The receptionist stands and beckons us through into the station. I swallow my unease about heading farther into this place. He leads us down a corridor into an office with a plaque that reads Commissaire Blanchot on the door and a man—in his late fifties at a guess—sitting behind a huge desk. He looks up. A bristle of short gray hair, a big square face, small dark eyes. He stands and shakes Nick’s hand then turns to me, looks me up and down, and sweeps a hand at the two chairs in front of his desk. “Asseyez vous.”
Clearly Nick pulled some strings: the office and Blanchot’s air of importance tell me he’s some sort of bigwig. But there’s something about the guy I don’t like. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the pitbull face, maybe it’s to do with the way he looked at me just now. It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. I don’t have to like him. All I need is for him to do his job properly, to find my brother. And I’m not so blind that I can’t see I might be bringing my own baggage to all of this.
Nick starts speaking to Blanchot in French. I can barely pick up a word they’re saying. I catch Ben’s name, I think, and a couple of times they glance in my direction.
“Sorry,” Nick turns back to me. “I realize we were talking pretty fast. I wanted to get everything in. Could you follow any of it? He doesn’t speak much English, I’m afraid.”
I shake my head. “It wouldn’t have made much difference if you’d gone slowly.”
“Don’t worry: I’ll explain. I’ve laid out the whole situation to him. And basically we’re coming up against what I was telling you about before: the ‘right to disappear.’ But I’m trying to convince him that this is something more than that. That you—that we—are really worried about Ben.”
“You’ve told him about the notebook?” I ask. “And what happened last night?”
Nick nods. “Yes, I went through all that.”
“How about the voicenote?” I hold up my phone. “I have it right here, I could play it.”
“That’s a great idea.” Nick says something to Commissaire Blanchot, then turns to me and nods. “He’d like to listen to it.”
I hand over the phone. I don’t like the way the guy snatches it from me. He’s just doing his job, Jess, I tell myself. He plays the voicenote through some kind of loudspeaker and, once again, I hear my brother’s voice like I’ve never heard it before. “What the fuck?” And then the sound. That strange groan.
I look over at Nick. He’s gone white. He seems to be having the same reaction as I did: it tells me my gut feeling was right.
Blanchot turns it off and nods at Nick. Because I don’t speak French, or I’m a woman—or both—it feels like I barely exist to him.
I prod Nick. “He has to do something now, yes?”
Nick swallows, then seems to pull himself together. He asks the guy a question, turns back to me. “Yes. I think that’s helped. It gives us a good case.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Blanchot watching the two of us, his expression blank.
And then suddenly it’s all over and they’re shaking hands again and Nick is saying: “Merci, Commissaire Blanchot” and I say “Merci” too and Blanchot smiles at me and I try to ignore the uneasiness that I know is probably less to do with this guy than everything he represents. Then we’re being shown back out into the corridor and Blanchot’s door is closing.
“How do you think it went?” I ask Nick, as we walk out of the front door of the station. “Did he take it seriously?”
He nods. “Yes, eventually. I think the voicenote clinched it.” He says, his voice hoarse. He still looks pale and sickened by what he just heard, on the voicenote. “And don’t worry—I’ve given myself as a contact, not you. As soon as I hear anything I’ll let you know.”
For a moment, back out on the street, Nick stops and stands stock-still. I watch as he covers his eyes with his hand and takes a long, shaky breath. And I think: here is someone else who cares about Ben. Maybe I’m not quite as alone in this as I thought.
Sophie
Penthouse
I’m setting up the apartment for drinks. The last Sunday of every month, Jacques and I host everyone in our penthouse apartment. We open some of the finest vintages from the store in the cellar. But this evening will be different. We have a great deal to discuss.
I pour the wine into its decanter, arrange the glasses. We could afford staff to do this. But Jacques never wanted strangers in this apartment capable of nosing around through his private affairs. It has suited me well enough. Though I suppose if we did have staff I might have been less alone here, over the years. As I place the decanter on the low table in the sitting area, I can see him there in the armchair opposite me: Benjamin Daniels, exactly as he sat nearly three months ago. One leg crossed over the knee at the ankle. A glass of wine dangling from one hand. So at ease in the space.
I watched him. Saw him sizing the place up, the wealth of it. Or perhaps trying to find a flaw in the furnishings I had chosen as carefully as the clothes I wear: the mid-century Florence Knoll armchair, the Ghom silk rug beneath his feet. To signify class, good taste, the kind of breeding that cannot be bought.
He turned and caught me watching. Grinned. That smile of his: a fox entering the hen coop. I smiled back, coolly. I would not be wrong-footed. I would be the perfect hostess.
He asked Jacques about his collection of antique rifles.
“I’ll show you.” Jacques lifted one down—a rare honor. “Feel that bayonet? You could run a man straight through with it.”
Ben said all the right things. Noticed the condition, the detailing on the brass. My husband: a man not easily charmed. But he was. I could see it.
“What do you do, Ben?” he asked, pouring him a glass. A hot, late summer night: white would have been better. But Jacques wanted to show off the vintage.
“I’m a writer,” Ben said.
“He’s a journalist,” Nick said, at the same time.
I watched Jacques’ face closely. “What sort of journalist?” He asked it so lightly.
Ben shrugged. “Mainly restaurant reviews, new exhibitions, that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” Jacques said. He sat back in his chair. King of all he surveyed. “Well, I’m happy to suggest some restaurants for you to review.”
Ben smiled: that easy, charismatic smile. “That would be very helpful. Thank you.”
“I like you, Ben,” Jacques told him, pointing. “You remind me a little of myself at your age. Fire in the belly. Hunger. I had it too, that drive. It’s more than can be said for some young men, these days.”