.”

Madame Beaumont flinched at the words, seemed to shrink in front of Lily’s gaze.

Lily shrugged, “Like I said. Sick.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I don’t want anything from you,” said Lily. Which was true. She didn’t want to take anything from this woman. Her needs were simple. “I need to find my sister.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

“Your husband has a flat in that building over there. Under the name of Monsieur Chirot.”

“Monsieur Chirot?” Madame Beaumont’s head jerked. “How do you know this?”