Three days later, Nanette was enjoying a coffee and a croissant at one of the cafés that edged the La Condamine Monaco flower and vegetable market, when her mobile rang.
‘Hi, Patsy. Everything all right?’ she asked quickly, as her sister’s number flashed on the screen.
‘Yes. Just wondering how you are. Texts are all very well, but I need to hear your voice. I start to worry when we don’t actually speak to each other. I wonder what you’re not telling me,’ Patsy said.
‘Sorry. My silence wasn’t deliberate, it’s just that things have been a bit upside down here since we arrived, but everything’s fine here now.’
‘What do you mean now?’ Patsy demanded. ‘What’s happened? Are the twins all right? Are you?’
‘The twins and I are fine.’ Nanette hesitated. ‘Mathieu wasn’t here when I arrived. He’d been arrested.’ Quickly, before Patsy could draw breath, Nanette continued, ‘He’s out now. They kept him in for twenty-four hours before releasing him on bail. He has to report back once a week.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Something to do with his business,’ Nanette said. ‘Apparently all he said to Jean-Claude was it’s nothing to worry about and that he’d got it sorted.’
She didn’t add that Jean-Claude was furious with his son for not asking him to put up the bail money. Instead, an unnamed foreign business associate had stood surety. Privately, Nanette thought it sounded more than shifty but she’d kept those thoughts to herself and decided not to mention the incident to Vanessa when she got in touch. Mathieu himself was acting much as normal, which she took as a good sign.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t rung you before, but as you can imagine, trying to occupy the twins and keep the news of their father’s arrest from them hasn’t left much time for anything else. Thankfully, Mathieu has taken them to Marineland in Villneuve-Loubet today to give me a couple of free hours. Jean-Claude is organising an extra computer for them, so they’ll be able to follow Vanessa and Ralph’s progress from this weekend.’
‘Have you heard from them?’
‘Only a quick text to say that she’d tried to phone last night but couldn’t get through for some reason but they’ve arrived safely in Brazil and are enjoying themselves. Their honeymoon will be over next weekend when they fly up into the jungle and meet up with the film crew ready to begin filming the documentary.’
‘When do the twins start school?’
‘Monday, so that’s something else we’ve been busy doing: sorting clothes, buying books and stationery and backpacks big enough to carry everything. Honestly, the amount of stuff they have to carry on a daily basis is unbelievable.’
‘What about you?’ Patsy asked. ‘How are you coping with being back in Monaco? Met up with anyone from your past yet?’
‘If you mean, have I seen Zac, the answer is no. How’s your morning sickness?’ she asked, deftly changing the subject.
‘Slowing down, thank goodness,’ Patsy said. ‘I’d better go – Helen is about to arrive and if she realises I’m on the phone to you, I shall get a lecture about wasting Bryan’s hard-earned money on foreign phone calls – even though its WhatsApp!’
‘I’ll ring you at the weekend,’ Nanette said, laughing. ‘Take care.’
Thoughtfully, she put the phone in her bag and looked around her at the colourful scene. Local housewives and Filipino servants with raffia baskets were busy doing their daily fresh vegetable shop and Nanette could see the walkway up to the palace was crowded with tourists.
It was hard to believe she was back here. If someone had told her last year that she would be living in Monaco again, her immediate reaction would have been outright disbelief. The scars were still too sore then to even contemplate returning. Now, having settled in, and despite the problems of the last few days, Nanette was beginning to enjoy being back. The Principality had always been a special place for her and she’d been sad everything had fallen apart in such a horrendous way.
She realised after she’d finished talking to Patsy that she’d forgotten to tell her about last night when Mathieu had taken her out to dinner after the twins were in bed and Florence was babysitting. Partly to apologise for not being there when she arrived and simply, ‘Because I’d like to,’ he’d said, with a disarming smile when suggesting it. The evening, though, had ended on a strange note.
The small family-run bistro he’d taken her to was a familiar one, hidden in one of the back streets, away from the tourist haunts. Nanette had pushed the thought of the last time she’d been in there with Zac away and tried to ‘live in the moment’, as all the self-help books advised, rather than let that memory cloud the evening.
‘I’m so glad you decided you’d come with the twins,’ Mathieu had said, as they’d waited for their first course to arrive.
‘Can’t understand why you wanted me here really,’ Nanette had replied. ‘Florence lives in, and Jean-Claude seems more than happy to help look after the twins.’
‘Vanessa thought it was important for Pierre and Olivia to have some sort of continuity in their lives. They are used to you looking after them when Vanessa is away. It certainly makes things easier for me, knowing you’re in charge.’ He’d smiled at her and added, ‘And it was definitely less of a worry for me earlier in the week, knowing that you were here with them.’ There was a slight pause before he had said quietly, ‘I have to confess to an ulterior motive too. I also hoped we could get to know each other better. That perhaps you could stop thinking of me simply as the twins’ father and we could become better friends.’
The waiter arriving with their starters at that moment had spared a surprised Nanette from responding. She hoped becoming better friends was all that Mathieu had in mind. There was no way she’d even think about getting involved with him. He was her best friend’s ex-husband, for goodness sake. Thankfully, Mathieu had changed the conversation to more general things once the waiter left them.
