Thérèse was back in the house on Monday morning. If she was aware of the row between her employers, she didn’t hint at it as she briefed Alice in the study at the back of the hallway on the ground floor. The office had a large wooden desk and was painted in a stylish dark teal with contrasting patterned wallpaper. There were some lovely abstract oils on the wall as well as a huge art deco mirror, which reflected the light from the windows with their stylish silk curtains.
Alice scribbled in her notebook, trying to keep up with the list of tasks for the week. Amongst them was sourcing new linen samples for a dinner party Madame Messent was giving for her charity backers next Friday. Thérèse also said that whilst Laura was at school Madame Messent wanted to refurbish her room, so Alice was to put together a mood board, whatever that was. Alice nodded, making a note to ask Helly.
Alice couldn’t stop herself from glancing up at Thérèse, and seeing not just her face in the flesh here, but also in that fake passport in Alex Messent’s safe. What did it mean? That they were somehow in on something together? And did Camille know? Did she have a fake passport too?
And what was the Brazilian connection? Were they planning on travelling there incognito? But why? Or, could those two passports be real and Alex and Thérèse’s identities here be fake? Perhaps Thérèse had no idea that this second passport even existed? Cripes, the sheer array of possibilities was making Alice’s head spin. But maybe there were answers here in her study, she thought, eyeing the desk. As soon as she could, she’d find out.
‘Ah, putain,’ Thérèse said, taking a sip of her coffee and spilling it on her cream cardigan. She dabbed at it, ineffectually.
‘Give it to me. I’ll get the stain out,’ Alice said. ‘It’ll mark.’
Thérèse shrugged off the cardigan. ‘I had a late night. I’m being clumsy today,’ she said, handing it over with a grateful smile. Alice folded it over her arm and stood to leave. ‘Oh, and Caroline, Laura has her orthodontist appointment on Thursday. I forgot to sign her form, so if you don’t mind, could you go to pick her up and sign her out? The school is being difficult …’ she sighed. ‘There have been problems with Laura before, so they won’t allow her to go there alone.’
‘Problems?’
Thérèse pressed her lips together in a way that Alice knew meant she was determined not to say too much. Thérèse leant in. ‘Put it this way … she can’t get expelled from this school, too. It’s her last chance.’
Alice was shocked. ‘Laura has been expelled from other schools?’
Laura had seemed a rather well-behaved teenager to her, but Thérèse seemed to think she was problematic. Quelle surprise, Alice thought. She was probably doing all she could to get the attention of her parents. Even Alice herself had indulged in a fair bit of that as a child — though, admittedly, more in the realms of pinching the odd cheeky cigarette and ducking off Latin than getting expelled.
‘Is it OK if I book the same car that took her to school when the trains were on strike?’ Alice omitted to mention the stink the previous booking had caused with Alex Messent, because having a legitimate reason to be with Massoud in the car for the whole journey to Berkshire and back would also give her the opportunity she’d been looking for to visit Audley Manor.
‘Of course,’ Thérèse said.
‘Is there anything else?’
‘Yes … actually, can you pick up my dry cleaning?’ Thérèse asked, handing Alice a slip of rough red paper from the pages of her diary.
Alice was barely able to hide her smile. She’d already recognised the logo on the slip as belonging to Shilpa. Meaning she could drop that moulding Barney made with Shilpa’s husband and get a spare key cut for Monsieur Messent’s study. Not that she could currently think of any reason she might need to get in there again. But you never knew.
‘Of course.’ Alice nodded. ‘No problem.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Thérèse said, shooting Alice one of those pointed little smiles. ‘I’ve been so busy. I forgot to ask, how are you finding things here?’
Alice felt wrong-footed. Did she suspect something? ‘Everything’s fine.’ She beamed.
Thérèse nodded. ‘I don’t need to remind you, of course, that anything you see going on in this house is strictly confidential?’
Ah, so she did know about the row, Alice concluded. But did she also know that Alex had been banished to the spare room?
‘Absolutely,’ Alice said.
