Cast Iron

Chapter forty-eight Paris, Spring 2012

For Enzo, spring was the best time of the year in Paris. All the flowers in bloom, trees laden with blossom, the air still fresh from the winds of winter, as yet unadulterated by the heat and the pollution of the summer months to come.

Soft clouds were scattered thinly in a blue sky, the morning light bright and clear in the spring sunshine. The Luxembourg Gardens were busy. Couples strolling hand in hand, mothers pushing prams, students gathered together on park benches, laughing and smoking, or reading study books for upcoming exams. At the far end of the circle, the Sénat building glowed almost white beneath imposing slate roofs. Palm trees in huge pots stood around the faux lake, newly recovered from their winter hibernation in the great greenhouses that served the park.

Enzo pulled up a couple of pale green-painted chairs for them near the grass, and Dominique manoeuvred Laurent’s pushchair into a position between them where he could see them both, as well as the sunlight coruscating on the water beyond. He was toddling now, but not to be trusted on his own. Released from his pushchair he would be off like a bullet, little legs carrying him forward at a furious pace until he stumbled and fell. Which was not a good idea near water. But he was happy enough, for the moment, in his pushchair.

In the months that had passed since the events of the previous autumn, Laurent had accepted Dominique, unquestioningly, in the role of his mother. But there had been a special bond forged between father and son during those months, too. They had spent hours and days and weeks together, Enzo leading him through an early exploration of the world around him with all the time and patience of a well-practised dad.

They sat for some minutes, just watching life flow around them. Then Dominique said, ‘Don’t you ever get upset at the injustice of it?’

He looked at her, surprised. ‘The injustice of what?’

‘Solving all those murders, and yet still losing the bet.’

He shrugged. ‘I know I won. That’s all that matters. And what’s two thousand euros among friends?’

She laughed. ‘Tell me that when the next tax bill comes in.’

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘if people want to believe it was Blanc who murdered Lucie, so what? More important, I think, that old Madame Martin was spared the truth.’

‘You really think she doesn’t know?’

‘Oh, probably. In her heart. But there will always be a part of her that can believe something else. Another version of events. And maybe that’s what you need to survive.’

Dominique leaned across the pushchair and put her hand over his. ‘You’re a good man, Enzo Macleod.’

He chuckled. ‘Maybe. But I could probably be better.’ He glanced at his watch, and she saw a flicker of apprehension cross his face.

‘You really have no idea why it is Kirsty wants to see you?’

‘None.’

‘And you don’t think it’s strange that she specifically asked you not to bring me?’

He shrugged. ‘What’s wrong with a daughter wanting to see her dad on his own?’

Dominique lifted one eyebrow to signal her scepticism. ‘Sure you’re not keeping something from me?’

He held up two fingers. ‘Scout’s honour.’ He looked ostentatiously at his watch again. ‘Look, I’d better go.’ And he stood up. ‘Will you two be okay here on your own? I shouldn’t be too long.’

‘We’ll be fine.’ Dominique stood up to kiss him, and he noticed that there was still the slightest stiffness in her movement. But, if there was any pain, she steadfastly refused to admit it. She said, ‘Will you tell her that we’re going to get married?’

He nodded and held her by the shoulders, looking directly into the concern in her eyes. ‘Don’t worry, she’s going to be nothing but happy for us.’

‘I hope so.’ Dominique sat down again and watched anxiously as he headed off towards the Senat and the top of the Rue de Tournon.

Raffin’s apartment was a place so full of bad and painful memories for Enzo, that he had been delighted when Kirsty told him that they were going to move. A bigger, brighter, more modern apartment in the fourteenth arrondissement. It would be, she had thought, a better place to raise Alexis.

But, for the moment, they were still in the first-floor apartment that looked out on to the cobbled courtyard at the back of the buildings on the east side of the Rue de Tournon. The chestnut tree was already in full blossom, always the first to have its fat green buds burst into leaf, and the first, too, to shed them.

