Shallow Be Thy Grave (29 page)

And Lily felt like she’d just inherited a whole truckload of stuff she didn’t want. Her mind drooped with all the things she would have to attend to. How the fuck was she going to break this to David?

“We’re going to have to tell David,” she said to Jo, at the same time as her eyes pleaded with Jo to tell her it wasn’t true. 

Stuart joined them. His face was as white as Fiona’s had been and Lily suddenly felt sorry for him. That was his first girlfriend lying on that stone-cold slab in that ice-cold room. The last picture he would ever see of her, of someone who had been so alive, so vital, so bursting with middle-class brightness and goodness. Lily shook her head, had to fight with the idea of asking the policeman if they could go back and check. It must have been a mistake, some kind of brain malfunction, because her little sister, the pain in the arse, couldn’t be dead, because it wouldn’t be fair. She was the younger, brighter sister, the one that should live the longest. The one with health on her side and a good diet, and clear pink skin. The non-smoking, clean-living, little sister.

“I’ve got to go, Lily,” said the female police officer. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ok?”

“Ok.”

“My name is Yvette. Get some sleep. I’ll make sure I’m there, for the interview.”

Lily watched her stride out of the waiting room like she was watching it happen on film.

“How did she die?” asked Jo and Lily was struck by the utter common sense of the question. Of course, how did she die? She was amazed the thought, the question hadn’t occurred to her to ask. How could she have died?

“We’re still waiting for the report,” said the policeman who had brought them to this place, this full stop at the end of a life. “But we think she was hit on the back of the head.”

Stuart turned to the policeman. “When did it happen?”

“We will know more when we have the report.”

“When will that be?”

“By tomorrow.”

“Where did you find her?” asked Jo, while Lily marvelled at both their abilities to ask questions, to form coherent sentences.

“A woman was walking with her dog, in a forest, St Germain, it is to the north west of Paris. It was the dog that discovered the body. She was buried in the woods, in a small pit, covered with leaves and not enough earth. The dog must have smelled her and begun to dig-”

Lily got up and made towards the exit. She didn’t want the details. Even by the doorway she could still hear the questions.

“Do you have any idea who did this?” asked Stuart.

“We would like you to come to the police station tomorrow,” said the policeman. “We will need to take a statement from you. We will know more because we will have the report.”

Lily wanted to shout at him, tell him to stuff his stupid report where the sun didn’t frigging shine. What was the stupid, poxy report going to say that she couldn’t see with her own eyes? What did that matter now? What did any of it matter now? Her sister, her cocky, charming, over-confident sister was dead.

They went back to the flat but there was a team of forensic officers there. Jo’s face was pinched and Lily knew she was worrying about the dope they’d left behind, but she didn’t care. She half hoped she would be sent to prison, for something. It was where she felt she deserved to be. Instead of out here, on the streets of Paris, alive.

They checked into the nearest hotel that obviously made most of its cash from prostitutes taking their clients there, but Lily didn’t mind. She didn’t notice that the sheets weren’t clean on the beds, or that the ashtray was full of fag ends. Lily smoked fag after fag and Jo returned with a bottle of vodka. “Where did you get that?”

“The hotel manager sold it to me.”

They drank it out of plastic mugs that Jo had borrowed from the breakfast tables that had already been laid in the hotel dining room. Lily savoured the warmth of it as the first taste slipped down her throat.

“I can’t believe it,” said Stuart.

“She was dead before we got here,” said Jo. “There was nothing we could have done.”

“I could have answered the phone,” said Lily, aware as she said the words that they would haunt her the rest of her life.

“We weren’t in, Lily. We were at the gig.”

“I could have checked the messages.”

“You still wouldn’t have been able to get hold of her.”

“We could have flown out.”

“Brigitte said she was supposed to take the boxes to storage on Friday. I reckon that means she was killed before then. There’s no way we’d have even got to her in time.”

“I didn’t write to her enough.”

“That doesn’t make you responsible for her death, Lil. That just makes you normal.”

“We have to tell David,” said Lily.

“I’ll tell him,” said Stuart.

Lily looked up at him gratefully and for a moment she had to press her lips together to stop herself blurting out ‘oh would you, please?’ She waited until the moment had passed and then shook her head. “No. It’s my responsibility. It’s my dad, my sister.”

