A Death in Time, page 4
‘Only the old one. The new one’s in my apartment over in Riquier but I have a meeting with my brother shortly and then classes until six.’
‘Hang on a moment.’ Zoë consulted her phone. ‘Ah, yes… Strictly speaking, I’m not free until... Let me think.’ She stared off, tapping the phone on her palm. ‘So how’s this? You’ll be attending tomorrow night’s training session, I take it?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then pack both laptops and hand them over to Gilles at the Stade. He’ll pass them on to me when he gets home. I can get the ball rolling overnight and by the morning…What’s that phrase everybody is using? The new one will be good to go. And so will Gilles. He’s coming in to see you all on Sunday morning, isn’t he? To say a few words about your big evening do.’
‘I believe so, yes.’
Samira thanked Zoë profusely and, promising to post a 5-star review on her website in due course, hurriedly said her goodbyes.
‘We’ve finished, Gilles?’ Julien said, watching Samira disappear out of the door.
‘Yes, that’s all.’
‘See you tomorrow, then.’ A parting glance in Zoë’s direction. ‘Madame.’
‘Julien.’
He shot into the corridor and wasn’t quite out of earshot when he called out: ‘Sam? I could’ve set up your new laptop for you.’
Zoë gave Gilles a knowing look.
‘Those two. Did you notice anything?’
For a busy alpha male used to calling the shots, Gilles could look surprisingly childlike at times. ‘No,’ he said, warily. ‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Don’t do that. Tell me.’
‘Alright. Julien the big star is clearly besotted with exquisite little also-ran Samira and Lord, you can see why. But I’ve got news for him. Trotting around after her like an adoring dog isn’t going to work.’
‘Good,’ Gilles said, losing the defensive look. ‘For athletes, sex and training do not go together.’
Zoë could have added that the same appeared to apply to their coach, too. It had been some months now, after all. Instead, she scrolled the notepad on her phone. ‘Quite a list. We need to push on. Took a call from Guillaume. He and Anna can’t make the do. She’s come down with some sort of bug and he wouldn’t feel right leaving her at home. Or so he says.’
‘No Anna? That will ease pressure on the wine stocks.’
‘That’s right, make fun of her alcoholism, why don’t you?’
‘I was just speaking the truth. I can’t help it if she’s turned into a lush.’
Marriage to Gilles’s cousin would drive anyone to drink, Zoë believed but there were more pressing matters to discuss. ‘Pal-Mas now. They’ve been in touch about the flowers…’
Gilles was already switching off. He had taken several calls of his own this morning. And one of them, he remembered with a smile, would need acting on in person.
SIX
Samira Padar’s brother Dilip was managing director of the only firm in the city tailored to the needs of companies trading with the Asian sub-continent. Or that was the spin he put on being a one-man operation geared solely to the Padar family’s modest silk exporting business. When he had taken over the French end of the operation back in 2005, Bengaluru was still called Bangalore and there were three Padars handling things in Europe. From the earliest days, the Côte d’Azur gave Dilip everything he had ever wanted and now he was the last man standing, he was determined he would not go the way of his two cousins recalled to India. Recalled in disgrace, too, though neither had been remotely responsible for the decline in the firm’s market share in the EU.
It hadn’t taken long for Dilip to realise that he appeared exotic enough to the locals in his adopted city without sporting what some considered to be the more vulgar trappings of his heritage. And so, item by shiny item, he began de-blinging his world until only two statement wristwatches, three gold chains, a top-of-the-range home cinema set-up, and his Mercedes convertible remained – objects any self-respecting local A-lister might own. In more recent times, circumstances had continued this asset-stripping process all by itself.
They spoke in their native tongue.
‘Take a look at this, Sam,’ he said, picking up the remote for the TV.
