Little White Lies (45 page)

‘Forgot?’

‘Well, I didn’t
forget
. . . I just thought I’d do it later. You’re making such a fuss about it. We were up all night and—’

‘Rebecca, you’re my
wife
. I’ve got a right to make a fuss if I don’t know where you are. Last thing I knew, you were in Tel Aviv. I’ve been phoning the flat all bloody night!’

‘I know, I’m sorry. I just didn’t think you’d be worried.’

‘Of course I’m bloody worried!’

Rebecca bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’ She didn’t know what else to say. After all, there were times when he was away on business and she didn’t hear from him for a couple of days . . . it never crossed
her
mind to be worried. ‘Look, I haven’t seen Annick in ten bloody years . . . well, you know what happened. I was just so excited to see her again. It . . . it won’t happen again, I promise.’

It seemed to be the right thing to say. ‘All right. I’d better go. I’ll be back on Sunday.’

‘Let’s go out to dinner when you get back; I’ll book somewhere nice and surprise you,’ she said placatingly. She couldn’t wait to get back downstairs again.

‘All right,’ he said again, sounding somewhat mollified. He hung up before she could say any more. She heaved a sigh of relief and was just about to go back downstairs when the phone rang again.

‘
Amor?
’ It was her mother. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Mama, can I call you back? Annick’s downstairs and—’

‘Darling, you can’t just disappear like that without telling Julian.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! It’s fine. I just spoke to him. I don’t see what all the drama is about. He’s often gone for days at a time. I’ve no idea where he is half the time, but
I
don’t worry.’

‘That’s different. He’s your husband. He’s got a right to know where you are.’

Rebecca almost dropped the phone. She was almost too surprised to speak. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Men are different,
mi amor
. The sooner you get
that
through your head, the happier your marriage will be. I’ve been married to your father for nearly fifty years. D’you think I don’t know what I’m talking about?’

‘I don’t understand—’

‘That’s the problem with you young girls. You don’t try to understand. Don’t do it again. Now, give Annick a hug from me. Tell her I’m looking forward to seeing her soon.’ She hung up. For the second time in less than five minutes, Rebecca was left holding a hollow-sounding phone.

YVES
Paris

She was gone. Gone without a word, without a trace. He looked at Wasis in disbelief. ‘Gone? Gone where?’

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. She asked me to cover for her a couple of nights ago. Last I saw of her.’

‘Was . . . was there someone with her?’ He struggled to get the words out.

‘Not another man, if that’s what you mean. No, there was some woman with her. Tall, skinny woman. Ugly as hell.’ He shrugged again. ‘Didn’t even say goodbye. I heard she rang Christophe on Saturday morning.’

He stumbled out of the hotel, unable to think straight. Gone. Just like that.

That was a week ago. Now he stood with the three other bodyguards, waiting for
le patron
and avoiding their eyes. They all knew. It had to be that friend she was always talking about. The one who’d started some online business or other. He wished he’d paid more attention to the damned story. He couldn’t even remember the girl’s name. Sally? Susan? How the hell was he going to go about finding her? He knew where the aunt lived but he couldn’t risk going to see her. Would she recognise him? It was unlikely but . . . you never knew. It had been more than thirty years since she’d seen him. He’d waited in the back of the car whilst his father went up to interview her. He was gone for hours, he remembered. Finally, just when he thought his bladder would burst, she’d come out the front door to see his father off. She’d seen him sitting there, his face pressed up against the window in distress. She’d taken him upstairs to the toilet and when he came down again, she reached in the pocket of her slacks for a sweet, which she gave to him. A
berlingot
. He’d sucked on the soft boiled sweet happily, entranced by the woman his father swore was more dangerous than her brother. He’d never seen anyone as glamorous before. She had long, dark brown hair, held in place by a patterned scarf and it cascaded down her back as she turned. She smelled wonderful too; he remembered that much. The hair and the perfume and the soft, chewy sweet in his mouth. That was what he knew of Libertine Betancourt.

‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’ Gladwell sidled up to him. Yves resisted the temptation to punch him.

‘Nothing.’

‘You seem a bit distracted.’

‘Fuck you.’ Yves moved away. He was in no mood to talk to Gladwell or anyone else.

Gladwell gripped him by the upper arm. ‘Take it easy, man,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Boss wants to talk to you.’

‘Get
off
me!’ Yves tried to shake his arm free but Gladwell held fast.