Enzo climbed the stairs with a heavy heart. It was on this first-floor landing that he had met Jean-Jacques Devez for the first and only time, puzzled by a sense of familiarity, later explained only too brutally by events. It was here that Raffin had been shot, an assassin’s bullet meant for Enzo. And it was here, in this apartment, on a hot summer’s evening, that he had first met Charlotte. An encounter that had changed his life in ways he could never have imagined.

The pianist who had provided the stuttering accompaniment to the last six years was playing now, on the same tuneless piano, in an apartment somewhere on one of the upper floors. Handel’s Gavotte in G minor. A favourite exercise dished out by piano teachers to talentless pupils. It seemed to Enzo that this particular student was still struggling with Grade One.

Kirsty greeted him at the door and held him in a way she had not done since she was a child, very nearly squeezing the breath from him. She stood back then, eyes shining, her mood strangely bright and brittle.

‘Come on in, Dad. I’m so pleased you were able to come.’ She took him by the hand and led him into the séjour. Sunlight splashed in through tall windows and lay in patches across the floor. It seemed as brightly over-lit as Kirsty. Enzo looked around. ‘Where’s Alexis?’

‘Oh, Roger took him out for a walk.’

Enzo cocked an eyebrow. ‘You really did want to see me on your own, then.’

She just smiled and led him to the table where green tea stood infusing in a Chinese teapot, with ceramic cups gathered around it on a tray. ‘Sit down.’ She waved him towards a chair. ‘Would you like a cup?’

‘Sure.’ He examined her more closely as she poured. There were the beginnings of crow’s feet around her eyes, a well-defined jaw showing the first signs of age. Even your children grow old, he thought. He said, ‘How are things with you and Roger?’

‘Good.’ She nodded enthusiastically. ‘We’ve had a lot of stuff to work through since... well, since everything that happened. But we’re better for that. Closer now than we have been for some time. He’s more like the Roger I first knew.’ She paused. ‘We’re going to be okay.’

Enzo forced a smile. ‘I’m happy for you.’ Though, in his heart, he knew that he would never be truly happy about her liaison with Raffin.

The doorbell sounded, and he saw her stiffen, as if she had just received a tiny electric shock.

‘Are you expecting guests?’

She looked at him, and could barely hold his eye. ‘Just don’t hate me for this. It’s taken me a long time to pluck up the courage.’ And she hurried off into the hall, where he heard the door opening and then voices greeting her in English. Familiar voices. A man and a woman. He stood up, heart pounding, and felt as if he had been ambushed.

Kirsty came back in, eyes to the floor, avoiding his. She was followed by Enzo’s boyhood friend, Simon, her blood father. He seemed strangely old. Most of his hair had gone now, and his beard was shot through with more silver than black. Right behind him was a woman Enzo felt as if he might have known in another life. She was small and middle-aged, carrying more weight than was good for her. Hair that should have been allowed to go gracefully grey was dyed a shiny blue-black, and served only to emphasise the ageing quality of her skin. It was her eyes that remained unchanged. A deep, startling green, ringed by black. And Enzo realised with a shock that she was Kirsty’s mother, his ex-wife, Linda. The woman he had left for Pascale, and not seen once in the more than twenty-five years since.

It was evident from their faces that they were as shocked to see him, as he was to see them.

Simon looked at Kirsty. ‘What the hell’s going on, Kirst?’ And Enzo found himself resenting the use of his one-time friend’s shortened pet name for her.

But Linda’s gaze was still fixed on Enzo. ‘You’ve worn better than I have,’ she said, rancour in every word. ‘The good life in France, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’ Enzo summoned his smile with difficulty.

‘Kirsty?’ Simon wasn’t giving it up. Beyond his first sight of Enzo he hadn’t looked at him once. His eyes were on Kirsty.

She said, ‘I’m sorry if this seems a bit overdramatic. But it felt like the best way to deal with things. Everyone here at once. A single telling of the tale, then an end to it. If I’ve been a little sparing with the truth in getting you all here, then I apologise.’

Her mother looked at her for the first time. ‘What are you talking about, Kirsty?’

Enzo saw Kirsty draw a deep breath. ‘You all know that Alexis has a hearing problem. Some months ago Dad and I went to see a specialist in Biarritz. He took blood from Alexis for testing and diagnosed a congenital condition that will require him to wear hearing aids, probably for the rest of his life.’ She paused. ‘What I didn’t tell you, any of you, is that mild sensorineural deafness is only one of the symptoms of his condition. It is likely that it will manifest itself in other ways as he grows older.’

