Over the course of the next five minutes, I slowly eased my way out of the bed so Tony would not wake. It wasn’t quite 7:30, and we hadn’t stayed up that late. So why did I feel as if I hadn’t slept?
After throwing on the jeans and sweater I’d worn to Beauvais the day before, I slipped out the door and made my way downstairs to the street.
The previous day, the other person staying at the main house of the B&B had waxed poetic over breakfast about a small boulangerie he’d discovered at the top of the hill where this street led. “The best croissants in Paris,” he’d told me enthusiastically. “And the coffee! Oh my ... Simply superb.”
A good double shot of espresso was exactly what this girl needed.
Even though the damp chill really bit, the three-minute walk up the cobblestoned street did me a lot of good.
There is something about walking into the steamy warmth of a bakery early on a cold morning. From the back wafted the smell of some sort of sweet pastry, and the young woman behind the counter was just laying out an armful of crisp baguettes.
A few small tables ran along the wall opposite the counters, half of them occupied by elderly men looking as if they were missing their morning smoke as they drank coffee and read the newspaper or argued about politics with their neighbors. It still made me shake my head in wonder that France had successfully outlawed smoking indoors in public places. I remember being driven out of bistros and cafés by the thick pall of acrid smoke that bit at the back of my throat and made my eyes water.
I would have liked to sit for a minute and enjoy a coffee, but decided against it. So I bought two triple shots of espresso, four croissants, and a jar of apricot jam “bonne femme,” then headed out into the cold again.
Even though it was nearly eight o’clock, the city still had not shaken off the gloom of night I sipped my coffee and thought about Jean-Claude as I walked downhill to the apartment.
The previous day, I’d been handed a gift in the shape of a baby boy. What I was going to ask the child’s doting father to do was something I expected to be a really hard sell. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have given it a five-to-one chance I’d convince him. After my trip to Beauvais, the percentage was up to fifty-fifty — easy.
I could hear the shower running as I stuck my key in the door. I didn’t think Tony would go for what I needed from him, but maybe a nice bit of breakfast would help my bitter pill go down with less difficulty.
“It’s me,” I said, putting the food down on the small table.
Tony heard me easily over the water. “Out for an early walk?”
“I went up the street for coffee and croissants. You going to be long?”
“I’m done,” was his answer as he snapped off the shower and slid the glass doors back.
He began vigorously drying his hair, and I must say that my poor heart beat a little faster as my eyes ran over his lean, muscular body. Tony had a lot there for a gal to admire.
I was already sipping my coffee at the apartment’s tiny table when he sat down across from me, pants on, no shirt, feet still bare.
“Mmm. Great coffee,” he said. “I wouldn’t have believed the French were as good at this as the Italians.”
“Don’t say that sort of thing in public,” I answered, breaking off a piece of croissant. “The natives don’t take those sorts of comments very well.”
“So what’s on the docket for today? Last night you were very close-lipped about what you’ve been doing since you got here.”
I looked up. “I’m glad you brought that up, Tony. Actually, I’m meeting my husband for lunch today.”
“I don’t like the way you said that. Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No. We need to talk about some things, that’s all.”
Tony put down his coffee. “What sorts of things?”
“Things.”
“Marta, you’re stonewalling me. Back in Toronto, I felt we were in this together. Why am I being cut out now?”
“The situation is considerably more complicated than I expected. Not only that, I’m meeting with my husband for Christ’s sake! I can hardly take you along.”
“You are going to talk to him about what’s been happening back in Canada, aren’t you? Or have you already done that? Tell me, Marta.”
“We really didn’t get very far yesterday. Like I said, it’s more complicated than I was expecting.”
“Why?”
“Because he has a son ...” I paused. “And a new wife.”
Tony took a moment to sort that out. I stared at his face in hopes of getting a clue about what was going on in his head.
“How can you possibly trust him to show up today?”
“Because I saw the way he looked at that little boy. He’s caught between a rock and a hard place if I blow the whistle on him.” I looked across the table. “And I threatened to do that if he doesn’t play ball with me.”
“But he’s run out on people twice already — and one of them was you.”
“I know, I know.”
“You should have someone along today,” Tony said and held up his hand as I immediately began to object. “No. Hear me out. I don’t want to know what you talk to him about. That’s private. I could just keep an eye on things from a distance. Make sure nothing goes wrong. I came all this way to help you. Please let me!”
I ate my second croissant silently and finished the last of the coffee, thinking things over.