‘They think some money’s come in. That’s why she’s gone. It makes sense. Five years, let things lie, nice and quiet and then, when no one’s expecting it . . .
pouf
. Open up the accounts. Like water running out of a tap. Find her and we’ll find the money.’

It took all of Yves’ self-control not to punch the man in the face. He shook off his hand angrily and headed for the windows at one end of the room. He ignored Big Jacques’ concerned frown and stepped outside onto the small balcony. The night air was cool and clean, a welcome relief from the smoky, overheated interior with its tired but lethal pool of businessmen and politicians circling each other like sharks. He drew in great mouthfuls of the night air. Though he hated to admit it, he was confused. For a moment, his hand went to his pocket, looking for the cigarettes he no longer smoked. He stood there for a moment, gazing out over the city. They were on the fifth floor of a nondescript international hotel somewhere near the Louvre, a bland corporate backdrop that provided equally bland food and drink and the appropriate level of inoffensive decor. The occasion was a Franco-Togolese business summit, or so the delegates proudly announced. The real purpose of the gathering, Yves knew, as with all other gatherings of its kind, was for the French to work out who was who in the new political order. After five turbulent years, France was getting tired of dealing with the unruly rabble of junior officers who’d overthrown Betancourt. Just as Chirac had once remarked of
him
, ‘
ça suffit
,’ now he repeated it of the rebels.
It’s enough
. Five years of endless internal squabbles over power, corporate mismanagement on a scale that few could imagine and almost total fiscal impunity –
ça suffit
. In that fragile period of deal-making and shifting alliances before the storm, the players – local and international – were lining up to take their shots.
Le patron
, it was rumoured, was about to see his patience with the French rewarded.

God, he wanted a cigarette. He took off his glasses, pinching the flesh between his eyes. When Big Jacques had approached him a couple of years earlier, it all seemed so clear. He was struggling. His mother’s health, never good at the best of times, was ailing. He’d been enrolled at ENSTA for the second year running to take up his half-completed thesis and he’d run out of funds. He was in his mid-thirties, no wife or girlfriend, the son of a murdered and discredited journalist with no real plan. His mother too had no plan. A pretty, high-spirited but insubstantial woman, she’d all but disintegrated after her husband’s death. From one man to the next, one flat to the next, one part of Paris to the next. He loved his mother desperately but he also despised her. The combination made him uneasy and, not surprisingly, turned him from the outgoing, easy young man he’d once been into the loner he’d since become.

So when Big Jacques came looking for a part-time bodyguard for the man they hoped would replace Betancourt, it appeared as though the offer had come from God. Yves couldn’t have cared less about the man’s politics. No one seemed to understand. For him, Africa was finished. The dream of a return died with his father’s murder. France was his future now. The job seemed easy enough. Three or four nights a week and every other weekend. Enough money to ease the job of looking after his mother and allow him to complete his studies. It was a no-brainer. As soon as he was introduced, he realised he didn’t care for the fat, boorish
patron
but, then again, he wasn’t paid to care. His job was to look after his safety. Nothing more, at least not back then. But if there was one thing he’d learned since then, it was not to be fooled by appearances. The man was fat, yes, and boorish too. But beneath the blubber and the sly, lazy eyes was a cunning political intelligence that took Yves’ breath away. Looking after him was the easy part. His habits were dull and predictable – drink, prostitutes and watching the occasional game of football. His instinct for survival was anything but. He could – and would – break bread with anyone whom he thought might further his cause.

He was halfway through his second year on the job when Big Jacques approached him with another request. Not Gladwell or Guido – the other two, who might have been more suitable for the task. But no. They wanted him, Yves. ‘On account of . . . well, we thought it would interest you more.’ No one would get hurt, he was promised. All they wanted was a little information. It was to do with the girl at the hotel, the receptionist. They’d seen him chatting to her but it was Guido who’d alerted them. She was a Betancourt. The traitor’s only legitimate child. Yves’ job was simple. Befriend her. Get to know her.

‘Fuck her if you have to, we’re not fussy,’ Big Jacques cleaned his teeth with a toothpick as he talked. Yves tried not to look.

‘Why? What’s
she
done?’

‘Nothing. Nothing yet. But the bastard left money. Lots of it. Switzerland, we’re told. We need to find that money, my man. The country needs it. We’ll leave it to the politicians to figure out what to do with it but our job is to find out where it is. She’ll be able to tell you.’

‘How? She hasn’t got a dime! Look at her.’

