Perfect Strangers

Sophie gave him a weak smile. ‘Okay.’

As they got out of the car, a tall woman with long black hair was walking towards them from the side of the house. She was beautiful; chiselled features and pale-brown skin and dressed in a loose smock that couldn’t disguise her slender figure. Sophie knew this was Sandrine Bouvier before she even spoke; she just had to be. She was everything Sophie was not: exotic, assured, with an air of experience and, yes, sexiness that so many French women seemed to possess.

‘You are the people who called?’ the woman asked in perfect English.

‘Yes,’ said Josh, shaking her hand. ‘Mrs Bouvier?’

She nodded. ‘And you say you want to talk to me for a newspaper article?’

Josh shook his head slowly.

‘I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely truthful with you on the telephone, Mrs Bouvier. I’m afraid we have some bad news.’

She looked from Josh to Sophie, then back again.

‘Bad news?’ she asked, the flicker of panic visible in her hazel eyes. ‘Then you had better come inside.’

The chateau was cool and surprisingly dark – built to keep the sun out, thought Sophie as they walked across stone-flagged floors, past simple rustic furniture with tapestry cushions and cut flowers in terracotta pots. Sophie guessed that most of the women on her fitness client list would pay a small fortune to have their multi-million-pound Georgian town houses transformed into a pale imitation of something this tasteful and understated.

Sandrine led them out on to a wide terrace at the back of the house with a fine view of the vineyards stretching away in their endless rows. A thatched pergola shaded them from the sun as they sat down around a wooden table.

‘It’s Nick, isn’t it?’ said Sandrine finally.

Josh nodded. ‘My name is Josh, this is Sophie. Nick was a friend of ours, Mrs Bouvier.’

‘Call me Sandrine, please.’

‘Nick is dead, Sandrine,’ he said. ‘He was killed in London a few days ago.’

She looked away, nodding, silent for several seconds.

‘Do you know? I was almost expecting this,’ she said, inhaling through her teeth. ‘Not today, of course, you never know when something like this will come, but Nick was . . . He lived that way, you know? He burned too brightly.’

Sophie saw tears in the woman’s eyes and felt wretched. On the drive from Cannes, she had imagined this meeting, imagined what Sandrine Bouvier was like, how she would react to the news of Nick’s death. But now she was here, face to face with this woman’s grief, it was a more difficult meeting than she had thought. Sandrine had loved Nick Beddingfield, she could see that. He wasn’t hard to love, after all.

A young woman in an apron appeared carrying a tray, and Sandrine quickly stood up and walked over to the edge of the terrace, staring out at the vineyards, hiding her tears.

‘Sur la table, merci, Hélène,’ she said, and the girl left a bottle of wine and three glasses, then disappeared.

‘You must excuse me,’ said Sandrine, as she returned, dabbing her eyes. ‘As you will appreciate, my relationship with Nick was a secret. If my husband ever found out . . . Let us say it is best the staff have nothing to gossip about, no?’

She poured them each a glass of the deep red wine, concentrating intently on the bottle.

‘You made this here, on the estate?’ said Sophie, smelling the wine’s heavy bouquet.

‘I blended it myself,’ she said, taking a long, steadying sip.

‘Really?’ said Sophie. ‘This is excellent. Truly.’

Monsieur Durand had been right; if Sandrine really had created this wine, it was very impressive. Rich, but not over-powering, it was as if ripe grapes were bursting on your tongue.

Sandrine shrugged. ‘It is the only thing I was ever good at. Actually, it is why I am here,’ she said, raising a hand to indicate the house. ‘I travelled all over the world studying winemaking techniques: Napa, the Hunter Valley, Chile. But then I met my husband and’ – she shrugged – ‘back en France.’

‘Do you make wine for your husband’s estate?’

She snorted. ‘The wine industry is dominated by men. As a woman, no one took me seriously; even my husband sidelined me to the role of femme au foyer. I think you say “housewife”. He just wanted me to make babies.’

She looked away again. The sadness in her eyes was replaced by something else – fear.