“Tony,” I began, reaching out for his hands, but he drew them back. He could read me too well by half. “I need to do this alone. Nothing will happen. How can it? We’ll be in a public place, a restaurant. Why don’t you just spend the day doing some sightseeing? Visit the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre? We can meet up again for dinner.”
Our very first argument raged for a good ten minutes before my emotions got the better of me.
“I will not have you there! It will be too much of a distraction. If you won’t listen, then I’ll have to ask you to leave!”
Tony glared at me for a good five seconds before he got up, finished dressing, put on his overcoat, then left the apartment without a word, taking his suitcase with him.
I felt simply awful and suddenly unsure whether I’d made the right decision. I only hoped that after today’s events were all over, I could patch things up with him. Why had everything conspired against me to have Tony come along at just the wrong time? The thought that I might never see him again caused my throat to constrict in panic. I considering sending him an email, trying to explain, but fought down that urge. The idea of giving in was too seductive.
I desperately needed to calm myself, get focused. Today’s agenda required that. At the moment, it felt as if I was going to explode.
That’s when I spotted my stick bag. Okay, I thought. If you want to hit something, Marta, make it a practice pad.
So for the next hour and a half, I worked out all my aggression on an inanimate object that was meant to be hit. I also broke two drum sticks in my fury. That was all to the good, since I ended my practice session limp and sweaty, but also more at peace and focused on what I needed to accomplish.
After taking a shower, I put on a warm wool dress, nicer clothes than what I’d been wearing the past three days, and left for Le Gare du Nord in good time to meet the train from Beauvais. With the early November wind beginning to pick up as I walked the tree-lined boulevard to Place d’Italie, I was glad I’d put on my beret, thick scarf, and gloves, all a matching shade of deep red. The Métro took me directly to the station with no transfers needed, and I parked myself impatiently at the track where Jean-Claude’s train would arrive.
When it pulled in, my husband was not among the people getting off. The last few stragglers gave me a wide berth, probably due to the expression on my face as it became clear that I’d been had.
Well, I’d told him what would happen if he didn’t do as I said, and I had every intention of carrying through on that threat as I looked up at the T
V screen listing all departures from these tracks. The very next train to Beauvais was going to have me aboard.
Someone tapped my shoulder. I spun around and standing there was Jean-Claude, dressed all in leather, with a stupid grin plastered on his face. “I always loved the way you look when you are angry.”
I continued to glare at him, knowing that if I opened my mouth, it would be to let loose a string of obscenities.
“I decided to drive my new motorcycle into town instead of taking the train,” he told me when the silence got awkward.
I couldn’t believe it. “And you honestly expect me to ride on a motorcycle in what I’m wearing?”
“Well, I cannot leave it outside the station. It will get stolen for sure.”
I could have argued about it, but then decided it just wasn’t worth the trouble. I’d planned on having Jean-Claude take me to the Café Marly, a chic resto on the north side of the Louvre — and expensive. He needed knocking down a few pegs. The thought of riding on the back of a motorcycle all the way into the heart of Paris was thoroughly without enticement for any number of reasons, so I searched my mind and realized that another very good (and rather expensive) restaurant was actually quite nearby.
Shaking my head, I sighed. “Lead on.”
The motorcycle he’d built was pure Jean-Claude. It was big, it was loud, and it was colourful. I just hoped nobody from the press recognized me as I hoisted myself on the back, hiking my overcoat up in a rather unladylike way and slipping the helmet over my head. When we took off, I had to grip Jean-Claude hard to keep from falling off. I ground my teeth in frustration for even having to touch him.
The restaurant was one where I’d last dined more than a dozen years back while living in Paris for four months with Gerhard. He’d been preparing a production of Tannhäuser for the Paris Opera. Café Julien is a throwback to La Belle Époque with decor that hasn’t changed in a hundred years. It would give me a touch more confidence for this meeting to be eating in a place with which I was so familiar.
With great aplomb, Jean-Claude pulled his motorcycle right onto the sidewalk out front. Back in Canada, he would have gotten a big fat ticket for doing that. Here it was the accepted practice.
I used my reflection in the front window of the restaurant to smooth out my hair. It was a good bet I’d be recognized as soon as we entered. Restaurants in Paris tend to keep the same wait staff for centuries.
The place was as I remembered: high ceilings, and murals of women and peacocks shared the walls with huge mirrors that made the large room seem limitless. But it was the stained glass skylights in greens and blues that I recalled most vividly. I’d once joked with Gerhard that it made me feel as if I were eating underwater. Odd coat trees, each with a large globe light on top, ran down the centre of the room, dividing the two groups of tables. I greeted them like old friends. Too bad frock coats and top hats have long since gone out of fashion. Ski jackets just don’t cut it hanging from furniture like that.