Samira joined him on the sofa as an image filled the wall space opposite and it took her some moments to appreciate exactly what she was seeing. On the screen, a ground-level camera was filming a line of crouching women from behind. Ahead of them, a flight of hurdles looking impossibly high from such a low angle was merely the first of ten such barriers stretching in what seemed like infinite regress into the distance. On the call of “set” eight pairs of hips rose in concert.
‘Why are you showing—?’
‘Just watch.’
The starter’s pistol was fired and the women sprang forward, sprinting hard away from the camera. As the angle changed to a side-on view, the field was already spearheading from the centre and it was the ebony-skinned athlete in Lane 5 who rose first, clearing it in one fast, fluid movement.
‘That’s Grace,’ Samira said. ‘Grace Nahili.’
By the time Samira had identified that the 100-metre hurdles race they were watching was a heat in the previous year’s World Student Games heptathlon competition, Grace had already crossed the line in a close second place. Puzzlement shading to wariness, Samira turned to face her brother.
‘Dilip, you never do anything without a reason…’
‘Does anyone?
‘So why are you showing me this?’
On screen, the athletes were recovering in a variety of attitudes: some leaning forward, hands on knees; one or two, chests heaving, lying flat on their backs. Breathing normally, Grace stood tall, smiling as she embraced the winner. Samira was new to competition athletics but she recognised this as a ploy as much as a pleasantry; what Gilles meant by “the inner game.” ‘There’s a lot more to come from me, girl,’ is what Grace was telling her opponent.
‘Father emailed me yesterday,’ Dilip said, rewinding to the start of the sequence. As the athletes rose in their blocks, he froze the image. ‘You know what I’m going to say.’
Samira’s pulse speeded up a beat or two. ‘All those scantily-clad bottoms sticking up so invitingly? I know it gets you horny. Is that it?’
Eyebrows raised in supreme self-satisfaction, Dilip nodded. ‘Exactly. You’ve made my point for me. Some lawyer, you’re going to be.’
Samira took in the sort of deep breath she usually reserved for the start of her own event, the two-laps of the 800 metres.
‘Sam, listen. Pa and ma do not want you to disport yourself in such an outfit. It will lead to trouble.’
‘They’ve seen me play hockey. Showing my legs.’
He pointed at the screen. ‘These girls show everything they’ve got. Look! I’ve seen thongs with more material in them.’
‘I’ll bet you have.’
‘Listen! It’s not decent, right? And you couldn’t blame any man for…’
‘Oh yes, you could! And so would the courts. In this country, at least. But our dear ma and pa have no need to worry, Dilip. You can tell them that my event begins with a standing start and although no one has the right to tell me what to fucking wear, I prefer to run in shorts, anyway. If you’d ever bothered to come and see me training, you would know that.’ Her dark, expressive eyes bored into him. ‘Will you tell them?’
Dilip was stone-faced as he considered the point. ‘Alright.’
‘Good. Is that all?’
He brandished the remote. ‘No.’
On the screen, games coverage switched from the opening round of the women’s heptathlon to the final of the men’s steeplechase. As the camera ran along the competitors lined up at the start, Dilip zapped the screen with a backhanded flick. The image froze on one face in particular and now it was his turn to fix Samira with a look.
‘Who’s that?’
‘I’m not playing this game.’ Samira got up to leave but Dilip’s gold bracelet jangled against her wrist as he grabbed it, preventing her. Digging in her nails, she pulled back.
‘I know who it is,’ Dilip snarled, pulling Samira to heel. ‘And I know you’re screwing him!’
For Samira, the words rang in the air like a bell at the end of a round of boxing. Hostilities would resume but for the moment, she needed to regroup. How did Dilip know what she did? What else did he know?
‘Let go of me and we’ll talk. If you don’t, I won’t and I’ll never speak to you again.’
‘Alright, but none of your lies, Sam. I want the truth and the truth only.’
She nodded; he released her and, fighting an urge to slap him hard, thought it safer to sit down further than arm’s length away.
‘I won’t need to restrain you again,’ he said. ‘I hope.’
‘Piss off.’
