The Last Witness

‘No, no… nothing like that. It’s a problem I might have with your father and Roman.’

Less marked pause this time. ‘Let’s meet tomorrow, please… I couldn’t hack it tonight. If I make it through this, all I’m looking forward to is some hot cocoa and bed.’

‘Yeah, okay… okay. Tomorrow then.’ Simone only had a half-hour free at lunch, and Georges was sure it would take longer than that, so they agreed on dinner at ‘Thursdays’ on Rue Crescent. ‘Eight-thirty table, then. I’ll book it and pick you up at eight.’

‘Yeah, great… see you then. Love you.’ A light blown kiss quickly swallowed amongst the clatter, and she was gone.

Georges let out a slow, tired exhalation as he hung up. So, he’d have to wait twenty-four hours. Having waited a year to finally bare his soul, given that perspective it hardly seemed to matter. Nothing much was going to happen between now and then.

‘Georges… Simone. I got your message. They’re deep into the thank-you speeches now — hopefully nobody will miss me for a few moments. What’s the problem?’

‘I’ve got to see you. Something’s happened, and I need to talk to you about it urgently. Can you come by here afterwards?’

Funicelli sat forward with the urgency in Donatiens’ voice as the tape rolled. Donatiens sounded troubled. Funicelli had to tweak the sound up to fully hear Simone’s voice above the background clatter. He hoped that the problem might be explained, especially when Donatiens commented that it was to do with her father and Roman — but everything ended abruptly with their arranging to meet. All he could do was pass it on. Maybe Roman would know what was troubling Donatiens.

Roman got the tape by messenger at 8.12a.m. the next morning, and wished that Funicelli had phoned him immediately the evening before. Funicelli’s covering note mentioned the call from Simone and Donatiens sounding worried: ‘Maybe you know what might be worrying him?’ But obviously any urgency attached to that knowledge hadn’t immediately dawned on Funicelli. The one drawback of always making sure the people around you only had half the picture.

And while Roman knew all too well what was troubling Donatiens, with the two of them meeting in a restaurant, any chance of finding out exactly what was going to be said were gone. He’d just have to fill in the gaps in his mind.

He remembered a maid that his mother Lillian had shortly after his father died. She would move objects around in the room as she cleaned, and some of them would get progressively closer to the door. Then the next thing they would disappear completely. It was as if the maid wasn’t quite bold enough to steal them straightaway, but once they got closer to the door they became almost hers; the next step wasn’t so bold. Lillian came to know what would disappear next according to how close to the door it was last time the maid cleaned; and with the next two items gone and Lillian sure of her ground, she fired the maid.

That’s what Donatiens was doing: moving his story closer to the door. He hadn’t wanted to tell all to Jean- Paul, perhaps hoping naively that yours truly, Roman, would meanwhile have a sudden stab of conscience and do it all for him. But first and foremost no doubt was the awkwardness of Donatiens admitting at the drop of a hat that he’d been lying to Jean-Paul for the past year. All trust went out the window either way, and coming hot on the heels of him keeping quiet about meeting Chenouda as well, there were high chances Jean-Paul would have had doubts about both stories. No, he’d read Georges well.

He had little doubt now either that Georges was going to tell all to Simone, unburden all the messy detail he’d been unable to with her father and use her as go-between. She could explain all the subtleties of why Georges had lied for so long that would have been difficult for Georges to explain directly, face-on.

Roman closed his eyes for a second and bit at his lip. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead as he opened them again and glanced at his watch: just over an hour to know Jean-Paul’s deliberation, twelve hours before Donatiens passed the ticking bomb to Simone. How long before Simone in turn passed it to her father? A day, two days at most. He’d have to move quickly.

If Jean-Paul didn’t sanction a move on Donatiens straightaway, he’d have to make his own plans before the day was out. And he knew now that those plans would have to include Simone as well, or he’d have to think of a way whereby her voice would be ignored, would have no potency.

THIRTEEN

‘I’m sorry, so sorry… I just didn’t know how to tell you at the time.’ Elena shook her head. There were no tears left now: she’d cried them all out during the day, ruined two sets of make-up.

‘But you could have told me.’ Gordon held one hand out, as if clutching for an invisible explanation in the air. ‘I thought we could admit anything, confess anything to each other. I thought we had that sort of relationship. Obviously I was wrong.’ He hovered the wine glass in his other hand close to his lips, then put it down firmly. He’d drunk four glasses during dinner and the hour since waiting for the kids to go to bed, and was now most of the way through a fifth. Although it had adequately dulled and mellowed his mood, which is what he’d wanted, he sensed that it was starting to make him confrontational: not what he wanted. After twelve years of secrets and silence over this, the last thing he needed was for Elena to become defensive and clam up, retreat back into her shell. ‘I’m sorry… I didn’t mean that. I just need to know, that’s all…. I just need to know.’

Elena was stung by the pathetic plea in his voice. She’d run an emotional sword straight through the man who most loved and trusted her, a sword she’d worked inch by inch through his guts the past twelve years without him knowing, and all he wanted to know was why?

Gordon’s only retaliation and payback had been to leave her alone all day to dwell on the bombshell problem. He’d received the folder in the early morning post, and dumped it in front of her half an hour later. ‘I’ve already read through it. I’m going out now to see clients. Perhaps you’d like to explain it all to me when I get back. His tone and his sharp stare made her realize immediately that it was no light problem. But Gordon hadn’t returned until the kids came home from school, Elena thought on purpose, so they’d moved around each other like two awkward bantam cocks, avoiding eye contact and with conversation kept to curt, abrupt comment when absolutely unavoidable — until after the children had gone to bed. Hardly a virulent payback: A day’s awkwardness to compensate for twelve years of deception. And already there was no fight left in him. He just wanted to know.

She started with what Gordon did know about her background and her past rift with her father: the years in Marrakech and in hippie communes and squats when she returned to England, the drug busts, the demonstration marches. The years of rebelliousness not just against her father, but all he stood for. ‘That was all that appeared on the surface. The visible symptoms of the root problem.’

Gordon looked at her aslant. ‘Are you saying that perhaps I should have known — or guessed — that something else was wrong from all of that?’

‘No… no.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘How were you to know? I wouldn’t have been the first rich kid to rebel against establishment parents. In the Sixties, it was practically mandatory.’ She forced a wan smile. But she sensed she wasn’t going to get far fluffing around the edges: the only way she was going to get through this was by going back to the beginning. Back to her pregnancy at fifteen and how she’d come close to death twice within a month.

‘His name was Michael Kiernan. We were very much love — such as love is when you’re only fifteen. At the time it seemed all-consuming. He was all I cared about. He had wavy dark hair and the most incredible blue eyes, and at nineteen he seemed to me so adult and masterful, so in control.’ Greeting her at the door for their second date with a single white rose and a Theodorakis instrumental of ‘The White Rose of Athens’. ‘He was caring, romantic — rare I suppose for that age looking back now — and had one of those easy smiles that made you feel warm, alive.

‘My father hated him on sight. Too smooth, too smarmy by half. When pressed, my father said that he just didn’t trust him, “didn’t think his intentions were good.” Though I suspected — and probably my mother too if you