A Death in Time, page 2
The question was settled there and then and Frankie had been working three full days a week for some three months now.
She finished her call. ‘Our disturbed night? Mariette wonders if it was a first sign of teething.’ She felt Lily’s cheek. ‘Not overly warm. Open up, darling. Tha-at’s it. No, her gums look… gummy. She is a little behind with her teeth, you know.’
‘I think all her energy has gone into growing her hair. Give it a couple of months and you’ll be booking double appointments at the salon.’
‘I don’t think precociousness in one area rules out progress in another, Paul. As you should know, Monsieur Poète Policier.’
‘Ah.’
‘But in any case, our nocturnal woes last night had nothing to do with hair, thick or thin.’ She eyeballed him accusingly. ‘I think it was that lullaby you played her.’
‘No, no. She loves Grant Green’s stuff, don’t you, sweetie?’
As if carefully considering the question, Lily frowned and then, wagging her tiny fists in the air, grinned excitedly.
‘See there?’ Frankie said. ‘Air guitar. Your take on Monsieur Green’s work was just too stimulating.’
‘If it was, I’d better keep Django a secret a little while longer.’
Once a year, Darac’s group, or as many of its members as could make it, forsook their regular Thursday night spot at Nice’s Blue Devil Jazz Club to spend a week or so on tour, sometimes abroad. This year, club owner and the group’s nominal manager Ridge Clay had secured them four dates on alternate days in England. With Lily’s arrival, Darac had offered to miss what Frankie knew was an annual treat for him but she wouldn’t hear of it and so in six weeks’ time, Darac would be joining the three to eleven other available members of the Didier Musso “Quintet” – a deliberate misnomer – and it would be au revoir to Nice, and bonjour to jazz clubs in Canterbury, London, Cambridge and then back to London for the closer.
‘So what are you going to lull Lily to sleep with while I’m away? That silky contralto of yours is just made for the classic American songbook, you know.’ One of Darac’s dreams was that Frankie might join him onstage for a couple of numbers with the DMQ one day. ‘What do you think?’
‘Singing her to sleep?’ Frankie said, sidestepping the further point. ‘I find humming works better.’ She leaned in and took Lily in her arms. ‘While rocking her gently like this.’
‘That would work.’ He smiled. ‘Though I don’t think it would send me to sleep.’
‘Tiger? Down.’
‘Copy.’ He began clearing the table. ‘Remind me what you two are doing this morning?’
‘Off to the La Turbie house to check it’s still standing. And so we can look down on the filthy rich from above.’ She stroked Lily’s back. ‘Aren’t we darling?’
‘Burp once for yes; twice for no,’ Darac said.
Lily obliged in the singular.
‘There we go. She’s all for it.’
‘And we’re also seeing a couple of my former neighbours for brunch. Be back early afternoon, though.’
‘Good – same here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Didier’s due to ring in a minute. If he’s been able to dig out the Mingus scores he wants for the tour, he’ll be coming round for a few hours. Whatever happens, I shall be free from lunchtime so the world will be our oyster.’ His mobile groaned. ‘Speak of the Blue Devil…’ But the caller display read “Duty Officer’s Desk” and, sharing an all-too familiar look with Frankie, Darac took the call.
‘Morning, Charvet. You do know I’m off today? In fact, we both are?’
‘I do but Public Prosecutor Frènes has detailed you specifically.’
‘I’m still working on the case he specifically detailed me to last Saturday.’
‘I know. Sorry, Captain.’
‘O-K…’ The sigh was long and deep. ‘So where is the bastard sending me now?’
‘Le Stade Walter Vallain.’
FOUR DAYS EARLIER
Friday, March 14th
THREE
In the heart of a university city several hundred miles to the north of Le Stade Walter Vallain, two women in their mid-20s had spent the past hour ensconced at a café table they liked to think of as their own: a corner spot by the window on the first floor of a Cambridge institution almost as venerable as the college to which they were attached. Afternoon tea at Bobby’s was always something of an occasion but today, the pair had something special to celebrate and not just that it was the last day of term. On the white linen tablecloth, a stack of crumb-pocked plates stood both as a monument to the baker’s art and gave evidence, if evidence were needed, that the pair had been away from their rooms for longer than posted.
A people-watcher concerned solely with appearances might have deemed Sue Talbot and Inès Laborde an unlikely couple. Wearing jeans and a roll neck pullover-gilet combo, Sue was a chirpily expressive, slender girl-woman with straight fair hair tied back in a short ponytail. Fuller of form and clad in an assortment of designer and charity shop items that somehow worked as an ensemble, Inès’s olive-toned skin and dark eyes spoke of more exotic climes.
‘O ye of little faith, Innie,’ Sue said, indicating the view outside with a glancing header. ‘It’s clearing, look.’
Inès’s shoulder-length black hair fell away from her face as she turned towards the window. It had indeed stopped raining and a weak sun was doing its best to highlight the finialed spires foresting the roofscape opposite.
‘So let’s go before it starts binning it down again,’ she said, a trace of Sue’s regional accent inflecting her own. ‘We were due back 15 minutes ago, anyway.’
