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 Paris Gazette
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.
Epilogue
Jess
I trundle my suitcase across the concourse at Gare de l’Est, the broken wheel catching every few steps; I really do need to get it fixed. I look up at the screen to find my train.
There it is: the night service to Milan, where I’ll change before going on to Rome. In the early hours of the morning we’ll travel along the shore of Lake Geneva and apparently when it’s clear you can see the Alps. Sounds pretty good to me. I thought it was time for my own European tour, of sorts. Ben’s staying here to make a name for himself as an investigative journalist. So for perhaps the first time ever, I’m the one leaving him. Not running from anything or anyone. Just traveling, in search of the next adventure.
I’ve even got a place waiting for me. A studio, which is actually a fancy word for a tiny room where you can reach everything from the bed. Funnily enough, it’s a conversion of an old maids’ quarters at the top of an apartment block. And apparently it has a view of St. Peter’s, if you squint. It probably won’t be much bigger than the concierge’s cabin. But then I don’t have that much to put in it: the contents of one broken suitcase.