The sun was rising over Paris as she walked down to the telephone kiosks in the Boulevard de Clichy. She didn’t want to ring from the hotel, or anywhere where she could be overheard. Stuart accompanied her, saying nothing, but his presence alone was reassuring. It took thirteen rings before she heard her father’s voice for the first time in over a year. She knew she’d woken him. “Hello?”

“Hi, David, it’s me, Lily.”

“Lily.”

There was a silence and Lily wondered whether he was trying to place her name. She almost said, ‘your daughter’ but it seemed such a stupid thing to say.

“Have you found Fiona?”

Even in that moment, that moment of utter desperation, as she stood on the brink of telling a man his daughter was dead, she felt a twinge of irritation. She hadn’t spoken to him for over a year and still his first thought was for someone else. ‘Don’t ask anything about me then,’ said that nasty voice inside her. She struck it down and prayed for forgiveness for her utter selfishness.

“I’m really sorry,” she said.

“Has something happened to her?”

Lily fought to keep her voice steady. She gripped the receiver until her knuckles went white. “The police have found her, found her body, buried in a wood.”

There was no response down the telephone.

“I’m really sorry. She’s dead.” Maybe if she said it enough times she might start believing it.

Still no response.

“They said she’d been hit on the back of the head by something.”

She wasn’t even sure he was still there. She couldn’t hear him breathe or anything.

“They’ll know more in the morning when they get the report.”

“The report.”

She wasn’t sure whether he was asking her a question. “Yes, the post mortem report. It’ll tell them how she died and hopefully, who did it.” Her voice faltered. “And why.”

“Why.”

“It doesn’t make any sense. She wouldn’t ever hurt a fly.” Lily kicked out at the reinforced glass around her, but her feet didn’t make contact, just struck the air at the bottom of the glass. “Apparently, Brigitte’s family are after Brigitte. Maybe they were trying to get Fi to tell them where Brigitte was. Maybe she got in their way.”

“In their way?” His voice was monotone, devoid of any emotion or inflection.

“There was this guy, we think he might be Brigitte’s uncle. He broke into the flat, while me and Sian, Madame Beaumont, were there. He tried to strangle her.”

“Strangle her?” She swallowed down another wave of irritation. Was he asking questions or just so stunned he couldn’t take any of it in.

She needed more than just the repeating of the end of her sentences. She exhaled, tried to summon up some patience from somewhere. He’s just lost his daughter and his dad, she reminded herself. “I’m sorry, David. I know it must be a terrible shock. And I’m sorry about your dad too. It’s a mess.”

“I’ve got to go,” he said and finally she heard something in his voice appropriate to the situation. She knew shock affected people in different ways. She’d had first-hand experience. But this was like informing a plank of wood its tree was dead.

“What are you going to do?”

He started to cry then.

She could hear the sobs rack his body. “Please don’t,” she begged him. “I’m sorry.”

The phone went dead.

The relief of having done it, got it over with, flooded her body and she sank to the floor. He hadn’t said it was all her fault, and for that she was grateful, although there was no guarantee that wasn’t going to come at some point. Would he get on an aeroplane now? He was supposed to be burying his father in a couple of days.

Stuart came out of the next-door booth. He’d taken on the job of ringing Ruth. It was ten o’clock at night in the States. “She’s going to fly out,” said Stuart. She won’t get here ’til tonight at the earliest. Is David coming?”

“He didn’t say.”

“How did he take it?”

“He barely said a word. Fuck, that was horrible. What about Ruth?”

“Same. She sounded like a child. I had to talk her through getting a ticket to Paris. She was stunned. Bound to be. We all are.”

“She’s only seventeen.” The image of her sister’s body in the morgue filled Lily’s internal screen.

“I know.”

Stuart put his arm round her and led her back to their hotel. They didn't say one word to each other until they were back inside.

“What are we going to do?” asked Stuart, as they stepped inside the lift.

“I know what I’m going to do,” said Lily. “I’m going to find whoever it was that did that to her and then I’m going to kill him.”

