The Paris Apartment (12 page)

We're out on the street, walking along in silence. My thoughts are churning. That voicenote made me feel like I shouldn't
trust anyone in the building—including Ben's old uni mate, friendly as he might be. But on the other hand, Nick's the one
who suggested going to the police. Surely he wouldn't do that if he had something to do with Ben's disappearance?

“This way,” Nick takes hold of my elbow—my arm tingles slightly at his touch—and steers me into an alleyway, no, more like
a kind of stone tunnel between buildings. “A cut-through,” he says.

In contrast with the crowded street we left behind there's suddenly no one else in sight and it's much darker. Our footsteps
echo. I don't like that I can't see the sky.

It's a relief when we pop out at the other end. But as we turn onto the street I see it ends in a police barricade. There
are several guys wearing helmets and stab vests, holding batons, radios crackling.

“Fuck,” I say, heart thudding.

“
Merde
,” says Nick, at the same time.

He goes over and speaks to them. I stay where I am. They don't seem friendly. I can feel them looking us over.

“It's the riots,” Nick says, striding back. “They're expecting a bit of trouble.” He looks closely at me. “You OK?”

“Yeah, fine.” I remind myself that we're literally on the way to talk to the police. They might be able to help. But it suddenly
feels important to get something off my chest. “Hey—Nick?” I start, as we begin walking again.

“Yup?”

“Yesterday, when I spoke to the police, they said they wanted to take my name and address, for their records or whatever.
I, er . . . I don't want to give them that information.”

Nick frowns at me. “Why's that?”

Because even though he had it coming, I think, what I did to that arsehole is technically still a crime.

“I—it's not worth getting into.” But because he's still looking at me oddly and I don't want him to think I'm some sort of
hardened criminal, I say: “I had a little trouble at work, just before I came here.”

More than a little trouble. Two days ago I walked into the Copacabana, smile on my face, as though my boss hadn't flashed
his dick at me the day before. Oh, I can play along when I need to. I needed that bloody job. And then at lunch before opening,
while The Pervert was taking a crap (he went in there with a dirty magazine, I knew I had a while), I went and got the little
key from his office and opened the till and took everything in it. It wasn't loads; he was too wily for that, refilled it
every day. But it was enough to get here, enough to escape on the first Eurostar I could book myself onto. Oh, and for good
measure I heaved two kegs in front of the toilet door, one stacked on the other and the top one just under the door handle
so he couldn't turn it. Would have taken him a while to get out of that one.

So no, I'm not desperate to be on any official record of anything. It's not like I think Interpol are after me. But I don't
like the idea of my name in some sort of system, of the police here comparing notes with the UK. I came here for a new start.

“Nothing major,” I say. “It's just . . . sensitive.”

“Er, sure,” Nick says. “Look, I'll give them my details as a contact. Does that work?”

“Yes,” I say, my shoulders slumping with relief . . . “Thank you, that would be great.”

“So,” he says, as we wait at some traffic lights, “I'm thinking of what I say to the police. I'll tell them you thought there
was someone in the apartment last night, of course—”

“I don't
think
there was someone,” I interject, “I know.”

“Sure,” he nods. “And is there anything else you want me to say?”

I pause. “Well . . . I spoke to Ben's editor.”

He turns to me. “Oh yes?”

“Yeah. This guy at the
Guardian
. I don't know if it's important but it sounded like Ben had an idea he was excited about, for an article.”

“What about?”

“I don't know. Some big investigative piece. But I suppose if he got mixed up in something . . .”

Nick slows down slightly. “But his editor doesn't know what the piece was about?”

“No.”

“Ah. That's a shame.”

“And look, I found a notebook. But it was missing this morning. It had these notes in it—about people in the building. Sophie
Meunier—you know the lady from upstairs? Mimi, from the fourth floor. The concierge. There was this line:
La Petite Mort
. I think it means ‘the little death'—”

I see something shift in Nick's expression.

“What is it? What does it mean?”

He coughs. “Well, it's also a euphemism for orgasm.”

“Oh.” I'm not all that easy to embarrass but I feel my cheeks growing warm. I'm also suddenly really aware of Nick's eyes on
me, how near we are to each other in the otherwise empty street. There's a long, awkward silence. “Anyway,” I say. “Whoever was creeping around this morning took the notebook. So there must be something in it.”

