The Girl You Left Behind (40 page)

She waits until Mo has vanished into the
crowd. The commuters wash around and past her, a stepping-stone in a stream of people.
They are all in pairs, arms linked, chatting, casting fond, excited looks at each other,
or if alone, head down, determinedly heading home to the person they love. She sees
wedding bands, engagement rings, hears snatches of murmured conversations about train
times, last-minute pints of milk, and
Can you pick me up from the station?
Afterwards she will think sensibly about the many people who dread the partner they
return to, look for excuses not to board the train, hide in bars. But for now the bored
people, the miserable people, the other lonely people are invisible. She reads the crowd
as if it can only be an affront to her single state. I was one of you once, she thinks,
and can’t quite imagine what it would be like to be one of them again.

I never knew real happiness until you.

The departure board flickers its new
destinations, the glass-fronted shops packed with late Christmas shoppers. Is it ever
possible to be the person you once were? she wonders. And before she can be completely
paralysed by the answer, Liv takes hold of her suitcase and half walks, half runs to the
Underground station.

There is a peculiar quality to the silence
in the flat when Jake has gone back to his mother. It is a solid, weighty thing,
entirely different from the quiet that occurs when
he goes to a
friend’s for a few hours. The acute stillness of his home in those hours is, he
sometimes thinks, tinged with guilt; a sense of failure. It is weighed down by the
knowledge that there is no chance his son will come back for at least four days. Paul
finishes clearing up the kitchen (Jake had been making chocolate Krispie cakes – puffed
rice is scattered under every kitchen appliance) – then sits, staring at the Sunday
paper he picks up each week out of habit and invariably fails to read.

In the early days after Leonie left, he
dreaded the early mornings most. He hadn’t known how much he loved the irregular
pad of little Jake’s bare feet and the sight of him, his hair standing on end, his
eyes half closed, appearing in their bedroom to demand to climb in between them. The
exquisite icy chill of his feet; the warm, yeasty scent of his skin. That visceral
sense, once his son had burrowed into the middle of their bed, that all was well with
the world. And then, after they’d gone, those early months of waking up alone,
feeling as if each morning simply heralded another day he would miss of his son’s
life. Another series of little adventures or accidents, the mosaic of unremarkable
events that would help turn him into who he would become – and that Paul would have no
part of.

Paul was better at mornings now (not least
because, at nine, Jake rarely woke up before he did) but the first few hours after
he’d gone back to Leonie still had the power to disarm.

He’ll iron some shirts. Maybe go to
the gym, then take a shower and eat. Those few things will give the evening a shape. A
couple of hours of television, maybe a flick
through his files, just
to make sure everything’s shipshape for the case, and then he’ll sleep.

He’s just finishing the shirts when
the telephone rings.

‘Hey,’ says Janey.

‘Who is this?’ he says, even
though he knows exactly who it is.

‘It’s me,’ she says,
trying to keep the slight affront from her voice. ‘Janey. Just thought I’d
check in and see how we’re fixed for tomorrow.’

‘We’re good,’ he says.
‘Sean has been through all the paperwork. The barrister is prepped. We’re as
good as we can be.’

‘Did we get any more on the initial
disappearance?’

‘Not much. But we have enough
third-party correspondence to hang a pretty large question mark over it.’

There is a short silence at the other end of
the line.

‘Brigg and Sawston’s are setting
up their own tracing agency,’ she says.

‘Who?’

‘The auction house. Another string to
their bow, apparently. They have big backers too.’

‘Damn.’ Paul gazes at the pile
of paperwork on his desk.

‘They’ve already started
speaking to other agencies about staff. They’re picking off ex-members of the Art
and Antiques Squad apparently.’ He hears the hidden question. ‘Anyone with a
background in detective work.’

‘Well, they haven’t approached
me.’

There is a brief silence. He wonders if she
believes him.

‘We have to win this case, Paul. We
need to make sure
we’re out there in front. That we’re
the go-to people for finding and returning lost treasures.’

‘I get it,’ he says.

‘I just … I want you to know
how important you are. To the company, I mean.’

‘Like I said, Janey, nobody’s
approached me.’

