Chapter 23 #2
I nodded and asked her if having brunch with guests was a regular thing for the family.
“Oh, absolutely. If you don’t mind, there’s a lot to do before the evening falls.”
Seemed like this was a weekly event. I searched the internet for the name of the company the woman worked for (embroidered on the apron, below a logo of a broom standing by itself, like those from the Fantasia movie).
According to the information I found, such a service could cost between two hundred fifty thousand and five hundred thousand pounds a year, paid in advance each month.
The catering was even pricier, which seemed extravagant…
until I peered through a window at the end of the third-floor hallway, which provided a view into the backyard.
I couldn’t even see the end of the Dubois’ garden.
The patio extended from the mansion, featuring a glass-walled porch, leading to a padel court, and beyond that, a meadow that could easily have been a golf course.
The opposite side of the mansion, as I’d noticed upon my arrival the previous night, was bordered by tall trees and lush pines.
But in the backyard, the preparations made last night’s charity party look small.
Two long polished wooden tables, covered with delicate interwoven tablecloths that draped from side to side and hung down the sides but showed the wood underneath; gold-plated plates and cutlery, bottles of champagne on the table, napkins arranged on the plates in beautiful swan shapes; plush armchairs, a live band whose members chatted next to a music stand, their instruments—a violin, viola, and trumpet—sitting on the seats, and two chocolate fountains surrounded by trays of cut fruit.
To Gina’s delight, a crepe-making machine was set up nearby.
The catering for a simple brunch was what every little girl (and by little girl, I mean myself at eight and myself now) would want for her wedding. What appears on those shows where people spend thousands of pounds on their special day.
I moved away from the window before any service staff (or worse, the Dubois) could see me snooping. I stepped back and retraced my steps down the hallway, clenching my fists at my sides.
It was unfair. It was terribly unfair that they could spend all that money on just a weekend while I was sweating bullets trying to do the same.
While I was forced to spend a million on…
what? Parties! Clothes! I felt pathetic.
And I felt that Laurent Dubois was an even more pathetic jerk for living like that.
If those million pounds had come to me with no conditions…
I could have used it to pay off my student debt.
I could have hired someone to take care of my mother, help her with household chores, and cook for her.
I could have saved it, just in case. In case I ever really, really needed it.
Part of me knew it wasn’t my fault. What was I supposed to do if the instructions said I couldn’t use the money for anything that would leave a trace?
For a family like the Dubois, bathed in gold, too rich to realize what that looked like to others, such spending wouldn’t have been a headache.
A million pounds was like loose change! For Gina or me, used to living off savings and discounts, always counting every penny, it was an almost impossible task.
Whoever was blackmailing me knew that. This was nothing but a cruel game.
I paused on the second floor, the brighter light spilling in from the windows. The sounds of clattering pots and chatter drifted up from the kitchen below, grounding me in the moment. My fists slowly relaxed, fingers unfurling as I took a deep breath. I couldn’t cry. Not over such nonsense.
My room was on that floor. I couldn’t find it.
I retraced my steps from the stairs I remembered passing when I left my room to the living room where I had met the head of the service.
All the doors, seven in total, seemed to crowd in a corner of the hallway; all the same, all with a golden little sign that read “chambre.” One of those had to be my room.
I thought it was to the right, across from Gina’s. That narrowed it down to one of the rooms by the stairs, ruling out four others. I was pretty sure it wasn’t the one at the end of the hallway either.
That left me with two options: the middle room or the one closer to me. I chose the closer one, ready to knock just in case I was wrong. The last thing I needed was to walk in on someone in a compromising position.
Then, footsteps echoed in the hallway. I froze.
They were coming down the stairs and, judging by the constant patter on the parquet, they were heading towards the rooms. And I didn’t want to be standing there in the middle of the hallway looking lost (which I was) or like I was spying (which, in a way, I was).
I pushed the door open and slipped inside, shutting it behind me.
I kept my movements quiet, straining to hear any sounds in the room.
I squinted, trying to make out anything in the gloom.
The faint outline of a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and I could just discern the silhouette of a two-meter wardrobe directly in front of me.
I pressed my back against the door, my heart racing.
This wasn’t my room.
I was in an office.
It looked like no one had been in here for quite some time.
The curtains were drawn, a thick fabric falling to the carpeted floor, and the sunlight filtered through a small gap between the curtains, revealing dust particles hanging suspended in the air.
The sound of footsteps that had driven me into the office had ceased.
A voice made me focus on the outside. On the conversation happening on the other side of the door.
It was Enzo.
“I know you don’t have the money,” he said, lowering his voice.
I assumed he was being careful in case someone overheard. Too bad he was talking inches from the door they’d be listening through.
“Did dad tell you?” Elo?se replied, urgency staining her words.
There was a pause, during which I assumed Enzo nodded.
“Still, I don’t need your help.”
“Elo?se, stop with that. I also know he’s not giving you anything.”
“I have my own income,” she defended herself, her voice breaking.
“Oh, really? Even with everything that’s going on?”
A thud echoed through the room, like someone slapping the wall. I jumped, tapping the door with my heel. I stiffened, almost expecting Enzo to burst into the room and see who was spying on them, too afraid of releasing my breath. But, after a heartbeat, they resumed their conversation.
“I’ve never needed mum’s money.”
“Begging her to leave you the family assets in her will seemed to indicate otherwise.”
Elo?se barely gave him time to finish the sentence.
“Don’t come at me with that, little brother. You can’t just show up now and act like you’re part of the family when you’ve been gone for years!”
