The Adventure Continues

[abrightboy]

For thatsfascinating.



The villa Malcolm rented was in the Languedoc, not far from Marseilles, south of Avignon. It was a very historic region, though Malcolm was particularly not interested in visiting Marseilles again. There was a charming village nearby the villa and if they were going to go to an historic city for a day, he'd rather make the trip over to Montpellier, where he'd never been at all, much less with Dr Whitly.

The villa had six bedrooms. As the driver brought their luggage inside the bright and spacious main room, Malcolm handed him some folded Euros and thanked him and shut the door behind him.

"First choice of a room is yours," he told Edrisa with a smile. "But you might want to explore first."

Comments

[abrightboy]

His expression warmed.

"Neither do you," he told her.

The chef collected their dishes and brought out the dessert - creme brulee garnished with fresh berries - along with a different, much sweeter wine.

[thatsfascinating]

Her own expression warmed at that. She loved that he believed that. And that they were connected that way, too much for other people but just right for each other.

She leaned back and gave the chef a smile as he took the plate. "That was delicious, thank you!" When he returned with the dessert she clapped and bounced a little in her seat. "Oh, nice!"

[abrightboy]

Malcolm ate a berry off the side as it was placed in front of him, in case the chef didn't believe he ate the soup. Or at all. He smiled at Edrisa's reaction.

"Thank you," he told the chef, and he slipped out of the room again.

[thatsfascinating]

Edrisa picked up her spoon and cracked the layer of caramelized sugar, then scooped out some of the creme. "This looks amazing," she said, adding a berry to the spoon and popping it all in her mouth.

[abrightboy]

He took a bite as well.

"Delicious," he confirmed. "Very authentic."

He looked across at her. "I can eat maybe half. Do you want the rest?"

[thatsfascinating]

"Mmm!" she said with a nod. "Yeah, definitely!"

She took another spoonful.

"You know what? We should have a picnic tomorrow."

[abrightboy]

"That's a great idea!" he said enthusiastically. "We can throw together a few things. I'm sure there's a picnic basket or something in this place."

[thatsfascinating]

"it doesn't have to be too fancy. Some cheese, some bread, some fruit, a bottle of wine...we can find a nice tree to stop under on our way into town."

She took a sip of the sweet wine. "Mmm!"

[abrightboy]

He smiled broadly. "That sounds really, really nice," he told her. He smiled more slyly. "'A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou, beside me, singing in the wilderness'," he teased.

[thatsfascinating]

Her face lit up in recognition.

"Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!" she supplied. "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam! Brilliant book. And had an intriguing role in the Somerton Man mystery."

[abrightboy]

"The Somerton Man mystery was in my journal!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Basically I think that it wasn't as mysterious and complicated as it seemed, except that a lot of evidence trails were allowed to go cold or be broken. Even the providence of the copy of the book with the missing page is suspect; I mean, the guy said he found it in the wheel well of a car, but..." He shrugged. "Who can know at this point?"

[thatsfascinating]

"I mean, there were definitely missteps in the investigation." She pointed her spoon at him. "That nurse definitely knew him. Especially since she had a son that had the same extremely rare and genetic ear shape as the guy. And the police didn't even follow up on that! Yeah, it was a different time, and she was married to another guy, but still!"

[abrightboy]

"The day that social propriety overrides investigative integrity is the day you pass down a quote-unquote 'unsolvable mystery'," Malcolm pointed out.

[thatsfascinating]

"So true." She said animatedly, clearly excited to be talking about the case. "Although there were aspects of the case that were legitimately bizarre. Sure, the book could have been tampered, but that doesn't explain why the last two words were cut out, rolled up and tucked into a small pocket in the guy's pants. Not to mention the tags were cut out of his clothes."

[abrightboy]

"Well a lot of that could be down to the killer trying to obscure his identity. It's only 'mysterious' because we haven't had a chance to analyze what drove the perpetrator to do it. The book, though... I can see why that stirred imagination. But, realistically? The answer is probably a lot simpler than some epic spy saga."

[thatsfascinating]

She pointed at him with her spoon again, the creme brulee increasingly forgotten. "See, that's the thing, though! I don't think he was murdered. I think he poisoned himself."

[abrightboy]

He leaned forward. "Tell me more," he said eagerly.

[thatsfascinating]

"He was definitely poisoned," she began. "Even though they couldn't identify the toxin, the effects on his organs were pretty blatant. Sure, poison can be used for murder, but nine times out of ten you're looking at suicide. He had abandoned his suitcase in a train station, removed all identifying information from his clothing, and cut a little piece of paper from a book that had words on it that can be translated 'it is finished.'" She waved her spoon. "All of that points toward suicide. And then there's the son!"

[abrightboy]

"With the genetic ear thing. I can see reasons that he would commit suicide; if he was really in love with the nurse, he could only be with her if she agreed to basically ruin her life." The words were barely out of his mouth and his expression faltered slightly, but he pushed himself back on track. "What I couldn't believe was that they didn't find the scrap of paper for, like, a month. They thought it was this big mystery and they didn't even go through his stuff properly."

[thatsfascinating]

"To be fair, this wasn't a regular pocket. It was a secret pocket inside the waistband."

She paused, studying his face. It wasn't the first time suicide had come up in conversation and then become tangentially linked to their situation. It scared her, frankly.

"You are not ruining my life. At all."

[abrightboy]

He composed his expression into what he expected was a reassuring sort of smile.

"I know," he attempted to assure her.

He poked at his creme brulee with his spoon and looked up at her from under his eyelashes. "I also know you would have found that piece of paper on the first go through his stuff, little secret pocket or no little secret pocket," he added with definite confidence.

[thatsfascinating]

Edrisa was terrible at social cues and reading expressions in general, but she knew Malcolm, almost as well as she knew herself, and she recognized that carefully constructed mask he put on to reassure her. It didn't work. In fact, the worry deepened in her own stricken expression.

The compliment drew a ghost of a smile. "So would you. But not everyone is as exceptional as we are."

She wanted to argue against what was surely beneath that mask, but she couldn't. She knew that. His fear was bone deep, and she knew the only thing that might eventually unseat it was time and steady proof that he was not in fact ruining her life. But he had to give her that time.

"Don't leave me," she said softly. "Never leave me."

[abrightboy]

He looked genuinely confused at that. He leaned forward, frowning faintly.

"You think I'm going to leave you?" he clarified. That didn't track in his mind. It wasn't a logical conclusion to draw from anything as he saw it. He blinked for a moment as things failed to compute. "Of course I won't," he said matter-of-factly.

[thatsfascinating]

She nodded at his matter-of-fact reassurance, but her expression didn't change. It was clear he didn't understand why she was worried, and she wasn't sure she knew how to explain it to him. She looked down as if re-discovering her creme brulee, and began eating again.

[abrightboy]

His eyes stayed on her face, watching carefully.

"You're upset."

And even as he said it, he was running back the conversation and remembered where it intersected with Christmas dinner.

"I'm not going to kill myself," he asserted suddenly, still watching her, but a little anxiously.