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45
Iris stood at the bedroom window, her arms wrapped around her body. It was another beautiful day, mid-thirties she’d heard them say on the radio. They had it on constantly now, to drown out the suffocating silence that permeated the house.
Despite the heat, she was shivering. She’d been cold since PC Ramesh told them that Pierre’s body had been found in the freezer he and Laure had kept in the storeroom of their Paris apartment. It was as if her body was mirroring what had happened to Pierre. He had been stabbed in the heart.
She couldn’t stop crying, and she needed to, because her tears only added to Gabriel’s distress. He was broken, utterly and completely broken. He’d aged almost beyond recognition in the space of a few days, his face pallid and gaunt, his hair streaked with gray. Iris had heard about hair going white overnight with shock. Now she knew it could be true.
Maybe she was the same. She didn’t know because she hadn’t looked in a mirror. She could barely be bothered to dress; she had showered that morning only because she could smell her own sweat. She’d doneit for Gabriel, not for herself. She’d pulled her leggings back on after, and if the shirt she’d been wearing hadn’t had coffee spilled down it, she would have probably put that back on too, regardless of the sweat.
She forced herself to move to the wardrobe. She pulled a sweater from the shelf, put it on with difficulty, her body so stiff with sorrow that her limbs no longer bent as they should. She walked to the top of the stairs and went down them slowly, gripping the banister rail for support. There was a casserole sitting on the side in the kitchen, brought by a kind neighbor. Gabriel had gone to fetch Beth at Gatwick, she had left Greece that morning, three weeks earlier than she should have. Even if Iris and Gabriel weren’t hungry, Beth might be.
She opened the oven, put the dish on the shelf and closed the door. She was about to sit down, because standing took too much energy, when she remembered she needed to turn the oven on. She reached out, turned the dial to halfway around and sank into a chair.
Beth didn’t know that Pierre had been murdered. She and Gabriel had discussed it and had felt it would be too much for her to cope with alone, coming so soon after Laure’s death. They hadn’t wanted her to find out from social media before they’d had a chance to tell her face-to-face, so they’d told her that Pierre had been found and that he was dead. Beth hadn’t asked for any details, just said she wanted to come home. They were dreading telling her the truth. She would have so many questions and they had no answers to give her.
She heard the car pulling into the drive. Gripping the table, she pushed slowly to her feet. There was the clunk of a car door shutting, then another. She moved into the hall and looked through the window. The devastation on Beth’s face was clearly visible, and Iris breathed a sigh of relief. Gabriel had already told her.
46
PC Locke was back. It was Monday morning, nine days after Laure had died, four days after Pierre’s body had been found in the freezer.
“It seems Pierre was killed earlier than the French police first thought,” she said, once they were sitting around the table in the kitchen, in what had become their familiar positions. “Possibly six weeks ago.”
Iris’s eyes flickered toward the stairs, visible at the end of the hallway. She was glad Beth was still in bed, she preferred her to receive any updates from her and Gabriel. Then PC Locke’s words penetrated her mind.
“Six weeks?” Gabriel said, getting there before her. “Pierre’s been dead six weeks?”
“Yes, the French police think he was murdered sometime around the beginning of July.”
“The beginning of July?” Stunned, Iris turned to Gabriel. “That was around the time Laure went to Paris to meet him. Oh God, do you think that’s why he didn’t turn up? Because he was dead?”
“Christ,” he muttered.
Tears filled her eyes. “She thought he didn’t turn up because he didn’t care. But what if he was already dead? I can’t bear it.”
“When was this?” Iris looked up, startled by PC Locke’s urgent tone. “When did Laure go to Paris to see Pierre?”
“Um, I’m not sure, exactly.”
“Please Iris, it’s important.”
Iris found her mobile and brought up the calendar. “It was the day after I met my friend Jade for lunch. Here it is—my lunch with Jade was on Friday the first of July, so Laure’s meeting with Pierre must have been on the second.”
PC Locke frowned. “The second?”
“Yes.”
She checked her iPad and a stillness came over her.
“Iris, can you take me through that day, the day Laure went to Paris to meet Pierre? What time did she leave?”
“Gosh, I can’t remember. I know I had to get up early because I was taking her to the station. She was meeting Pierre at one o’clock at their flat and with France being an hour ahead, she needed to get the Eurostar around nine, I think. Yes, that’s it, she had booked the nine o’clock Eurostar, because the journey takes around two and a half hours, which meant she’d get into Gare du Nord at twelve thirty French time, giving her enough time to get to their flat for one.”
“But Pierre wasn’t there?”
“No.”
“When did Laure tell you that he wasn’t there?”
