Shallow Be Thy Grave (32 page)

“But she can’t be. I mean, I don’t understand.” Brigitte sank backwards in her chair. She stroked her face with her right hand, and Lily thought she was checking she was awake, alive almost.

“It’s quite simple, really,” said Lily, barely recognising her own voice. “My sister’s dead, and your family killed her. And now I’m going to make them pay.”

“How?”

“You’re going to help me.”

“I mean, how did they kill her?”

“They strangled her. Then they hit her over the head with something blunt and heavy.”

Brigitte stood back up again, like she was about to run for the door. “I can’t help you.”

“Listen, Brigitte. This could be the answer to all your problems. Instead of having to marry a whole bunch of men you don’t want to,” said Jo.

Brigitte looked at Jo like she hadn’t even been aware she was in the room. The house was silent, apart from the ticking of a clock in the distance. “I do want to-”

“Oh come on,” said Lily. She stood up so quickly her chair fell over. She didn’t pick it up. “He’s old enough to be your father. Wouldn’t you like to sort out your own life?”

“If we can get the police to arrest your Uncle,” said Jo, “and whoever it is that’s travelling with him-”

“How do you know someone is travelling with him?”

“We met Frank, in Amsterdam. She said two men had been looking for you.”

“They’re never going to leave me alone,” said Brigitte, almost to herself. “I can’t…” She crossed the room in the direction of the door, like she was about to leave. Then she seemed to remember that Jo and Lily were in the room. She turned back to them. “We have to leave this to the police to sort out. It is their job, not ours.”

“The police think it was Beaumont.”

“Philippe?” Brigitte’s eyes widened. “This is crazy. They will talk to him and they will see it cannot be him. Then they will have to look for other people.”

“He’s dead.”

“They killed him too?” Brigitte looked like a woman who was scared for her own life. Her skin was pale. Lily felt sorry for her.

“He committed suicide.”

“Suicide?” Brigitte sat back down at the table. “I can’t believe it is true. Why?”

“He thought he’d let Fiona down.”

“He was always letting Fiona down.”

“She was pregnant. Did you know?”

“No.” Brigitte considered this new piece of information and Lily could tell it made some kind of sense to her. “She didn’t tell me this.”

“She’d only just found out. She told Beaumont, that day. He freaked.”

“This is why she get so upset on that Thursday night. I knew it wasn’t because I wasn’t going to Cannes. She went freaking crazy. Too much crazy.”

“So the police aren’t looking for anyone else,” said Jo. “It’s up to us.”

“If we can get your uncle and your dad arrested for Fiona’s murder, you won’t have to testify against them. I mean for the abuse. But you can sleep safe knowing they can’t come after you again.”

“What are you going to do? Ask them to confess?”

“No,” said Lily. “We’ve got a better idea.”

Brigitte waited for one of them to explain. Lily glanced at Jo.

“We’re going to use you as bait,” said Jo. “They come to get you, they try to kill you, or snatch you, whatever they plan to do. We’ll be there, waiting for them.”

“Are you out of your mind?” asked Brigitte. She moved round the room, putting the table between them. “They’ll kill me too.”

“No, they won’t. We won’t let them.”

“How will they know where to find me?”

“We’re going to tell them.”

“You are going to tell them where I am?”

“No, you are.”

“You are out of your mind.” Brigitte lit a cigarette from the packet on the side. American cigarettes, Lucky Strikes.

“We can’t let them get away with Fiona’s murder,” said Lily, putting her hand out for a cigarette.

Brigitte handed her the packet. “I cannot go to the police. Not until I have a legal right to be here.”

“You won’t have to. We’ll go to the police, once we’ve caught them.”

“What are you going to do?” Brigitte’s lack of confidence in their ability to handle the task was obvious. “Two girls with no guns, no weapons.”

“They don’t have weapons either. That guy didn’t in the Love Shack, and they couldn’t have got them in through customs.”

“What is the guy in the Love Shack?”

Lily explained. “We won’t let them harm you. We’ll have the element of surprise. We’ll tie them up if necessary. We call the police. Once they’re in custody, it will be down to them to prove their innocence, not the other way around. And of course they won’t have an alibi. And they must have transported Fiona’s body to the woods somehow. Once the police know who it is, they’ll find the forensics to prove they killed Fiona.”

