The women were having such a nice time by the sea they had even asked M. Duval to serve lemonade and sandwiches by the rocks instead of coming up to the house for lunch.
William's death sent them into silence from now and then, but they talked gaily for most of the time, sharing little anecdotes about their lives or talking about the books they were reading. At some point, between two sea dips, the conversation lead to disclosing the way they had been involved in the war effort. Phryne had driven ambulances, Caroline and Una had made bandages and knitted socks, Joséphine had performed little plays or sung in fund-raisers. They were making these confidences when Nola joined them. She was still far from her usually joyous self, but she tried to be pleasant and charming.
«Let the boys sulk at home», she announced, putting down her towel on the empty lounger by Joséphine's, who chose that exact moment to take a swim.
«Welcome!», greeted Phryne, raising her sunglasses from her eyes.
«You are making me feel self-conscious now», replied Nola, not self-conscious in the least.
«How is the water?», she said, taking off her beach pyjamas, revealing a navy swimsuit with white pipping underneath.
«Quite pleasant, in fact», said a slightly relaxed Una, despite the dark circles under her eyes and the dull tint to her pale skin. She was still relying on Dr. Hubert's tablets to sleep through the night and dutifully took the elixir he had recommended for strength at breakfast, but was trying her best not to get overcome by grief even if she was stricken to her core and anguished over the fact that William was still laying inside an icebox at the morgue instead of having the funeral that befitted him. Sometimes her eyes brimmed with tears unexpectedly and she held tightly to her wedding ring, still around her finger. She missed William as deeply as she had loved him and had never thought he could be snatched away from life, from her like this. Before, in the darkest hours of the night when they were lying side by side, his warm breath rustling her hair, and his arms around her, she had even (selfishly, she acknowledged) wished for her to die first, from the oldest of ages after a life well lived with him. He had loved Adeline and yet survived her loss, but Una hadn't been so sure of her ability to cope with his. There were some moments when she could almost swear she had seen him smile at her from the window of their bedroom as she looked up from the garden, to find that it was nothing more than the funny way sunlight had hit the glass. She had always known he wasn't actually there, but the realisation crushed her nevertheless. Now that it had been chosen for her, she did her best to get up from the bed. Taking care of Pavlov had been a start. The dog sensed that something was wrong and missed William in his own way as he sniffed around the house, yet he still had to eat, and drink, and walk. Many people had offered to do that for her but Una had declined so she would have something she must do. It helped, little by little, but there were times when looking at him shattered her heart once the remembrance of the lovely spring afternoon in which William had come home to their Paris apartment with a furry ball only slightly larger than his hand flashed in her mind.
«Let me see for myself then», said Nola, carefully walking down the steps that lead to the sea and immersing herself. She swam as she moved, elegantly, a clean intention in each of her gestures. She had been Roedean's informal swimming champion, crowned year after year in light of how she won every race proposed during the trips to the beach below the school and it still showed, in spite of the differences between the English Channel and the Mediterranean.
Phryne followed her example and swam to catch up to her when they were away enough from the group so they wouldn't be heard.
«What's the matter with you and Joséphine?»,
«What do you mean? I've been tired, that's all. The shock, taking care of Una, which I gladly do. It's taking a toll on me», Nola replied, her arms moving up and down in the water to level her.
«I do not doubt that, but I've known you for some years and I'm rather observant as you may have been noticed. Besides, she has been acting rather cold towards you since this morning», said Phryne, doing the same motion. She would rather have that conversation in firm land, but despite Chateau Ondine and its' grounds spaciousness it was troublesome to find somewhere where they wouldn't be disturbed.
«I honestly don't know. She seems to have cut me off, just like that after Rousseau showed up with the lighter».
«It does seem abrupt.»
«Tell me about it», Nola said with a sigh.
«Is the lighter hers?», asked Phryne. It could be just a coincidence but the timing seemed too much of one for her.
«I don't think so. At least I have never seen her use it either here or in Paris.»
«You knew each other before, then?», a certain theory started to grown in Miss Fisher's mind.
«We move in some of the same circles. You know how these things are. Everyone knows everyone», she said with something akin to a shrug as possible as it was given their odd position.
«She's the person you talked about at the casino in Cannes the other night, isn't she?»
«I would like to consider myself a decent enough liar yet I must know I'm completely powerless against you», Nola said with a wan smile.
«Oh, you have!», said Phryne, laughing lightly, «If you hadn't fallen out, I think I would have taken a bit more to find out. But how did it happen?»
