CHAPTER 14 #2
‘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’s très 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 girl with 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.’
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Waiters were hurrying around the terrace now like ants, collapsing striped umbrellas and ushering everyone inside. They waved their arms as people gathered their things and scattered.
‘We’d better go.’ Charlie grabbed her bag as a fat drop of water hit her cheek and slid down her neck. It was quickly followed by another.
Detective Allard took her arm and they ran through the raindrops until they reached the crowded hotel foyer.
Allard held her hand and they squeezed their bodies through the damp, clammy crowd yelling for taxis, more champagne or to have clean towels sent to their room, until they reached the stairs leading to Charlie’s room.
For a split second, Charlie was tempted to bring his hand to her waist and have him follow her upstairs.
If only she and Violet were not sharing a room.
The humidity, wind and rain had cast a witchy spell on her. Allard had dropped his joking facade and revealed his vulnerability, his loss and failings. She longed to reach out and console him, to trace the bare skin she could glimpse through his wet shirt.
Instead, she released his hand, touched his cheek ever so slightly, and said, ‘Bonne nuit, Detective Allard,’ kissing both his cheeks before she realised she was doing it and trying to ignore the scent of sandalwood and rain soaking through his shirt.
‘Goodbye, Mademoiselle James. Charlie.’ He smiled warmly and stepped back, bumping into a young man waving his hand to catch a waiter’s attention. He stepped forward, gathered himself and said, ‘I’ll keep in contact with you. For the case.’
‘I’d appreciate that,’ said Charlie in a voice that sounded far more professional than she felt in that moment.
She turned and ran up the stairs before she acted on the impulse she knew she’d regret later.
This was work, and she had a serious case to report on.
A story she could help resolve—and this time she was not going to let anything get in her way.