Shallow Be Thy Grave (31 page)

“Do you know where her flatmate is now?” Yvette translated on behalf of her boss.

“I don’t even know her name,” said Lily, which was kind of true, and Lily hoped meant they wouldn’t notice she hadn’t actually answered the question.

“You have never met the flatmate of your sister?” Yvette asked, surprised.

“I never came to Paris before,” said Lily, silently congratulating herself. She was getting good at this tell no lies business.

Yvette and her boss had a conversation in French. Lily picked at the skin on the side of her thumb and wondered whether Alain had found Jo. Eventually the two police officers stopped speaking and Yvette turned to Lily. “He thinks perhaps the flatmate went travelling, anyway?” Lily couldn’t remember Yvette’s boss’s name, even though she’d told it to her when she introduced him. She could feel him staring at her, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Coppers always made her feel anxious, like she was guilty of something. (Which, in fairness, she usually was.)

“He says probably Fiona told her she didn’t want to come, now she is pregnant.”

“It’s possible,” agreed Lily.

They didn’t ask any further questions about Brigitte, and Lily didn’t volunteer any information. There was no point. Yvette asked her if she thought Beaumont had killed her sister and she said no, but Yvette’s boss didn’t seem interested.

They told her the pathologist had decided that Fiona had been dead for between eight and ten days, and that she’d been strangled. She hadn’t died as a result of strangulation though. What had finally stopped her heart beating had been a blunt trauma to the back of the head. The pathologist was certain the body had been moved to the woods sometime between twelve and fifteen hours after death.

“So, at the moment, we do not know where she was killed. We have a forensics team at the flat. If she was killed there, they will find out. We will also examine the house of Monsieur Beaumont, and the flat.”

Lily wasn’t interested. Her mind was going over the information she’d just been given. Dead between eight and ten days. In other words, dead the whole time they’d been here looking for her. Lily knew she’d been running from the truth from the moment she’d first heard Fiona’s broken voice on the answer machine. Yvette’s boss got up from the small wooden table and crossed the room, so that he was standing behind Lily. Yvette looked up at him, and Lily felt uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair.

Yvette’s gaze shifted back to Lily. “We think she was killed sometime between midnight on Thursday 3rd May and the morning of Saturday 5
th
May.”

Lily nodded, like this might be of some interest to her. She knew Fiona had been killed. It didn’t really matter when. All that mattered was that some bastard had stolen her sister’s life and they were going to pay for it. That’s what it felt like. She had been robbed.

As Yvette stared at her like she’d asked her a question and was waiting for an answer, she made herself a solemn promise that she would find whoever had done it, Brigitte’s uncle, father, whoever and she would make them pay.

“We found her rucksack,” Yvette said. “It was found near her at the scene, also buried. We hope you will look through it, see if there is anything you don’t recognise.”

From his position behind her, Yvette’s boss said something in French. Lily heard him say the word Beaumont, but when Yvette translated she said, “We think the killer wanted to make it look like she had set off travelling. This means it was someone who knew what her intentions were.”

“It might have worked too,” said Yvette, “if you hadn’t come looking for her. Bodies decompose very quickly in this heat.”

They told Lily that the pathologist had confirmed her pregnancy, said she was six weeks gestated, whatever that meant. “Six weeks pregnant,” Yvette said gently.

The senior policeman came back to the table and spoke to Yvette.

“She told him about the baby?” asked Yvette.

Lily nodded.

“Please say it out loud, for the tape recording.”

Lily fixed her gaze at the boss. “Yes, she told him about the baby.”

She knew he was working to the idea that Beaumont had killed Fiona to stop her telling his wife she was carrying his baby and Lily didn’t have the energy to argue with him. She couldn’t stop her mind from churning over what might have happened had she been in that Thursday night, had she answered the phone to her sister. What would she have done? Would she have been able to stop the chain of events? The theory of chaos. Of one small thing, one stupid, shit gig, that set in motion a steamroller of events that had flattened everything she held dear.

A young, male police officer came into the room with a large brown box. He placed it on the floor by the legs of the table. Yvette put on a pair of plastic gloves, removed the lid from the box, and lifted out a pair of shorts. “These are the things from the rucksack.”