Another brief silence.

‘Okay.’ She talks on for a bit,
telling him about her weekend, the trip to her parents’, a wedding she’s
been invited to in Devon. She talks about the wedding for so long that he wonders if
she’s plucking up the courage to invite him, and he changes the subject firmly.
Finally she rings off.

Paul puts on some music, turns up the volume
in an attempt to drown the noise of the street below. He has always loved the buzz, the
vitality of living in the West End, but he has learned over the years that, if
he’s not in the right frame of mind, its in-your-face revelry serves only to
heighten the inherent melancholy of Sunday night. He presses the volume button. He knows
why it is, but he won’t acknowledge it. There’s little point in thinking
about something you can’t change.

He has just finished washing his hair when
he becomes dimly aware of the door buzzer. He swears, fumbles for a towel and wipes his
face. He would go downstairs in a towel but he has a feeling it’s Janey. He
doesn’t want her to think this is an invitation.

He is already rehearsing his excuses as he
heads down the stairs, his T-shirt sticking to his damp skin.

Sorry, Janey, I’m just on my way out.

Yeah. We must discuss this at work. We should call a meeting, get everyone
involved.

Janey. I think you’re great. But this really isn’t a good idea.
I’m sorry.

He opens the front door with this last one
almost on his lips. But it isn’t Janey.

Liv Halston stands in the middle of the
pavement, clutching a weekend bag. Above her, strings of festive lights bejewel the
night sky. She drops her holdall at her feet, and her pale, serious face gazes up at him
as if she has briefly forgotten what she had wanted to say.

‘The case starts tomorrow,’ he
says, when she still doesn’t speak. He can’t stop looking at her.

‘I know.’

‘We’re not meant to talk to each
other.’

‘No.’

‘We could both get in a lot of
trouble.’

He stands there, waiting. Her expression is
so tense, framed by the collar of her thick black coat, her eyes flickering as if a
million conversations are taking place inside her that he cannot know. He begins an
apology. But she speaks first.

‘Look. I know this probably
doesn’t make any sense, but could we possibly forget about the case? Just for one
evening?’ Her voice is too vulnerable. ‘Could we just be two people
again?’

It is the slight catch in her voice that
breaks him. Paul McCafferty makes as if to speak, then leans forward and picks up her
suitcase, dragging it into the hallway. Before either of them can change their mind, he
pulls her to him, wraps his arms tightly around her and stays there until the outside
world goes away.

‘Hey, sleepyhead.’

She pushes herself upright, slowly
registering where she is. Paul is sitting on the bed, pouring coffee into a mug. He
hands it to her. He seems astonishingly awake. The clock says 6:32 a.m. ‘I brought
you some toast too. I thought you might want time to go home before …’

Before …

The case. She takes a moment to let this
thought penetrate. He waits while she rubs her eyes, then leans over and kisses her
lightly. He has brushed his teeth, she notes, and feels briefly self-conscious that she
hasn’t.

‘I didn’t know what you wanted
on your toast. I hope jam’s okay.’ He picks it off the tray.
‘Jake’s choice. Ninety-eight per cent sugar or something.’

‘Thank you.’ She blinks at the
plate on her lap. She cannot remember the last time anybody brought her breakfast in
bed.

They gaze at each other. Oh, my, she thinks,
remembering the previous night. All other thoughts disappear. And, as if he can read her
mind, Paul’s eyes crinkle at the corners.

‘Are you … coming back
in?’ she says.

He shifts over to her, so that his legs,
warm and solid, are entwined in hers. She moves so that he can place his arm around her
shoulders, then leans into him and closes her eyes, just relishing the feel of it. He
smells warm and sleepy. She just wants to rest her face against his skin and stay there,
breathing him in until her lungs are entirely full of tiny molecules of Paul. She has a
sudden recollection of a boy she dated as a teenager; she had adored him. When they had
finally kissed, she had been shocked to
find that his skin, his hair,
all of him, had smelt wrong. It was as if some fundamental part of him was chemically
composed to repel her. Paul’s skin – she could just lie there and inhale it, like
really good scent.

