“Twice then. Certainly not three times.”
“Okay.” She has finally relaxed a little; I can hear the tension easing out of her voice. “Okay. That’s good. I can definitely work with that. Anything else?”
“Well . . .” I don’t know what time Seb came to bed. Through the café window I can see a side view of the abandoned Alina, sitting where I left her at the table. One hand is resting on her crossed legs, her thumb beating out an unsteady high-speed tattoo. I don’t know what time Seb came to bed. The words are there, fully formed in my head, waiting to be sent forth into the world.
“Yes?”
I look at Alina again. She has stilled her thumb with her other hand, but her ankle is jittering now. “Sorry, uh, something just distracted me here. No, nothing else.”
“Okay then, I’ll set up a meeting with the detective and get back to you. This is good, Kate; it’s helpful.”
“Great.” The word sounds thin.
“Oh, and Kate?”
“Yes?”
“If you have anything more to offer, now’s the time. Think hard.” Then she disconnects.
The cold overrides my reluctance to return to Alina, pushing me back into the café. Alina looks up as I enter. “Sorry about that,” I say as I drop into the seat opposite her.
“You have a lawyer.” It’s almost an accusation.
“Yes.”
“Does Seb have a lawyer?” Her manner is definitely more hostile. I’m the messenger, I realize: she’d really quite like to shoot me. And Seb, too, I expect, for putting her in this position, of being the last to know.
“I don’t know. But if he doesn’t, he should get one.”
“He didn’t do it,” she says tightly. “I know him. You know him. You know he didn’t have anything to do with it.” I can’t bring myself to say anything. Her eyes widen. “Oh my God,” she says, genuinely stunned. “You actually think it was him.”
“Look, I don’t know what happened,” I protest weakly, but she’s not mollified.
“How could you? You went out with him, you know him.”
I can see the shock turning to bitter fury inside her, and I find myself mentally cheering her loyalty even as I cringe in the face of it. “I just . . . Look, I don’t think your Seb is the same as the Seb I went out with. We’ve all changed a lot since then.”
“Still,” she insists fiercely, her eyes boring into mine, “he wouldn’t have done that.” She waits imperiously for me to respond, and there is nothing else I can do: I nod. She nods her head sharply, acknowledging her win without any joy, then continues. “I bet Caro’s trying to make him think he was involved somehow, responsible even. She’s probably pretending she’s covering up for him. To make him rely on her. That’s the leverage she has. I bet she’s been doing it for years, actually—he’s always been on the booze more after she’s been around.” I cock my head: Alina may be onto something. It would be just like Caro to milk every advantage out of the situation: a confused, guilt-ridden Seb who owes an enormous debt to Caro is surely much more likely to succumb to her wiles . . . Alina happens to think the debt is manufactured rather than real, but either way, I can see a twisted Caro logic at work. I can just imagine her, late at night, sending poison-laden whispers down the phone line to slither into Seb’s ear and take residence, curled inside his desperately worried mind. At least, it would be just like the Caro I thought I knew, but now I wonder; now there’s the possibility of an alternative interpretation in my mind. Maybe Caro phones Seb because she can’t help herself, because she’s hopelessly in love with him. It would be just like Seb to carelessly lead her on, to be the one delivering to her ear sweet nothings carried on whispers that really are nothing at all, except a vehicle for the ego boost he needs . . . Perhaps he drinks after she’s been around out of guilt. Then I think again of Mark Jeffers, and I’m back to Caro as poison-whisperer.
“And anyway,” says Alina in a sudden change of pace, “surely there’s an obvious alternative suspect.”
I wait dumbly. Does she mean me? Surely she wouldn’t suggest that in front of me, though to be fair I have just been casting aspersions about her husband . . .
“Theo.”
I shake my head. “Nobody thinks it was Theo.”
“Why not? Did he have an alibi?”
“No—well, I mean, yes, he was with Caro, I think, but I suppose that he went to bed at some point—”
“He’s dead,” she interrupts bluntly. “Which is obviously quite horrible for him and his parents and everyone who loved him, but all of you are still alive, with lives ahead of you to live. Surely if the blame is to fall on any of you, you might as well make it fall on him.”
The brazen suggestion takes my breath away. “What you’re suggesting . . .” I trail off. I should finish with is immoral, or is illegal, or is an obstruction of justice; but somehow I can’t bring myself to spell it out. Theo as prime suspect. Alina thinks she’s simply getting rid of the Caro problem, but it would get me off the hook too, of course. A wave of longing sweeps over me, a longing to be free of the weight that presses down on me, beating me a little smaller, a little weaker every day; to be free of the broiling sea of fear that sits in my stomach and threatens on occasion to erupt from my throat and overwhelm me.
“Yes,” Alina says, her steady gaze fixed on my face despite the blush that betrays her emotions. “I know what I’m suggesting.” I look at the cold fire within the yellow brown eyes, and I don’t doubt her. Seb is so very lucky to have her, grimly fighting in his corner despite no doubt being utterly furious with him. But this particular sally seems too well considered to have just come to her whilst I’ve been braving both the cold and my lawyer’s interrogation outside. “Is this what you wanted to speak to me about?”
She considers denying it but evidently plumps for the truth. “Yes.” She shrugs, a glorious sweep upward of the tips of the outspread wings of her collarbones. She should have been a ballet dancer. She has the frame for it, and something else, too, something in her every gesture, each leading seamlessly into the next, that makes it seem like she’s moving through a larger choreographed whole. “It doesn’t really matter whether I’m right about what Caro’s leverage is; if all of this goes away, then so does she.”
And you think you’ll get your husband back. “Tom will never go for it,” I say at last. And now I’ve skipped over the morality, too: I’m focused on whether her plan can actually be executed. I wonder when I lost faith in the legal system, French or otherwise. Or perhaps it’s not a lack of trust in the legal system that’s to blame. Perhaps it’s just that I know all too well that life isn’t always fair; therefore, how can you expect the law to be? I shiver. Don’t think about being arrested.
“He won’t?” She raises her eyebrows. “Not even for Seb?”
“I don’t . . .” I realize I don’t know. Even yesterday I would have said that Tom would do anything for Seb, but now? The bitterness in Seb’s voice last night, the tightness of Tom’s face when Seb revealed he’d known all along that Tom was angling for me . . . I don’t know who Tom would choose, Theo or Seb. “I don’t know.”