The girl leaned back on the wall and exhaled, long and slow. She rolled her head back and closed her eyes as she unbuttoned her jacket.
Piers’ heart was pounding from adrenaline and exertion, but he couldn’t stop his gaze from sinking down over the white blouse that fitted close across her chest and moved hypnotically with each breath, nor the short skirt wrapped tight around the very tops of her long, toned legs. With a jolt, he realized she was staring straight at him. She lowered her face and he thought he saw her sneer for an instant. He flushed hot and his ears prickled. “I, er … I didn’t mean … I’m sorry … who was that?”
She cleared her throat. “That?”
“The voice. The woman.”
“Oh, right. That.” She shrugged. “Landlady. Nosy old bat.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“You haven’t had to put up with her as long as I have.”
Piers glanced around. It was a tiny studio apartment. A bed was pushed up against one wall and a cooker and sink were in the corner. A large armchair, a desk with a sewing machine, and a rolling rack of clothing filled most of the floor. Everywhere else, even the walls, was covered with bolts of fabric, fashion illustrations, sketches, and pages torn out of magazines. He whistled. “You’ve lived here a long time.”
“Tell me about it. Since September.”
“September?”
“September. The month I moved in. September.”
“Which September?”
“This September. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?”
“Sorry. I just thought you said you’d been here a long time.”
“I have. I just told you. Since September. Five weeks. Five long weeks with that nosy old bat hounding me.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lo—”
Her eyes seemed to double in size. “It’s a long time, all right?”
Piers put his hands up. “Okay, okay, it’s a long time.”
The girl pulled a toolbox out from underneath the sink and produced a set of bolt croppers.
Piers stared. “You have bolt croppers?”
“There’s no fooling you, is there?”
“Not every girl has a set of bolt croppers.”
“Lots of people have them.”
“Riiiiight. Do you often have to remove handcuffs?”
She stared at him and snorted. “Just cut the damn things.”
Piers aligned the croppers carefully and squeezed. The handcuff gave in an instant. The girl wriggled and held up the other one, which was just as easily dispatched. She tossed the mangled metal on the bed.
Under a pile of fabric on the armchair, she found a half-finished bottle of wine. The cork popped with a tuneful echo and she slugged a mouthful.
“Is that good?” said Piers.
She blew out a long breath. “Yeah. I needed it. I’ve been shot at.”
“Me too, just in case you didn’t notice.”
“Yes, but they weren’t really shooting at you.”
“Weren’t shooting at me? Christ, I nearly got my head blown off.”
The girl gave a sarcastic smile. “Yeah.”
Piers rolled his eyes at her and looked around the small room. “This is your apartment?”
She took another swig of wine. “Right on, Sherlock. What does it look like, a fish shop?”
“No. But people have been shooting at you and me, don’t you think they might just happen to know where you live?”
“Why would they know where I live? This is a very quiet neighborhood.”
“Who cares if it’s a quiet neighborhood? We’re in the first place they’ll look. This is bloody ridiculous.”
“Trust me, this neighborhood is way too quiet.”
“Quiet? It’s not about the area being quiet. Shit, this is serious! We’ve been shot at. I mean, who were those people? What did they want?”
“I don’t know! All right. All I know is they shot the guy who jumped into my taxi.”
“Our taxi.”
She scowled at him and took another swig of wine.
He took a deep breath. “All right. Where’s the nearest police station?”
“Police! Didn’t you see them shooting at us?”
“The police don’t shoot people.”
“Those ones did. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice.”
“They weren’t police. They were after the guy they shot. They probably think we’re connected with him. That’s why we need to go to a police station and tell them everything.”
“But they waved guns at me and said, ‘Halt, we’re the police.’ That’s usually a sure sign. Plus, they were in a police car. So, no way, we’re not going to the police.”
“I didn’t see any uniforms, and they weren’t speaking French.”
“Look, I know you’re English, but not all police officers go around wearing silly hats and calling each other Bobby, all right? And I’m sure they were speaking French.”
“They weren’t. It sounded like Russian.”
She stuffed the cork into the bottle, wedged it down the side of the sofa and walked to the kitchen area. “What did he say to you?”
“Who?”
“The dead guy, stupid.”
“Oh. He called me a bastard.”
She laughed loud. “You have to admit, he was a bit of a character.”
“Character? He spat at me! And he used us as human shields.”
She pulled a tub of ice cream from the fridge. “Oh, get over it. He didn’t use us as human shields. What did he say before he called you a bastard?”
Piers scowled. “Something about Waterloo and construction.”
“What was that about?”
“I work for Waterloo Large Construction.”
“Oh, the people building down by the river?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look much like a workman.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have clean fingernails and new shoes.” She leaned forward and stared at his feet. “Correction, old shoes that have been polished. Still, not workman material.”
She took a giant scoop of ice cream and slowly licked it off the spoon.
