It was funny the way he’d come close to the truth in his need for reassurance that Paris and Europe and life in general were safer than that; funny too how shocked he’d have been at the real, increasingly pointless reason for the kid’s death.
JJ thought of him briefly, Dylan McGill, whose name he hadn’t known, of the way he’d looked in the first few moments after seeing JJ, like he was involved in some practical joke. And he thought of his family and friends asking the same exasperated questions Lenny and Dee were asking, and of the new Dylan McGill they were building between themselves.
It was like they all wanted the fundamental truth of why it had happened, of why life was like that, but there were no explanations, at least not the explanations people wanted to hear. How much would it comfort them to know that their son, brother, friend had been killed as a precautionary measure by a hitman who only moments before had sought to help him? What use was that to anyone?
And as if to back him up in his reasoning Susan Bostridge suddenly appeared, carrying a cup of coffee, and walked over to them, relaxed, graceful, like a model or ballet dancer who’d kept it into middle age. Whatever wondering she’d done about her husband’s death it looked long stored away now; she looked at peace with life, content.
“Mind if I join you?” They all responded quickly and she sat down, turning to JJ then. “How did you sleep?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“You look much better,” she said like she’d been concerned by his appearance the night before, like he’d been ill but was on the mend. Turning to Dee, she asked, “Any news?”
“We were just talking about that poor boy who was killed in Paris,” Dee said as though it was someone they’d all known.
“I saw it. Very sad.”
“I still maintain,” cut in Lenny, “that people don’t get shot places like that for no good reason. There had to be something.” Before he could expand on it again his wife threw him a glance and he crashed to a stop, looking sheepishly at Susan Bostridge then. “Me and my big mouth. Susan ...”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lenny,” she said, smiling, unperturbed. “And I know what you mean because it’s a puzzle, it really is. But the sad truth of life today, anywhere in the world, is that people are killed for the most absurd reasons. None of us are immune.”
JJ looked on nonplussed, an expression that concealed the uneasy sensation of being the killer of both the people they were talking about.
Having put Lenny at ease again, Susan turned to him and said, “I should explain, JJ. David, my husband, was killed two years ago in Moscow.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“Just another Western businessman killed by the Russian Mafia. It got less press coverage than this poor boy and maybe that’s as it should be.” She wasn’t dismissing her husband’s death, her tone touched lightly with sadness. Inexplicably though, at the same time he got the feeling she hadn’t loved him when he’d died, something in her face that was centered somewhere beyond having come to terms with it, like his death had merely tied up the loose threads of a separation that had already been completed in the heart.
And for the first time it made him wonder about the condom too. Bostridge had been wearing a condom and it made him wonder whether she’d been told about it, what she’d made of it if she had. It had never occurred to him before then how strange it was, that a dead man should be found wearing a condom that hadn’t served its purpose.
It was such a minor detail, but if she’d been told it would have opened up all kinds of speculation in her mind: that he’d been unfaithful to her, that a girl had been there at the time of the murder, had perhaps even been involved. Equally though, with a Western businessman in Moscow, it was a detail even the police could have overlooked, so possibly she never had been told.
When he tuned back into the conversation Lenny and Dee were outlining their itinerary for the day, Susan showing interest in a list of tourist spots she’d probably heard repeated and described thousands of times before. She turned to him then and said, “And what about you, JJ?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, suddenly on the spot. “I’m here to relax so I don’t really have any plans. I suppose I’ll have a look around, go for a walk.” She looked enchanted by his lack of ideas, as if she was used to people treating their few days there like a military exercise.
“The village should keep you busy for an hour or so. And the woods of course; there are plenty of marked trails. And if you don’t mind driving—”
“No,” he cut in, “I don’t want to drive anywhere today.” He wanted to stay around the place, eager to spot Holden if he was there or to let Holden find him before the frustration began to set in. “I might try the woodland walks.”