“We love the summer.” She smiled. She and her girls had dark hair, reminding me of Evie and my own girls.
He gestured towards the Calais docks. “They’ve got that problem back again. I’ve heard that after the French bulldozed their whole camp, they’ve come back to squat. The Jungle, they called it.”
Her smile faded. “The refugees don’t have a lot of options of where to stay.”
I walked to the railing and scanned the area around the docks. No police. The mention of refugee camps had given me a clue as to where I could sleep tonight. Breaking my silence, I asked the woman a few casual questions about the location of the camps. She told me about the Stalingrad district in the city.
As soon as the ferry docked, I found a bus headed to Paris then caught a cab into the areas where red, blue and green tents dotted the streetscapes. The tents had been pitched under railway bridges and near train stations. Some of the men were sleeping out in the open on sidewalks.
I had the driver stop at a camp beneath a high set of stairs. I spotted a group of French volunteers moving between the tents, giving out supplies.
Reminding myself not to talk, I stepped around the perimeter of the camp, watching. I was hungry and tired. But I had money for food, and I wasn’t going to take the baguettes and drinks being handed out. I spied a large cardboard box filled with red plastic objects. Tents.
I grabbed one and quickly took it to the back of the camp and set it up.
Stealing from refugees—I couldn’t get much lower. But I’d leave the tent here when I left. I was bone weary and could have slept straight away. I slipped my wallet and passport down my jeans and then tightened my belt. It wasn’t the best solution, but at least no one was getting my stuff without a fight. My hope was that in the camp, I’d be safe from thieves rather than trying to go it alone.
Resting my head on my bag, I collapsed into an exhausted sleep.
When I woke, it was dark.
There was the ceaseless noise of traffic and small crying children and people wandering between the tents, calling out to each other. It was hot tonight, the smell of urine coming off the pavement and into my tent. In winter, it would be intolerable. I imagined being here with Willow and Lilly. Lilly would be fussing and coughing all night long. Hell, with the illness that I now knew Lilly had, would she even survive a winter in a camp? Maybe she wouldn’t.
First thing tomorrow, I had to find an internet café and start researching the historical society that Constance had told me about. If there was something I was good at, it was zeroing in on an elusive thing and figuring out systems. It was what I’d done for a job.
Whoever these people were, I was going to become the burrowing worm in their apple.
46. Constance
WILSON CARLISLE AND HIS WIFE STROLLED from their hotel, she holding a young child’s hand. I hadn’t realised they had a child. The blonde-headed toddler must have been with a nanny when the Carlisles were at the charity dinner.
I drew back beside a pylon, pretending to be absorbed in my phone. I wore ordinary gym clothes, my hair back in a ponytail and a baseball cap on my head. One look I did well was the upmarket gym look. Because those were the clothes I usually lived in. Hopefully, I looked like any woman staying at a hotel here and out for a brisk walk—and not like a stalker. Because tonight I was stalking the rich orthodontist, Wilson Carlisle.
Bibby Carlisle appeared to be prouder of the child than of the man on the other side of her, looking down at the boy more than a few times with a smile on her red-painted lips. She looked like a child herself next to her husband.
I knew from my research that Wilson had three older children—much older children. All in their thirties and forties. He and his first wife had divorced after five years, just long enough for her to spit out the three children. He’d had two more wives after that, the marriages all ending in divorce. His last divorce apparently happened due to a messy affair with a sixteen-year-old dental assistant. Somehow, he hadn’t lost his licence to operate as an orthodontist. Following that train wreck was a fourth marriage to his current wife.
The stupid thought occurred to me that with him being an orthodontist, at least his former wives would have left the marriage with very good teeth. I almost giggled.
Looking up, I realised I’d lost the family around a corner. I quickened my steps.
Where had they gone?
They couldn’t have gone very far with a toddler in tow.
I noticed an upmarket children’s clothing and toy store. They must have taken the boy in there to buy him a treat.