Chapter Twelve

Catherine Nadeau phoned. Rachel had known she would. As they made opening small talk, she thought how little she wanted to spend time listening to her ex-lover’s last lover’s conversation. But Catherine was not going to be a new friend, she reminded herself again. She was a suspect. So she arranged to meet her the next afternoon for a drink.

*   *   *

Paris has many department stores, but only three that could be said to be at the pinnacle of luxury: Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, and Le Bon Marché. Ordinary people can afford many things at Galeries Lafayette, and they can afford a few things at Printemps. If they save carefully, they can afford a cup of coffee at Le Bon Marché. It is Paris’s grandest department store and the shopping destination of Paris’s grandest citizens. It was also where Catherine had arranged to meet Rachel.

The glass-roofed atrium of Le Bon Marché is a sensuous feast. Inhabited by a mass of upscale cosmetics companies, their counters peacock-bright with eye shadows and lipsticks, it shimmers with exotic promise. Years of repeated spritzes of various perfumes have given it an ingrained scent of sugar and musk—every breath makes you think simultaneously of warm cookie and powerful women. Rachel inhaled deeply as she crossed the atrium to reach the art deco escalators, and she felt melancholy as she watched the cosmetic counters, with their glamour and comfort, recede below her. Farewell, pavilions of beauty! she thought as she rose above the circle of glittering counters. Farewell, glimpses of unaffordable womanhood! Her line of vision moved up and up until she found herself looking at Catherine, seated at a table in the Rose Bakery.

“I’ve ordered you a Bellini,” Catherine said after they exchanged cheek kisses. “It’s the only drink one can have on a Friday afternoon.”

Rachel did not say that she did not like Bellinis, or that she would have much preferred to make her own choice. Instead, she gave a broad smile. “You’re a star!”

The waiter brought their drinks. Rachel waited until he left, then arranged her face into a concerned expression. “So, how are you?”

Catherine sighed. “Ça va.” She took a sip of her drink. “I am busy with the store. And I am trying to understand my life after this big change. Trying to remember how to be a single woman, a single working woman.” She looked mournful. “Who am I now?”

Inwardly, Rachel rolled her eyes. Catherine really couldn’t remember who she’d been two years ago?

Indeed, as if recognizing her self-indulgence Catherine switched her attention to Rachel. “But how are you?”

“Me?” Rachel was surprised by the question. “I’m well. Busy.”

“Still working on organizing Edgar’s library?”

She nodded.

“And how is that going?”

“It’s progressing. Slowly.”

“But you must be able to focus well, alone in the appartement. There are no interruptions.” Catherine took another sip. “Or does the butler come to chat?”

“Fulke? No.” Rachel shook her head. “But David comes to talk sometimes. He’s already moved in,” she explained.

“Of course.” Catherine looked slightly bored.

“Of course?” Again Rachel was surprised. “Why of course?”

“He doesn’t have anywhere else to live.” Catherine said this as if it were common knowledge.

“I’m sorry?” Now Rachel was even more surprised, although she tried to hide it. “What do you mean?”

“As I say.” Catherine shrugged. “He was evicted from his apartment. Edgar told me. I don’t know why it happened. Edgar said something about nonpayment of rent, but I don’t remember the exact circumstances. I do remember that he’d moved in with some friends; he was sleeping on their couch.” She dabbed her napkin at her red lips, plainly not much interested. “Is the household running well even though he’s moved in? The staff hasn’t made any complaints to you?”

What staff? What was the woman talking about? Were there other people she should know about, should be interviewing?

“Well,” she said, “of course it’s difficult. Everyone is upset, but they seem to be managing well.” She left a space for Catherine about individuals and thus reveal the names of possible unknown staff, but when Catherine just took another sip of her Bellini, Rachel tried to bring the focus back to where she wanted it. “And you? How are you doing? After all, you lost the man you loved. And,” she added hopefully, “all the money in the world can’t make up for that.”

