Jess

Jess

We’re out on the street, walking along in silence. My thoughts are churning. That voicenote made me feel like I shouldn’t trust anyone in the building—including Ben’s old uni mate, friendly as he might be. But on the other hand, Nick’s the one who suggested going to the police. Surely he wouldn’t do that if he had something to do with Ben’s disappearance?

“This way,” Nick takes hold of my elbow—my arm tingles slightly at his touch—and steers me into an alleyway, no, more like a kind of stone tunnel between buildings. “A cut-through,” he says.

In contrast with the crowded street we left behind there’s suddenly no one else in sight and it’s much darker. Our footsteps echo. I don’t like that I can’t see the sky.

It’s a relief when we pop out at the other end. But as we turn onto the street I see it ends in a police barricade. There are several guys wearing helmets and stab vests, holding batons, radios crackling.

“Fuck,” I say, heart thudding.

“Merde,” says Nick, at the same time.

He goes over and speaks to them. I stay where I am. They don’t seem friendly. I can feel them looking us over.

“It’s the riots,” Nick says, striding back. “They’re expecting a bit of trouble.” He looks closely at me. “You OK?”

“Yeah, fine.” I remind myself that we’re literally on the way to talk to the police. They might be able to help. But it suddenly feels important to get something off my chest. “Hey—Nick?” I start, as we begin walking again.

“Yup?”

“Yesterday, when I spoke to the police, they said they wanted to take my name and address, for their records or whatever. I, er . . . I don’t want to give them that information.”

Nick frowns at me. “Why’s that?”

Because even though he had it coming, I think, what I did to that arsehole is technically still a crime.

“I—it’s not worth getting into.” But because he’s still looking at me oddly and I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of hardened criminal, I say: “I had a little trouble at work, just before I came here.”

More than a little trouble. Two days ago I walked into the Copacabana, smile on my face, as though my boss hadn’t flashed his dick at me the day before. Oh, I can play along when I need to. I needed that bloody job. And then at lunch before opening, while The Pervert was taking a crap (he went in there with a dirty magazine, I knew I had a while), I went and got the little key from his office and opened the till and took everything in it. It wasn’t loads; he was too wily for that, refilled it every day. But it was enough to get here, enough to escape on the first Eurostar I could book myself onto. Oh, and for good measure I heaved two kegs in front of the toilet door, one stacked on the other and the top one just under the door handle so he couldn’t turn it. Would have taken him a while to get out of that one.

So no, I’m not desperate to be on any official record of anything. It’s not like I think Interpol are after me. But I don’t like the idea of my name in some sort of system, of the police here comparing notes with the UK. I came here for a new start.

“Nothing major,” I say. “It’s just . . . sensitive.”

“Er, sure,” Nick says. “Look, I’ll give them my details as a contact. Does that work?”

“Yes,” I say, my shoulders slumping with relief . . . “Thank you, that would be great.”

“So,” he says, as we wait at some traffic lights, “I’m thinking of what I say to the police. I’ll tell them you thought there was someone in the apartment last night, of course—”

“I don’t think there was someone,” I interject, “I know.”

“Sure,” he nods. “And is there anything else you want me to say?”

I pause. “Well . . . I spoke to Ben’s editor.”

He turns to me. “Oh yes?”

“Yeah. This guy at the Guardian. I don’t know if it’s important but it sounded like Ben had an idea he was excited about, for an article.”

“What about?”

“I don’t know. Some big investigative piece. But I suppose if he got mixed up in something . . .”

Nick slows down slightly. “But his editor doesn’t know what the piece was about?”

“No.”

“Ah. That’s a shame.”

“And look, I found a notebook. But it was missing this morning. It had these notes in it—about people in the building. Sophie Meunier—you know the lady from upstairs? Mimi, from the fourth floor. The concierge. There was this line: La Petite Mort. I think it means ‘the little death’—”

I see something shift in Nick’s expression.

“What is it? What does it mean?”

He coughs. “Well, it’s also a euphemism for orgasm.”

“Oh.” I’m not all that easy to embarrass but I feel my cheeks growing warm. I’m also suddenly really aware of Nick’s eyes on me, how near we are to each other in the otherwise empty street. There’s a long, awkward silence. “Anyway,” I say. “Whoever was creeping around this morning took the notebook. So there must be something in it.”

We turn into a side street. I spot a couple of ragged posters pasted to some hoardings. Pause for a moment in front of them. Ghostly faces printed in black and white stare out at me. I don’t need to understand the French to know what—who—these are: Missing Persons.

“Look,” Nick says, following my gaze. “It’s probably going to be tough. Loads of people go missing every year. They have a certain . . . cultural issue here. There’s this view that if someone goes missing, it may be for their own reasons. That they have a right to disappear.”

“OK. But surely they won’t think that’s what’s happened to Ben. Because there’s more . . .” I hesitate, then decide to risk telling Nick about the voicenote.

