Shallow Be Thy Grave (22 page)

Jo pulled a face. “What I mean is, they’re hiding from Brigitte’s family. They don’t even know we’re here. They don’t want to be found by Brigitte’s family, but they will want to be found by us.”

Lily lit a cigarette and prayed that that much was true.

“So, what next?” asked Stuart. He’d hung his coat back up and put the kettle onto boil.

Jo scribbled something in her notebook. She glanced up. “Well, we need to read this diary.”

“What’s the last entry?” asked Lily.

Jo flicked through the pages. “‘April 29
th
- starting to think about packing. Tons to do. I’m quite excited. When I’m not sad. So much has happened. I know it’s all for the best, but doesn’t make it any easier. I’m going to go and see him on Thursday. Ice Queen will be at squash. I think it’s important to say goodbye properly. No not like that. Will he beg me to stay? B cooked this kind of goulash thing for tea. With cannellini beans. Smelled disgusting, thought I was going to be sick, but actually tasty.’” Jo pulled a face. “She should write a cookbook.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Jo flicked back through a couple more pages. “‘Saturday, April 20
th
- two weeks’ today and we’ll be off. I shouldn’t have written that. B totally paranoid. Hard to keep a diary when I don’t have my own room. Excited at what lies ahead. It’s time for an adventure.’” Jo looked up. “Doesn’t seem to say anything about where they’re actually going.”

“‘Thursday, April 18
th
. Broke my resolution again. I can’t say no. Not when he’s like he is. Was kinda nice though.’ Ew.” Jo wrinkled her nose. “Sex with a forty-year old. Bet he’s all wrinkly.”

“I need to speak to Sian,” said Lily, anxious not to go there. The last thing she wanted to know was details of her sister’s sex life. “Poor cow. You think you’ve got it all, and then you find out your husband’s bonking a teenager.” She tried to conjure up sympathetic feelings towards Madame Beaumont, but for some reason this thought actually cheered Lily. She found something comforting in the knowledge that no matter how good they looked on the outside, people still had their problems, their own personal turmoil. “I wanna ask her if she found out anything about the intruder because it doesn’t make sense. If he is part of Brigitte’s family - how’s come he’s found out about the Love Shack?”

Jo clapped her hands delightedly. “You’re back!”

Lily looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” said Jo, quickly.  The kettle started to boil as Stuart fished dirty mugs out of the sink. “It’s too late for tea. Get the effing beers out.”

Lily pulled open the fridge door and took out a four-pack of bottled beer. She followed her train of thought, trying to get things straight in her own mind. “The Love Shack hasn’t got anything to do with Brigitte.”

“Stuart,” Jo turned her attention to him. “What you going to do?”

Stuart dried his hands on his jeans and accepted a bottle of beer from Lily. “I suppose I should ring David and Ruth. Let them know what’s going on.”

“What?” said Lily and Jo simultaneously, the same astonished outrage evident in both their voices.

“Well, not everything that’s going on, obviously,” Stuart hurried to reassure them. “But I should tell them something.”

Lily popped the cap off her own bottle of beer and then passed the bottle opener on to Stuart. “I wonder whether it’s worth trying to talk to the guard from the apartments? One of them was ok. You never know, he might have seen the guy.”

Jo frowned and stuck her bottom lip out. “Doubt it.”

“And that’s another point,” said Lily, after taking a swig of beer. She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. “How’d he get in to the building? Do you think he paid off the doorman? I mean, I couldn’t get in – not without Sian and the posh clothes. This guy had a scarf over his mouth. You have to walk right past reception to get to the lift.”

“Ok,” said Jo. “I’ll put it in the notebook. We can check it out.”

“And how did Brigitte’s family get the address?” asked Lily. She glanced at Jo and then Stuart. Stuart was saying nothing. He was watching the two women like he was watching a game of tennis.

“I mean, it was Fiona meeting Beaumont there. And he was using a false name. How did they trace it? Unless,” Lily took another swig of beer as an idea came to her. 

“Unless what?” asked Stuart.

“Unless Bruno’s right. Perhaps Brigitte hadn’t given up all her clients. Grace said Fiona had a key to the Love Shack, right? What if she let Brigitte use the flat, for the occasional trick? In return for Brigitte letting her live here. We found a massive box of condoms there. Industrial sized.”

“Might be what Bruno meant about her going upmarket. A swanky address in the heart of Paris,” said Jo. “Location, location, location. Maybe she’s increased her prices.”