“Yes.” Catherine looked appropriately sad for a second. Then, “But I hadn’t known him as long as David and Mathilde, or even as long as Fulke! They must all, even the servant, be nervous and uncertain.”

How Fulke would burn to hear himself referred to as “the servant”! And although Catherine’s tone was light, what she said was too pointed to be casual. Who was trying to get information from whom here? Rachel parried once more.

“David seems fine. And Fulke takes it as a point of professionalism, I think, to remain unruffled. About Mathilde I don’t know.” That was all true enough, as far as it went. Interesting that Catherine hadn’t asked about Elisabeth, though.

“And the police have signed off on the death?”

“The police?” Rachel was surprised and puzzled. “I didn’t know the police were involved.” Did that mean they were beginning to realize what had happened? She wondered how Magda would react to that news. Would she want to share information with them now?

But Catherine was shaking her head. “Oh no, my mistake.” She gave her glassy laugh. “I thought the police were called in to all deaths, but now I remember they don’t have to sign off on deaths at home.” She laughed again, as if at her own foolishness, but her eyes watched Rachel carefully, and for a second she looked disappointed. A thrust deflected, Rachel thought. Let her try again; perhaps the fourth time she would give away more than she sought to find out.

Catherine didn’t try again, though. Maybe she had realized she would get nowhere with whatever she wanted, or maybe she had just got tired of trying; whatever the reason, she looked at her silver sliver of a watch and said, “I must go. I’m meeting a supplier to discuss some new products.”

“Oh.” Rachel looked around for the waiter. “Shall we get the bill?”

Once more Catherine smiled her red smile. “Oh, let me pay.”

“Are you sure?” Rachel had her hand on her purse.

“Absolutely. It’s no trouble at all. My pleasure.”

*   *   *

“You hate Bellinis.” Magda’s voice was made fuzzy by speakerphone.

“Yes.” Rachel was curt. “Alan pointed that out when I told him, too. Thank you both for the reminder.”

“You told Alan you had a drink with Edgar Bowen’s girlfriend?”

“I told him I’d been invited for a drink by one of the other beneficiaries, to reminisce. I didn’t tell him what we talked about. Is that okay?” Then she collected herself: she didn’t have to take her bad afternoon out on Magda. “Sorry.” She opened the refrigerator door and took out the remains of the previous night’s crème caramel.

“That’s okay.” Rachel could hear Magda take a sip of something. “And what was she like, in the end?”

Rachel cut a wobbly slice of custard. “I think we should move her up the list of suspects.”

“What? Why?” Magda had been expecting a dismissal.

“Because she was there to sound me out too. She asked all sorts of leading questions. She was very concerned with whether Edgar’s death had caused any upheaval at the appartement. Very concerned. She asked me if the police had come around.”

“What?”

Rachel nodded, then remembered Magda couldn’t see her. “Yes. She tried to smooth it over, but she couldn’t. I don’t think she really knows how to deploy subtlety.”

Magda’s breath rasped into the phone as she inhaled. “Tell me exactly what you said to each other.”

Rachel repeated the conversation. Remembering Magda’s ideas about David at the start of their investigation, she held back the revelation about his inability to pay his rent. She knew Magda would say his lack of money was proof that he was on drugs, and demand they also move him up the suspect list—and because she hadn’t heard the grown-up David talk about Edgar, she’d have no idea how ridiculous it was to imagine that he could kill his father. Better to just skip the exhausting argument and explanation and highlight the information from Catherine that actually mattered. She ended her recitation with Catherine’s obviously false announcement that she had another appointment.

“God,” Magda said when she’d finished, “she really doesn’t know how to be subtle. Unless … unless she can’t be subtle because she’s desperate. Scared that someone knows what she did.”

“But what did she do?” Rachel’s voice was tight.

“That is the question.” Magda was thoughtful, and somehow Rachel knew what she was going to say before she said it. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on her.”