Read Online Jacquot and the Waterman by Martin O'Brien - Free Book Online

he'd asked her to become his wife.
They were two of a kind, Hubert had told her, outsiders who liked the same things, albeit from different . . . perspectives. And she'd agreed, to the marriage, and the . . . perspectives. Just so long as he never, ever, laid a hand on her. That's what she'd said. She could easily and happily accommodate the watching, she told him, but she wouldn't tolerate the other. Those were her terms and, being the gentleman, Hubert had given his word - and kept it.
For which, he discovered, there were substantial rewards. All he had to do was say that he was going to the study, as he'd done this evening when they got home from dinner, and he knew she'd happily oblige with a last night-time swim. Or he'd specify his dressing room on the first floor, next to their bedroom, where he'd watch on his console as she prepared for bed or bath. What a show she laid on.
But nothing compared to those other times when she took the initiative. The young girls she found, the waifs and strays. For him, and for her. Bringing someone home he could watch her play with, someone he could lay a hand on.
How well Suzie knew him, reflected Hubert de Cotigny, feeling himself stir as she climbed from the pool and positioned the lounger just so, only a few feet from his study window, lying back and spreading her legs, her long, slim fingers reaching down.
So veiy different from his first wife, Florence. Just as pretty as Suzie but in no way as accommodating when it came to satisfying his peculiar requirements. She'd divorced him when Michelle went away to school, generous enough to cite irreconcilable differences but canny enough to make it worth her while. She'd pretty nearly cleaned him out.
Unlike Florence, there wasn't any question of Suzie being in it for the money. Wealthy herself, she didn't need a bean - about the only thing that comforted his redoubtable mother, Murielle de Cotigny, when Hubert announced their engagement - a fact his mother had been quick to grasp when she met Suzie's family at the wedding. Murielle de Cotigny might not understand the attraction between her son and his new wife, but she knew money when she saw it. And the Delahaye family had a great deal more of it than the de Cotignys.
Later, after Suzie left the terrace, de Cotigny stayed where he was in the darkened study. It was close to eleven and he was expecting a guest. He wondered if the man would try to make a point by being late, just to prove something.
De Cotigny sighed, levered himself from the chair and went to his desk. He switched on the reading lamp and selected a cigar from the humidor. He snipped the end, lit a taper and drew in the first of the smoke, rolling it round his mouth. Some things in life you can rely on, he thought to himself, savouring the taste of his cigar, closing his eyes for the last plaintive notes of the Mozart.
And some things you can't.
De Cotigny glanced at his watch. Already a little after eleven. Which irritated him. But not as much as the reason behind this late-night visit.
All in all it had been a most regrettable lapse of judgement. His, and Suzie's. Visiting diat girl she'd found, being persuaded to play away from home. Skin white as alabaster she had, hair black as night. But she was common. Trash. Just a greedy little scrubber, with that dreadful tattoo.
    He should have known better. Now he did. Because now it looked like someone was going to make him pay the price for their endeavours.
     

16
     
     
     
    I t was not a face that Jacquot had been expecting. Out of the past. Years back.
     
For a moment, sitting there in Molineux's glass-walled kitchen-office, Jacquot was certain he must be mistaken. It couldn't be. Not Doisneau. But in the puffy old face, twisting round from the sinks in the tiled, steamy washroom off the main kitchen, Jacquot recognised the same darting eyes from long ago, that hook of a nose, the high, triangular, clown-like eyebrows. Doisneau. No question. After all this time. Up to