Piers wriggled in his seat, trying not to be mesmerized by her tongue. “We just need to get to a police station.”
She shook her head. “No. No. No.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Even if you don’t want to go, I do.”
She licked her spoon and flicked a tiny drop of melted ice cream at him. “You go, then.”
He wiped the ice cream off his face. “Do you mind? Anyway, we both need to go. We need help. They can protect us while all this gets sorted out.”
“You did see the bang, bang, the breaking glass, and the screaming tires? Please tell me you noticed that much?”
“That’s exactly the point. The police will sort all this out.”
“Really. A guy got shot in my—” she huffed—“our taxi. There were bullets everywhere and you, very courageously I must admit, rescued me from a guy with a gun who was looking to shoot anyone who moved. What are you going to say? Sorry we were involved in a gunfight in the middle of the streets? A guy is dead, but we had nothing to do with it? The police probably think we killed the guy ourselves.”
“They’ll understand once we explain.”
She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know much about French justice, do you?”
He gave her a quizzical look.
“First they lock you up, then they send you to trial, then you have to prove you’re innocent. Have you ever proved your innocence from a jail cell?”
“We won’t be in a jail cell.”
“Ha! Too right. After what just happened they’ll shoot us on sight.”
“They won’t—” He sighed. “Either way, whatever we’re going to do, we have to get out of here.”
She shook her head. “Nah, dragon lady won’t come up here. Doesn’t like steps.”
Piers rolled his eyes. “Not her! You’
ve just been shot at by someone—”
“The police.”
“Maybe—”
“Definitely.”
He held up his hands. “Whoever it was—police, criminals, or whatever—don’t you think they might know where you live?”
Her face froze and she stuffed the spoon into the tub of ice cream. “Well . . .”
“Well nothing. We need to get out of here.”
Chapter 7
The girl piled out of her apartment and down the stairs, the ice cream tub tucked under her arm and the spoon in her mouth.
As she fumbled to open the front door, Piers caught up with her. “What’s your name?”
She looked back at him, “Who, me?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head in bewilderment.
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, right. Sidney.”
She peered out of the front door.
Piers did the same. “Don’t you want to know mine?”
“Your what?”
“Name. Don’t you want to know my name?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. What’s your name?”
“Piers.”
She screwed her face up. “What, like at the seaside?”
Piers sighed. “Yes, like at the seaside.”
She stuck a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Umm. Nice.”
He didn’t bother to clarify what she considered nice. “Which way to the police station?”
She shook her head and peered out of the door. “Nah. We need to lie low for a while. I have a good friend. We can stay at her place.”
“Who’s the good friend?”
“You’re all questions, aren’t you?”
“I just want to know what I’m getting into. Do you know this friend well?”
“I just said so, didn’t I? I met her in a bar last week. She’s cool.”
“Last week? In a bar? How can that be a good. . .”
She turned away, stepped out of the door, and began walking fast.
Piers rushed to keep up. “I still think we need the police, but where does this friend of yours live?”
“A few blocks away.”
As they turned the corner, police sirens rang out. Piers grabbed Sidney’s arm.
She flashed him a disgusted look. “Oh relax. You hear sirens all the time in Paris.”
Three police cars screeched around the corner and raced down the street in their direction.
“Oops.” Sidney stepped sideways into a small café.
The patrons paid them no attention as she chose a table for two at the back of the café. Piers squeezed into a tiny seat wedged in the corner. His skin prickled with sweat.
The police cars raced by and their wailing sirens receded.
Piers gave a great sigh.
Sidney raised her eyebrows. “See. Just because they had sirens on didn’t mean they were coming for us.” She scraped the last of the ice cream from the tub and pushed it to the corner of the table.
The waiter arrived.
Sidney smiled at Piers. “Do you have any money?”
Piers scowled and ordered two coffees.
“I can’t take this any longer. We need to go to the police,” he said after the waiter left.
Sidney shrugged. “How can we trust them? You saw what happened. We need to—”
A phone rang, a crude, old-fashioned buzz that reminded Piers of his own ringtone. She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a battered looking flip phone and stared at the number on its small display.
Piers eyes went wide. “Wait. Is that the dead guy’s phone? You took his phone?”
“Well, it wasn’t like he was going to use it, was it?”
“But that’s evidence. Incriminating evidence. And now you’ve got it. We’ve got it.”
“Oh, calm down.” She looked at the number again and gave a disparaging grunt. “Don’t know who they are. Not answering it.”
“No bloody wonder you don’t know who they are; it isn’t your phone.”
“Okay. I get it.” She tossed the phone onto the table. It stopped ringing.
The waiter returned with the coffees. Sidney downed hers in one gulp and handed the cup back to the man. “Great. I’ll have another.”
The waiter took the cup and stared at her. She smiled. “It really was very good. You should try some.”
The waiter grunted and walked off.
