Jess

Jess

“Hang on,” I say. “You told me you and Ben hadn’t seen each other for over a decade when you guys bumped into each other again?”

“Yes.”

“And that was after that trip, right?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t seen him since then.”

I let it sit a little, wait for him to continue, to explain the long stretch of time. Silence.

“I have to ask,” I say, “what on earth happened in Amsterdam?” I mean it as a joke—mainly. But it feels like there’s something there. The way his voice changed when he spoke about it.

For a moment Nick’s face is a mask. Then it’s like he remembers to smile. “Ha. Just boys being boys. You know.”

A gust of icy wind hits us, ripping leaves from the shrubs and tossing them into the air.

“Jesus!” I say, wrapping my arms around myself.

“You’re shivering,” Nick says.

“Yeah, well—this jacket’s not really designed for the cold. Primarni’s finest.” Though I highly doubt Nick knows what Primark is.

He stretches a hand out toward me, such a sudden motion that I jerk backward.

“Sorry!” he says. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You’ve got a leaf caught in your hair. Wait a second, I’ll get it out.”

“There’s probably all sorts in there,” I say, casting around for a joke. “Food, cigarette butts, the lot.” I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face, his fingers in my hair as he untangles the leaf.

“Here—” he plucks it out and shows it to me: it’s a dead brown ivy leaf. His face is still very close to mine. And in the way you do just know with these things, I think he might be about to kiss me. It’s a very long time since I’ve been kissed by anyone. I find myself letting my lips open slightly.

Then we’re plunged into darkness again.

“Shit,” Nick swears. “It’s the sensors—we’ve been too still.”

He waves an arm and they come back on. But whatever was just happening between us has been shattered. I blink spots of light from my eyes. What the hell was I thinking? I’m trying to find my missing brother. I don’t have time for this.

Nick takes a step away from me. “Right,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “Shall we go back down?”

We climb back down into the apartment. “Hey,” I say. “I think I’ll just find a bathroom.” I need to pull myself together.

“You want me to show you the way?” Nick asks. Clearly he’s familiar with this apartment, I note, despite what he says about not doing this often.

“No, I’m good,” I tell him. “Thanks.”

He goes back to join the others. I wander down a dimly lit corridor. Thick carpet beneath my feet. More artworks hanging on the walls. I push open doors as I go: I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, but I do know I’ve got to find something that might tell me more about these people, or what Ben had to do with any of them.

I find two bedrooms: one very masculine and impersonal, like I imagine a room in a swanky business hotel might be, the other more feminine. It looks as though Sophie and Jacques Meunier sleep in different rooms. Interesting, though maybe not surprising. Off Sophie’s bedroom is a room-sized wardrobe, with rows of high heels and boots in sensible shades of black and tan and camel, hanging racks of dresses and silk shirts, expensive-looking sweaters with tissue interleaved between them. In one corner is an ornate dressing table with a spindly antique-looking chair and a big mirror. I thought only the Kardashians and people in films had rooms like this.

I find the bathroom too, big enough to hold a yoga class in, with a huge sunken bath encased in marble, his-and-hers sinks. The next door opens onto the toilet: if you’re rich I suppose you probably don’t wee in the same place that you bathe in your scented oils. A quick poke around in the cabinets, but I don’t find much beyond some very posh-looking wrapped soaps from somewhere called Santa Maria Novella. I pocket a couple.

The room opposite the toilet seems to be some sort of study. It smells like leather and old wood. A huge antique-looking desk with a burgundy leather top squats in the center. There’s a big black and white picture opposite it which I think is some abstract image at first but then suddenly—like a magic eye—realize is actually a photograph of a woman’s torso: breasts, belly button, vee of pubic hair between her legs. I stare at it for a moment, taken aback. It seems like quite an odd thing to hang in your study, but then I suppose you can do what you like if you work from home.

I try the drawers to the desk. They’re locked, but these kinds of locks are pretty easy to pick. I’ve got the first open in a minute or so. The first thing I find is a couple of sheets of paper. It looks like the top sheet must be missing, because these are numbered “2” and “3” at the bottom. Some sort of price list, it looks like. No: accounts. Wines, I think: I see “Vintage” at the top of one column. The number of bottles bought—never more than about four, I notice. A price next to each wine. Jesus. Some of these single bottles seem to be going for more than a thousand euros. And then what looks like a person’s name next to each of these entries. Who spends that much money on wine?

I reach right to the back of the drawer, to see if there’s anything else in there. My fingers close around something small and leathery. I pull it out. It’s a passport. A pretty old one, by the looks of things. On the front it has a gold circular design and some foreign-looking letters. Russian, maybe? It looks pretty old, too. I open it up and there’s a black and white photograph of a young woman. I have the same feeling I did when I looked at that portrait over the fireplace. That I know this person from somewhere . . . though I can’t place her. Her cheeks and lips full, her hair long and wild and curling, her eyebrows plucked into thin half-moons. All at once it hits me. Something about the set of the mouth, the tilt of the chin. It’s Sophie Meunier, only about thirty years younger. I look at the front cover again. So she’s actually Russian or something—not French. Odd.

I shut the drawer. As I do, something falls with a thud off the desk and onto the floor. Shit. I snatch it up: not broken, thank God. A photograph in a silver frame. A posh, formal-looking one. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before: I must have been so focused on the drawers. There are several people in it. I recognize the man first. It’s Jacques Meunier, Sophie’s husband: the guy in the painting. And there’s Sophie Meunier next to him, somewhere between the age she is now and in that passport photo, wearing what’s probably meant to be a smile on her face instead of a chilly grimace. And then three kids. I frown, squinting at the faces, then tilt the photograph toward me, try and see it better under the dim lights. Two teenagers—boys—and a little girl.

The younger-looking boy, with his mop of golden hair. I’ve seen him before. And then I remember. I saw him in a photograph in Nick’s flat, next to a sailing boat, a man’s hand on his shoulder. The younger boy is Nick.

Hang on. Hang on, this doesn’t make any sense. Except it does, suddenly, make a terrible kind of sense. That older boy with the darker hair and the scowl, nearly a man—I think that’s Antoine. This tiny girl with the dark hair . . . I peer at it more closely. There’s something about the startled expression that’s familiar. It’s Mimi. The people in this photograph are—

It’s then I hear my name being called. How long have I been in here? I put the photograph down with a clatter, my hands suddenly clumsy. I scuttle across the room to the door, peek out through the crack into the corridor. The door at the end is still closed but as I watch it begins to open. While there’s still time not to be seen I scurry across the hallway, into the toilet.

I hear Nick’s voice saying, “Jess?”

I open the door to the toilet again and step into the corridor with my best expression of innocent surprise. My heart is hammering somewhere up near my throat.

“Hey!” I say. “All good?”

“Oh,” Nick says. “I just—well, Sophie wanted me to make sure you hadn’t got lost.” He smiles that nice guy smile and I think: I do not know this person at all.

“No,” I say. “I’m fine.” My voice, incredibly, sounds almost normal. “I was just coming back to join you.”

I smile.

And all the time I’m thinking: they’re a family, they’re a family. Nice guy Nick and frosty Sophie and drunken Antoine and quiet, intense Mimi.

What the actual fuck.