Louisa said, “But whoever came to kill David Cartwright, it wasn’t this mysterious Henry. Not unless he was about three when Cartwright was paying him visits.”
“Why was he doing that?”
As on the previous occasions when JK Coe had opened his mouth, this caused a brief silence: not so much people wondering about what he’d said as registering that he’d actually said something.
Ho said, “I think you missed the bit about the status updates,” and glanced at Lamb for approval.
Who said, “Listen and learn, grasshopper.”
Coe said, “He was First Desk in all but name. Why would he be trotting off to the continent to check up on a retired spook?”
“Maybe it was the other way round,” said Lamb. “Maybe checking up on a retired spook was the excuse he needed to go trotting off to the continent.”
“So this Henry, who we first heard of fifteen seconds ago, might just be a smokescreen?” said Marcus. “He didn’t last long.”
“Are you suggesting Cartwright invented an agent just so he’d get his travel expenses paid?” Louisa said.
“Those ferries weren’t cheap,” said Lamb. “But no. If Henry’s an invention, it was to give Cartwright the freedom to go to France in the first place. Like the mad monk said, he was First Desk in all but name. Which didn’t mean he couldn’t make trips abroad. It just meant he had to have a better reason for making them than ‘felt like it.’”
“So he had some kind of secret mission going on in France in the nineties,” said Louisa. “And whatever it was, it’s come back to bite him.”
“Have I triangulated yet?” said Shirley. “Because there’s more.”
“Did someone start an employee of the month competition?” Lamb asked. “Because I’ve got to tell you, I wish I’d thought of that myself. And I can’t believe Dander’s ahead of the pack.”
“Is there a prize?”
“Yeah, Ho will explain how he got a girlfriend. You can take notes.”
“I assume it involved cash,” Shirley said. “Anyway, when Cartwright travelled, he didn’t travel alone. On account of—”
“Being First Desk in all but name,” said Marcus.
“And thus requiring a body-watcher,” said Louisa.
“Yeah yeah yeah,” said Shirley. “So you want to hear who it was, or not?”
Lamb said, “It was Bad Sam, wasn’t it?”
“Bad Sam Chapman,” Shirley said. “That’s exactly who it was.”
“So my name is Natasha, Natasha Reverde, and I grew up here, in this village. I moved away for a long time, but now I am back. This is something I have found, that as we get older, we need to return to our beginnings. This is not original, I think. But it is true.”
The house, like Victor’s, was small, but there the resemblance ended. This was not only neat and clean; it was a loved space, and simply by being there, River was invited into Natasha’s confidence. It felt a sudden promotion, from stranger to confidante, but he knew his resemblance to Bertrand was the trigger. It was as if he had become part of a family whose existence he hadn’t been aware of. The fact of Bertrand’s death he held to himself like a long-sworn promise or an imminent betrayal.
“So one evening, long ago, I met a man in a bar, and his name is Yevgeny, and one thing moves on to another. Yevgeny lives with his friends in a big house called Les Arbres, and when he takes me there I see that it is a very different way of life. They do not have jobs, but they are always very busy, very serious. Yevgeny is Russian of course, but others are English and some German and Czech and a Frenchman too, he is called Jean. All Frenchmen are called Jean, but he really is.”
Her eyes grew darker.
“Yevgeny said they are all friends, all equal, but I think this is not so. One of them is not so equal, and he is the one they listen to. He gived, gave, not orders, but he makes suggestions, yes? And the suggestions he makes are the things that happen.”
“Were they all men?”
“Yes. Some of the men had girlfriends, local girls like me, but none of them are living there. And there is an older woman, a nursemaid, who calls in daily.”
“There were children?”
“Two small boys. Later, there were more.”
River waited, and again her eyes seemed to take on a deeper colour, as if the memories she was sinking into were staining her from the inside.
He said, “Who was the man in charge?”
“His name was Frank. An American. Frank.”
“Did he have a surname?”
“I never hear it.” Natasha paused, listening to rain drumming on the windows. She had turned on two small lamps, whose glow didn’t reach the corners, and the surrounding colours—the deep red of the throw upon the sofa; the cream and gold of the hanging on the wall—had grown richer in the half-light. River was reminded of Lamb, who also disliked overhead lighting, not for the unsubtle mood it threw upon a room’s fixtures, but because he preferred the shadows.
“But he was American.”
“Yes. And he had an English woman, I remember. I saw her once, or more than once. Perhaps these occasions have melted into one.”
“Time plays tricks,” River said.
“She was very beautiful, and very cross, the time I saw her, and they have big argument, big row, and Frank tells everyone to leave. Yevgeny, he laughs, but we go for drive anyway. And when we come back, she is gone.”
“How long did you . . . know Yevgeny?”
“This was one summer only. 1990.”
Which seemed a long time ago, to River.
“What happened?”
“Well, I fall pregnant. My parents are very angry with me, and with Yevgeny too. He was much older than me. In his thirties.”
“And how did he react?”
Her eyes became faraway again. “He is happy. He say he will be good father, and we will live happily ever after. It is every young girl’s dream, no?”
“Maybe not everyone’s,” River said.
“No, this is true. Because if that happens, if I live happily ever after, it will mean being here for the rest of my life, in the next village along the river, and that is how far I will travel. And that is not what I want, you see? I want to go to Paris, to other cities, other countries. I want to see more of the world than the space between these two bridges.” She held her hands a few inches apart. “For Yevgeny to take me away. Not keep me here.”
“Did you have the baby?”
“Yes. A boy, Patrice. And he does what babies do, which is cry a lot, and I was just eighteen.”
“I’m sorry, Natasha,” he said, without knowing why.
“So one night,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “I leave the house with some money I have saved and I catch a train to Paris, which is how I get to see parts of the world which are not between these two bridges. And it is big and exciting and glamorous, and what happens to me there is what happens to lots of young girls who run away to the big city. I think you know what I mean.”
River, with Victor’s words in mind, nodded briefly.
Natasha said, “You are a young man, and you are English, and these things are great obstacles, but I will tell you this, that yes, I became a prostitute, and that is not something I feel shame for. There are things you do in life to be able to eat, yes?”
River said, “We all do things to eat.”
“And this is one of them. I have worked in shops, also, and now I have a house-cleaning business, with three girls working for me, but once upon a time, a long way from here, I was a whore, and to some people that is always what I am. To Victor, for instance. Who is nice enough person, but does not understand that people are not always the same.”
He decided he didn’t want to know how Victor had discovered her previous profession. “When did you come back here?”