The Girl in the Shadows. Katherine Debona
‘Then go to the police.’ His words were accompanied by a bulbous cloud of nicotine that she swatted away, the movement rippling up her arm in an accumulation of pain. He held on to her as they crossed the street, tighter than she would normally allow.
A woman ran past, lean precise movements that Mathilde recognised without needing to look. She knew the woman would turn at the corner and cross the river, would return to this café to sit in the corner as she ordered her staple of coffee and eggs.
‘At least go to the hospital.’ He held the door open for her and she sank into the café’s enveloping warmth.
‘Non. No hospitals. No records, nothing that can be used to find me.’ She sat at an empty table as he went over to the bar, found herself scanning the road outside, seeking out the retreating runner.
She had wanted to speak to her from the very first time. To ask her the story behind her scar, to find out if she too had suffered at the hands of another. But there was never a moment in which she felt able to step into the open, to reveal the truth she had kept hidden for so long.
And now she had to bury the lies even deeper.
He placed a glass mug in front of her. Amber tendrils seeped out into the steaming water as fragrant leaves teased her senses and her stomach complained at its lack of sustenance. She remembered the abandoned supper, her mind taunting her with the image she knew she could never forget.
‘She will look for you.’ He sipped his own drink, lips puckering at the bitter heat.
‘I know.’
‘Then let me protect you.’
‘You’re sweet.’ She dropped her head, tucked a curl behind one ear.
‘But not sweet enough.’
It was too much. The effort of trying to exist was slowly wasting her away. She had to run, to free herself of the endless to and fro, of camouflaging her pain. Pain that had become as commonplace as the setting of the sun.
There was no other way.
‘Take this.’ She removed the locket from around her neck, rubbing it against the ruby clot on her forehead before handing it over.
‘Where should I leave it?’
‘Somewhere it will be found.’
‘And then?’
She dared not answer. A conscience that had been her downfall, a softness she had battled against still preventing her from uttering any untruth.
‘Then go.’ He swiped at the air, polished cufflinks catching the light and dancing over her face.
She stood on legs dragged down by the inevitable. The chair clattered to the floor behind her, but no one turned to watch, the hour too early for any other customers.
‘Be careful,’ she whispered. All too aware of the risk he was going to take, for her.
‘You showed me a kindness I had long since forgotten.’ He cupped her hand between his own, eyes focused on the movement of thumb over her wrist as the solace in his voice offered up a farewell. ‘God will not spare my soul. It is tainted with the cruelty of too many years. But you still have the chance of living, of sharing your gift with the world.’
She took back her hand. ‘I won’t forget you.’
‘You should,’ he said as she opened the door, allowing the morning back in.
One step over the threshold, two steps to the kerb, three steps towards the river, four steps more. The road stretched out ahead, shadows waking as dawn seeped into the sky.
Veronique
Paris, France. Now.
Without needing to raise her gaze Veronique sensed the waiter approach and she moved her arm to cover the photograph on the table. She heard the change in his footfall, imagined his surprise as he looked from the left side of her face to the right and back again. She tilted her chin and smiled at him, the creases below her left eye intermingling with the deep scar that ran across her cheek, melted muscle and sinew preventing any symmetry across her features.
‘Madame?’ the waiter asked, standing a little too far from the table and eyes fixed on a spot just behind her.
‘C’est ton premier jour,’ she replied, ‘but tomorrow you won’t be new, so I’ll only forgive your mistake this one time.’ Holding her cup out she waited for him to take it. ‘Every morning it is the same. Espresso. Double, with a single shot of mocha and a spoon on the side.’
The waiter leant forward to take her cup, eyes widening as they focused on the uneven stretch of her skin over bone. He was about to return to the bar when she grabbed hold of his wrist, pulling him close.
‘Take a good look,’ she whispered. ‘Most people don’t get this close.’ She turned her left cheek towards him, exposing not only the silver scar that traversed one side of her face, but the milky sheen to her unseeing eye.
Dropping his arm she turned back towards the window, a shadow cutting her in two. At this time of day her scar would be hidden from passers-by as the sun rose over the square.
Veronique listened as he stumbled his way back to the bar, the intonation of his voice telling her what he was saying without the need to understand individual words. She was good at listening, on picking up the nuances in others’ speech, at the subtleties each pitch would bring to the words they were uttering. Years spent spying through doors left ajar and eavesdropping on conversations best left unheard had provided her with an excellent tool to aid her work as a private investigator.
Reaching into her bag Veronique unzipped an internal pocket to retrieve a small notebook. Unwrapping the cord she opened the book to a clean page, easing aside the spine and flattening the sheets underneath her palms. She picked up her fountain pen and began to make notes, her right eye flicking between the police report Christophe had managed to acquire and her own small, rounded script.
Usually she didn’t take this type of case, but there was something about the missing teenager that clawed at her, demanded she take a second look. Examining the photograph supplied to the police by the grieving mother, Veronique listed identifying features: blonde hair – mid-length with a natural curl, hazel eyes, small nose, beauty spot on the chin, six-inch scar running from left clavicle towards her elbow.
The resemblance was coincidental but unsettling. The girl had the same nervous, wide-eyed gaze: a gaze that hinted at a buried fear from which Veronique had been running ever since the night of the fire.
She sat back in her chair, placing the pen on her notebook and clasping her hands in front of her, determined not to bring her fingertips up to her face. She already knew her own scar by heart – had no need to touch it to remember each dip and fall of her tarnished skin, the way it would ache in the mornings if she had lain on the wrong side.
Is that all it was, she wondered? The scar? Or was it more to do with the money? She only needed a few more lucrative cases like this and she would have enough to make the final payment, no more ties to bureaucracy. Then the appartement would be hers, her own little piece of the city, along with stability and the possibility of a future.
There was more. The reminder of someone she was forever trying to forget. The idea of a lost daughter and an anxious mother waiting for her to come home. Something Veronique had never known. Besides, the opportunity to find holes in Guillaume’s investigation, to prove him wrong, was too much to resist.
The waiter returned, laying the coffee cup in front of her with a trembling hand.
‘Merci,’ Veronique said with a small nod, picking up the silver teaspoon in her left hand and stirring the dark, viscous liquid twice anticlockwise. After tapping the spoon on