Piers put his lip to the coffee, found it too hot, and put it back down. “Like I said, we need the police, at a police station.”
Piers blew on his hot coffee.
The man’s phone rang again. Sidney looked at it without picking it up. “Merde. Same number.”
“It might be someone wanting to know he’s all right.”
“So what am I going to tell them? Sorry, he’s dead and I’ve got his phone?”
Piers shrugged. “You could play dumb.”
She rolled her eyes and flipped open the phone. “What?”
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not going to get away with it.” Piers could easily hear the other party’s high-pitched voice spilling from the phone’s earpiece.
“Who’s this?” said Sidney.
“Go to the police and you and lover boy are going to be in deep trouble. Got it?”
“Lover boy?” said Sidney with her top lip curled up.
“Don’t get innocent with me. I know your sort, I’ve dealt with girls before.”
“Really? How fascinating.”
“Not as fascinating as what Auguste was carrying.”
“Who’s Auguste?”
“The man whose phone you nicked.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed, missy. You return what Auguste stole and maybe we’ll let you go free.”
“We’re free at the moment, if you hadn’t noticed.”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“Just return what you took.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play stupid with me, missy. You’re talking to an expert here. I mean … I mean get us what we want and I won’t have to set Gerard onto you.”
In the background Piers could hear a deep voice. “I … I thought we weren’t going to use names, boss?”
There was a high-pitched groan. “Well, that may or may not be his name, because you don’t know. That could have been a ruse to make you believe it’s his name when it isn’t. Right.”
“Riiiiight,” said Sidney. “Look. I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, and I’ve got a lot of things on my mind at the moment, so I’m going to have to go.” She lowered the phone from her ear. Piers grabbed it before she could close it.
“Who is this?”
There was a laugh at the other end. “Ah, it’s lover boy.”
“I’m not anyone’s lover boy, okay?”
“Ooohhh, touchy, touchy.” There was more sniggering.
“Look, if you’re trying to threaten us, the least you can do is explain what’s going on.”
The owner of the high-pitched voice cleared his throat. “Then listen up. If you don’t return what Auguste stole within 24 hours then Matchstick Morel will be paying you a visit. And you don’t want that do you?”
“Who’s Matchstick Morel? And we don’t know this Auguste guy, so how are we supposed to know what he might have taken from you?”
“Pierre Matchstick Morel is a man you don’t want to meet. And you know perfectly well what he took, so you better start looking. Speaking of looking, you better leave out the back, because some nosy old bat pointed you two out to those police guys who just raced past, and they’re on their way to the café now.”
Piers looked up. A knot of police officers was outside.
“Shit.” He grabbed Sidney’s wrist and dragged her down a corridor that led to the kitchen.
She fought back. “What are you doing?”
“Police. Outside.”
The waiter stood in fr
ont of them holding Sidney’s coffee. She downed it in one mouthful as they pushed past.
They raced for the rear door. Piers hit it first, shoving down the emergency handle and tumbling out into a narrow, trash-filled rear lane.
“This way,” said Sidney, racing to a featureless door on the opposite side of the road. She started hammering on the door. “Don’t just stand there—get knocking.”
Piers added his fists to the noise. “What are we doing?”
“This goes into a shopping area.”
“Shopping?”
“There’s a Métro station underneath.”
The door opened. Sidney leapt forward, embraced a security guard, and gave him an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. “Thank god. We went out there by mistake and didn’t know how to get back in. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”
She let go of the guard. “Got to run. Train to catch.”
She bounded off. The guard turned his stare to Piers who shrugged and raced after her. To his relief, the guard closed and locked the door before there was any sign of the police following.
Sidney took a sharp left and bounded down a set of stairs, three at a time. Piers caught up with her at the bottom. “Where are we going?”
“One more floor to the platform.” She pointed at a line of machines. “Tickets, quick.”
Piers sneered. “Do you ever have any money?”
She stepped back. “You’re going to argue about money at a time like this?”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “All right, all right.”
While he shoved euros into the ticket machine, she headed down the next set of steps, waving. He grabbed the tickets from the machine and ran after her. “Wait!”
Arms still waving, she turned right at the bottom of the stairs and disappeared from sight.
Piers leapt the last six steps in one go and crashed to the ground on a slick marble floor. A platform full of people turned to look at him. He rolled to his feet and held his hands up. “I’m okay, thanks. I’m okay.”
A presenter on an overhead TV babbled excitedly about a disturbance in Paris, but was drowned out by a train rolling into the station. He kept looking around. “Sidney, Sidney!”
The people on the platform backed away from him. Sidney appeared, grabbed his hand and dragged him, stumbling, into the train. He couldn’t take his eyes off the stares of the people on the platform. He knew he’d made a dramatic entrance onto the platform, but sometimes people were just weird. Sidney pushed him into a seat and wedged herself beside him.
Paris Love Match Page 3