by JR Carroll
Danny. She had loved him so much, and it seemed impossible to her that she would ever recover from losing him, even though they had only known each other for a few short weeks. During the flight she had nurtured a fantasy that he would be waiting for her at the airport: she would wheel her trolley out of the customs hall and there he would be – his death had been a cleverly staged disappearing trick. She could not grasp the fact that he no longer existed. He had been so real, so vital a part of her inner life, her dreams. He had managed to touch her very private self in a way no-one had ever been able to do before, and never would for as long as she lived now.
His loss was made worse in her mind by the fact that he had died without knowing who she really was. She felt as if she had cheated him all the way down the line.
Michelle cleared customs without a hitch and went out into the cold, blustery Paris morning. There was ice in the air. Everyone was rugged up. It didn’t look like much of a city from where she stood now, but she knew it would be different soon. Her itinerary consisted of Paris, Vienna, Budapest, then Rome, with a week in each city. She planned to cram in as much as she could, see everything, try to put recent events out of her mind, buy as much big-ticket clothing and stuff as she could carry, dine in all the top places. Take it to the max.
She did not believe, however, that she would ever be able to erase that last, horrified image of Sigmund Barry’s face. At first he had smirked and spat at her, thinking she wouldn’t be able to do it, but then his expression changed in the final split second of his life when he saw her finger squeezing the trigger …
At the taxi rank she was rushed by a little man in wire spectacles who grabbed her bags, loaded them into the grimy Peugeot’s trunk, then politely opened the rear passenger door for her. In the car he clapped his gloved hands, saying: ‘Ca gele ce matin, n’est-ce pas?’
She didn’t understand exactly, but got the drift, and answered in her best school French: ‘Oui, monsieur. Tres froid.’
The driver then asked where she wished to go and Michelle took a deep breath and spoke the words she had been rehearsing for many years: ‘Take me to the Ritz Hotel, s’il vous plait.’
It was a hell of a long way from Broadmeadows.
About JR Carroll
JR Carroll lives in Melbourne, where he was born and raised. A graduate of Melbourne University, he worked as a teacher for a number of years before turning to full-time fiction writing. His first book, about the Vietnam War, was Token Soldiers. This was followed by a series of crime thrillers, including Catspaw, No Way Back, Out of the Blue, The Clan, Cheaters, and Blindside. His latest crime novel, 8 Hours to Die, will be released by Momentum in January 2014.
Also by JR Carroll
No Way Back
Out of the Blue
The Clan
Hard Yards
First published by Pan Macmillan Australia in 1998
This edition published in 2014 by Momentum
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © JR Carroll 1998
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A CIP record for this book is available at the National Library of Australia
Cheaters
EPUB format: 9781760080280
Mobi format: 9781760080297
Cover design by Michael Momi
Proofread by Sam Cooney
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