‘Très bien,’ said Thérèse, returning to her phone – leaving Alice now genuinely dismissed.
As Alice walked into the corridor, she examined the stain on Thérèse’s cardigan and couldn’t help lifting the garment to give it a sniff. It smelt very strongly of a familiar perfume.
As Alice set off with Agatha to Shilpa’s, she phoned the office.
‘Hang on, you’re on speaker. Helly’s here,’ Jinx said.
‘Hi Alice,’ Helly said, and Alice felt a little pang in her heart for her old life. As intriguing as all her recent chicanery was, a part of her still yearned for normality to return. But, she reminded herself, this wasn’t just about her. This was about Enya and Enya’s family and hopefully finding out the truth.
She told them both about Barney coming to the house, breaking into the safe, the false passports and the brochure for Audley Manor, and how they’d nearly been caught.
‘Bloody hell,’ Helly said. ‘You’re so brave.’
Alice felt her spine straighten a little, glad that her ordeal had been appreciated.
‘Hang on. Audley Manor, you say? Sodding Dilly Harrington’s place?’ Jinx said.
‘Exactly,’ Alice said.
‘Who’s Dilly Harrington?’ asked Helly.
‘She was my nemesis at school,’ Jinx said. ‘She was captain of everything. And wanted everyone to know it.’
‘It was a long time ago, Jinx,’ Alice said, recalling nonetheless the spiteful school bully, her signature black ponytail forever swishing in Alice’s face as she cut in front of her in the dining room queue. ‘I’m sure she’s perfectly pleasant now.’
‘Bee-atches like that never change,’ Jinx said, ominously. ‘But thank God for you, Alice. I’d have beaten her up and ended up expelled ten times over if you hadn’t talked me out of it.’
‘I’m just looking her up on Instagram,’ Helly said. ‘Oh, my. She’s quite the … powerhouse …’
‘Brick shithouse, more like,’ Jinx cackled. ‘She’s on Facebook all the bloody time, banging on about her boys playing hockey and her place in Gstaad. Yes, look, here she is just yesterday, jiggling on the beach in Cavalière. She says she’s going to be there all week, the lucky cow.’
Alice smiled, picturing Jinx’s face. ‘That’s perfect,’ she said. ‘That means there’ll be no danger of her being there at Audley in person if I call in on Thursday.’
‘Thursday?’ Jinx asked.
Alice explained how she was picking up Laura from school with Massoud. ‘Can you call whoever manages the hall and make up an excuse for me to visit? Only obviously not me me. Just make me up a name and tell them I’m some party planner looking for venues.’
‘Roger that. Consider it done,’ Jinx said. ‘Another alias coming up.’
It only occurred to Alice, as she walked through the familiar door of the dry cleaners that she would have to explain her uniform to Shilpa so she quickly drew her trench coat tighter across her body, feeling even more like a spy.
They chatted about the usual things – the weather and their respective businesses, then Alice said, ‘Actually, one of my housekeepers forgot to pick up some dry cleaning and I said I’d do it as I was passing. Long story, but …’ She fished in her purse for the pink ticket Thérèse had given her. ‘Oh, and I don’t know if you can cut a key right this second, but I’ve got this,’ she said, handing over Barney’s little dummy key.
‘No problem,’ Shilpa said, taking it over to her husband, who inspected it and nodded. A second later, he started grinding out a key with his cutting machine. Agatha whimpered at the noise and hid behind Alice’s legs.
Shilpa took the ticket and pressed the button on her remote control and the rail of plastic-clad clothing began to move around. She plucked out the item corresponding to the slip and brought it over to the counter.
‘This is it. For Thérèse, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Alice smiled, more easily this time, because at least this time she wasn’t telling a fib.
‘Could you tell her that I tried my best and I think I’ve got most of the blood out.’
‘Blood?’
‘Yes, there was a bit of blood on the trousers. She said she’d had an accident.’
