Page 47 of The Silent Patient

“Gabriel’s brother, Max Berenson. He suggested I talk to you.”

Jean-Felix rolled his eyes. “Oh, so you saw Max, did you? What abore.”

He said it with such contempt I couldn’t help laughing. “You know Max Berenson?”

“Well enough. Better than I’d like.” He handed me a small cup of coffee. “Alicia and I were close. Very close. We knew each other for years—long before she met Gabriel.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“Oh, yes. We were at art school together. And after we graduated, we painted together.”

“You mean you collaborated?”

“Well, not really.” Jean-Felix laughed. “I mean we painted walls together. As housepainters.”

I smiled. “Oh, I see.”

“It turned out I was better at painting walls than paintings. So I gave up, about the same time as Alicia’s art started to really take off. And when I started running this place, it made sense for me to show Alicia’s work. It was a very natural, organic process.”

“Yes, it sounds like it. And what about Gabriel?”

“What about him?”

I sensed a prickliness here, a defensive reaction that told me this was an avenue worth exploring. “Well, I wonder how he fit into this dynamic. Presumably you knew him quite well?”

“Not really.”

“No?”

“No.” Jean-Felix hesitated a second. “Gabriel didn’t take time to know me. He was very… caught up in himself.”

“Sounds like you didn’t like him.”

“I didn’t particularly. I don’t think he liked me. In fact, I know he didn’t.”

“Why was that?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you think perhaps he was jealous? Of your relationship with Alicia?”

Jean-Felix sipped his coffee and nodded. “Yeah, yes. Possibly.”

“He saw you as a threat, perhaps?”

“You tell me. Sounds like you have all the answers.”

I took the hint. I didn’t push it any further. Instead I tried a different approach. “You saw Alicia a few days before the murder, I believe?”

“Yes. I went to the house to see her.”

“Can you tell me a little about that?”

“Well, she had an exhibition coming up, and she was behind with her work. She was rightfully concerned.”

“You hadn’t seen any of the new work?”

“No. She’d been putting me off for ages. I thought I’d better check on her. I expected she’d be in the studio at the end of the garden. But she wasn’t.”

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