We turn into a side street. I spot a couple of ragged posters pasted to some hoardings. Pause for a moment in front of them.
Ghostly faces printed in black and white stare out at me. I don't need to understand the French to know what—who—these are:
Missing Persons.

“Look,” Nick says, following my gaze. “It's probably going to be tough. Loads of people go missing every year. They have a
certain . . . cultural issue here. There's this view that if someone goes missing, it may be for their own reasons. That they
have a right to disappear.”

“OK. But surely they won't think that's what's happened to Ben. Because there's more . . .” I hesitate, then decide to risk
telling Nick about the voicenote.

A long pause, while he digests it. “The other person,” he says. “Could you actually hear their voice?”

“No. I don't think they said anything. It was just Ben talking.” I think of the
what the fuck?
“He was scared. I've never heard him like that. We should tell the police about that too, right? Play it for them.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

We walk in silence for a couple more minutes, Nick setting the pace. And then suddenly he stops in front of a building: big
and modern and seriously ugly, a total contrast to all the fancy apartment blocks flanking it.

“OK. Here we are.”

I look up at the building in front of us.
COMMISSARIAT DE POLICE
, it says, in large black letters above the entrance.

I swallow, then follow Nick inside. Wait just inside the front door as he speaks in fluent-sounding French to the guy on the desk.

I try to imagine what it must be like to have the confidence Nick has in a place like this, to feel like you have a right
to be here. To my left there are three people in grimy clothes being held in cuffs, faces smeared with what looks like soot,
yelling and tussling with the policemen holding them. More protestors? I feel like I have much more in common with them than
I do with the nice rich boy who's brought me here. I jump back as nine or ten guys in riot gear burst into the reception and
shove past me and out into the street, piling into a waiting van.

The guy behind the desk is nodding at Nick. I see him pick up a telephone.

“I asked to speak to someone higher up,” Nick says as he comes over. “That way we'll actually be listened to. He's just calling
through now.”

“Oh, great,” I say. Thank God for Nick and his fluent French and his posh boy hustle. I know if I'd walked in here I'd have
been fobbed off again—or, worse, bottled it and left before I'd spoken to anyone.

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 C
ommissaire
B
lanchot
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.

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.”

Antoine and his wife Dominique arrived then, from the first-floor apartment. Antoine's shirt was missing a button: it gaped
open, the soft flesh pushing through. Dominique, however, had made what could be described as an effort. She wore a dress
made of a knit so fine that it clung to every ripe curve of her body.
Mon Dieu
, you could see her nipples. There was something Bardot-like about her: the sullen moue of her mouth, those dark, bovine eyes. I found myself thinking all that ripeness would fade, run to fat (just look at Bardot, poor cow), anathema to so many French
men. Fat in this country is seen as a sign of weakness, even of stupidity. The thought gave me a nasty sort of pleasure.

I watched her look at Ben. Look up and down and
all over
him. I suppose she thought she was subtle; to me she resembled a cheap whore, touting for a fare. I saw him gaze back. Two
attractive people noticing one another. That
frisson
. She turned back to Antoine. I watched her mouth curve into a smile while she talked to him. But the smile was not for her
husband. It was for Ben. A carefully calculated display.

Antoine was drinking too much. He drained his glass and held it out for a refill. His breath, even from a couple of feet away,
smelled sour. He was embarrassing himself.

“Does anyone smoke?” Ben asked. “I'm going to go for a cigarette. Terrible habit, I know. I wondered if I might use the roof
terrace?”

“It's that way,” I told him. “Past the bookcase there and to the left, out of the doorway: you'll see the steps.”

“Thanks.” He smiled at me, that charming smile.

I waited for the sensor lights to come on, which would be the sign that he had found his way to the roof terrace. They did
not. It should have only taken him a minute or so to climb the steps.

As the others talked I got up to investigate. There was no sign of him out on the terrace, or in the other half of the room
beyond the bookcase. I had that cold, creeping feeling again. The sense that a fox had entered the henhouse. I walked along
the shadowed corridor that leads to the other rooms in the apartment.

I found him in Jacques' study, the lights off. He was looking at something.

“What are you doing in here?” My skin was prickling with outrage. Fear, too.

He turned in the dark space. “Sorry,” he said. “I must have got confused with the directions.”

