‘Go on, go,’ said Lara. ‘Or I’ll get Dingo to chase you off.’
He leaned forward and pressed his cheek against hers. Alex opened his mouth, but knew there was nothing more to say. He turned and walked back down the gangplank, wishing… what? That he could stay with her, protect her, hold her together as she fell apart? But somehow he knew Lara was made of tougher stuff. Somehow he knew Lara Stone would get through this.
He unlocked the car and slid his phone into the slot on the dash, speed-dialling his PA.
‘Celine? It’s Alex. I need to get two people from Corsica.’
A pause. ‘Yes. Today. Whatever it takes. This is a priority.’
He hung up and turned into traffic.
Chap
ter 5
Sandrine’s father stood upright and dignified, his silhouette stark against the hotel window. Jean Legard and Sandrine’s mother Marion had flown in from Ajaccio to Heathrow via a connecting flight in Paris, several hours after Alex’s assistant had begun making the arrangements. Woken by a call from the police, telling him about their daughter’s death, then mere hours later, standing here in this stuffy hotel room, Jean had every right to look exhausted, but Lara thought there was something more in his expression. He was broken, even though he was trying to put on a brave face.
‘I’m so sorry, Jean,’ said Lara. ‘I was with Sandrine last night. I just can’t explain what happened.’
Jean gave a short shake of his head.
‘Sandrine has suffered from depression for many years, Lara,’ said Jean, his French accent strong. ‘She was just very good at hiding it.’
Lara gaped at him. What he was saying just didn’t make sense. She’d known Sandrine for almost twenty years and she had always brimmed with vibrancy and optimism.
‘But she was fine,’ said Lara, looking across to Marion. ‘How could she…’
Marion walked over and put a hand on Lara’s arm, a mother still, doing her best to comfort her. Lara had spent enough time visiting Sandrine in Corsica in Uni holidays to consider Jean and Marion family and this was hurting her more than she could have anticipated. Seeing them so crumpled, yet holding themselves together – for her – was heartbreaking.
‘Sometimes it came on very suddenly,’ said Marion, her eyes damp. ‘One moment Sandrine was fine, the next it was as if she was under a black cloud. She’d go to bed, sometimes for a week, sometimes longer.’
Lara looked back and forth between them.
‘But depression? I…’
‘C’est vrai,’ said Jean quietly. ‘It was why she had her gap year between high school and university.’
Lara frowned in bemusement.
‘Her gap year? She went travelling,’ she replied, remembering her friend’s tales of Italian boys and sangria on the beach.
‘Sandrine did not travel that year,’ said Jean, shaking his head. ‘She had – comment se dit? – a breakdown? She stayed in Corsica with us that year, healed herself the best she could. We wanted her to stay in Corsica to study but she was adamant she wanted to go to London.’
Lara felt as if the floor had fallen away beneath her. It was as if everything she had ever known about her best friend had been a lie. Jean seemed to see it and squeezed Lara’s hand. She felt the callouses on his fingertips, rough, like bark. Sandrine’s parents were both retired teachers, but Jean had always maintained that he’d have preferred to have been a carpenter. When Lara had gone to stay at their family home during university breaks, Jean was always in his lean-to workshop at the side of their farmhouse, turning wooden bowls and chair legs on his lathe. It was the sort of recollection you would end with ‘happy days’ – but they truly were. What Lara wouldn’t give to somehow beam them all back there now in a time machine.
‘But it did her good to go to London, especially when she found you, Lara,’ said Marion. ‘Remember when you came to visit us in the summer? We could see Sandrine was back to her old self, like a bright flame. But no one could be with her all the time. I think the sadness was always there in the shadows.’
Marion’s voice caught and Jean put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. Lara blinked at them. It was as if they were describing a stranger. If anything, Sandrine had been the one to pull Lara out of a funk about career or relationships, not the other way around. She remembered Sandrine in Paris, holding dinner parties in her little apartment, surrounded by smoke and candles and a rag-tag assortment of artists and writers and aristocrats; she had glowed. How could she have never seen this? Why hadn’t Sandrine ever told her? Lara was torn between disbelief and pain – what kind of friend was she to have missed it? What sort of friendship did they have that Sandrine couldn’t confide in her?
It’s not about you, Lara, she reminded herself. This is about Sandrine – and about Jean and Marion. Whatever Lara’s pain was, it was multiplied a dozen times in her parents.
‘Did the police say if there was a note? An explanation?’
Lara had been down to the station earlier in the day. It was a question she’d asked Ian Fox but he’d been evasive.
Marion shook her head.
‘The inspector said it is often the way. Not everyone leaves a note or their reasons why.’