Big Jacques shook his head fondly at him. ‘Naive, man. That’s the trouble with guys like you. No, she’ll know where the money is, trust me. But first you’ve got to make her trust
you
.’

He wasn’t naive and he certainly wasn’t stupid. They didn’t have a hope in hell of getting their hands on the money –
if
there was any to be had, which he doubted. But what did he care? What they’d all failed to notice was that he had no ambition to return to Togo whatsoever. He wanted no part of the struggle going on six thousand miles south of Paris and he certainly had no intention of taking up his dead father’s cause. He had his doctorate to finish. If taking Annick Betancourt out every once in a while was what was required, well, no problem. But then he got to know her. And then things began to get more complicated. And now she was gone. He took off his glasses, pinching the flesh between his eyes again. He was tired and angry and he needed time to think.

‘What the fuck’s the matter with you?’ Someone spoke out of the shadows behind him. He turned round. It was Big Jacques himself, an irritated tone in his voice. ‘You’re paid to watch
le patron
, not the fucking view.’

He nodded. ‘Yeah, sorry. Just grabbing some air.’

‘Well, don’t. Keep your eye on the ball, sonny boy. Eye on the ball. Remember that.’

Yves nodded curtly and moved indoors. Dammit, the man could see
through
you. All the way through.

ANNICK
London

Coach. Rykiel. Céline. Joseph. Missoni. Armani. McCartney. Chloé. Annick gazed dazedly at the selection of clothes strewn across the bed –
her
bed – in utter bewilderment. These belonged to
her
? She picked up the Chloé pink mohair cardigan, fingering it fearfully. There was a card lying on top of one of the many boxes. She opened it with shaking hands.
Darling, try everything on and I mean
everything.
I’ll stop by later on and we can discuss what works. Couple more boxes to come. All my love, T
. She turned it over. A simple, pale-grey card, embossed with Tash’s logo.
[email protected]
. She took in a deep breath and stood up. For a moment the room lurched in tears then she steadied herself. The bedroom –
her
bedroom – was knee deep in boxes. She still couldn’t get over it. Forty-eight hours after arriving on the Eurostar, Tash had handed her the keys to a flat. Her own flat. A small, beautiful two-bedroom flat on the second floor of an elegant period property on Queen Anne Street, just around the corner from Tash’s own flat, and her offices. Annick’s protests had simply been met by a withering look. ‘You need somewhere to live, darling. End of story. We can sort out the details later.’ She meant it. There was to be no discussion until Annick had a) a new wardrobe, b) had spent a day in the spa and c) found a job . . . and not as a hotel receptionist, either. The flat was fully and beautifully furnished. For the first couple of hours Annick simply wandered through the rooms, too dazed to speak.

She looked around her now. There were more clothes lying around the room, on the back of the dressing table chair, on the bed, on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, in half-opened boxes and in their plastic sheaths on the floor than she’d seen since she last opened her mother’s wardrobe. What was she to do with them all? Try them
all
on? And
shoes
! Jimmy Choo. Michael Kors. Valentino. Zanotti. Names she’d forgotten, brands she didn’t even know. She bent down and picked up a pair of dark orange suede platform peep toes. Rochas. Who the hell was Rochas?

She hesitated, and then slipped them on. She rose a couple of inches in height – and several feet in confidence. Jesus, Tash was right. There was nothing like a pair of high-heeled, beautifully made shoes to make the world seem, well, brighter, as though the sun had suddenly come out. She walked across the parquet floor. The heels clacked satisfyingly against the wood. She reached the opposite wall and turned round. More assertive this time. She squared her chin, looked straight ahead and walked in a steady straight line, her head held higher than it had been in years. Once, twice, three times, up and down the length of the bedroom. Then she sat down on the bed and eased them off. What were Tash’s instructions?
Try
everything
on
. She ran a tongue around her lips; they felt dry, probably with excitement. It was hard to grasp that so much had happened in a week. She looked around her again at the debris of Tash’s generosity. She didn’t deserve it; she just didn’t deserve it. Not after the way she’d treated Yves. She’d packed her bags and left the city without saying a word, not even goodbye. She’d
meant
to . . . she
wanted
to . . . but the thought of explaining everything had simply overwhelmed her. How would she explain? It would have meant telling him everything. Worst of all, she’d have had to explain why, in all the time they’d been together she’d never once told him who she really was. That was the problem with silences. What started out as the simple avoidance of truth became, in the end, worse than a lie.