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“Exactly.”
41
Gabriel sat on the wooden bench in the walled garden, his head tipped back, his eyes closed against the sun.
If their world hadn’t suddenly imploded, he’d be waiting for Maggie Ingram to arrive. He felt guilty at the relief he’d felt when he’d realized Laure’s death had given him an excuse for postponing their meeting. The counselor had sent her condolences and said to let her know when he felt able to meet with Maggie. It would be a long time before that would happen.
He’d come to the walled garden to try to get his head straight. The house was too heavy with the sights and sounds of Iris’s grief—her drawn face and red-rimmed eyes, her quiet sobs and, sometimes, a roar of disbelief—to be able to think straight.
At first, he’d thought Laure’s death was an accident, because of her ghoulish fascination with the quarry. But then he’d begun thinking about her mental state. Her trip to Paris had been an emotional disaster. In not turning up to their arranged meeting, Pierre had effectively rejected her. In retaliation, she’d thrown herself into a relationship with Joseph. The argument Iris had overheard—Laure saying shedidn’t want to and Joseph saying she had to—could have been about him telling her she needed to leave him alone. There had already been the “back off” comment and the way Joseph physically shrugged Laure off when she got too close. In Gabriel’s mind, it suggested that he had tired of her.
Iris felt bad for having mentioned their argument to the police, but in his view, she’d been right to tell them because the police instinctively knew when people were trying to hide something. Thank God Pierre had turned his phone off, had never seen the message he’d sent him last Thursday telling him that Laure had moved on. If he had seen the message, the police might think he had come over and murdered Laure. What he couldn’t understand was why Pierre hadn’t turned his phone back on yet. Today was the first of August; by rights, he should be back at his desk. A part of him was glad that he hadn’t been able to get through to him, because the thought of having to tell him Laure was dead was truly terrible. But he didn’t want his friend to hear it from the police. The number of voicemails he’d left, always with the same message—Pierre, you need to call me urgently. It’s about Laure—were stacking up.
Gabriel turned his thoughts to Joseph. There was something that hadn’t added up, something that had seemed a little strange at the time. But so far, he hadn’t been able to work out what it was. He cast his mind back to Saturday, when they’d first been worried about Laure. They had tried to get hold of Esme and Hugh, but couldn’t, and Joseph had told him they were having dinner at The Watershed. He’d said he would ask them about Laure when they got back, and then he’d called to say that he’d gone to The Watershed to speak to them, and that they hadn’t seen her.
“Here you are.” He opened his eyes and Iris came into view, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “I’ve been looking for you.”
He sat up. “Has something happened? Have the police managed to get hold of Pierre?”
“No.” She came over and sat down beside him. “It’s just that I don’tlike being alone. The house is too silent without Laure.” He heard the sob in her voice and pulled her toward him. “What were you thinking about?” she asked.
“Joseph,” he admitted. “There’s something bothering me.”
“What?”
“He said he went to The Watershed to speak to Esme and Hugh.” She looked confused. “When no one was answering their phones. You know, on Saturday.”
“Oh, yes. What about it?”
“I don’t think he went.”
“What do you mean?”
“There wasn’t enough time, I’m sure of it.” Releasing her, he dug his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his calls. “Seven minutes. Joseph called back seven minutes later to say he’d been to The Watershed to speak to Esme and Hugh. That’s not enough time to get to The Watershed and back, even if he had run.”
“Maybe he called you from the pub. Or when he was walking home.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t hear any background noise. Anyway, there’s something else. When I think about it now, neither Hugh nor Esme called us when they got home to see if Laure had turned up. They only messaged yesterday. And they messaged, not called.”
Iris frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“That they didn’t know until yesterday that Laure was missing because for some reason, Joseph didn’t tell them? I don’t know. It just seems a bit weird.”
Iris’s eyes welled with tears. “Everything’s weird. I feel awful that Pierre doesn’t know yet.”
He tightened his arms around her, cursing himself for upsetting her, for seeming to point the finger at Joseph. He’d be suspecting Hugh and Esme next. But that’s what happened when somebody died unexpectedly. If it wasn’t an obvious accident, it was human nature to look at those who knew the victim. For all he knew, people in the villagemight be looking at him, wondering if he’d had anything to do with it. To an outsider, it could have seemed a strange set-up, Laure moving in with them. People might be asking themselves if there’d been something going on between him and Laure.
It was why he’d been glad that Iris had had the presence of mind to tell the police he’d arrived home from his bike ride on Saturday forty-five minutes before he actually had. When the police had asked him about his movements that day, he’d stuck to what Iris had told them, that he’d arrived home at four fifteen. But now, Gabriel couldn’t help wondering if it had been the right thing to do, because if the police decided that murder was a possibility, and they made inquiries, someone might have seen him cycle past their house after four fifteen, when Iris had told the police he was already home.
Which would make things incredibly difficult for him.
42
“Have you found him?” Iris asked PC Locke, when she saw her standing on the doorstep the next morning. “Pierre?”
“All I’ve been told by the French police is that he didn’t turn up for work yesterday.”
Iris’s shoulders sagged. “So where is he?”
