“Yes, I know. We … need to replace our records.”
“I see. This is a most unusual request, monsieur.”
“Maybe, but I still need to replace my records.”
“Perhaps you could confirm your assistant’s story.”
“What story?”
“Of what happened to your records?”
“Right.” Piers own phone buzzed. A text message from Sidney. He struggled to open it up as he talked. “What happened to the records? Right. Well. There was er, a—” He read Sidney’s text message aloud. “Flood.”
The young man continued. “That is what your assistant said. But I’m curious about how a flood could have happened as you live on the fourth floor.”
“Ahhhhh, yes. Curious. Yes, yes, indeed. I would be too. Right. Yes. A flood. Well … the flood happened as a result of a … fire. Yes, a fire.”
His phone buzzed with another text message that read “Break-in.”
Shit.
“I see, monsieur,” said the young man, “That’s not quite the story you assistant told me.”
“Right, right, yes. That’s because that’s not the end of the story, you see.”
“Monsieur?”
“The flood was caused by a fire that was caused by a … break-in. Yes, yes. The criminals broke in and started a fire, and putting the fire out caused the flood.”
“I see, monsieur.”
“Yes, I know. It’s a long story. That’s why I was hesitant to tell it. Remarkable really.”
“It is, monsieur, but it does agree with your assistant’s story. We do like to check these things for security, monsieur.”
“Good, now if you don’t mind I’d like my assistant back as soon as possible. There is a lot of … er … tidying up to do.”
“I understand, monsieur. I will send her back as soon as possible.”
“Thank you.”
Piers switched off the phone and stared through the bank’s windows. The young man opposite Sidney was busy at a keyboard. After a long minute, he beckoned Sidney to follow, and they disappeared through a doorway into the back offices of the bank.
Piers breathed a sigh of relief. People only had safety deposit boxes if they had something important to keep. He had a good feeling they were going to find something. The feeling lasted until he saw a police car converging on the bank and screeching to a halt in front of its revolving door. Piers’ heart thumped into his mouth.
Officers leapt from the car before it had even come to a halt. One man stayed in the driver’s seat while the others piled through the revolving door, one-by-one.
Piers paced toward the entrance. What the hell could he do? Sidney was out of sight somewhere inside the bank. They must have recognized her. He bit his lip. The phone call had probably been a ruse to play for time.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Sidney. She answered on the fifth ring, just as he thought it would go to voicemail.
“Sidney, the police are here. Get out now. Use a different way.”
She didn’t say a word, but he heard the click as she mashed the off button on her phone. Piers stamped his foot and swore. Were they holding her already?
Through the windows, he saw a bank official quickly lead the police to the door Sidney had used.
With the umbrella in front of him, Piers walked to the police car. He saw Sidney return to the lobby through a different door. She looked around and started for the exit. Piers’ heart thumped. She looked too uncomfortable, too suspicious.
He breathed hard. What the hell could he do?
He reached the bank entrance. The police car was directly outside with its engine running. Sidney was almost at the revolving door.
He rapped on the police car’s glass and the driver cracked the window. Piers stood so his face was above where the man could see, and pointed into the bank. “Quickly. The Inspector’s in trouble.”
The man twisted to look up at him. “Huh?”
“The Inspector asked for you.”
The man popped open the door.
“Vite, vite.” Piers pointed to the bank door while keeping his back to the driver.
The driver seemed uncertain.
“He sent me to get you,” said Piers. “Vite, vite.”
The driver jumped from the car and barreled through the revolving door.
Piers slipped into the police car’s driving seat and put the car in reverse as Sidney exited the revolving door.
He saw the police running back into the lobby followed by the young bank clerk clutching his groin. Piers floored the accelerator. The car rocketed backward, bounced wildly as it mounted the curb, and smashed into the revolving door, wedging it solid.
Piers leapt from the driver’s seat and raced past Sidney, grabbing her hand and dragging her down the street. He didn’t look back and she didn’t need any urging. They ran flat out, with Sidney shouting directions. After a couple of minutes, they slowed. She led them through a department store and out of a side exit. She bent over, clutching her side. Piers was panting hard.
“Merde,” she said.
“You have a way with words.”
She massaged her stomach. “Damn, that hurts.”
“Sorry,” said Piers.
“Sorry? You bloody well should be. Next time you steal a car, let’s use it to get away, huh?” Her eyebrows were at angles as sharp as her tone.
“It was all I could think of at the time.”
The angles on her face melted and she gave a snort of laugher. “It was pretty funny.”
Piers smiled. “I can’t wait to see that on TV.”
Sidney waved two envelopes. “I can’t wait to see what’s in these.”
Chapter 19
Piers’ feet ached. After running from the bank, they had settled into a steady walking pace and he’d lost track of how far they had traveled. “Sidney, we’ve got to stop and think.”