Dislodged in the fracas, a silk cushion the colour of a ripe cherry lay on the floor. Samira picked it up and, hugging it to herself, opened her defence. ‘How do you know what I do in my private life?’
‘You should thank God every day that it is I who is looking out for you and not some private detective! Our father has suggested this several times and, on each occasion, I have assured him that it is neither cost-effective nor necessary.’
‘I am grateful,’ she deadpanned, hugging the cushion more tightly. ‘I repeat. How do you know what I do in my private life?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve seen you together. But there’s more. I had reason to call in at the Riquier apartment last week when you should have been in college studying and I heard you in the bedroom. Do you deny it?’
Samira sighed. Although renting an apartment owned by her brother was advantageous financially, she had known almost from the first that it had been a terrible mistake not to have found her own place. And now here it was biting her again. As to answering his question, a number of possible responses vied with one another in her head.
‘How do you know it wasn’t Carole?’
‘Tcha! What’s your flatmate doing screwing in your bedroom?’
‘Her own was full of placards, posters and stuff for International Womens’ Day.’
‘I know. I saw what state it was in. But I also know your voice when I hear it. Even through a closed door. The truth, I said, Sam.’
‘I didn’t lie. I just asked what made you think it wasn’t Carole in my room.’
Dilip sighed.
‘Alright,’ she said. ‘I do not deny it.’
‘You do not? I was hoping… Don’t you realise, my dear baby sister, that by screwing that boy, you are screwing all of us!’
Samira wasn’t having it. ‘You sanctimonious arsehole. How many lovers do you have? Eh? How many?’
‘I,’ he said, jabbing himself in the chest. ‘I am not the prized virgin beauty who is going to save our company. Save it by one simple act.’
While not technically an arranged marriage, a covenant of union had long been agreed between Samira’s father Sanjay Padar and fellow silk exporter Anil Ratmanath. Far more beneficial to the Padars than the Ratmanaths, the union would nevertheless help to safeguard the future of both companies.
‘The simple act of saving myself for that turgid fart Jai Ratmanath?’ The cushion’s silky feel suddenly abhorrent to her, Samira threw it hard into the far corner of the room. ‘It’s too late for that now, anyway, isn’t it, Dilip?’
‘We can hide the truth providing the affair stops right now and you don’t get pregnant.’
‘How many times do I have to say it? Our mother and some of our aunts may have grown up using sanitary cloths, burying them and being forbidden to enter the kitchen when they’re menstruating but we are not living in the middle ages anymore! I am a modern woman, Dilip. With all that goes with it.’
Dilip clearly found the remark distasteful but it seemed to give him something he could use. ‘Yes, I know. And it is precisely because of your own… sanitary arrangements that makes hiding the truth possible.’
My bathroom now? Samira thought to herself. He’s been snooping in there? ‘I want to give up the apartment, Dilip. Find somewhere else.’
‘You ungrateful… No! And as a law student, you should know better. Look at your agreement. By the time your notice to quit is up, you will have passed your Masters and you will be heading back home to marry.’
Samira could feel her anger rising. ‘No. That, I will not do!’
The stand-off lasted no more than a couple of seconds but it occasioned a change of tack from Dilip. He looked rueful. He extended a comforting hand. But a docking manoeuvre between spacecraft would have been more easily accomplished and he withdrew it.
‘Listen, Sam. Just marry Jai, huh? Have his kid, and so long as it’s a boy, you can leave him soon after. It’ll be a year out of your young life. Two at the most – that’s all.’
‘One year, two? Yes, why not? What does my young life matter?’
‘Sam, Sam. It’s for the best.’