 Lily recognised a T-shirt that said ‘Cocaine’ in the style of the Coca Cola logo, which she remembered Fiona buying when they’d been living together, but nothing else. The final item, folded in the bottom of the box was the rucksack itself. The last time she’d seen that, was also the last time she’d seen her sister, standing outside their grandparents’ house, about to duck into a taxi and out of Lily’s life. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat but it was stuck.

“That’s her rucksack,” she said. For some reason, the sight of the empty rucksack was harder to bear than the sight of Fiona’s dead body had been yesterday.

“Do you want to take a break?” asked Yvette.

“I’ve run out.” Lily held up an empty packet of Golden Virginia. “Can I have a cigarette?”

Yvette’s boss passed her a packet and a lighter and Lily started. She hadn’t realised he could understand what she said. She nodded a thank you to him, and lit one.  Yvette began repacking some of the clothes. Apart from the T-shirt and the rucksack, there was nothing that Lily could say with any kind of certainty, belonged to her sister.  That didn’t mean it wasn’t her stuff.

The thought depressed her, made her realise how little she knew of her sister. She didn’t recognise any of the rest of the clothes, the writing pad, the address book, the washbag. All must have been new since she got to Paris.

Yvette showed her Fiona’s passport, purse and inter-rail tickets. “These were all in the side pocket.”

Yvette’s boss spoke to Yvette and then stood abruptly and left the room.

“He said to tell you that we will be working very hard to understand what has happened here. He is very sorry for your loss.”

“So, what happens next?”

“He is going to speak to Madame Beaumont. She is being brought to the station.”

“He thinks Beaumont killed her, doesn’t he?”

By the time she’d given her statement, it was past five o’clock. Yvette accompanied her through a labyrinth of corridors. “I’m sorry. He gets an idea, it’s difficult to make him let go. He’s like a dog with a bone. And he doesn’t want to admit that we might have a murderer on the loose. Particularly not one who murders pretty young au pairs. It is bad for business.”

“He didn’t do it,” said Lily, but it came out weakly.

“Hopefully we’ll get something back from forensics, something that will make us have to search more.”

“Will you lead the investigation?”

Yvette shook her head. “Your police force is bigoted, racist, and sexist. I should know. That was my thesis. And the French, we are light years behind. At this rate, I doubt a woman will lead a murder investigation in my lifetime.”

Before she took Lily back to the reception area, she wrote her name and number on a piece of paper. “We need to talk to the flatmate.”

Lily didn’t meet her eyes.

“If anything comes to mind, anything at all, or you just want to chat, ring me. Any time.”

Jo was waiting for her in the foyer of the police station. She stood up as soon as Lily walked out of the back room, and as she came round the side of the reception desk, Jo met her and hugged her and the familiar smell and feel of her best mate brought a wave of feelings into Lily’s body, and for the first time since this nightmare had started, Lily thought she might cry.

But then the outer door opened, on some kind of automatic system, and the noise made Lily look up. She saw a woman step through it, a woman she recognised immediately.

White-faced and appearing older than Lily remembered, but still well-dressed, and not looking at all like she’d just got off an 11 hour flight, Lily would have known who she was even if she’d never seen her before.

Because the woman standing in front of her looked like Fiona, not the eyes, but the mouth, the bottom half of her face. Fiona in 40 years time. It was like being hit in the stomach.

Lily hadn’t ever met Ruth, Fiona’s mother. She’d stalked her, spent a couple of weeks watching her and her house, so had had plenty of chance to study her, but Ruth had never clapped eyes on Lily.

“This is Lily, Fiona’s sister,” said Stuart, and it was only then, when he spoke, that Lily noticed he was standing next to Ruth.

Lily’s first thought was why did he introduce her like that? Ruth had always refused to acknowledge Lily’s existence - calling her Fiona’s sister would surely only inflame the situation. Lily didn’t blame Ruth for hating her. She’d hate her too, if she was Ruth. She’d single-handedly destroyed their family. She braced herself, waiting for the torrent of abuse she knew was coming.

Ruth nodded at Lily, tried to speak, but although her lips moved, no words came out. Ruth coughed, cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry?” Lily didn’t understand.