 “And that’s how Brigitte’s family found the Love Shack,” said Lily.

“Yes,” said Jo, excitement in her voice. “Maybe they found one of her clients. We know they’ve been asking around prostitute districts – that’s what they were doing in Amsterdam.”

“And if this client, or clients, are good payers, and it’s her only means of income, she might have told them where they were going. And when they’d be back.” Lily’s face flushed with her own brilliance.

“God, you’re right,” said Jo. “That makes total sense.”

“But how do we find out?” asked Stuart.

“The guard at the Love Shack,” answered Lily. “Someone must have seen her coming and going. And her clients.”

Jo clapped her hands together. “We’ll go and see him. Wonder what time he starts work?”

“I’ve… I’ve got his phone number,” said Lily, trying to make her voice sound as nonchalant as possible. “I could give him a ring – arrange to show him the photo of Brigitte. I showed him that one of me and Fiona on the log flume, but I didn’t have the picture of both of them.”

“It’s here,” said Stuart.

“There’s probably more in that box. We should all carry one, ideally. Just in case.” Lily rummaged through the contents they’d removed from the big cardboard box, which were still in piles on the kitchen table. She dropped some of the books back into the box, until she came across the envelope of photographs. She’d resisted looking in them earlier, but for some reason she felt stronger now. Felt they were at least on the trail of her sister.

She passed the photos round the table. There was a picture of Fiona, laughing, head back, her dark brown hair, much longer than when Lily had last seen her, cascading round her shoulders. “Remember when she cut her hair?” she asked Jo, half smiling.

Jo grinned back. “She just lopped one of her pigtails off,” she said to Stuart, even though he was aware of the story. “Stuffed it into the envelope with the ransom note.”

In the photograph in Lily’s hand, Fiona appeared much older than Lily remembered. Beaumont had said she grown into a woman, and Lily wondered if he was right - whether she no longer knew her younger sister. There was another one, taken at what looked like a zoo or an animal park. Fiona with the three Beaumont kids. In it, she actually looked like a mother, harassed and tired. “Must have been a nightmare looking after those three.”

Lily recognised Grace in a couple of the pictures. She turned one of them over. Fiona’s handwriting, ‘Me and Grace June ’90’. Towards the back of the pile Lily found the photograph she was looking for. It was a picture of Brigitte and Fiona together, and on the back Fiona had written,   ‘Brigitte. Oct 90’. The two girls were looking up towards the camera, and they were both pulling pouty kind of film star faces. Lily would have bet money that the picture was taken by a man. Fiona’s eyes were glinting. They were outside, a windy day because Fiona’s hair was blowing in the wind. Brigitte had short, gingery blonde hair and a thin, drawn face. She wouldn’t have been that attractive if it wasn’t for her startling, almond shaped eyes.  Both girls were wearing make up, and Fiona looked about five years older than the last time Lily had seen her. Lily slipped the photograph into her inside pocket of her denim jacket, which was hanging on the back of the chair, along with a few of snaps of Fiona on her own. She handed another copy of an almost identical photo of Fiona and Brigitte, a little out of focus, to Jo, and put the rest back into their envelope. She felt sadness sweep her body and tried to shake it off. “Ok, you keep that one, Stu.” She gave him back the photograph Grace had given them earlier. “That means we’ve all got a picture of them both.”

“Right, we’ve got something like a plan,” said Jo. “Why don’t I stay here, make us some delightful nouveau cuisine,” Jo picked up the joint from the ashtray and waved it around, “and you two go and ring David and Madame Beaumont.”

“I went shopping,” said Stuart. “There’s loads in the fridge.”

“Beaumont might know whether Brigitte was using the Love Shack,” said Jo. “And if she was, who her clients were.”

“I’ll ask him,” said Lily. “Assuming his wife hasn’t killed him already.”

Lily pulled on her black denim jacket before she went up to the phone boxes in Boulevard de Clichy with Stuart. It was almost ten and getting dark and the square seemed to be filling up with its usual night-time crowd. Clubbers, women in mini-skirts and fishnet stockings, suspicious-looking men hanging out astride motorbikes. Lily slipped inside the first empty phone booth and dialled the number Sian had given her. It rang for so long, Lily was about to hang up when the Frenchwoman answered.

“Hi, it’s Lily.”