She needed a moment to regroup. With every passing day since her arrival in Nice, Samira saw the plans that had been made for her back home in starker relief. They belonged in another world, one she had well and truly left behind. Like Dilip, she had found her feet in Europe and had absolutely no intention of walking back into the past. Progressive thinking and practices did exist in the sub-continent and she knew her experience was by no means that of every young middle-class Indian woman. So why her? What was all this virgin princess sell-off crap for? It was a business move, that was all: an attempt to shore up a once-flourishing family concern weakened not by unavoidable global or local pressures but by her father’s sheer ineptitude as a businessman. But he had one priceless asset left: the beautiful Samira herself. That her value to the family lay not in her burgeoning legal competence but in the quality of her looks and in the status of her vagina infuriated Samira beyond words.
‘And what if I had a girl, Dilip? And then another girl? And then… Don’t you see that what’s being asked of me is wrong? I am not, repeat, not going through with this.’
Dilip looked uncomfortable suddenly and for a moment, Samira wondered if he might even be about to express some long-overdue solidarity with her over the issue. Instead, he got to his feet. ‘I’ll just be a second.’ When he returned, he was holding a newspaper clipping. As if chewing over whether to show it to her or not, he hesitated for a moment but then handed it over.
‘It’s from home. She… was a cousin. Ma’s side.’
Samira scanned the page. Dated three weeks ago, the report was headlined: murder of teacher was an honour killing say police.
The paper slipping from her fingers, Samira stared blindly ahead. On the TV screen, a frozen Julien stared back at her.
SEVEN
After the delight of wheeling a trolley around a crowded supermarket, Frankie’s next port of call was Noëmi and Armani Tardelli’s place a few streets away. Noëmi was yet to meet Frankie’s stepmother-in-law Chantal and as both were members of Lily’s back-up childminding team, it was considered high time they did. But as they turned off the avenue into rue Pastorelli, a call from an elderly neighbour dispatched Chantal back to the Darac seniors’ family home in nearby Vence and the meeting was put on hold.
The Tardellis lived in a top-floor apartment overlooking Place Wilson. Flanked by a quartet of busy and buzzy streets, the park at its centre was a pleasant, tree-lined space complete with a playground for little ones.
‘One day,’ Frankie said to Lily as they waited at the street door for Noëmi. ‘You and Fabi will be able to play on these slides and spinny things, won’t you, sweetie?’
Kisses of greeting were accompanied by the news that young Monsieur Fabien Tardelli was in a foul mood this morning and would Frankie and Paul like to take him for the rest of the month?
‘One of those mornings, eh?’ Frankie said, grinning.
‘And then some. I’ll pay big money.’
As they disappeared into the apartment house, a woman on an entirely different mission faded back into a doorway on the adjoining rue Gubernatis and took out her earpiece. Aged perhaps in her mid-50s and dressed in quality garments that had seen a lot of wear in previous decades, the woman had the look of someone for whom the past may have been another country but at least she had lived life to the full there.
Ballpoint at the ready, she rummaged around in her handbag and took out a notebook, coverless and dogeared. Separating the heavily creased hanks of paper, she found a pair of blank pages and flattened them out. But what to write? She had been told never to make any written notes but if she didn’t, she knew she would never remember the details. She – Dédé Dubreuil – whose memory had once been the envy of her colleagues! In a half-cocked attempt to comply, she decided to keep things cryptic, using initials for full names and titles. MT and SM would do the trick. The pen’s sticky nib made a messy entry on the page but, satisfied it was legible, the woman put the pen and notebook back in her bag and fished out the mobile he had given her. It rang immediately Was he watching her? It wouldn’t be the first time.
‘So?’ he said, his voice conveying all the easy-going warmth of a slamming cell door. ‘Remember what I told you. Be careful.’
‘I was just about to call you. We’re still OK. So that’s me finished for the day, right? You can tell… Don’t say Cassie’s name… our friend not to come.’
‘She’s en route. Stay where you are until she arrives.’
‘I just want to go back to the flat. I’m tired.’
‘Wait there, I said! And we’ll meet again tonight. As arranged.’
‘But I—’
‘Tonight. Where we said. When we said.’
Before Dédé could reply, the line went dead.