‘Like what?’ Linda was clearly concerned.

Kirsty looked at Enzo. ‘Well, for example, a white streak through his hair.’

And Enzo felt all the hairs rising up on the back of his neck. His right hand lifted involuntarily to touch the white streak through his own hair, just as he had done in the doctor’s office in Biarritz. He felt the others looking at him, but kept his eyes on Kirsty.

She said, ‘Alexis is suffering from Waardenburg syndrome. It can manifest in many ways. Different-coloured eyes, a cleft palate, a white streak in the hair. Deafness. It’s an inherited, genetic condition. From which, I think, neither you, Mum, nor Simon suffer.’ She looked again at Enzo. ‘There’s only one person here who could have passed that on.’

Enzo dragged his eyes away from Kirsty to look at Linda. He saw that her face had flushed pink, with crimson highlights on her cheeks. Simon, too, turned to look at her.

Kirsty said, ‘Simon’s not my father, is he, Mum? You lied to him.’

‘Kirsty—’

‘Don’t lie to me, too,’ Kirsty cut her off. ‘Don’t you dare. A simple paternity test will prove it.’

The silence was punctuated only by the distant murder of poor Handel. But none of them heard it. Then Linda said, ‘When he left—’ and her glance at Enzo was so full of malevolence he almost recoiled from it — ‘I tried everything to keep Simon close. He was all that I had left. I was lonely...’ It was a plea for understanding that fell on deaf ears.

Kirsty said, ‘So you lied to him about being my father.’

Linda turned her gaze down towards the floor and couldn’t bring herself to deny it.

Kirsty swung fiery eyes, then, towards Simon. ‘And you used that to hurt my dad. A club to beat him with. You knew what it would do to him.’

‘Kirst...’

‘Don’t call me that!’ She almost spat her contempt in his face.

‘I only wanted what was best for you. I was concerned for your safety, and all the shit he was dragging you into.’ He threw a withering glare at Enzo.

But Kirsty shook her head. ‘Seems to me the only person you were concerned about was you. And, of course, for anyone to believe that it might be true, that I really could be your daughter, you would have had to have slept with my mother. Your best friend’s wife. You can’t deny that, can you?’

And there was a finality in Kirsty’s voice that pre-empted further discussion.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I hope you two enjoy your time together in Paris. But I’d like to make it clear to you now. I don’t want to see either of you again. Ever.’

‘Kirsty...’ Pain was etched into every line on Linda’s face.

‘Ever!’ She folded her arms. ‘You know where the door is.’

For a long moment no one moved, then Simon turned and walked briskly out into the hall without a backward glance. They heard the door open and slam behind him.

Linda stood, staring at the floor, before slowly lifting her head to turn twenty-five years of resentment on the man who was the father of her child. The man who had left her for another woman. It was a look filled with both hatred and self-pity. Still a young woman, she had sworn when he left that she would never be with another man. She said now, ‘You took the best years of my life.’

Enzo shook his head. ‘I gave you the best years of your life, Linda. You squandered the rest yourself.’

Something in her eyes told him she knew that she had sacrificed herself on the altar of her own martyrdom. A sacrifice made, not for love of Enzo, but as a means of punishing him by punishing herself. And he could feel nothing but pity for her. For now he had taken her daughter, too.

She held Kirsty in a long look of pained regret, before turning slowly away and walking out into the hall.

When the outside door closed behind her, Enzo and Kirsty stood listening to the silence. Even the pianist had given up.

Finally, she turned to look at him, eyes brimming, and in two short steps she had thrown her arms around him, burying her face in his chest, sobbing like a baby. He drew her to him and held her close and ran a hand through her soft, long, silky hair, just as he had done when she was a child.

When, eventually, she found her voice she said, ‘It never made any difference to me, Dad, thinking that Simon was my blood father. I always knew I was my daddy’s girl.’

‘And you always will be,’ he said, and wondered if he would ever have the strength to let her go.