“You’re still my sister. You know it could take months for the Larousse thing to get sorted. Months! Damn it, Elo?se, it could take years.”
“It won’t take that long for me to get the inheritance, I…”
“We both know that Larousse didn’t do anything. He wasn’t the one who killed Mum, Elo. And you won’t see any money until they find the culprit, if they ever do.”
Another thud. I heard footsteps, as if one of them was walking away.
“I can manage on my own, Enzo. I don’t need your money,” I heard from a distance, “I have plenty already.”
There were a few seconds of silence, and I wondered if the siblings had left. Enzo muttered a frustrated “damn it,” and I heard his footsteps fading down the hallway, heading in the opposite direction from where Elo?se had gone moments earlier. A door slammed shut, followed by an eerie silence.
What the hell was that? Why did Enzo think his sister needed money?
The inheritance she mentioned… Of course!
The investigation into her mother’s murder was still open, so she hadn’t been able to receive it yet!
My boss must have known about this. There was a chance Bastian did, too.
And if anyone wanted to see the investigation wrapped up, even more than Saidi’s employees, it had to be Elo?se.
Catching her mother’s killer equalled getting the inheritance.
Maybe I had underestimated her. It seemed Bastian wasn’t the only one trying to take advantage of the situation.
I remained pressed against the door, making every effort to stay as silent as possible, until I was certain no one else was in the hallway. I needed to be sure that no one would see me emerge from… where was I? A chill ran from the top of my head to my toes.
I was in Laurent Dubois’s office.
If there had been any common sense left in me, I would have turned around and left.
What if there were cameras? If I owned that mansion, every corner would be under surveillance.
Maybe some bored security guard was watching me now, my eyes flicking around like a madwoman, searching for a red light that would reveal his presence.
But curiosity pushed me forward. I didn’t see any sign of a camera, and I had come too far to give up now. If I gave up, it wouldn’t be out of fear.
I had already taken the risk of flying to Bordeaux; I was knee-deep in this mess and covered in metaphorical mud. Laurent Dubois knew exactly what he was doing when he invited me to his home, and the consequences would be his to deal with.
I started with the desk. It seemed logical, right?
If someone kept something important in an office, something recent that could be useful, it should be on their desk.
There was nothing on the table that caught my eye.
Laurent Dubois didn’t have a computer. I wasn’t surprised. He had the air of an old-fashioned man.
Next, I tried the drawers.
Empty, except for a collection of fountain pens and a collection of stamps with the Dubois family crest. I dug my nails into my palms and kept searching.
There were a dozen bookshelves covering every inch of the walls, filled with old-looking books and statuettes of golfers with golden figures raising a club in the air.
Among the bookshelves, almost camouflaged in the wood, was a door.
I crossed the room and turned the handle, hoping it wouldn’t give way.
It opened with a click.
The room was much smaller than the office, almost like a closet, and smelled of mustiness and printer paper.
There were no windows, so I felt along the wall for a light switch.
When I turned on the light, I saw that I was in a sort of archive room.
In front of me were two built-in cabinets with labels from A to Z.
Bingo.
I looked for the C and started flipping through files, searching for anything with the name Club Montari. Finding nothing, I looked in the M.
Montari appeared at the very end, a thick folder with papers sticking out, their edges worn with age.
I removed the rubber band that held the folder together and began flipping through the pages, skimming.
As I feared, it was a financial record of the Club, dating from 1978 to the present.
I flipped to the last pages for the past year.
It had been updated for the last time on June 1st, five months ago.
There was no indication that money was missing or that half a million from the club’s funds had been withdrawn at any point.
The other years had monthly records. Why had they stopped recording it?
I closed the folder and put it back, frustrated.
Why had they stopped updating the records just at that moment?
Unless… the papers were somewhere else. And it was clear that this other place was not Laurent Dubois’s office.
I refused to let my small venture be in vain.
Almost driven by anger, I flipped through the files until I found another that might be useful.
My hands moved by instinct toward the E, and moments later, I had a folder in hand labelled Elo?se Hawtrey-Moore.
The conversation I had just overheard between her and Enzo was still buzzing in my mind. The inheritance, the money…
But the folder contained nothing useful. It had medical documents from years ago, university papers, invoices for an apartment… Nothing about her mother’s inheritance.
My fingers shook as they hovered near the file cabinet.
Just before I closed the compartment for the E, my hands betrayed me, darting back to the end of the folder.
I wanted to check one thing: if Enzo’s name appeared anywhere.
Just when I thought it was foolish to look for it in the E, and not in the L for Laurent, I saw his name taped in clear tape on the edge of a thin folder: Enzo, Laurent Adrien Dubois.
I pulled it out, extracting a single file inside.
It was two pages; the first, blank except for a phrase at the top, read that it was a police report.
It was dated February 10th of that same year.
My mind scrambled to remember the exact dates.
Antonia, his mother, had died the following morning, the night between February 11th and 12th.
Why would the police have needed Enzo’s cooperation before the investigation into Antonia’s murder had officially opened?
My heart skipped a beat. What if they hadn’t sought his cooperation?
What if this report documented some crime Enzo was involved in?
I turned the page and read as fast as I could; my eyes seemed to struggle to make sense of the words on the page, fearful of what I might find.
Enzo hadn’t committed any crime. As long as lying and deceiving me as if I were an idiot didn’t count as a crime.
Because Enzo had testified in favour of Julian Garros. My client. The person everyone knew I was defending. And he had done it months before going out with me.