“I can’t bring them here. It’s not fair on Madame Billiet.”

“We’ll do it at Bruno’s. Bruno and Stuart will help us. They’ve already agreed,” said Lily.

“You don’t understand what you are dealing with,” said Brigitte. Then in a quieter voice, as if she was speaking only to herself, “I don’t understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Oh I understand,” said Lily, advancing on Brigitte. “I understand that Fiona died keeping your secret safe. That’s why they killed her. Because she wouldn’t tell them where you were.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe it was Philippe.” Brigitte lifted an ashtray down off the shelf. It was overflowing with cigarette ends. She emptied it into the kitchen bin and put it on the table in front of Lily.

“Even though you’d let her down, even though you’d decided not to go inter-railing with her, even though you’d fallen out, she died keeping you safe. So the least you can do is develop a bit of backbone and help us out.”

Brigitte didn’t say anything for a moment. She smoked in silence. Then she stared first at Jo, then at Lily. Lily knew she’d come to a decision. She held her breath.

“How am I going to tell them where I am?” asked Brigitte.

Lily exhaled.

“
Le Monde
want to do a story on Fiona,” said Jo. “‘Foreign au pair murdered’. Which kinda makes me sick, because they’re only doing it because she’s young, female and pretty. If she’d been a homeless tramp, you can bet your life there wouldn’t be a story.”

“Anyway,” said Lily, anxious to cut Jo off before she went off on one. “It’s good for us. They want to do an interview.”

“And you’re going to be there, saying what a terrible waste of life it is, and also how lucky you feel. That it could easily have been you. Remember they don’t have any idea who killed Fiona. So far, the police aren’t saying anything. You can assume that it was a random attack, maybe a burglary that went wrong. And you’ve got to say what a narrow escape you had, because only the day before, you’d moved back in to your husband’s house, after a temporary separation.”

“We’ve already given them a photograph of you both.”

“And how will we know that my uncle, my family will see the newspaper? They can’t even read French.”

“That’s why we gave them the photograph. They’ve got to be keeping an eye on the news, especially after what they did to Fiona. They see a picture of you two staring at them, out of the paper, they’re going to have to find out what it says.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s all you need to say. They’ll know where you are.”

“But they have already been to Bruno’s house. They know I was not there.”

“Bruno wasn’t there either. Maybe you went away for a couple of nights, rekindle your marriage. In fact, you should say that in the interview. You’ve been away and come back to find your best friend murdered.”

 Brigitte went silent. Lily went into the kitchen to check the time. It was already past seven. The journalist at
Le Monde
had said if they got her to call before eight, it would make the paper the next day.

“So, you’ll help us?” asked Lily, going back into the dining room.

“Do I get a choice?”

“Think of all the other children you’ll be saving from abuse.”

Brigitte’s face crumpled and Lily thought she was going to cry. Brigitte was the same age as Lily, but she looked fifteen years older. Her eyes were dead, they’d already seen too much. Lily went to put a hand on Brigitte’s shoulder, but before she reached her target, Brigitte’s head jerked up. “You are right. I don’t have any choice. When is the interview?”

“Now. Here’s the number. You’ve got forty five minutes.”

They sat with Brigitte while she gave her telephone interview. It was conducted in French, so Lily didn’t have a clue whether she was saying what she’d been told to say, but Jo seemed to follow some of the conversation. She nodded at points, smiled at Lily, like there was nothing to worry about. When Brigitte had finished, Jo and Lily arranged to pick her up the next morning. Lily felt uneasy saying goodbye, didn’t like leaving her, but she had to find Bruno and Stuart and tell them what she’d already told Brigitte they’d agreed to.

“So, we’ll see you at 9am.”

“Yes, fine.” The fight seemed to have left Brigitte. She reminded Lily of a deflated balloon, like she knew the inevitable was coming.

“Poor cow,” she said to Jo as they walked down the pavement to Marcel’s motorbike. “She’s terrified. God knows how she’s survived this long.”

“It’ll do her good to stand up to them,” said Jo as she flung her short leg over the bike. “Means she won’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Or getting more men to save her.”

