Shallow Be Thy Grave (24 page)

“Did you see her a lot at the apartments?”

“Yes. I see her. With Monsieur Chicot. She come on Wednesdays.”

“Only Wednesdays?”

“I don’t work Mondays, or Tuesdays. Maybe Marcel see her more.”

Marcel. Lily had a flash of guilt as she realised she’d completely forgotten about Jo. “Where are they? They’re taking ages.”

“Maybe he want to show her the scenes of Paris.”

Lily wasn’t sure what to make of that statement, but before she could get too worked up about it, Jo and Marcel stepped through the doorway of the cafe and came over to their table. Jo’s cheeks were flushed and Lily got the feeling it wasn’t from the night air.

“You’ve been ages.”

Marcel nodded to the waiter as Jo straightened the waist of her black miniskirt which she was wearing over the top of a pair of black leggings, teamed with calf-length, dark green lace-up boots from Made to Last, a handmade boots cooperative, based just round the corner from their flat in Hyde Park. Was it Lily’s imagination, or was Jo blushing? They both sat down at the table, Marcel taking the seat next to Lily. Alain still had the photograph of Fiona on her own, so Lily passed the one of Brigitte and Fiona to Marcel.

“Oui, c’est Mademoiselle Fontaneau.”

“Fontaneau?” said Lily. She frowned at Jo. “Fiona was using a false name too?”

“Which one?” Jo asked Marcel.

Marcel pointed to Brigitte in the photograph.

“Oh,” said Lily. She paused. “But that’s not Brigitte’s last name. She’s called Chance.”

“She’s bound to have given a false one,” said Jo. “Poor cow probably doesn’t even remember which one is real any more.”

Alain frowned at Marcel and said something in rapid French. Marcel said something back and Alain reached across the table and took the photograph from Marcel’s hands. Marcel nodded at Lily, like he was sure of something. Lily waited for Alain to translate.

“Who is this other girl?” asked Alain.

“She’s called Brigitte. She’s Fiona’s friend. We think they’re together, wherever they are.”

Marcel said something again. Lily looked at Jo and Alain, waiting for either of them to translate. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“He said something about a politician,” said Jo eventually. “I think.”

Lily frowned at Alain and he sighed and then pushed the photograph across the table to Lily. “Marcel says the other girl, Brigitte?” He said it like he was asking a question. Lily nodded. “Is the girlfriend of a man, who works for the Republic Party of France.”

“The Republic Party. Aren’t they like the Tories?” said Jo. “What’s Brigitte doing with a Tory?”

“Politicien,” said Marcel, smiling broadly.

“How do you know?” asked Lily.

Alain spoke to Marcel and then turned back to Lily. “We get important people at the apartments,” said Alain. “People who don’t want hotel staff to know everything about them. You have heard of Catherine Deneuve? She has top floor house. The penthouse, n’cest pas? And one time we had Jean-Jacques Burnel. You know him?”

“Sure, the Stranglers,” said Jo, reaching for the sugar and pouring three heaped teaspoons into her tiny coffee cup. “So, who’s the politician?”

 Marcel said something else, looking at Jo, like she could understand every word. Jo nodded sagely, but Lily knew she had no idea what he’d just said.

“Marcel,” said Alain, “he take every Monday, food to the apartment. Here, I am not working. Most days it is the girl, Brigitte, who answers the door. But one time it is this man. The politician.”

“To the same apartment? 411?” asked Lily.

“How does he know he’s a politician?” Jo interrupted.

“Because the brother of Marcel is, how do you say, he takes the pictures for the newspapers and Marcel, sometimes he gets extra money by helping him.”

“Bit risky then, for him to be taking a young girl to a flat for sex.”

“Not many people would recognise this man, I think. He was nobody important until a month or so ago.”

“And what happened a month or so ago?”

“He became ‘Ministre de la Justice’ but his party is not in power. He is like the practice Minister. What do you call this?”

“Shadow,” said Jo. “Shadow Minister.”

“Shadow. This is a good word. This is like this man. A shadow. He is watching, waiting for his turn.”

“Shit,” Lily let out a long gasp of air. “So, Brigitte’s best client is now the Shadow Minister for Justice?”

Marcel pushed his cup of coffee to one side and said something else. Lily glanced at Alain for translation. Alain’s dark eyes gleamed back at her. “Marcel say since he become the Shadow, he not come to apartments. The last time he take food to this girl was since before six weeks.”

