Baptiste: The Blade Must Fall: The official prequel to the hit television show by David Hewson

Author:David Hewson [Hewson, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781398718050
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2024-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

53

Down in Boulliers Martine Augustin was waiting outside the house, with her bag and Fifi the terrier, miserable on a lead. She’d packed everything she could manage. Her husband had watched in grim silence. There was a finality to the act they both recognised. Those underclothes squeezed together into tiny bundles, that wash bag with its toothbrush and deodorant, the everyday clothes, the same ones she’d worn for years in Calais, all this signified an end to a marriage that had lasted twenty-two years, impoverished for the most part, but happy too. Until he took Bruno Laurent’s money and moved to Clermiers. Those months her husband had spent there changed him, and it was only after Noémie vanished that she accepted what she’d silently recognised all along.

Charles Augustin stared glumly at the whimpering dog. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll go and see my sister. Look for work. I won’t be asking you for money if that’s what’s bothering you.’

‘It never entered my head. Martine … do I have to beg?’

‘You can try but it’ll make no difference. Clermiers was a mistake. What’s happened here we can’t undo. Can’t turn back.’

She picked up the bag. He took it from her and watched as she led the dog to the back of the car. Always polite, always thoughtful. That hadn’t changed. It was one reason she felt guilty for being so harsh towards him at that moment. Not that there was a choice. The decision was made.

‘When there’s news …’

‘You think there will be? Soon?’

He held out his arms like a supplicant. ‘How the hell would I know?’

She checked her watch. ‘Don’t make me miss that train.’

The drive was almost an hour. Augustin stopped outside the station, lost for words, staring through the windscreen.

‘It’s hurtful to do this,’ he said in the end. ‘To leave me when she’s god knows where. I never thought you were capable of such unkindness.’

‘Twenty-two years and still we’re strangers in some ways.’ She reached for the car door. ‘Maybe all marriages are like that. I’ve no idea. You know Annette’s number?’

He nodded.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut and perhaps that was to stop the tears. All the same she reached out and touched his arm, just for a second. The last time that would happen she felt sure. ‘I’m sorry, Charles. There’ll come a point where we need to talk about lawyers. If either of us has the money. Not now.’

The terrier whimpered by her side. Martine Augustin didn’t move. It pained her to see the flicker of hope in her husband’s face.

‘Don’t go …’ he started.

She got out of the car with her case and the little dog. Fifi was whining, aware of the odd atmosphere.

Then she was walking into the station. Never turning to look back.

He sat at the wheel of Laurent’s car, Laurent’s name stamped on the side, watched the train pull in. Watched it leave, vanish down the line. A journey he’d made himself all those months before when he’d been promised a

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.