«We met in Paris and we became friends but there was also a certain attraction drawing us in. We had never acted on it yet something changed here, we gave in, and…and I think I'm falling in love with her.»
Nola's eyes welled up, seeming even bluer with the tears. She lifted her right hand and tried to clean under them with the back of her wrist, but didn't insist much. The salt water would certainly burn.
«And Joséphine?». Phryne said, coming closer to her friend and holding her arm to support her with her own movements in the water.
«From what she told me, her relationship with Alphonse is just for show now. They liked the attention it brought themselves and there was no need to make a big show of it nevertheless. For the time being, it was good enough for both and there was no illusion whatsoever for either of them.»
The tears which had once threated to fall were now running down Nola's cheeks, and it was harder for her to keep afloat. The sea was stretching languidly, gently pushing them to the shore.
«Let's go to those rocks. They don't seem very sharp».
Nola accepted silently and swan carefully towards the blocks Phryne had suggested. Once she was seated, Miss Murrow shook her hands to get rid of most salt water and covered her face with them.
Phryne wanted to keep the due distance considering the on-going doubts about the identity of the killer but she couldn't be indifferent to her friend's pain and just sit still. She had seen Nola cry over Fiona and Robbie a couple of times but this was something more visceral.
«This will sound like the most foolish thing to say, but have you already tried to talk to her?»
«I did in the small window of time after leaving the dining room after Rousseau came up with the lighter, but she just said that she couldn't and that it had all been a mistake.»
Repeating those words which had seared her soul made her flinch as if they were striking her again.
« I am so sorry», said Phryne, pulling Nola towards her. This seemed to unleash all the emotions Nola had been keeping inside herself, from mourning William to looking after Una to Joséphine's rejection, and she cried onto Phryne's shoulder with abandonment and deep sobs that shook her. Sitting there in their bathing costumes, cap-less, with their dark hair framing their faces, Phryne and Nola looked like the teenage girls exchanging confidences they had once been.
«This is ridiculous», Nola said after a while, her voice still sluggish from crying.
«Non-sense. Things hurt and we reel from that even if sometimes we wish we wouldn't but there isn't much we can do about that. »
Phryne's chest tightened a little as she spoke those words and they echoed in her mind. Things hurt but they also glowed, and being in the midst of both was equally unfitting. 'Scratchy', she found was a better way to describe it, actually.
«We were in the cellar, hiding like youths that night. That's why Mathilde had trouble finding me», Nola said, «we heard some commotion and came upstairs to the kitchen to try to figure out what was happening.»
Phryne didn't reply this time. It justified why their alibis had seemed so fragile yet she couldn't dismiss them as suspects this soon, as much as it pained her, especially towards Nola.
«I don't particularly care for age, but I sort of felt that I was too old for this 'being swept off your feet 'thing. Fun dalliances and maybe a sprinkle of connection yes, but that would be it and I didn't complain at all. But now this…». Nola shrugged and sighed although a small, wistful smile shone on her face.
Phryne remained in silence, despite feeling about to say that sometimes it felt as if someone tremendously special came along and we started choosing differently. No one had forced us, we hadn't changed, it's just what we thought made sense didn't anymore.
She moved her legs and feet in the turquoise sea in which they were immersed.
«We say we are ready for everything and yet we end up being surprised from now and then nevertheless», she said eventually, loathing the platitudes contained in those words, but lacking something more original to add.
«I guess», Nola replied simply, apparently energy-less to say something deeper too. «Well, I better get in the water before I burn more than Mme Leblanc's crème brûlée. It's too much of a painful and too much of an unbecoming look to strive for. Are you staying or going?»
«Go ahead. I'll join you in a minute. Not all of us can be a swimming prodigy, so I'll need a bit longer to recuperate», Phryne said lovingly. Besides, she also had the feeling that Nola wanted to be alone for a while after having confessed what had been burdening her for long.
«See you back at the house then», Nola said, swimming away.
xxx
Phryne pulled her legs up from the spray, wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on them. The water shone like a gemstone in the sun and the waves broke softly at her feet.
She could see houses arranged around the bay like a complex set and as if they had been placed by hand. Behind her, the roofs of Chateau Ondine rose proudly like a bud springing from the cliff. A couple of seagulls cackled above. From her left came the trail of women's conversation. Phryne couldn't make out their words, but they seemed to be in good spirits, considering their laughter and there was excitement in the way their voices climbed in air. It was quite a pleasant place to be, in fact. The loveliness of the scene drew a light veil that could almost make one forget the gruesome happening that had struck that idyll right in its centre.