“They were quite clear.” It was difficult to remain civil, to suppress the urge to simply tell him to get out. “It was left,” I said. “Out of the doorway. The opposite direction.”

He pulled a face. “My mistake. Perhaps I've had too much of that delicious wine. But tell me, while we're here—this photograph.
It fascinates me.” I knew instantly which one he was looking at. A large black and white, a nude, hung opposite my husband's
desk. The woman's face turned sideways, her profile dissolving into the shadows, her breasts bared, the dark triangle of her
pubic hair between white thighs. I had asked Jacques to get rid of it. It was so inappropriate. So seedy.

“It belongs to my husband,” I said, curtly. “This is his study.”

“So this is where the great man works,” he said. “And do you work, yourself?”

“No,” I said. He must know that, surely. Women in my position do not work.

“But you must have done something before you met your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry,” he said, after the pause had grown so long it felt like a physical presence in the air between us. “It's the journalist
in me. I'm just . . . curious about people.” He shrugged. “It's incurable, I'm afraid. Please, forgive me.”

I had thought it that first time I met him: that he wielded his charm like a weapon. But now I was sure of it. Our new neighbor
was dangerous. I thought of the notes. My mystery blackmailer. Could it be a coincidence that they had arrived almost at the
same time—this man, with his air of knowing—and the demand for money, threatening to reveal my secrets? If so, I would not
allow it. I would not let this random stranger dismantle everything I had built.

I managed to find my voice. “I'll show you to the roof terrace,” I told him. Followed him until he walked through the right door. He turned around and gave me a grin, a brief nod. I did not smile back.

I went back and joined the others. A few moments later Dominique stood up, announced that she, too, was going for a cigarette.
Perhaps she was embarrassed by her husband drinking himself into a stupor on the sofa. Or—I thought of the way she looked
at Ben when she arrived—she was simply shameless.

Antoine's arm shot out; his hand gripped her wrist, hard. The wine glass in her hand jerked, a crimson splash landed on the
pale knit of her dress. “
Non
,” he said. “
Tu ne feras rien de la sorte.
”

You'll do no such thing.

Dominique glanced at me, then. Her eyes wide. Woman to woman.
See how he treats me?
I looked away. You have made your choices,
chérie
, just as I have made mine. I knew what sort of man my husband was when I married him; I'm sure it was the same for you. If
not—well, you're even more of a foolish little tart than I thought.

I watched as she wrenched her hand away from her husband's grip and stalked off in the direction of the roof terrace. I imagined
the two of them up there, could see the scene play out. The rooftops of Paris laid out before them, the illuminated streets
like strings of fairy lights. Her bending forward as she lit her cigarette from his. Her lips brushing his hand.

They came back down a short while later. When he spotted them Antoine rose from the seat where he had been slumped. He lumbered
over to Dominique. “We're going.”

She shook her head. “No. I don't want to.”

He leaned in very close and hissed, loud enough for all of us to hear: “We're going, you little slut.”
Petite salope
. And then he turned to Ben. “Stay away from my wife, you English bastard.
Comprends-tu?
Understand?” Like a final piece of punctuation he gestured with his full wine glass, and I could not tell if it was because
he was drunk or if it was on purpose that it flew from his hand. An explosion of glass. Wine smattered up the wall.

Everything went very still and quiet.

Ben turned to Jacques: “I'm very sorry, Monsieur Meunier, I—”

“Please,” Jacques stood. “Do not apologize.” He stalked over to Antoine. “No one behaves like that in my apartment. You are
not welcome here. Get out.” His voice was cold, heavy with menace.

Antoine's mouth opened. I saw his teeth, stained by the wine. For a moment I thought he was about to say something unforgivable.
Then he turned and looked at Ben. A long look that said more than any words could.

The silence that followed their exit rang like a tuning fork.

 

Later, while Jacques took a phone call, I went and took a shower in my bathroom. I found myself almost idly directing the
shower head between my legs. The image that came to my mind was of the two of them: Dominique and Ben, up in the roof garden.
Of all the things that might have occurred between them while the rest of us made small talk downstairs. And as my husband
barked instructions—just audible through the wall—I had a silent orgasm, my head pressed against the cool tiles. The little
death, it's called.
La petite mort
. And perhaps that was only appropriate. A small part of me had died that evening. Another part had come alive.