But it wasn’t just the mention of blood that was making Alice’s heart race. She now remembered walking past Alex Messent’s gallery just before Christmas. And she remembered him laughing and handing a woman in a trouser suit a glass of champagne. A suit identical to this. And hadn’t Thérèse been wearing a white trouser suit on New Year’s Eve too? Yes, she had. Alice was sure of it.
‘Are you OK, Alice?’ Shilpa asked.
‘Yes, um, yes, sorry,’ she said, handing over her card to pay. ‘Oh, and Shilpa, do you mind not mentioning that I was here? I don’t like to get the housekeeper into trouble.’
‘Of course,’ Shilpa said.
With the spare key in her pocket, Alice carried the white suit in its plastic sheath over her arm, Agatha trotting beside her, but she could barely concentrate on where she was going.
Should she take the suit to Detective Rigby? What if the blood that Shilpa had so skilfully got out of the white fabric had been Enya’s? What if Thérèse had made it up to the study and bludgeoned Enya to death?
More what ifs … But the plain fact of the matter was that the blood had already been cleaned off. It was no longer proof of anything at all.
Camille, Alex and Thérèse were all out by the time Alice got back to the house.
After feeding Agatha, she took the trouser suit to Thérèse’s office and hung it on the back of the door, before partially closing it. With a bit of luck, she’d have time to have a good snoop around.
Moving stealthily behind Thérèse’s desk and opening the drawers, she thought about the mounting evidence. It seemed Thérèse was not just up to something dodgy with Alex Messent, but perhaps knew more than she’d let on regarding New Year’s Eve.
Thérèse had been standing by the door in Charles’s photos, so she could easily have slipped out of the room when Camille had started her speech. But to do what? Murder Enya? It hardly seemed likely, did it? She’d hardly known Enya and her death certainly hadn’t benefited Thérèse in any way. But then those fake passports were jolly sinister. The sheer … couple-ness of the his ’n’ hers – and, yes, she would allow herselfjust this one ’n’ – passports. Were she and Alex Messent somehow together? Having an affair? Could that be what she’d glimpsed that evening in his gallery? And, of course, the blood on the trouser suit. Enough blood to have made a fuss to Shilpa …
Spiralling into full fantasy mode now, Alice imagined walking into the police station and laying out her case to Detective Rigby. He might even let Alice accompany him back to the house as he arrested Thérèse and possibly Alex Messent too, whereupon Alice could reveal her true identity and this whole ordeal would be over. With the case solved, and having fulfilled her promise to Gerda, she could then go back to the office and her old life. Bravo.
Only real life was never that simple. There were no bloodstained murder weapons waiting for her as she searched the room from top to bottom. And Detective Rigby wasn’t even on the case anymore. But Alice had to find something, or Enya’s death would just be swept under the carpet. Now, as she sat in Thérèse’s chair and tried the desk drawers, she remembered Enya’s lovely hair and intelligent smile. She would not let her down.
The bottom drawer was sectioned with file dividers. She scanned through their headers. ‘D.T. Holdings’, she read, flicking through the papers inside. The name kept coming up again and again. Some sort of London-based property company, in Alex Messent’s name.
Then she saw an envelope with Thérèse’s name on the front. There was a note, written in French, and a set of keys inside. Alice took out her mobile phone and opened Google Translate.
Dear T – here’s two sets of keys to your flat. Number 19, Park View, South Kensington. With our kind wishes, C and A.
So the Messents had rented Thérèse her flat, it looked like. And in quite the location. Very decent of them. Quite the action of a model employer. And yet … Alice weighed the keys in her hand for a moment. Thérèse must have the other set, but these spares would do just fine for Alice’s next mission – namely to search Thérèse’s actual home as well. She slipped them into her pocket.
Feeling a buzz in her other pocket, Alice pulled out her phone.
‘Can you get back to the office?’ Jinx whispered when she answered.
‘Why?’
‘She’s here.’
‘Who?’
‘Gerda. I told her you were out, but she said she’s prepared to wait all day. She’s … well, you’d better come and see for yourself …’