‘ “Binning it down”? I’ve taught you well all these years.’
It amused Inès to think of it now but she had initially found Sue’s accent so incomprehensible, it had taken some days into their first Lent term together to realise English was the native tongue of that cute, funny and talented music student who seemed to have taken a shine to her, too.
The pair drained their tea cups, donned their cagoules and, leaving a cairn of coins in the lee of their crumpled napkins, made for the stairs. On a table at its head, a splay of the day’s newspapers all led with the same story, each employing a variation of the headline: “Same sex marriage now legal in the UK”. Anticipating this day for some time, Inès and Sue had planned a range of celebrations to mark it, afternoon tea at Bobby’s being just the opener.
At the newspaper table, a beetle-browed old codger wearing a sodden knee-length cycling cape reacted to the headlines as if they were a personal affront. As the pair headed off down the creaky wooden stairs, Sue couldn’t resist a parting shot. ‘Wonderful breakthrough, isn’t it?’
‘You think so, do you?’ The Caped Crusader strode to the rail. ‘Well, I think the whole thing’s ungodly. Dirty. Filthy, actually!’
‘Oh, me too, pet,’ Sue called back over her shoulder. ‘On a good day, that is. Right, Dolores? Tell the man.’
‘You already have.’
Perhaps it was because Inès was facing far more important and difficult conversations on the topic that joining in a spot of routine bigot-baiting held little interest for her just now. The first of those conversations would not be to inform her parents that she and Sue planned to take advantage of the new legislation and marry. Having fluffed the opportunity to bite the bullet on many previous occasions, Inès would first have to come out to them. She knew it was a situation she should have tackled years before but the way things were between them just hadn’t permitted it. Or that was what she told herself.
A curious mixture of fragility and prickly obstinacy, her mother Zoë’s take on things was something Inès didn’t always share but if their bond wasn’t absolutely the strongest, she did love her mother and respect the way she had carved out a niche for herself in a traditionally male metier. Had Zoë ever suspected the truth about her daughter’s sexuality? At times, Inès sensed she had and if that were the case, she hadn’t seemed unduly concerned about it. Her father, Gilles? Different story. A huge scene was inevitable, one that would upset her mother deeply and that was a prospect Inès couldn’t bear.
Gaining the ground floor somehow seemed to help Inès turn her thoughts away from the ordeal to come. With new customers filing in while those leaving were still gathering up their things, progress to the door was slow. ‘Picture this scene before the advent of breathable, waterproof fabrics,’ Inès said over a buzz of voices. ‘Imagine what it would have been like on a warm, wet day like this. All that soaked woollen cloth, steaming.’
‘And through fuggy Cambridge town,’ Sue sang, as they picked their way to the door. ‘The sun was shi-ning everywhere.’
‘Exactly.’ Inès cast a weather eye outside. ‘Shining for the time being. Did you just make that up?’
‘Me? Think George and Ira Gershwin.’
‘Who?’
Sue rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, just a couple of guys I know from the pub. Who?! You scientists don’t know squat. You’ve never heard “A Foggy Day” before?’
‘No, but I tell you what I have heard. Something Dag told me in the lab yesterday. The Norwegians have a name for this.’
‘ “This” being?’
‘The periods of sunshine between rain showers. “Opplett” they call them.’ She spelled it. ‘Lovely word, isn’t it?’
‘Opplett? Sounds dead Geordie,’ Sue said, exaggerating her accent. ‘We got a lot of our language from the Scandies.’ They arrived at the door. ‘Just be a second. One of these brollies is mine. Or that new porter’s, to be exact.’
As Sue began sorting through the umbrella stand, Inès cast a fond eye around the tables. ‘Sounds stupid but I might just choose this as my happy place, you know.’
‘Why not? If the prospect of a Bobby’s bun or two ever loses its lustre for me, book me on the first available to Zurich.’ She pulled a likely looking candidate out of the stand. ‘One-way.’ She scrutinised her find, declared it a ringer and slotted it back.
‘One-way? Certainly.’ Inès essayed an indifferent smile. ‘Plane or train?’
‘Train!’ Sue gave her a reproving look. The pair had already spatted about the return Stansted-Nice flights Inès had booked for the following day. And the mode of travel was not the only bone of contention about the trip.
Inès joined in the search. ‘So where’s your happy place?’
‘Now I’ve been here a bit, I’m going quite gooey over these brollies.’
‘Seriously.’
‘Polite society? The Backs. Carpeted in crocuses in the spring.’
‘And the real you?’
Sue pulled out another possible. ‘This is the one. The real me?’ She smiled sweetly as she reached for the door handle. ‘The luxuriant glade between your legs. At any time of year.’
‘Shh!’
‘Listen to little Mademoiselle Prim-All-Of-A-Sudden! No one can hear, anyway.’
‘Little Doctor Prim-All-Of-A-Sudden, if you don’t mind. But you’re right, Sue. Sorry. Stressed to shit.’