“That I didn’t meet you, earlier. Fiona wanted me to.”

Lily was wrong-footed, didn’t know what to say. She stood there with her mouth slightly open, with no idea how to respond. She found herself wishing Ruth had unleashed the verbal lashing she’d been expecting.  It would have been easier to bear.

“Fiona thought the world of you.”

Lily took a couple of steps backwards, instinctively moving closer to Jo.

“It’s not your fault, Lily,” Ruth said.

This woman didn’t know. She’d just lost her only child and obviously the trauma had affected her judgement.  Jo slipped her hand into Lily’s and Lily found herself holding onto it like she might drown. Before she could formulate her thoughts, much less her words, a policeman had taken Ruth through to the station, behind the main desk.

Ruth must have noticed Stuart wasn’t following, because she turned to see where he was, and Lily saw how vulnerable she looked, like a small child lost in a supermarket.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said.

They watched Ruth disappear through the door into the rear office. Stuart turned to Lily. “I heard what happened. Must have been horrific.”

Lily didn’t speak.

“Where’s David?” asked Jo.

“Not coming. Ruth’s told him not to. Said there was no point. She’s going to fly Fi, Fi’s body, back to England, as soon as they release it.”

“Might bring them back together,” said Jo.

Stuart looked doubtful. “I wouldn’t put money on it. She wasn’t exactly complimentary about him on the way from the airport. I’d better go. I’ll see you back at the hotel.” He touched Lily’s arm and she felt like she’d been electrocuted. “Will you be ok?”

“I’ll be ok,” said Lily.

He followed the route that Ruth had taken, past the circular front desk and disappeared through the door at the back.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Jo. “Do you want to go back?”

Lily didn’t know what Jo meant. Go back where? “We’ve got to find Brigitte’s family.”

“Oh,” Stuart reappeared through the door and stood behind the reception desk. “I should warn you, there’s someone from the press outside,” said Stuart. “Looking for some kind of angle. Ignore them. They’re just doing their job.”

Lily waited for him to go back into the inner sanctum. The reception desk was unmanned and the waiting area was empty. Lily lowered her voice as she spoke to Jo. “That’s good,” said Lily, “because I have angles.”

“Angles?” asked Jo.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Lily. “A lot. Beaumont didn’t kill her.”

“He committed suicide.” Jo sounded doubtful as to his innocence.

“Because he couldn’t face life without her. He looked me in the eyes. He didn’t do it.”

“So…?”

“That leaves Brigitte’s family.”

“Go on,” said Jo.

“So, we need a plan, to lure them out into the open.”

“Can’t you just tell the police? Get them to bring them in for questioning?”

“The police think it was Beaumont,” said Lily. “It’s all cut and dried as far as they’re concerned. It’s going to take them ages to work out it wasn’t him, if they ever do.”

“He might have an alibi,” said Jo. “That would put a fly in their theory.”

“He’s dead. No one’s going to be fighting to clear his name,” said Lily. “His own wife hates him.”

“She’s here. I saw her go in earlier.”

“Besides, what can we tell the police about Brigitte’s family? We don’t know their names, who they are, where they are.”

“So, what are you suggesting?” asked Jo.

“I’m suggesting we find them first, then give them over to the police.”

“But if you don’t think the police can find them, how-”

“Because we’ve got something the police don’t have.”

“We have?”

“Yes,” said Lily. She grinned for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

“The suspense is killing me,” said Jo.

“We’ve got something the killers want.” Lily paused, put her hand on the door, ready to push it open onto the outside world. “We’ve got Brigitte.”

“She’s dead?” said Brigitte, all colour draining from her face, like someone had pulled the plug from the bottom of her chin. “I don’t believe it.”

“Well, I swear I’m not making it up,” said Lily. The three of them, Jo, Lily and Brigitte, sat around the table in the cold dining room of Olivier Billiet’s mother’s house. A piece of cardboard had been secured with black masking tape over the pane of glass Lily had smashed the night before. They’d left Stuart at the police station, looking after Ruth, and Madame Billiet was out playing bridge. It was Lily’s favourite time of the day, when the heat was gone and the colours merged to one.