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“Stop beating yourself up,” Esme said firmly. “It’s probably helped him to hear a few opinions.” She paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask—I’d love your help in choosing the soft furnishings and color schemes for the house. As a client, of course. Is it something you’d be interested in?”
A warm glow spread through Iris’s body. “Definitely.”
“I know you’re waiting to hear back about the town house. I thought it might fill in the time while you’re waiting.”
“It would, thank you.”
“Great.” Esme gave her a smile. “Maybe we could have a day out in London together to look at furniture for the nursery. Do you have a free day this week?”
“How about Thursday?”
“That works for me.”
“Perfect,” Iris said. And it would be—as long as Laure didn’t ask to go with them.
26
Gabriel watched the French countryside speed by, glad to be out of the house for the day.
Away from Iris too. He still couldn’t understand why she’d brought up Maggie at lunch yesterday. He knew she was frustrated with him—but what had she been hoping? That everyone would come down on her side and tell him that he had to meet Charlie’s mum? That hadn’t happened. Although Esme seemed to think that he should meet Maggie, Joseph had said he should do what was best for himself, and Hugh had remained neutral.
Deep down, Gabriel knew he was going to have to bite the bullet, because Iris was right. Despite what Joseph had said, he needed to do what was best for Maggie, not what was best for him.
The controller announced their imminent arrival at Gare du Nord. Gabriel pulled his overnight bag from the rack and stuffed his earphones into his pocket, both excited and apprehensive about seeing his friend. It was a thirty-minute walk to Pierre and Laure’s apartment from the station, and, as it was only five o’clock, and Pierre wouldn’t behome before seven, Gabriel stopped at a café on the Place de la Republique and sat on the terrace, an espresso in front of him.
While he watched the world go by, his thoughts returned to Maggie. On the train, he’d come up with a plan. If all she wanted to do was thank him, and go over Charlie’s last moments, he would maintain theTell Mum I love herscenario. If she insisted that Charlie would never have said such a thing, he’d tell her that Charlie hadn’t said anything, but that he’d made up the lie hoping it would bring her comfort. If Maggie accepted either of those versions, and went away happier, he would feel vindicated.
His coffee drunk, Gabriel walked to Oberkampf, the area where Pierre and Laure lived, stopping at a boulangerie for apain au chocolat. He felt surprisingly relaxed considering what lay ahead of him, because he didn’t doubt that any conversation with Pierre would be difficult.
He arrived at Pierre and Laure’s apartment block. The code for the outer door hadn’t changed so Gabriel didn’t have to ask someone to let him into the building. He glanced at the rows of letter boxes that lined the left-hand wall of the entrance hall, pressed the release button for the inner door and made his way past the lift and up the staircase to the first floor. He’d never understood why his friends had chosen to live in such a sterile building when they could have afforded a flat in one of the beautiful buildings on the main boulevard.
On the first floor, he rang their doorbell. As he expected, there was no answer, so he sat on the floor to wait, his back against the wall. He took out his phone, prepared to while away the next hour or so catching up on the increasingly depressing news. Whenever the downstairs door clicked open, he looked up, hoping to hear Pierre’s footsteps on the stairs. Instead, he would hear the whir of the lift running down its shaft in response to the call button in the hall below.
Seven o’clock came, and went. Gabriel shifted his position, stretching his legs out in front of him. Doubts were beginning to set in. What if Pierre had a dinner tonight? What if, as Laure suspected, he was with Claire, or whoever the mother of his child was? In Laure’s absence, hemight have moved in with her. He cursed his friend under his breath.You’d better not let me down, Pierre. You’d better turn up.
The downstairs door clicked open again and this time, Gabriel heard someone coming up the stairs. He pushed to his feet, but the man who appeared wasn’t Pierre, and after a curiousBonsoir, he continued along the corridor and up to the second floor, then to the third. There was the distant rattle of keys, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut. Then silence.
It was now eight o’clock. If Gabriel had had the keys to their flat, he might have been tempted to go in and wait there. But he hadn’t thought to take them with him; it was one thing to go into their apartment with Laure and Pierre’s permission, but a completely different thing to walk in without their knowledge.
Gabriel looked around. There were five other apartments on this floor of the building and he knew, from conversations with Pierre and Laure, that they didn’t socialize with their neighbors. That was why they’d chosen to live in such an impersonal building, Pierre had joked. He didn’t want to live in the sort of place where neighbors popped in and out of each other’s homes. Pierre was an enigma in that sense. When he had to socialize, he did it very well; he would talk to everyone in the room and generally be the life and soul of the party. But he wasn’t interested in small chat, and wouldn’t normally choose to talk to someone he didn’t know. An introverted extrovert, Gabriel supposed.
On a couple of occasions, when he and Iris had been using the apartment, they had bumped into the elderly woman who lived opposite. He stood up, brushed himself down, and went to ring on her doorbell.
For a while, the only sound inside was from the television, the volume turned up so loud that Gabriel knew she was watching the news. Eventually he heard someone on the other side of the door and guessed she was looking through the spyhole to check who was there. There was a rattle of bolts and the door opened a crack.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Gabriel began, stooping so that shecould see his face. He spoke reasonable French, and what he had to ask wasn’t difficult, so he carried on. “I’m looking for Pierre.” He pointed to the door of Pierre and Laure’s apartment.
She nodded, and he knew that she had recognized him.
“I haven’t see him for a while,” she said. “His wife was here on Saturday, I saw her go into the apartment. But I didn’t see him.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
She thought for a moment. “Last week, when I went down to take my rubbish to the bin in the courtyard. He was on his way out.” She paused. “I haven’t seen his wife for a while, apart from on Saturday.”
“She’s with us, in England.”
“Ah!” A smile crossed her face.