The door tinkled cheerfully open and, taking each other’s hand, the pair set off along puddled pavements back to college. At the street corner ahead, a party of tourists was gathered around the Corpus Clock, a fabulous creation in gold whose construction reflected the history of time from the Big Bang to the present moment. It was the monstrous grasshopper-like creature surmounting the clock face that most caught the public’s imagination. Dubbed the Chronophage, the beast appeared to gobble up each minute as it passed – a graphic reminder of the finite nature of existence, a somewhat morbid theme continued elsewhere in the design. The size of the gathering indicated the clock was about to strike the hour.
‘So when are you going to break the good news to ma and pa? After their anniversary do is over and done with, presumably?’
‘I’ll give it… what’s the phrase? I’ll give it a day’s grace in between.’
‘Uh-huh.’ As if she had a further question she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask, Sue nodded circumspectly, gave Inès a sideways look and nodded again. But then she asked it. ‘Innie, are you sure you’d prefer me not to be there? I wouldn’t have to show up at your parents’ place until the day of the inquisition itself. I don’t have any supervisions until next term and I could reschedule my private piano students. It’s not too late to book.’
The proposition clearly discomfited Inès. ‘Buying a Eurostar ticket for tomorrow will be expensive. And SNCF is prone to striking at the drop of a… cap? No, hat. Besides, we’ve made up our minds, haven’t we? It’s better if you keep the fort here.’
‘You made up our minds, you mean. And you don’t keep forts, you hold them.’
‘Better if you hold the fort, then.’ Although Inès didn’t have a particularly expressive face, her Gallic shrug and moue combination was the genuine article. ‘Alright?’
‘You know, Innie, the only reason I’m not really fighting you over this is that when it comes to it, I sense it won’t be as difficult as you’ve been imagining. You suspect your mother knows anyway and when it comes to sexual politics, I’m not sure your father is quite the dinosaur you think.’
‘Really?’ Inès halted them. ‘Look at me. What do you see?’
Sue made a show of scrutinising her. ‘Leaving aside your voluptuous gorgeousness and your maddening way of dressing cheap as chips but still looking ultra-chic, I see a woman who grew from a shy but promising undergraduate into a confident and brilliant postgraduate, and is now blossoming into an academic who’s going to have a long and distinguished career. How’d I do?’
‘Beautifully,’ Inès began, but then her black eyes hardened. ‘I’ll tell you what my father sees. He sees an overweight…’
‘Innie…’
‘Listen! He sees an overweight, plain-looking couch potato who would never have amounted to anything if it weren’t for the accident of being born with a brain that works better than most.’
‘OK, he’s a body fascist. What do you expect from a guy who does what he does for a living?’
‘No, no. You don’t understand the scale of it.’
Inès made to move off but Sue held her.
‘Then explain it to me. Here and now. It’s about time you did.’
Inès hesitated. The better she made her case, the more determined Sue might become to make the trip. But she was right, wasn’t she? It was about time. ‘Alright… let’s start with my name. My mother wanted me christened Inès after a favourite aunt of hers. My father said OK, you can have it but only as a second name. He insisted my first name be Jackie. Maman can really dig her heels in at times, but after many heated rows about it, Jackie it is. You’ve seen my passport.’
‘Yes, and when I ask you about it, you don’t really answer.’
‘Alright – Jackie was the forename of a woman my father regards as the greatest female athlete of all time. A black American named Jackie Joyner. All through school, despite my father’s efforts behind the scenes, I was the last to be picked for any sports team, right? Flat last. But this unbeatable, perfect physical specimen Jackie J was my role model. Talk about falling short. And don’t be fooled into thinking that giving his white daughter a black role model was progressive of him.’
‘I was looking to salvage something from the wreckage.’
‘Don’t bother. Father votes Le Pen at every opportunity. Something he keeps from the black athletes in his squad, obviously.’
‘What a bastard.’ Sue’s brows lowered. ‘You know, having met them both, I get what your father sees in your mother, but what does she see in him? Apart from his looks or is that all that binds them?’
The Gallic shrug once more. ‘She loves him.’
‘But how did they get together in the first place? Your mother isn’t remotely interested in sport, is she?’
‘That is how they met, actually. At a local VTT event.’
‘VTT?’
‘Vélo Tout-Terrain. Mountain biking. She hasn’t done it competitively for decades but she was pretty good at one time. Still enjoys the occasional pedal.’
‘Ah. I’m surprised.’ Sue took a moment to marshal her thoughts. ‘Look, it’s true that you are not an athlete in the normal sense of the word, especially an elite one like some of the specimens your father works with. But you are a high flyer in a different kind of elite set-up, aren’t you? Surely that registers with a fiercely competitive animal like him? When I spoke to him at your PhD do, it seemed clear that he was proud of your achievements here.’
‘Apart from giving him, what do you call it… bragging rights over some of the other parents in their circle, it doesn’t mean a thing to him. He would much rather I’d striven to become the best athlete I could be, even if I turned out to be mediocre, than to have made a mark in the academic world. I’ve been nothing but a huge disappointment to my father. And I’ll tell you partly why. It’s because I haven’t needed one single second of his time and expertise to get where I have and he can’t stand that. With the guidance of some remarkable teachers at home and here, I went “faster, higher and stronger” all by myself.’ Her face crumpled. ‘That’s my Olympics.’