Bruno greeted Jo like she was some long lost lover. He threw his arms around her and the two of them hugged while Lily looked on bemused. Jo pulled out the phrasebook from her satchel. It took them a while, and a couple of reefers to get the message across to Bruno, but in the end he had no hesitation agreeing to help. “My friend, he come,” he said, his eyes shining with enthusiasm. He held up two fingers in a victory salute. “Two big friends.”

“He seemed positively enthusiastic,” said Lily, an hour later as they made their way back to their hotel.

“He probably thinks he’s in with a chance of playing happy families with Brigitte, if he gets her dad out of the way. Let’s hope Stuart’s as enthusiastic.”

“Do we need to tell him? I mean with you, me, Brigitte, Bruno and his two big mates, the flat’s going to be crowded as it is. That’s more than enough. There’s only two of them.” Lily felt much calmer now she had a plan, and somewhere to direct her anger. “Let’s keep him out of it. You know what he’s like.”

They found Stuart reading back in the hotel room.

“How’s Ruth?” asked Lily.

“Hard to tell. She’s gone back to her hotel to make some work calls. What have you been up to?”

“We told Brigitte about Fiona,” said Lily, trying too hard to keep her voice nonchalant. “She looked really scared. We’re hoping to persuade her to go down to the police station tomorrow. Tell them everything. I think she might. She can’t spend the rest of her life like this.”

“What are you up to tomorrow?” asked Jo.

“I’ve said I’ll go with Ruth to see Madame Beaumont in the morning. Should be a laugh.” He ran a hand through his hair, and Lily noticed how tired he looked, thick black rings under his eyes. “Then we’re going to the police station. She’s hoping to get the body released. Don’t know after that. I might try and book a flight back to England, maybe for Tuesday. Go and support David at Arthur’s funeral.”

Lily knew there was an unasked question in his voice. Like when was she planning on going back to England? “What day is it today?”

“Sunday.”

“Let’s see what happens with Brigitte. If we can persuade her to tell the police everything, then maybe we’ll come back with you.”

They turned the lights off not long after, even though it was only just ten o’clock. Lily slept the whole night through for the first time since she got to Paris.

She woke to find Jo thrusting a copy of
Le Monde
in front of her face. “Front page.”

“Perfect,” said Lily, flinching at the picture of Fiona and Brigitte, the one that Grace had given them, taken in le Jardin les Tuileries. Grace had been cut out of the photograph, so it was just the two of them, smiling at the camera, looking carefree. The other photograph was on page three. “What’s the headline?”

“English au pair body found.”

“Where’s Stuart?”

“Gone with Ruth.”

Lily flung her legs out of bed. “We’d better get ready. Let’s pick up Brigitte and then you can go and do the shopping.”

It was a beautiful day, a cloudless sky.  Lily was reminded of another perfect day, the day they kidnapped Fiona, a year and a half ago. That day she’d looked on the weather as a sign she was doing the right thing. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, would the world have been a better place if she’d just stayed at home that day? Had it been hurling with rain, would she have stayed inside? Questions like that were the road to madness. She couldn’t let them take root in her brain.

They arrived at Olivier’s mother’s house at five minutes before nine and it was already boiling hot. Jo rang the bell and Lily stepped back down the path as she heard the sound of a window being opened. She looked up. Madame Billiet’s head appeared out of one of the first floor windows.

“Hello,” shouted Lily. “Bonjour. We’ve come for Brigitte.”

The old lady shouted a torrent of French.

“What’s she saying?” Lily asked Jo who had joined her half way down the path.

“Dunno.” Jo looked up to the window. “Pardon?”

Madame Billiet’s cheeks were growing pink from the effort of yelling.

Jo squinted in the sunshine. “I think she’s saying Brigitte’s taken off. Bourse? Is that purse?”

Lily cursed. “Tell her to let us in.  I want to see for myself.”

“Laissez nous po,” said Jo.

“Non absolument pas.”

“Tell her if she doesn’t let us in, I’ll break in again.”

Jo scratched her head and looked at Lily like she didn’t quite recognise her. She hesitated and then shouted up to the old lady at the window, “Pardon, Madame. Mon Ami, er, elle er, briser… la fenetre. Je suis desole.”