She came to a halt and Piers almost walked into her. “You think we’re far enough away?” she said.
“Much farther and we’ll have to swim the channel.”
“So, more coffee?”
“Christ, no. I’ve had enough caffeine to keep me awake for weeks.”
She held her hand out as if to sample the weather and looked up into darkening clouds. “Which we’re probably going to have to do.”
He furrowed his brow.
She rolled her eyes. “Stay awake. We’re not exactly going to check into a hotel tonight, are we?”
He clapped his hands on her shoulders. “That’s brilliant.”
She brushed him off. “If you’re trying to be funny, it’s not working.”
“No. A hotel. We don’t need to get a hotel. I’ve already got one.”
“You own a hotel?”
“No! I have a room booked in the company’s name, not mine. They always do that. Corporate policy.”
“Er.”
“It’ll be all right. We can hide out, think, and sleep.”
“Together?”
“Yes. I mean, no. No, no, I don’t want to sleep with you. I just meant—”
“You don’t like me?” She gave an angelic smile, angled her head, and blinked at him.
“No, I do like you.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “But you don’t want to sleep with me?”
“Exactly. No, I mean, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What? I’m not your sort?”
“No. I mean—”
“So, what is your sort? What sort do you like? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do to set you up with your sort.”
Piers fell silent. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and squeezed. “Why do you take everything so seriously?”
“Our lives are at stake, in case you’d forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten, but I have another idea.”
He cocked one eyebrow.
She winked, “Since you’re not keen on the idea of sleeping together.”
He shrugged. “Very
funny. We need a plan. It’s not like we can stay awake at an all-night rave.”
“Oh.” She looked sheepish.
“You were thinking of going to a rave?”
“No! A club.” She dug two tickets from a pocket and handed them to Piers. “It’s just off the river. Bernard’s. I know the owner. They stay open all night.”
He turned the tickets over in his hands. “It’s hardly a place to sit and think.”
“I wasn’t going to sit and think. It’s Friday night.”
“It’s Friday night and we’ve got the mob and the police after us. Great time for a dance.”
“What do you do on a Friday night?”
“I, er, I meet up. You know. With friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah, I have friends.”
“Female friends?”
“I have male friends and female friends.”
“Right. Right. So you go clubbing?”
“Well . . . sometimes.”
“What do you do on the other times?”
He straightened his back. “You know. We meet up. Have a few drinks. Go out and have a laugh.”
“Tell me about the females you know.”
“Well, there’s lots. I mean … even my boss is a woman.”
“Your boss?” Sidney slid her arm off Piers. “What do you really do on a Friday night?”
Piers opened his mouth, but she placed a finger across his lips. “No. What do you really do?”
He sagged back down. “Sometimes I meet up with a couple of friends of mine. We go for a beer, or play Xbox.”
“Grand theft?”
“Huh?”
“You play Grand Theft Auto, don’t you?”
Piers looked down at his hands. “Okay. So I don’t have much of a life compared to you.”
“Nah, I played it once. Crashed a lot. You just need to get out a bit more. Meet some real people. Relax.”
“You mean go to this club?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I know people there.”
“But—”
She wrapped her arm around his and pulled them close. “They have good music. We could dance. Have fun. You and me.”
Piers’ skin prickled and he licked his lips. His heart banged in his chest and he forced himself to relax his hands. He stared, brow furrowed, not breathing, with his mouth half open.
“Come on.” She pulled playfully on his arm and winked. “Promise I won’t leave with anyone else.”
He pulled back. “Leave with anyone else? Dancing? People? Fun? Have you forgotten the fact we’re on France’s most wanted list?”
She hung on to his sleeve. “No! Besides, you don’t know that.”
“Know what?”
“That we’re on the most wanted list.”
“We’ve certainly made a good effort to get there.”
She let go of him, slumped onto a low wall and sighed. “So . . . What’s your plan?”
He took a deep breath. “I think the hotel is best. We need to look at the stuff you got from the bank.”
She surveyed the street and pulled out two envelopes. “Let’s just look at them here.”
Piers spun around, looking for Little and Large, or the police.
She pulled him down onto the wall. “Will you stop doing your best to look suspicious?”
He sighed.
She opened the first envelope and pulled out one sheet of heavy vellum. “His will,” she said despondently.
Piers looked it over. It only filled half a page. “He left everything to April.”
Sidney pulled a sheaf of papers from the second envelope. They were layered sheets of thin pink, yellow, and tan paper, glued along one edge. She sighed and handed it to Piers. “Sales receipt for a car.”
He looked down the sheet. “A Renault 5 LE, with optional side stripe and FM radio. Purchased in 1996.”
“Merde,” she said. “This doesn’t tell us anything.”
“It’s the car April mentioned. She called it the old car he worked on every weekend.”
“Sixteen years is pretty old for a car. Even older in Paris.”