‘It’s the Tennis Masters Series soon,’ he had said. ‘I remember you and Zac used to play a lot. I’ve been offered the chance of a couple of tickets for the opening day, would you like to come with me?’
‘Oh please,’ Nanette had replied, ignoring the flicker of pain at the mention of Zac. They had been passionate about tennis, both playing and watching. To actually go to a Tennis Masters match would be wonderful. Zac had always been tied up with racing by April when the event happened and had never managed to schedule it into his programme.
‘Good. I’ll confirm the tickets before I go away next week.’
‘Business trip, or pleasure?’ she’d asked.
‘A trip to Switzerland on business,’ he had said quietly. ‘So long as the authorities don’t prevent me leaving.’
‘Are they likely to?’ Nanette had looked at him, trying not to show her worry but not wanting to pry.
Mathieu had shrugged. ‘I’m hoping they’ll realise they’ve made a mistake in the next couple of days and everything will be sorted out. I’m not the man they want.’
‘Do you know who is?’ Nanette had asked quietly.
Mathieu had nodded. ‘Oh yes.’ But he’d said no more and the subject had been dropped.
As they had finished their meal and prepared to leave, the restaurant door opened and a couple entered. The man, a burly figure in an expensive black coat and wearing a trilby, immediately came over to Mathieu. The two shook hands and chatted briefly, but it wasn’t until the man said, ‘Mathieu, who is your charming companion?’ in a foreign accent that Nanette recognised as Russian, that Mathieu, reluctantly it seemed to Nanette, had introduced her.
‘Boris, this is my children’s nanny. Netty, this is Boris, a business acquaintance.’
‘Aw, come now, Mathieu, more than a business acquaintance since last week. Remember how I help you with your little difficulty?’ Boris had turned to Nanette, briefly acknowledged her with an abrupt ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,' and turned his attention back to Mathieu. Nanette couldn’t help but overhear Boris’s next words. ‘Tell Zac I need to talk to him urgently.’
Mathieu had nodded in reply before placing his hand in the small of her back and gently pushing her towards the door, saying goodbye to Boris.
Knowing the way society in Monaco worked, Nanette was not surprised that once he’d learnt she was a mere nanny, Boris had ignored her. As far as he was concerned, she was just a servant and not important enough for him to bother with.
The question, though, was, why had Mathieu introduced her as the nanny, complete with the childish name the twins called her, when earlier he’d intimated he wanted them to get to know each other better. He must have realised he’d effectively precluded her from mixing with him and this particular business associate in the future.
Now, as she watched the morning’s market activity around her and drank her coffee, she couldn’t help wondering about that message for Zac. What was the connection between Zac and Boris? How long had Mathieu known Boris? The oft-quoted phrase about Monaco being ‘a sunny place for shady people’ came into her mind. What were Zac and Mathieu up to, associating with a Russian, whom, on first impressions, she personally wouldn’t trust an inch?
Thoughtfully, Nanette finished her coffee, left enough euros in the saucer to cover the bill and began to make her way down to the old port. So much had changed since she lived here and yet some things were still reassuringly familiar.
From her bedroom balcony, she’d struggled to remember the lines of the old port. To her eyes, the new harbour extension, already crowded with the floating gin palaces belonging to the rich and famous, had blended in seamlessly.
Walking slowly along the quay, Nanette recognised some of the yachts, but to her relief there was no sign of Pole Position – the boat Zac had treated himself to after winning the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis several years ago. Knowing that he liked to have the yacht moored in Monaco and use it for parties both before and after the Grand Prix, Nanette knew that once Pole Position reappeared in the harbour, it wouldn’t be long before Zac too, was back in town.
Glancing up to the familiar skyline behind the Hotel de Paris as she walked up the hill, something jarred in her memory. It was a second or two before Nanette realised that the nineteenth-century villa where she’d had a tiny two-room apartment had been replaced by a large ultra-modern concrete building.
Shame; the building, one of the few old villas left, had lent a certain charm to the skyline and had emitted a belle époque atmosphere of the Riviera in its heyday, which she’d loved. Zac, though, had always complained about its lack of modern conveniences and had rarely stayed there with her.
His own large apartment had been in one of those ultra-modern blocks a street or two away from Casino Square. Idly, Nanette wondered if he still lived there or whether, like Mathieu, he had moved on to an even grander place. Whatever, she had no intention of walking anywhere near that particular area this morning.
Instead, she took the Avenue Monte Carlo turning and strolled along, happily indulging in a spot of wishful window shopping in the expensive boutiques that lined the small street. Once, in the past, she’d happily indulged herself buying a leather handbag in one of them. A handbag that was currently languishing in the wardrobe in her room in Blackberry Farm. Another time, another life.
Dodging a string of excitable Japanese tourists, Nanette crossed the road and ran down a flight of steps into the immaculately tended Casino gardens. Last night, Mathieu had mentioned an exhibition of sculpture being shown there by a little-known Frenchwoman and she was looking forward to an hour or two wandering around the exhibits.