Modan speaks up. “Perhaps you are a little tired. We should come back later, non?”
“No, no, this is actually relevant,” I say testily. “There were two things in my pocket. The card from the flowers. And a Dictaphone. I don’t know if it will have picked up much, but maybe . . .” Once again I feel my hand slipping quietly into my pocket and slipping back out again just as quietly.
Suddenly Modan and PC Stone look a lot more interested. “A Dictaphone? You’re sure?” asks PC Stone. I nod. “But there’s nothing in evidence,” he objects.
“A Dictaphone, did you say? Looks a bit like a mini cassette player, yes? Oh, that’s in your top drawer,” says a breezy voice from across the room. It’s the nurse; I didn’t notice her coming in to check on the bathroom supplies. “It looks a bit bashed up, I’m afraid.”
I turn toward the drawers, but Modan is faster, pulling a glove out of his pocket. He rummages in the drawer and comes out with the little black device in his gloved hand, turning it over carefully. One corner looks crushed, and a crack runs across the face of it. Both the Dictaphone and I bear the marks of the crash to the tiles. I’m working, mostly; is it?
“It was in my pocket,” I say, horribly anxious. “I don’t know how much that will have muffled the sound. And it’s pretty old anyway; it’s not even digital . . .” Tom takes my hand, and I realize I’m babbling, so I trail off. Modan is carefully rewinding the tape, which makes a whining sound I don’t remember, and stutters and grates from time to time, causing me to hold my breath each time until it recovers. And then it stops abruptly. Modan’s eyes catch mine and hold for a beat. Then he presses play.
I’m talking, but my mouth isn’t moving: “Arrange to meet candidate in advance of the, uh, Stockleys recruitment drive becoming common knowledge; have Julie arrange on Monday—”
I shake my head at Modan, still linked to his eyes, and talk over myself, “No, this isn’t it—” but the tape abruptly switches scene. Indistinct, muffled sounds can be heard, and then indistinct voices. There’s almost certainly a woman, probably two; it certainly sounds like a not-quite-heard conversation. Modan raises his eyebrow, and I nod back imperceptibly, then he looks for a volume knob. It’s already at maximum.
“I can’t—” I start, but Modan holds up a hand to silence me. So we listen, the four of us, to a conversation played out too far beyond the veil of time and technology to be audible. Tantalizing words slip out: I hear Darren Lucas, I hear accusations, I hear flowers, but I have the benefit of having been at the first screening; Tom looks utterly in the dark. But still, even with my advantage it’s plain to me the tape is not clear enough. It was all for nothing. We sit, as the gently rotating tape spools out into our silence, and I consider my future. I can’t pick up and start again; the rumors will never die. What on earth will I do? The words mostly peter out after a while, dwindling to short snatches interspersed with indistinct movements; it’s oddly soporific. But then the recording ends with an overloud scrunch, as if something bashed the microphone. I remember that crunch distinctly, the sea of white tiles rising up to meet me . . . Modan presses stop with a theatrical click.
“It’s useless.” Even to me, I sound hollow.
“Not at all,” says Modan, seeming oddly pleased. I suddenly realize even PC Stone is almost smiling. “We hear two people, two women, speaking. If we can hear this much, the technicians will be able to do a great deal with this, oui?” PC Stone nods in agreement, then Modan turns back to me. “Bravo, Madame.” Madame. It gives me a jolt. I am madame now, whereas Severine will always be the mademoiselle next door. It takes the edge off the swelling hope that perhaps all is not lost after all.
“Though, I have to say,” interjects the British policeman, somewhat reluctantly, his face returning to its usual granite, “it’s not strictly legal to record a conversation without permission.”
“It was an accident,” offers Tom, deadpan. “She often has the Dictaphone in her pocket, and it’s quite easy to knock it on.” I nod furiously, despite the fact that I only use the Dictaphone perhaps once or twice a month.
“Is that so?” says PC Stone dryly. He looks at Modan.
“An accident,” says Modan, his eyes gleaming. He spreads his hands wide. “A happy accident. These things happen, oui?”
“I suppose they do,” says his colleague reluctantly, though I can see a corner of his mouth twitching as he climbs to his feet. “Right, we’d better get that to the technicians. No promises, but I’m hopeful . . . if we can just at least prove she was there . . .” Tom and I watch them depart, looking even more like a comedy duo now that there is a lightness to their mood.
“It won’t work, you know,” says Tom gently. I turn to him with eyebrows raised. The bleakness hasn’t left his eyes. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. They might arrest her, but they won’t nail her for it.”
“Why do you say that?”
He sighs. “Because she’s Caro. She’ll get the best legal representation money can buy; her dad will make sure of that. You’d need physical evidence and a sworn confession to convict her; nothing less will do. And they don’t have the first, and I’m pretty sure, even after the police do their technical wizardry, that tape won’t amount to a sworn confession. I could be wrong, but . . .”
I stare at him while I think it through. Did she actually confess? It’s hard to pick through my fragmented memory. Enough to fell an elephant. So she did confess, but will the tape have caught it? Where was she standing when she said that? Where was I? I don’t remember; it’s slipped through a crack. “So that’s it. You think she gets away with it.” He nods unhappily. I try to fit the pieces together myself, to come up with a different answer, but I can’t. The injustice hollows me out. I ought to want to rail at something, or someone, but who or what? “So she gets away with it and I get left with nothing,” I say dully at last.
“Well,” he says, taking my hand and staring at it intently. “Not exactly nothing, I hope.” He looks up, and the intensity in his gaze steals my breath. “It tore me in pieces to see you in here. I can’t imagine what the hell I’ve been playing at, waiting on the sidelines all these years. I don’t intend to wait a single second more.”
I stare at him. Tom, my Tom, the Tom I should have always known he was. “All these years?”
“All these years.” There’s a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“But you’ve slept with Lara!” I don’t know why I’m throwing up obstacles given that I adore this man.
He rolls his eyes. “I was twenty-one and my cousin was sleeping with my dream girl. Sure, I was madly, unbelievably jealous, but that didn’t make me a monk. And anyway, you’ve slept with my cousin, many times. That’ll be much harder to explain round the family table at Christmas.”
“We haven’t even slept together yet,” I muse thoughtfully.
He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “I’d love to remedy that immediately, but the nursing staff might not be so keen on the idea. But our first kiss held definite promise . . .” He holds my gaze, and something moves between us, a current that thickens the air into something solid enough to lean into. “So,” he whispers, in a low murmur that takes me right back to that dark, delicious corridor, “are you in?”
“I’m in,” I whisper, and then he’s kissing me, and I find I am feeling very much better indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE