A familiar voice floated towards them as Violet walked to their table, arms loaded with shopping bags and parcels tied up with string.
Charlie stood to help her friend. ‘This is my colleague, Violet Carthage. She also moonlights as the style director of Paris’s newest design house, Aleksandr Ivanov.’
‘Pleasure to meet you,’ said Detective Allard as he jumped up to pull out the third chair at the table for Violet. ‘Can I help you with the parcels and get you a glass of wine?’ He signalled to the waiter.
Violet remained standing with her arms loaded and looked between the detective and Charlie before shaking her head. Without putting her bags down, she said, ‘Thank you. Very kind. But I’m tired and I need to go to our room to fossick through all these little treasures and match them with swatches. I have to make the most of this time away. You know what it will be like when we get back to the Paris newsroom: busy, busy, busy.
‘If you’ll both forgive me, I think my pretty parcels and I will take ourselves upstairs. I’m going to draw a bath, drink somelocal wine and order a little plate of local charcuterie. Then work. Please take your time, Charlie James. It will be a treat to have the room to myself.’
‘If you’re sure?’ the detective replied.
‘Very!’ replied Violet. ‘Bonsoir.’ She turned on her kitten heels and walked back along the terrace between the tables until she disappeared inside.
Charlie watched Detective Allard’s eyes follow her elegant friend.
‘Your colleague seems lovely. What exactly does she do?’
‘Everything! At the newspaper, she is at reception plus the assistant to our editor, as well as our translator. She runs the whole team.’
Allard scratched his head. ‘With all those parcels, what does she do?’
‘Oh, that’s her other job. Her … business partner of sorts has just started an haute couture house and she helps him style his shows and his showrooms and basically brings people in the door and makes everything beautiful.’
‘Sounds like a busy woman.’ He laughed as he swirled his Vouvray and held it up to the light to survey the golden liquid.
‘She’s incredible. So much energy … and flair.’
‘She’strès chic,’ Allard said with warmth and Charlie wished she’d taken a moment to freshen up in her hotel room and get changed rather than keep the clothes she’d stomped around a homicide site in.
‘Can I get you another?’ Allard tapped his glass.
‘No, thanks. I need to write this story and then file it. One more and I’ll be asleep—it’s been quite the day.’ She tried to suppress a yawn.
The sun had disappeared and a breeze was blowing through the streets, whistling up the valley walls and through the gaps between the medieval buildings. Clouds had gathered and Allard tilted his head up to the sky.
‘Can you smell the oncoming storm? Nothing quite like it,’ said Charlie as she closed her notebook and shoved it into her satchel.
‘Agreed. I’m glad we got all the photos taken and I hope all the evidence is gathered. Though you never know in a forest.’ He bit his lip. Then he sighed and signalled to the waiter for the cheque. ‘I’ve been working as a lead detective now for almost a decade, but it never gets any easier, seeing a victim’s dead body.’
‘The hours are long. It must be hard for your family.’
‘It is.’ Allard winced and corrected himself. ‘It was. My wife … my ex-wife found the hours too much after we had our daughter. It was my fault.’ He started to gather his things. ‘There was a case. A missing child about the same age as my daughter. I became … preoccupied. I found it unfathomable that a child could just disappear without a trace. The family were blamed, of course. Particularly the mother … but I knew it wasn’t her. The grief in her eyes.’ He turned his head and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand.
‘Sometimes a case just gets under your skin. And when you can’t solve it …’ He shrugged. ‘It can break you, I suppose. It certainly broke my family. My wife took our daughter, Lucille, back to live with her family in the foothills behind Nice. She said it was too hard living with someone who chased ghosts. Who couldn’t let the case go. She couldn’t live with someone who couldn’t forgive himself. It knocked me.’
Charlie’s chest tightened as she felt his angst. His confusion and guilt. She understood Detective Allard’s despair, as Charlie felt the same way about Maisy Bell. She’d never forget the blaze of hurt and frustration in Clementine Bell’s eyes when the ransom drop at the park had failed.
Maisy Bell would haunt Charlie. If Charlie wasn’t careful, it would eat her up just as his case did Detective Allard. Violet had said as much on the train: George Roberts had deliberately assigned this story to Charlie James so she would be forced to put all thoughts of Maisy Bell aside.
Charlie wanted to reach out and clasp Detective Allard’s hand, to stroke his arm and explain it was normal to feel this way. Detective Allard and Charlie James were people who wanted answers, who chased facts and endings.
She opened her mouth to tell Allard about her own failings … it seemed only fair to offer solace in the circumstances, but Allard was in his own sad world. He pulled his wallet from the pocket of his jacket and removed a black-and-white photo of a little girlwith curls, squishy arms and the same dancing eyes and square jaw as her father.
‘My Lucille,’ he said proudly.
‘She’s a wonder,’ Charlie said as he tucked the photo away.
‘She’s cheeky. Loves to dance and perform. Strong … determined. You’d like her,’ he said, then turned again with reddening cheeks as though he’d said too much. ‘That’s quite enough about me.’