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Back The Double Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
  1. 1
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  63. Acknowledgements

Gessen stared at the dregs of his coffee, hoping to overcome the onerous fatigue he couldn’t seem to shake. ‘I can’t put my finger on it. But there’s something about his eyes that keeps troubling me. It could just be coincidence. Or an uncanny double, as you say.’

Bertrand patted Gessen on the arm. ‘I’ve got an appointment with a student in thirty minutes, but why don’t we meet later for dinner? My wife has a mind like a steel trap. Eveline might remember your mysterious boy.’

21

When he entered Bertrand’s flat at half past six, Eveline had yet to arrive. As fellow international students at the Sorbonne, Gessen had only a brief acquaintance with the girl who would later become his friend’s wife. While Bertrand poured him an aperitif, he filled Gessen in on the intervening years. After earning a dual degree in French Literature and Biology, Eveline went on to medical school and had made a career in infectious diseases.

At a quarter to seven she breezed through the door of the flat, a graceful woman with ash blonde hair and intelligent green eyes. In her fine wool trousers and dove-grey blouse, crisply pressed, it was difficult to picture her coming straight from a laboratory. She greeted her husband before turning to Gessen with a curious gaze. In manner and dress, she seemed more French than the French. Impossible to believe she hailed from a tiny village in Dorset. Not only did she speak like a native, but she’d also captured the expressions and body language of a born and bred Parisienne.

As she leaned in to kiss her husband and whisper something in his ear, Gessen felt the pang of everything he’d lost. Would he and Sophie have had such a life? A light-filled flat in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, two successful children, and a coterie of friends?

‘Lovely to meet you properly at last,’ Eveline said, fetching wine glasses from the cupboard. ‘Funny we were in the same year at university and never got to know each other.’

Bertrand opened a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and set it on the counter to breathe, while Eveline placed a wedge of brie and glass bowl of olives on a platter. Gessen hung back. ‘May I help in any way?’

‘Absolutely not.’ She smiled. ‘You’re our guest.’ She shooed the two men into the salon.