Whatever camaraderie they’d created through their close experience of near-death that afternoon seemed to have evaporated. “Lily. This is not a good time,” Sian’s icy tones came through the receiver. “I will ring you back later.”

“I don’t have a phone,” said Lily, but she was already speaking to the dialling tone. Sighing to herself, she replaced the receiver. Stuart was in the next-door booth talking to Lily’s father. She craned her head to listen and heard Stuart say, ‘We’re pretty close, I think’.

Lily shuddered at the obvious lie and took the piece of paper Alain had given her out of her back pocket. Her fingers shook as she dialled the number. It was answered on the fourth ring, but no one spoke.

“Hello. Is that Alain? It’s Lily. Er, the English girl.” She raised her eyebrows at herself, and plundered on. “From today, at the apart-”

“Hello, Lily,” he said, his voice sounding amused, and she knew from his tone that he recognised her. She let out a breath of air. First hurdle climbed..

“I want to show you a photograph.” She spoke slowly, as clearly as she could.

“Photo? Ok,” he said. “Where are you?”

“We’re staying in Pigalle.”

“Pigalle? Ok. Le Folie’s. You know it?”

Know it? She could see it through the glass panes of the phone booth. A big, black fronted nightclub with pink neon signs.

“Half an hour,” said Alain.

“Oh. I thought, tomorrow. Jo’s making tea.”

“She makes what?”

“Tea. Dinner.”

“Ok, one hour. Bonne.  I look at your photograph and I buy you a French beer.”

She turned to face the darkening sky through the phone box window. “It’s late.”

“Come on, Lily, you are in Paris. It’s time to live a little. I see you then.” And he put the phone down. Lily stayed in the booth for a few minutes, the phone still to her ear, waiting for her face to feel less flushed. Without turning around she was aware of someone standing outside the booth and she guessed it was Stuart waiting for her. She took a few more breaths, replaced the handset with a cheery, ‘Bonsoir,’ which was one of the four words she’d learned so far this trip, and turned to push open the door.

Stuart looked a little shell-shocked. Lily stepped outside. “How was that?”

“Ruth’s ok. David’s hacked off. He asked if Fiona was going to be at the funeral. ‘Yes or No’. I said it was impossible to say, but that we did feel we were getting closer.” He held his palms skywards. “What else could I say? I told him they were inter-railing and in the South of France. It’s as good a place as any. And I can’t see the point trying to explain everything to him right now.  They can’t move the funeral. I think he wants to get it over with, closure and all that. He’ll be mega unhappy if she’s not there.”

“That feels like the least of our problems right now,” said Lily as she lit a cigarette and stared at Le Folie’s night club. A pink neon sign winked ‘live sex show’ at her, only the light of the ‘s’ was broken, so it actually winked ‘live sex how’.

“He asked whether I thought you might go?”

“Go where?” asked Lily, genuinely confused, her mind still trying to work out what constituted a live sex show and whether she wanted to find out.

“To the funeral?”

“God, no.” She paused, collected herself. Tried to frame her response more rationally. “I’ve got to find Fiona. I can’t think past that right now. What does Le Folie mean?”

“The madness.”

“Oh.”

They walked on in silence until Stuart said, “What did your guy say?”

“He’s not my guy,” said Lily. “He just works there.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“He wants us to take the photograph to that nightclub.” She pointed across the square. “Tonight. He’s, er, he’s busy tomorrow. What do you reckon?”

“Looks like a fun place. Don’t know what Jo will have to say about, ‘topless, naked ladies’,” he said, reading another of the neon signs.

Jo had made ham and cheese toasties - or ‘Crock Monsieurs’ as she insisted on calling them - and heated a carton of disgusting soup, which Lily smelled and nearly vomited, and Stuart ate and said was called Bouillabaisse.

“A nightclub? Fantastic,” said Jo. Lily marvelled at Jo’s constant ability to always be up for the party.

It was close to midnight by the time they arrived at the club and the first time they’d ever been anywhere where Lily felt that Jo’s bright pink Mohican actually opened doors. The door staff were fascinated, knew they were English straight away, kept saying ‘cool, man’ like some bad Neil from
The Young Ones
impression. People moved to make way for them at the bar and a couple of French blokes asked if they could have their photographs taken with them. Stuart was elbowed out of the picture and Lily immediately felt sorry for him. Once the snap had been taken she shouted in his ear, “If I give you the money, will you get the beers in?”