“Jesus Christ. How does a Shadow Minister of the Government end up having sex with a prostitute?” Lily breathed out heavily.

“Careful, Lil,” said Jo. “You’re starting to sound like Stuart. It’s better to ask, how does someone who’s paying for sex end up as a Shadow Minister for Justice? Don’t they run any kind of checks on these people?”

 “Is he married?”

“I would think so,” said Alain. He asked Marcel a few questions in French and then turned back to Lily and nodded. “All politicians are married. They like to show they are family people. Especially the ones on the right.”

“Hell on earth,” said Jo, pulling her notebook out of her satchel. “That gives us another suspect. Maybe their disappearance has got nothing to do with Brigitte’s family. Minister of Justice paying for sex with an illegal immigrant, teenage prostitute?”

“Shadow,” said Lily.

“He’s still not going to want it to get out. I know the French are a bit more laid back about these kind of things, but even so.”

Alain’s dark eyebrows were knitted together. “You know she is a prostitute?”

“Well, let’s just say, it’s been said,” said Jo.

Alain appeared confused and Marcel was watching the door, obviously not following the conversation. “Actually,” said Lily, “we don’t know. She might have been more of a mistress? Would that make a difference? I mean in the eyes of the French?”

“In France, all sex is good,” he paused, allowing the full implications of what he’d just said to seep into Lily’s imagination. “But immigration is not. Le Pen is stirring up the racism, and now, with the fall of the East, everyone is concerned about people coming to take the jobs. Even though the jobs are shit. Also, they are frightened by Germany coming together again. It is a political, how do you say, hot tomato?”

Lily giggled. She couldn’t help herself. It was a mixture of fear, excitement and caffeine.

“I’m sorry,” he rang his fingers through his long fringe. “My English-”

“Is a hundred times better than my French,” said Lily, quickly.

“I think we need to go and see this guy,” said Jo. “What’s his name?”

“It is almost three o’clock in the morning,” said Alain. “This is not the time for social calls. Why don’t you come back to my apartment? It is only around the corner from here. We can drink coffee and maybe have a sleep and then tomorrow morning you can go and visit Monsieur Billiet.”

Lily pulled a face. She’d never been invited to a guy’s house to sleep before, and she was pretty sure there was only one direction that was headed, but before she could answer, she heard Jo say, “That sounds like a plan.”

Lily pulled another face, this time at Jo. But Jo just pulled one back and turned to Alain. “How will we find out where this guy, did you say Billiet, lives?”

“Marcel’s brother may be able to help us with that information.”

Alain’s flat was larger than Brigitte’s. It had a sitting room, or rather a kitchen that was divided into two rooms by a breakfast bar. The half of the room that didn’t have the kitchen worktops was carpeted and contained a couple of sofas and a TV. On one wall hung a map of the world and on another, a framed series of photographs. Alain noticed Lily peering at them. “Thailand,” he said, pointing to a picture of a beach hut that looked like it was built from bamboo, and a jade green sea with the sun setting low behind it. “Beautiful place.”

Jo unlaced her boots and made herself comfortable on the sofa.  Lily spotted a couple of blankets over the arm and she thought if she could just wrap herself up in one of these for a few hours it would suffice for sleep. She’d slept for a few hours on the train back from Amsterdam, but that felt like a lifetime ago.

“Do you like whisky?” asked Alain.

“Do bears shit in the woods?” asked Jo.

The Frenchman laughed. He bought a tray into the front room with four shot glasses and a bottle of whisky. On the tray was also a mirror and a small white piece of paper, folded over so it was like a small envelope - an envelope from fairy town.

Lily had never taken Class As before. She didn’t know anyone with enough money to buy them for one thing. The lads on the estate had stuck to glue and aerosols, which had never appealed. Since starting at polytechnic, she’d had a couple of dabs of speed on the odd occasions. But that was all.

“Do you like cocaine?”

Alain settled himself on the settee next to Jo and placed the tray on the table in front of him. He rolled up a banknote and efficiently hoovered up a thin white line of powder. Marcel did the same. Lily felt her eyes widening as she looked at Jo. Jo was grinning, but trying to look cool.

