to believe?’
‘Believe what you want. It’s hardly your concern any more.’
A twitch, his eyes shifting. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘You shouldn’t have dropped the case.’
‘Stop goading me, Veronique. You’re way over the line here and you know it.’
‘Did you find a body?’
Even in the half-light of dawn she saw the shadows underneath his eyes, shadows that hadn’t been there a few months ago. Was it Pascal? Had something happened to him?
‘You know I can’t tell you.’ He turned his head, showing her the temptation of hair that curled against the nape of his neck.
‘Does the mother know?’
‘So that’s the connection.’ He faced her. ‘Why this case? It doesn’t fall within your usual remit. What happened? Did all the one per cent disappear to their tax havens for the summer, leaving you without any clients?’
He was taunting her, the tone of his voice like a petulant child’s.
‘Has Madame Benazet been informed of the findings?’
‘Stay out of it, Veronique.’ Guillaume threw his cup into a nearby bin. ‘Don’t force me to fire him.’
‘You don’t have the authority to do that.’
‘No? Set foot on one of my crime scenes again and you’ll find out if that’s true.’ He stared at her for a moment, a thought left hanging. ‘Take the exit by the Musée de l’Orangerie.’ He indicated behind her with a nod of his head. ‘That way you won’t be seen.’ His phone rang and he pressed it to his ear, one quick glance at her permitted before he walked away.
Like a magician he had managed to unravel her careful work of the past months, reaching down inside of her to pull everything back to the surface.
She left the park, crossing the river and heading west along its banks. The top of the Eiffel Tower was like a lighthouse, guiding her as she tried to push all thoughts of Guillaume away.
But no matter what she did, he was there. Whenever she drank her morning coffee, made using a machine he bought her as he didn’t understand how she could spend a fortune each morning at the café down the street. When she browsed the Marché Mouffetard, just as they had most Sunday mornings, never buying anything but part of her hoping he would be there too.
The familiar scent of his aftershave on someone else’s skin, making her turn her head in hope. The feel of his arms around her, drawing her close and blocking out all her nightmares. He was there when she closed her eyes at night, the space in the bed next to her cold because she couldn’t bring herself to cross the invisible line over to his side.
You couldn’t simply brush away the best part of two years. Close the door on all the memories made together and expect them never to come back. She still remembered the first time she saw him, would cling to that picture in her darkest moments and try to recall the exact curve of his lip as he held out his hand to her.
***
‘Guillaume,’ he said with a smile that stretched the full width of his face as he strode across to her. ‘Enchanté.’
‘Veronique,’ she replied, registering the warmth of his palm and how it enveloped hers completely. His grip was assured, eyes the colour of forget-me-nots, and he had a smattering of stubble along his jaw. She was lost in an instant, the sensation of falling through time and seeing herself as an old woman with him sat beside her.
‘Christophe was just telling me about what it is that you do.’ He kept hold of her hand and with reluctance she let go, moving around the table to put a barrier between them. ‘About how you have a knack for finding things, people, and getting them to talk.’
‘Was he now?’ Veronique looked over at Christophe, at the way he was hopping from one foot to the next like a child who needed the toilet. Add to that the two thumbs up he was giving her as he left the office and she had a feeling that she wasn’t here to take Christophe out to lunch. ‘And what is it you do?’
‘I’m a Capitaine for the National Police here in Paris.’
She couldn’t help but widen her eyes.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Only that I’m not used to requests from the police.’ Normally they were trying to block her investigations rather than hire her. ‘Christophe hasn’t mentioned you before. I assume you work together – that’s how you know one another?’
‘Non, I have only recently transferred across from the Ministry of the Interior. Christophe and I met here, at the clinic.’
And it all fell into place. The impossibly handsome man Christophe had, with the subtlety of an axe, been dropping into conversation of late. The new Captain who voluntarily gave up his post at the Ministry to help with an on-going narcotics investigation. A man who had also been attending rehabilitation sessions at the clinic with his brother and then asking questions about the increasing number of patients being admitted with similar symptoms.
‘You’re Pascal’s brother, n’est-ce-pas?’ Veronique asked, the shroud that came across the Captain’s features too apparent to miss.
‘I am.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In a way it’s him I wanted to speak to you about. Specifically the drugs he was taking when he overdosed.’
‘Ecstasy?’
‘Yes. No doubt you are aware that there have been several cases in recent months of young people overdosing from MDMA laced with lethal quantities of methamphetamine.’
‘It’s been all over the news.’
‘What hasn’t been in the news is that we suspect each batch is coming from a single supplier. One who is bringing the drugs in from outside of France and mixing them here, in Paris.’
‘Based on what evidence?’
He broke eye contact for the first time since she walked into the room. ‘That’s confidential.’
‘With all due respect, Capitaine, if you’re asking for my help you’re going to have to give me more than that.’
The look on his face – one that she would come to recognise without the need for words – it was an internal process, a weighing up of the odds and potential risks involved, a process she never would be able to understand or empathise with. Especially when it involved family.
Guillaume’s brother ended up in a coma after taking what he thought was a pure ecstasy pill on a night out. He was only seventeen years old and under the care of his older brother whilst their parents were at a wedding in Toulouse. The end result was that Pascal now required round-the-clock care, his future wiped out through one bad decision. A decision that Guillaume felt responsible for.
If the same thing had happened to Christophe, Veronique didn’t know what she would have done, what lengths she would go to in order to find, and obliterate, the people responsible.
