She lived in St Pancras, a stone’s throw from the British Library and a short enough walk to her job at the Institute of Archaeology.
At Ossulston Street, he got out of the cab into the driving rain of a muddy-skied evening. He had no umbrella and his suit jacket soaked through in the time it took to figure out which entrance to the block of flats was hers. From the directory, Flat 21 was on the third floor. Its entrance was in a well of sorts, protected from the rain, which was fortunate because there was no answer to his persistent buzzing.
He was about to call it quits when a woman came to the door. It wasn’t Sara. The woman, about Sara’s age, was stringy-haired and wore no make-up. A long baggy sweater hid her figure.
‘I’m sorry, were you ringing Sara Mallory’s bell?’
Luc nodded.
‘I’m her neighbour, Victoria. The walls are frightfully thin. Actually, I’ve been worried about her. Do you know where she is?’
‘No, that’s why I’m here.’
‘You’re French, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I am.’
She looked at him like a robin about to pluck a worm from its hole. ‘Are you Luc?’
She took him up to Flat 22, gave him a towel and made tea. She was a freelance writer who worked from home. As she told it, Sara and she had become friends from the day Sara moved in. When Sara was in town, they had dinner at each other’s flats or the local curry house once or twice a week. They’d been emailing and texting sporadically during the dig. She was clearly clued into Sara’s life and she looked Luc over with knowing eyes that seemed to proclaim: So that’s the famous Luc! That’s what all the fuss is about!
She poured the tea and said, ‘She texted me Saturday night from France. She said she was coming back to London Monday night. Now it’s Wednesday. I saw what happened at Ruac on the news. I’ve been frantic but no one’s been able to tell me anything. Please tell me she wasn’t caught up in that.’
‘No, no, she wasn’t there when it happened, thank God. She was with me in Cambridge Monday morning,’ Luc explained. ‘We were visiting a man in hospital when I was called away to deal with the tragedy. I went back to France and left her in Cambridge. I haven’t heard from her since.’
‘Oh my,’ she said, with a look of fright.
‘Are you positive she couldn’t have come back to London without your knowledge?’
She confessed she couldn’t be sure and volunteered that she had a key to Sara’s flat. Perhaps they might check together.
Sara’s flat was identical in size and shape to her neighbour’s but it was a world apart in atmosphere. Unlike Victoria’s drab decor of lumpy furniture in greys and whites, Sara’s vibrated with colour and energy and he recognised it straight away as a re-creation of sorts of her old Paris apartment he knew so well. They’d made love on that red sofa. They’d slept under that peacock-blue bedspread.
Victoria buzzed around, checking the flat, and announced, ‘She’s not been back. I’m sure of it.’
Luc had another card in his wallet from the investigating officers in Cambridge.
‘I’m going to call the police.’
TWENTY-SIX
Thursday Morning
Paris looked pristine in the flat cold light of the autumn morning. As Luc’s taxi drove from his hotel in the centre of the city, east towards the Peripherique, the neighbourhoods became dingier until they were in the suburbs, in Montreuil, where if you strained your eyes you could just spot the Eiffel Tower glimmering hopefully on the western horizon.
Off the Boulevard Rouget de Lisle, they drove through a section where there were as many black faces as white, and outside an old Catholic church in the middle of a crowded block, black people were streaming up the steps.
Luc had never met Pierre’s father but Philippe Berewa obviously had his eye out for him, because the man rushed down the steps as soon as Luc sent the taxi off.
They embraced. As tall as Luc was, Philippe was a head taller and had the same type of athletic physique as his son. His face was creased with age. He was wearing a three-piece suit with a gold watch chain, an elegant throw-back to another time and place. Luc knew he’d been a doctor in Sierra Leone, and that he’d never been able to get his certification in France and had been relegated to more lowly work as a hospital technician. Luc nevertheless, called him Doctor.
The church was already packed. Luc was led to the front pew where a seat of honour had been reserved for him, next to Pierre’s mother, a heavyset woman in a sombre dress and small black hat, who was weeping openly.
As the Requiem Mass progressed, the contrasts to Jeremy’s funeral were manifest. The mourners here were under none of the emotional constraints of Jeremy’s kith and kin. There was open sobbing and wailing and the moment Pierre’s casket was met by the priest, who sprinkled it with Holy Water and began intoning the De Profundis, a tsunami of grief ran through the church.
Afterwards, there were no questions about what had happened, as if God’s will was a universal explanation, a completely soothing balm. What his parents and siblings wanted Luc to know was that Pierre had died doing something he loved more than anything on earth and that it had been an honour for him to be the student of the illustrious Professor Simard.
All Luc could do was hold on to them, say a few choice words about how special he was and tell them a plaque with Pierre’s name would be driven into the cliffs at the mouth of Ruac Cave.
Luc was in a taxi again, heading back into town, limp from mourning. He checked his voicemail; there was nothing, so he called up the detective inspector in Cambridge he’d spoken to the previous evening about Sara. The detective had promised to check accident and other police reports and local hospital admissions for any mention of a Sara Mallory.
He reached DI Chambers on his mobile. The man seemed rushed and distracted, in the middle of something else. He said there had been no police, ambulance or hospital records involving Professor Mallory but he’d be sure to let Luc know if that were to change. Luc couldn’t even be sure if he’d done anything. Maybe he was lying through his teeth. And when Luc asked if there’d been any developments in the Science Park explosion, the officer frostily referred him to the Cambridge Police website for information. That was that.
Luc had seen Hugo’s people at his memorial service, so when he returned to the office of H. Pineau Restorations on Rue Beaujon there was no need to replay words of grief and loss. The sentiment was on everyone’s face – it wasn’t necessary to put it on their lips.
Even the effervescent Margot was incapable of more than a wan smile. He followed her past Hugo’s office, sealed like a mausoleum, to Isaak Mansion’s office down the hall. Isaak was on the way, she told him, and offered a coffee.
When she came back with a tray, he asked how things were going.
‘Not well. Isaak can tell you.’ She had something in her hand and opened her palm to show it, as if it was a jewel or a relic. Hugo’s mobile. Small, thin and modern, just like him. ‘The police sent it back. Maybe I shouldn’t have but I looked through it. There were some lovely photos of you and Luc with some women.’
‘Ah,’ Luc said faintly, ‘our dinner at Domme. His last night.’
‘You all looked so happy. Would you like them?’
He thought about it, the sadness of it all, but said he would.
‘I’ll email them to you, if that’s okay,’ and she was off, crying again.
Isaak was a few minutes late. He came striding in, with a troubled look on his face. With a minimum of smalltalk, he launched into an agitated apologia for his foul mood.
‘You were his friend, Luc, so I can tell you that it’s all going to hell. I had to take over the books, of course, and I can tell you, the business wasn’t as good as Hugo made out. He had big loans against the assets, to feed his lifestyle, you know. It was barely profitable and now, without him, business is way down. We’re in the red. It’s not