As soon as the powder hit the top of Lily’s nose, she felt like she was going to be sick. She could taste it at the back of her throat and the taste was disgusting. Chemical, like toilet cleaner or something. Seconds later though, her skin was tingling, and she felt better than she had all year. A minute after that, she felt alive, confident, strong. Alain put some music on and the beats made her legs start jigging.

They snorted another four lines over the next couple of hours. The language barrier slipped away and when Alain kissed her in the kitchen, Lily was so desperate with desire for him she surprised herself. If Jo and Marcel hadn’t been in the other room, she would have had him right there and right then, up against the cooker. As it was, he pulled her fingers off him, as she clawed at his T-shirt, then led her through to his bedroom.

It was a dark, masculine room, but Lily didn’t notice. She didn’t notice that there was nothing on the floor or that the blinds were already drawn. She didn’t notice the soft lighting, or the framed print of the Himalayas above the bed. She’d never felt such desire, she wanted to bite him, taste him. She pulled at his shirt, he laughed, lifted it up over his head, his chest muscles flexing, his torso olive brown. His stomach was flat, dark hairs just starting to show above the belt of his jeans. She kissed his neck, his chest, could taste the saltiness of his skin. When he peeled her clothes off, she was momentarily embarrassed by the whiteness of her skin next to his. She looked pale, thin, undernourished compared to him.

His nipples were dark brown against his skin. Hers were like pale pink raspberries against vanilla ice cream. The veins in his biceps were clearly defined, running ridges in his skin.

But then he told her she was beautiful, whispering against her ear, his tongue warm and wet, and she believed him. She felt like a sex goddess, a bizarre feeling for her, especially as she’d hardly had any sex in the past eighteen months. Not since Stuart, and she hadn’t even had sex with him. They’d spent the night together, kissed a few times, but that was as far as it went. She opened her eyes and forced herself to concentrate on the man in front of her, the man whose six-pack she could have exfoliated herself against.

It was as if someone had lifted the lid on all those sexual feelings she’d kept suppressed. All that energy spent not having sex with Stuart, all that repression suddenly erupted, burst out of her like a gale force wind, sweeping her up, carrying her along. She was helpless in its pull, put her head back and laughed out loud as he kissed her breasts, his hand on the small of her back, pulling her, arching, towards him.

They were still awake as the sun came up over Paris and Lily felt a sense of peace that she couldn’t remember having experienced before. They were smoking a lot of dope to cover the come down, but she didn’t feel battered. She felt like finally, maybe, she’d discovered a place where she belonged. Once they found Fiona, perhaps they could both live here in the city. Fiona was going to be studying at the University of Paris. Maybe she could help Lily find a language course here. Lily was sure she could learn to speak French, and then she’d never need to go back to England.

They got dressed, well, Alain did. Lily just pulled Alain’s shirt over a pair of pants, loving the smell of him wrapped around her body. The curtains were still open in the front room and from their position on the sixth floor, Lily could see the whole of Paris stretching away into the distance. The sun was already up in the sky and the bright light made Lily’s eyes hurt. Jo lay on the settee, on her back, with her head on Marcel’s lap. He was stroking her hair as Jo built a spliff on her stomach. Jo smiled inanely at Lily.

“I have to go to work,” said Alain.

“Work?” said Lily, genuinely horrified. “Man, that’s terrible.”

“Me also,” said Marcel, and they all laughed because it was the first English he’d spoken the whole night.

“See,” said Jo. “You’ve learnt English!”

Marcel grinned his big cheesy smile, the whites of his teeth against his dark skin startling to Lily. She wanted to hug him. What fantastic people. She put her hand up Alain’s shirt, caressed his stomach muscles. “Do we have to go?”

“Non, ma cherie,” said Alain, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You can stay here for as long as you like. There are croissants in the kitchen. You still be here after I get back?”

“We might have a kip,” said Jo. “If that’s ok. Then we’d better see if we can track down the politician guy.”

Alain said something to Marcel, then switched to English. “If you come to the apartments this afternoon, Marcel will try to get an address for you. Ok?”

“Ok,” said Lily. The last vestiges of coke in her system were making her skin tingle every time he looked at her. She could feel her insides shaking. She tried not to let herself think what Stuart was thinking. Probably, hopefully he was asleep. She could deal with that later. Right now, all that mattered was smoking another spliff to try to get her shakes under control.