Phryne took a deep breath, letting the sea breeze take hold of her. She stretched her arms and turned around to look at the assortment of rocks behind her. As much as she appreciated the results of humankind's perseverance and skill, she found wondrous the way the elements and time had shaped a coastline that had stood there for centuries, millennia even, with little nooks and small coves. Sometimes she could see fish swimming around the rocks or limpets and other mollusks tightly gripping to the stone, but the flash of something light-coloured that peaked from the groove between two rocks, swaying with the waves, didn't seem to belong there.
Miss Fisher, always ever curious, carefully climbed the block she had been seating on and made her way to where the long shard swayed with the waves, pondering on the best spots to put her feet without cutting them on the sharp edges.
Holding on to a little notch, she bent down, the back of her half-open hand glistening like a shell, as she dipped it in the water and grabbed the strange object. Phryne was in too of a precarious position to analyse it thoroughly, but she could feel the touch of some textile apparently wrapped around something solid. She tucked it under the left strap of her bathing costume and started to the rock on which she had been talking to Nola, tracing the steps she had taken just some minutes ago.
She slipped as she put her foot on the last stone and breath escaped her - she'd rather not break her neck there- , but Phryne was able to gather equilibrium back and cautiously assumed a seating position, still taking deep breaths to catch up.
When she was settled at last, Phryne retrieved the object from where she had put it and looked at it. The corners had been tucked to keep whatever was in it in place. It was yellowed from having been in the water for a while but it was possible to discern the crimson limits around the pinkish stains that blemished it, and which became more pronounced as she unrolled it. On her palm, rested now a letter opener of elegant lines, probably made of steel, judging by the lack of rust, but with some dark specks along the pointed blade which Phryne quickly recognised as traces of blood and what seemed a partial fingerprint above the place where the handle and the blade met.
Another piece had fallen into the place. There was no type of knife in the cutlery drawers that matched the comparatively small incisions made in William's body, but Phryne would bet her Hispano that they would be the most perfect companion to the sharp object on her hand. Since she had never paid much attention to the letter openers around the house except for the one in her room, she couldn't say immediately from where it was missing exactly, but she had investigated enough crimes and had a keen sense of logic and intelligence to believe that it had come from the house. A weapon of chance like it befitted a spur-of-the-moment murder (as much as lurking in the shadows before inflicting the fatal blows could be considered so).
Yet, as exciting as this finding could be, the embroidered initials on the farther corner let out that a part of that set-up was nothing but the clumsy attempt of a ruse.
A/n: Evidence continues to pile up as well as other revelations and I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this week.
Blount64: I'm sorry to know you haven't been enjoying this story. I mentioned in another reply on a previous chapter that I worried that taking Phryne away from her usual milieu was quite risky and that it might or might not pay off. It seems to for some people (so far at least) but not for others and that's okay and it happens whether when we pick a piece of fic to read or an award-winning published book. Thank you for standing by for 24 chapters nevertheless, particularly if the story wasn't up to your liking.
Jj: Phryne and Rousseau definitely distrust each other. :D I'm glad to know you appreciate the level of detail and 'love it'.
I'm happy to know you liked the «verbal jab» Rousseau got from Phryne. Rousseau was created as a mirror for Jack (a kind of uncanny valley thing, though) but not Gaillard (Lapin would be more like it), but I'm obviously pleased when the readers' experience adds something else to what I've written. Isn't it one of the amazing things about fiction? Thank you for reading and taking the time to leave comments. :)
C. Fox: At risk of repeating myself, I'm glad you continue to find it intriguing and exciting, particular since, as you well remark, the characters are being 'drawn together'. Since this is a case fic, I'm pleased you don't know who the murderer is at this point! I hope this won't sound strange, but I hope the next updates keep you 'confused' about this identity. :D Thank you. I deeply appreciate the fact that you like the setting and the fact that while Jack isn't physically there, he's there all the same. I hope you enjoy what's coming up next. Thank you for reading and for taking the time to write a comment.
Ginny: Thank you for continuing to read this story, regardless of the fact of haven't reviewed for a while. I'm pleased to know you find that the story is still flowing and that you enjoyed the dialogue so. It's something I still have some trouble writing in a way that I find makes sense and that adds something to the story. Given this, I'm thrilled they made you feel as if the characters were carrying them right in front of you! I'm also glad you feel that you're alongside Phryne observing them and wondering about who would have a reason to kill William. Thank you for enjoying it. Sharing this story has been a pleasure. :)
So, this is it for today. A new chapter is supposed to go up tomorrow. Thank you for reading.