Piers flipped through the pages. They were all carbon copies. He saw nothing suspicious, nothing that might be a coded message or a clue. “Bugger.”
“You British, you have such a way with words.”
“What do you expect? We don’t have a clue to anything.”
“You think I don’t know that? Have you forgotten I was the one who walked into the bank to get that crap? Or that I was the one running out when the police arrived?”
“I—”
“Forget it.” Sidney snatched the papers from Piers and they sat in an uncomfortable silence.
“Don’t you know anything else about Auguste?” she said.
“Like what?”
“Anything?”
“I don’t know him any more than you do.”
“Right.”
“I don’t. I never met the guy, and you know as much about him as me.”
“You were in his apartment.”
“So? I told you. It was tidy and practically empty.”
“And you knew which floor it was on.”
“Huh?”
“You knew which apartment was his. Among all the others you could have picked, you knew which one was his.”
“You think I knew him? I never met the guy before for Christ’s sake.”
There was a long silence.
“Besides, the door to his apartment had been kicked in. There was yellow police tape across the entrance. You couldn’t miss his apartment.”
She looked sideways at him. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Oh.”
The silence returned.
A Fiat 500 parked across the street from them and flashed its lights. Piers squinted to see inside. “Great. Little and Large have returned.”
Sidney looked down the street. “There’s a place down there we could eat, get out of their sights. Looks dingy enough. I doubt they’ll have a TV.”
They walked to the restaurant. She was right. The place looked as if it had been swept when the Second World War ended and never cleaned since. The chalkboard outside had an illegible scrawl where the meals should have been written. Sidney didn’t even stop to look; she walked straight in and sat down.
Piers gave up trying to interpret the chalkboard and joined her. “So, what do we do now?”
“Eat.”
“Very funny.”
She ordered an omelet and Piers a steak. Any meal might be his last, so he thought he might as well enjoy it. They sat in silence until the food arrived.
Piers took one look at his meal and knew it might actually be his last: it was almost entirely pink. “I can’t eat this.”
The waiter looked at him.
“English,” said Sidney.
The waiter grunted and scooped the plate away.
Piers threw up his hands. “Great, so now I don’t even get to eat?”
“Don’t be childish. He’s going to cook it some more.”
Sidney ate her food with a tiny fork. She was delicate, taking small portions and eating slowly. Even so, she was finished by the time the waiter returned with his steak.
The waiter dropped the plate on the table. “English,” he said and walked away without waiting for a reply.
Piers tapped the steak with his knife. It wasn’t just well-done; it was almost toasted. He cut off a chunk and chewed. To his surprise it tasted good, even though it gave his jaw a workout. He swallowed. “So, what do we know?”
Sidney stared at him. “Know?”
“About Auguste. About the painting. About what we’re going to do next.”
Sidney looked away. “You’re the one who thinks he knows everything.”
“When did I say that?”
“You told your mother, or have you forgotten already?”
He grunted.
Sidney stared at him. “Do you remember anything h
e said in the taxi?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly. There was a lot of shooting going on.”
“Come on, think. He must have said something.”
“He mentioned the company I work for.”
“Which is kind of suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
“Yeah.” She leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “You sure you didn’t know him?”
He glowered back. “Positive.”
She stood up.
“I haven’t finished,” Piers said.
“I’m only going to the restroom.”
She picked up her phone and walked off down a long corridor. Piers watched her go. He didn’t have a clue how much the dress had cost, but the view from behind alone made it worth every penny. He pushed another chunk of steak in his mouth and looked around the café, only to realize he wasn’t the only person who noticed her leave her seat. The other male patrons brought their gazes back to their tables and made themselves busy as he stared at them. He cut off another chunk of steak and stabbed it with his fork. Who did they think they were?
He chewed his steak and wondered the same question about himself. Without the taxi, the shooting, and the mob, he wouldn’t have dared talk to her, and he doubted she would have given him the time of day. He swallowed, and shoved his gloom to the back of his mind. He had to concentrate on the problem.
And that was the problem. They had no clues. One minute they were arguing over a taxi, the next the mob was after them for a painting the dead guy stole. Piers chewed another piece of steak. Auguste didn’t have the painting in the taxi, so he must have hidden it somewhere. An obvious conclusion, but of no practical help.
Piers took a satisfying crunch of fries and almost forgave the waiter his attitude.
Sidney walked back, smiled, and dropped her phone onto the table. Piers watched her all the way.
She waved a hand in front of his face. “You don’t have to keep staring at my figure.”
“I’m not.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re just a bundle of compliments.”
“I’m thinking about Auguste.”
She hummed. “Is he your sort?”
“This is important. He jumped in our taxi at Notre Dame, right? But the other shooting happened at Gare de l’Est.”
She nodded slowly.
“So how did he get between the two?”
Paris Love Match Page 12