“We should get some sleep. And some food. Lily, this is going to take-”

“We’re way ahead of the police. We know who it is. Or at least, we know who the suspects are. Either Beaumont or Brigitte’s fucked up family. And I know where Beaumont is.”

“Let’s just take a minute to calm down,” said Stuart. “We’ve all had a terrible shock.”

“I’m going to go and see him. Find out if it was him.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“If it wasn’t, then Brigitte’s fucked up family obviously found her, and the police can get on with hunting them down. We know the town where she’s from. I hope France has the death penalty.”

“I don’t think it does,” said Stuart.

When they got back to the hotel room, Jo was asleep, fully dressed. Lily didn’t blame her. They hadn’t slept at all that night, and not much the night before. The vodka bottle was already empty. Stuart ordered them hot chocolates from room service, with a shot of whisky in each. They drank them in silence.

“I can’t believe she’s dead. I know I saw her, but I keep thinking maybe I made a mistake. I think I need to go back.”

“Lily, you need to get some sleep. I said we’d go down to the police station about 2 o’clock. They should have the autopsy report by then.”

Lily lay next to Jo on the double bed and smoked another cigarette. Stuart collapsed on the single bed. His eyes were drooping, dark circles underneath them, and Lily reminded herself he hadn’t slept much the night before last either. She turned off the bedside light, the curtains were drawn, and the room was quite dark, despite it being light outside. She waited until she could hear Stuart’s rhythmic breathing and then she let herself quietly out of the hotel room.

It was almost lunchtime by the time Lily banged on the outside of the Beaumont’s thick front door. The temperature was rising, becoming unbearable. The air felt hard to breathe, even though there wasn’t as much traffic on the roads, it being Sunday. Lily’s knuckles screamed as she continued to rap them against the door until Sian pulled it open, her hair loose around her shoulders.

“Lily, I was meaning to come see you.” Sian looked pleased to see her. She was dressed in what were clearly her husband’s pyjamas, hanging off her slender shoulders.

Lily wanted to punch the elegant woman in the teeth. “Where is he?”

“We have resolved our problems. I am a new woman. All is well.”

“My sister’s dead,” Lily pushed past Sian and entered the ornate hallway. “And I need to speak to your husband.”

“Oh my dear goodness,” Sian closed the front door and then ran past Lily and pulled the door to the front room closed, but not before Lily caught a glimpse of Nell, also in pyjamas, watching some French cartoon with the children. Lily allowed Sian to propel her down the corridor towards the kitchen. “What has happened? How did she die?”

“She didn’t die. Someone killed her.” Lily pushed open every door she passed on her way down the hallway. There was no sign of Beaumont.

“Alors!” Sian closed the kitchen door behind them and leant her weight against it, like she was afraid Lily might bolt. “The children…. Oh my God, I can’t believe it. Poor Fiona. And poor you, Lily. I am so very sorry for you and for your family. Oh and your poor mother. Does she come to Paris?”

Lily went to the room at the back of the kitchen, where Sian had disappeared the last time Lily had visited this house. It led into a utility room that looked like a laundry room for a small hotel. How many washing machines did one family need? She turned back into the main room. “Where is he?”

“You can’t possibly think that Philippe has anything to do with this, this terrible thing.”

On the breakfast bar were two empty bottles of champagne and two empty glasses. Lily picked up one of the empty glasses and hurled it against the far wall. It exploded on impact. “Where the fuck is he?”

“You are angry.” Sian flapped around the kitchen like a startled chicken. “I can understand. But I know for a fact he would never do anything like this to harm Fiona.”

“That’s what Sonia Sutcliffe said.”

“Who?” Madame Beaumont looked confused.

“Her husband murdered thirteen women.”

“My husband is a stupid man-”

“Then you’re well matched.”

“Don't you dare-”

“What if Fiona had threatened to tell you about their affair?  What if she’d decided she couldn’t live without him? He might have killed her then, to stop her-”

“But that is not so.” Sian held up a finger to stop Lily from talking. “Lily, I am probably my husband’s biggest critic. He had an affair with a teenager in my own house, right under my attention. He has lied and cheated and stolen from me. I cannot vouch for his character any longer. I hate him. I hate what he has done to me and to my family. But I know he hasn’t killed her.”