A long pause, while he digests it. “The other person,” he says. “Could you actually hear their voice?”

“No. I don’t think they said anything. It was just Ben talking.” I think of the what the fuck? “He was scared. I’ve never heard him like that. We should tell the police about that too, right? Play it for them.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

We walk in silence for a couple more minutes, Nick setting the pace. And then suddenly he stops in front of a building: big and modern and seriously ugly, a total contrast to all the fancy apartment blocks flanking it.

“OK. Here we are.”

I look up at the building in front of us. COMMISSARIAT DE POLICE, it says, in large black letters above the entrance.

I swallow, then follow Nick inside. Wait just inside the front door as he speaks in fluent-sounding French to the guy on the desk.

I try to imagine what it must be like to have the confidence Nick has in a place like this, to feel like you have a right to be here. To my left there are three people in grimy clothes being held in cuffs, faces smeared with what looks like soot, yelling and tussling with the policemen holding them. More protestors? I feel like I have much more in common with them than I do with the nice rich boy who’s brought me here. I jump back as nine or ten guys in riot gear burst into the reception and shove past me and out into the street, piling into a waiting van.

The guy behind the desk is nodding at Nick. I see him pick up a telephone.

“I asked to speak to someone higher up,” Nick says as he comes over. “That way we’ll actually be listened to. He’s just calling through now.”

“Oh, great,” I say. Thank God for Nick and his fluent French and his posh boy hustle. I know if I’d walked in here I’d have been fobbed off again—or, worse, bottled it and left before I’d spoken to anyone.

The receptionist stands and beckons us through into the station. I swallow my unease about heading farther into this place. He leads us down a corridor into an office with a plaque that reads Commissaire Blanchot on the door and a man—in his late fifties at a guess—sitting behind a huge desk. He looks up. A bristle of short gray hair, a big square face, small dark eyes. He stands and shakes Nick’s hand then turns to me, looks me up and down, and sweeps a hand at the two chairs in front of his desk. “Asseyez vous.”

Clearly Nick pulled some strings: the office and Blanchot’s air of importance tell me he’s some sort of bigwig. But there’s something about the guy I don’t like. I can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s the pitbull face, maybe it’s to do with the way he looked at me just now. It doesn’t matter, I remind myself. I don’t have to like him. All I need is for him to do his job properly, to find my brother. And I’m not so blind that I can’t see I might be bringing my own baggage to all of this.

Nick starts speaking to Blanchot in French. I can barely pick up a word they’re saying. I catch Ben’s name, I think, and a couple of times they glance in my direction.

“Sorry,” Nick turns back to me. “I realize we were talking pretty fast. I wanted to get everything in. Could you follow any of it? He doesn’t speak much English, I’m afraid.”

I shake my head. “It wouldn’t have made much difference if you’d gone slowly.”

“Don’t worry: I’ll explain. I’ve laid out the whole situation to him. And basically we’re coming up against what I was telling you about before: the ‘right to disappear.’ But I’m trying to convince him that this is something more than that. That you—that we—are really worried about Ben.”

“You’ve told him about the notebook?” I ask. “And what happened last night?”

Nick nods. “Yes, I went through all that.”

“How about the voicenote?” I hold up my phone. “I have it right here, I could play it.”

“That’s a great idea.” Nick says something to Commissaire Blanchot, then turns to me and nods. “He’d like to listen to it.”

I hand over the phone. I don’t like the way the guy snatches it from me. He’s just doing his job, Jess, I tell myself. He plays the voicenote through some kind of loudspeaker and, once again, I hear my brother’s voice like I’ve never heard it before. “What the fuck?” And then the sound. That strange groan.

I look over at Nick. He’s gone white. He seems to be having the same reaction as I did: it tells me my gut feeling was right.

Blanchot turns it off and nods at Nick. Because I don’t speak French, or I’m a woman—or both—it feels like I barely exist to him.

I prod Nick. “He has to do something now, yes?”

Nick swallows, then seems to pull himself together. He asks the guy a question, turns back to me. “Yes. I think that’s helped. It gives us a good case.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Blanchot watching the two of us, his expression blank.

And then suddenly it’s all over and they’re shaking hands again and Nick is saying: “Merci, Commissaire Blanchot” and I say “Merci” too and Blanchot smiles at me and I try to ignore the uneasiness that I know is probably less to do with this guy than everything he represents. Then we’re being shown back out into the corridor and Blanchot’s door is closing.

“How do you think it went?” I ask Nick, as we walk out of the front door of the station. “Did he take it seriously?”

He nods. “Yes, eventually. I think the voicenote clinched it.” He says, his voice hoarse. He still looks pale and sickened by what he just heard, on the voicenote. “And don’t worry—I’ve given myself as a contact, not you. As soon as I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

For a moment, back out on the street, Nick stops and stands stock-still. I watch as he covers his eyes with his hand and takes a long, shaky breath. And I think: here is someone else who cares about Ben. Maybe I’m not quite as alone in this as I thought.