Sophie

Sophie

Penthouse

The cream-colored envelope trembles in my grip. Hand-delivered to the apartment building’s postbox this morning.

I tear it open, slide out a folded letter. I have never seen this handwriting before—a rather untidy scrawl.

Madame Meunier,

There was something we didn’t get a chance to discuss. I think we both had other things on our minds? Anyway, I made you a promise: I haven’t talked to the police and I won’t. But Ben’s article about La Petite Mort will publish in two weeks’ time, whether you do anything or not.

I catch my breath.

But, if you help, it’ll have a different emphasis. Either you can be part of the story, take its starring role. Or he’ll make sure you aren’t named, that you’re left out of it as far as possible. And your daughter won’t be mentioned at all.

I grip the letter tighter. Mimi. I’ve sent her away to the South of France, to paint, to recuperate. This went against every maternal instinct; I didn’t want to be separated from her, knowing how vulnerable she was, how angry. But I knew she couldn’t stay here, with the shadow of death hanging over this place. But before she left I explained it all to her, in my own words. How much she was wanted when she came into my life. How much she is loved. How I have never thought of her as anything other than my very own. My miracle, my wondrous girl.

I have also tried to make her see that in the circumstances she did the only thing she could that night. That she saved a life as well as taking one. That she, too, acted out of love. I did not tell her I might have done the same. That for a brief time he was almost everything to me, too. But I suspect she knows, somehow, about the affair—if that is what one can call those snatched few weeks of selfish, reckless, glorious insanity.

I know that things may never again be the same between my daughter and I. But I can hope. And love her. It is all I can do.

I, too, would leave this place and join her—given the choice. But my late husband is buried in the garden. I have to stay. It is something I have made my peace with. This may be a gilded cage, but it is the life I have chosen.

I keep reading.

Nick won’t be mentioned either. Maybe he’s not a bad guy, underneath it all. I think he just made some questionable choices. (P.T.O.)

Nicolas has also left, along with the few possessions he kept here. I don’t think he’ll be back. I think it will be good for him to leave this place. To stand on his own two feet.

My other stepson remains here and while he isn’t the most congenial of neighbors it is better having him where I can keep an eye on him. And he is a less threatening presence now. I don’t think I’ll be receiving any more of his little notes. He seems diminished by everything, by the grief he feels for a father who was rarely anything other than cruel to him. In spite of myself I feel for him.

I turn the letter over. Read on:

Here’s what I’m asking you to do. Those girls? The ones at the club? The ones who are your daughter’s age, who are being screwed by rich, important guys so that all of you can live in that place? You’re going to do right by them. You’re going to give every one of them a nice big chunk of cash.

I shake my head. “There’s no way—”

I suppose you’ll say the building, all that, is in your husband’s name. But what about those pictures on the walls? What about those diamonds in your ears, that cellar of wine downstairs? I’m not exactly an expert, but even by my modest estimate you’re sitting on quite a fortune. I’m telling you now that you should sell it to someone who doesn’t want a paper trail. Someone who pays cash.

I’ll give you a couple of weeks. It’ll give the girls a chance to sort themselves out, too. But then Ben’s story has to go to print. He’s got an editor who’s expecting it, after all. And that place needs to disappear. La Petite Mort needs to die its own little death. The police will have to investigate, then. Maybe not as hard as they might do, considering they’re probably tied up in it.

I’m asking you to do all of this as a mother, as a woman. Besides, something tells me you wouldn’t mind being completely free of that place yourself. Am I right?

I fold the letter again. Slide it back into the envelope.

And then I nod.

I glance up, feeling watched. My gaze goes straight to the cabin in the corner of the courtyard. But there’s no one inside. I looked for her that night. I searched the building from top to bottom, thinking that she couldn’t possibly have gone far with her injuries. I even looked in her cabin. But there was no sign. Along with the photographs on the wall, several of the smallest and yet most valuable items from the apartment—that little Matisse, for example—and also my silver whippet, Benoit, the concierge was gone.

An article in the ParisGazette

It would appear that the owner of La Petite Mort, Jacques Meunier, has vanished in the wake of the sensational allegations about the exclusive nightclub. The police are now attempting to conduct a full-scale investigation, though this is reportedly hampered by the fact that there are no witnesses available for questioning. Every dancer formerly employed by the club has apparently disappeared.

This may come as something of a relief for the former patrons of the club’s alleged illegal activities. However, an anonymized website has recently published what it claims is a list of accounts from La Petite Mort’s records, listing dozens of names from the great and good of the French establishment.

In addition, a high-ranking police official, Commissaire Blanchot, has tendered his resignation following the circulation of explicit images purporting to show him in flagrante with several women in one of the club’s basement rooms.

As has previously been reported, Meunier’s son, Antoine Meunier (allegedly his father’s right-hand man), shot himself with an antique firearm at the family property in order to avoid being taken into custody.