‘You okay?’

‘Better than okay,’ she says.
She takes a sip of coffee.

‘I have a new love for Sunday
evenings. I can’t imagine why.’

‘Sunday evenings are definitely
underrated.’

‘As are unexpected visitors. I was a
little worried you were Jehovah’s Witnesses.’ He thinks. ‘Although if
Jehovah’s Witnesses did what you did last night I’m guessing they’d
get a lot better reception.’

‘You should tell them.’

‘I may just do that.’

There is a long silence. They listen to the
dustcart reversing outside, the muffled clash of the bins, eating toast in companionable
silence.

‘I missed you, Liv,’ he
says.

She tilts her head and rests against him.
Outside, two people are talking loudly in Italian. Her muscles ache pleasurably, as if
she has let go of some long-held tension that she had barely been aware of. She feels
like someone she had forgotten. She wonders what Mo would say about this, then smiles
when she realizes she knows the answer.

And then Paul’s voice breaks into the
silence: ‘Liv – I’m afraid this case is going to bankrupt you.’

She stares at her mug of coffee.

‘Liv?’

‘I don’t want to talk about the
case.’

‘I’m not going to talk about it
in any … detail. I just have to tell you I’m worried.’

She tries to smile. ‘Well, don’t
be. You haven’t won yet.’

‘Even if you win. It’s a lot of
money on legal fees. I’ve been here a few times so I have a good idea what
it’s costing you.’ He puts down his mug, takes her hand in his. ‘Look.
Last week I talked to the Lefèvre family in private. My fellow director, Janey,
doesn’t even know about it. I explained a little of your situation, told them how
much you love the painting, how unwilling you are to let her go. And I got them to agree
to offer you a proper settlement. A serious settlement, a good six figures. It would
cover your legal fees so far and then some.’

Liv stares at their hands, her own enfolded
in his. Her mood evaporates. ‘Are you … trying to persuade me to back
down?’

‘Not for the reasons you
think.’

‘What does that mean?’

He gazes ahead of him. ‘I found
stuff.’

Some part of her grows very still. ‘In
France?’

He compresses his mouth as if trying to work
out how much to tell her. ‘I found an old newspaper article, written by the
American journalist who owned your painting. She talks about how she was given your
painting from a store of stolen artwork near Dachau.’

‘So?’

‘So these works were all stolen. Which
would lend weight to our case that the painting was obtained illegally and taken into
German possession.’

‘That’s a big
assumption.’

‘It taints any later
acquisition.’

‘So you say.’

‘I’m good at my job, Liv.
We’re halfway there. And if there’s further evidence, you know I’m
going to find it.’

She feels herself growing rigid. ‘I
think the important word there is “if”.’ She removes her hand from
his.

He shifts round to face her. ‘Okay.
This is what I don’t get. Aside from what is morally right and wrong here, I
don’t get why a really smart woman who is in possession of a painting that cost
almost nothing, and now knows that it has a dubious past, wouldn’t agree to hand
it back in return for a lot of money. A hell of a lot more money than she paid for
it.’

‘It’s not about the
money.’

‘Oh, come
on
, Liv. I’m
pointing out the obvious, here. Which is that if you go ahead with this case and you
lose, you stand to lose hundreds of thousands of pounds. Maybe even your home. All your
security. For a painting? Really?’

‘Sophie doesn’t belong with
them. They don’t … they don’t care about her.’

‘Sophie Lefèvre has been dead for
eighty-odd years. I’m pretty sure it’s not going to make any difference to
her one way or the other.’

Liv slides out of the bed, casts around for
her trousers. ‘You really don’t understand, do you?’ She hauls them
on, zipping them up furiously. ‘God. You are so not the man I thought you
were.’

‘No. I’m a man who,
surprisingly, doesn’t want to see you lose your house for nothing.’

‘Oh, no. I forgot. You’re the
man who brought this crap into my house in the first place.’

‘You think someone else wouldn’t
have done this job? It’s a straightforward case, Liv. There are organizations like
ours all over the place who would have run with it.’

‘Are we finished?’ She fastens
her bra, pulls her jumper over her head.