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The office door was slightly open. She pushed it wider and saw Monique Chaloux on her knees, feverishly feeding sheet after sheet of paper into the shredder, oblivious to the fact that she was being watched.
But she shouldn’t even be here, Ginny thought, startled. This isn’t one of her days. And that stuff she’s shredding looks like bank statements.
So what on earth’s going on?
She said quietly, ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle. Ça va?’
The older woman glanced up, her face as white as the paper she was destroying. She was far from her usual soignée self. Her clothes looked as if they had been thrown on and her hair needed washing.
‘You,’ she said, almost spitting the word. ‘What are you doing here?’
Ginny walked forward, raising her eyebrows. ‘I think that should be my question.’
‘And my own business,’ Monique retorted. ‘You are not mistress here yet.’
‘Nor are these working hours,’ Ginny said levelly. ‘So who authorised you to destroy these documents and why?’ She saw Monique hesitated, and bent, dragging the shredder’s plug out of the wall socket. ‘I’d like some answers.’
‘You would like. You would like.’ Mademoiselle’s voice was harsh and jeering. ‘What are you? Nothing but an interfering English bitch like that other one. Just as pale, just as dull.’
She got clumsily to her feet and even across the room Ginny could see she was shaking.
‘I believed she was my friend, but instead I had to watch while she took the man I loved. Even when she went away, he could not forget her, and when she came back, enceinte with another man’s baby, he married her. C’etait incroyable.’
Her voice rose. ‘He should have loved me. I could have given him children of his own, not the leavings of some Anglais.
‘When she died, I thought I had been given another chance. So I returned, hoping that at last he would see me as the wife he should have taken.’
She gave a strident bitter laugh. ‘And he was grateful to me, ah, oui, and kind. All these years, so grateful and so kind. Until the night of Baron Emile’s birthday when I saw Andre fasten the Baronne’s rubies round your throat, and I knew then I had wasted my life in vain hope.
‘I realised that I would have to see another putaine Anglaise in the place that should have been mine, and once again I would leave Terauze with nothing.’
She shook her head, a trace of spittle on her rigidly smiling lips. ‘But not this time.’ She looked down at the remaining papers crushed in her hand. ‘All these years of devotion deserve a generous reward from the Duchards and I have taken it.’
Ginny stiffened. My God, she thought. She’s been stealing money. Maybe those computer glitches were deliberate. A cover-up. If so, this is real trouble. And I’m not just uneasy. I’m beginning to be scared.
She said quietly, ‘I’m sure Baron Bertrand truly values you, mademoiselle.’ She paused. ‘So why don’t I go and find him, so you can talk things over.’ She added carefully, ‘Before things get serious.’
Mademoiselle’s eyes glittered with malice. ‘You mean before they send for the police? You are a fool. They will not do so.’ She shrugged almost gleefully. ‘Bertrand knows what I am truly owed, and he can afford the loss. Nor will he want the brouhaha of an action in the courts. The Duchard name is a proud one and your sister’s disgraceful affaire is scandal enough for the moment.’
She nodded. ‘En plus, I have been clever, taken care a couvrir ma marche. They will be glad just to let me go.’
‘You say you love Monsieur Bertrand,’ Ginny whispered. ‘Yet you can do this to him.’
Monique Chaloux gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘Love? What do you know of love, a silly girl with water in her veins instead of blood? No wonder Monsieur Andre amuses himself elsewhere. You deserve no more.’
She reached for a large leather bag on the floor beside her, stuffing the remaining statements into it. ‘Et maintenant, I am finished here,’ she added.
‘But I’m not.’ Ginny lifted her chin. ‘Because you’re not getting away with this. I’m going straight to Monsieur Bertrand.’
She turned and went quickly down the stairs. As she reached the turn, she was pushed violently as Monique barged past her. She grabbed desperately at the rail of knotted silk rope on the wall, missed and fell forward, crying out as her body rolled and jolted down the remaining stone steps, crashing into the door at the bottom.
She felt a sudden blinding pain in her head, and the world went dark.
* * *
There was something shining above her, a light so bright it managed somehow to penetrate her closed eyelids, making the previous darkness seem friendly. She tried to ask someone to switch it off, but her voice wasn’t working.