Even after so many years, it felt like home. But I had returned to have lunch with my dead husband.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Hendriks, how good it is to see you once again!” the maître d’ said smoothly as he swooped down on us near the entryway. “You honour us once again with your presence.”
I couldn’t for the life of me remember his name, but recognized him as having been a waiter way back when. I smiled and reached out to shake his hand, but it was snatched and enthusiastically kissed.
“Could I request a secluded table for myself and my friend?” I asked.
“But of course!” was the answer as he led us to one in the very back as far away from the other diners as you could get, seating me with my back to the rear wall of the restaurant. With a practised snap, he unfolded our napkins and placed them on our laps.
Our waiter arrived and took drink orders: Perrier for me, red wine for Jean-Claude.
“So I am here as you asked,” Jean-Claude said, lounging back in his chair. “How did you track me to Beauvais?”
Looking over his head I could just barely see the brilliant red of his motorcycle out front and could not resist smirking as someone stopped to look over the attention-grabbing machine. “It was Harley Davidson that did you in.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“When I saw you near the Sully-Morland Métro entrance, you were carrying the tailpipe for your motorcycle. The paper covering it had started to slip off. It just took me several weeks to realize what I’d seen. After that it was simple. There aren’t many Harley dealers in Paris. I knew you’d buy nothing else.”
Jean-Claude looked unhappy. “I brought Marie with me because she wanted to visit a friend. If I’d just had them ship the part to me, this wouldn’t have happened. That was the only time I’d been in Paris all year.”
I was suddenly confused. “But you also were outside the stage entrance at the Palais Garnier two nights later.”
He looked across the table at me and sighed. “It was a very stupid thing to do.”
“What was?”
“I had seen your picture in the paper and read a review. Since Marie was tied up with her friend, I had nothing to do that night.”
“So you decided to hang around outside the opera?”
“No.”
“Why were you there then?”
“I ... I went to hear you sing. It is a very long opera to stand through. Next time I will get a ticket for a seat.”
I flopped back in my chair, completely stunned. Was Jean-Claude lying? Why would he? Was he trying to get to me?
The waiter setting down our drinks gave me time to marshal my thoughts. My husband mustn’t know that he’d just delivered a brain-shattering blow, so I rubbed my brow and frowned, intimating that I had a headache, after which I rummaged in my purse as if looking for aspirin. He silently watched my every move.
I already knew what I wanted from the luncheon menu, but I made a pretense of studying it to gain additional time.
After all those opportunities to see me perform, he’d chosen that night? He’d certainly been there in the Place de l’Opéra. If he had used this story as a ploy to get to me, it had certainly worked.
When the waiter returned to take our order, I asked for a half-litre of the house Bordeaux. To hell with my good intentions to keep my head clear. I needed something to calm me down.
Jean-Claude’s patience, or maybe his nerve, appeared to be at an end. “So why have you dragged me all the way into Paris? What is it you want, Marta? An apology? All right, you have that unconditionally. Maybe I just freaked out when that man appeared at our house. All I could think of was trying to survive. After that, I ran.”
“What did happen?”
A pained expression flitted across his face. “I had been into Perth to pick up some supplies I needed. The guy they sent arrived while I was gone. You have to understand that bikers don’t use things like high powered rifles, or I would have been dead getting out of the truck. They want their assassinations to have that personal touch.
“I had just started using my pneumatic nail gun and you know how noisy the compressor was, not to mention the gun, or I might have heard him. Next thing I knew, there was someone standing next to me. I looked up and could see right up the barrel of his pistol. He grinned down at me and said, ‘Gotcha.’
“He was holding the gun in his right hand and I could see the fool still had the safety on. I quickly pressed the nail gun against the top of his boot and pulled the trigger a few times.”
“Oh my God!” I said involuntarily, cringing at the thought of nails going through someone’s foot.
Jean-Claude’s smile was grim. “It was enough. He looked down for that split second I needed. I knocked the pistol from his hand by smashing it with the nail gun. After that, it didn’t take too long. They hadn’t sent one of their experienced men. I suppose it was someone trying to make his mark. You cannot be a full-patch member of a biker gang unless you’ve killed someone.”
&n
bsp; “And you used the fire to cover up your tracks.”
“It was fortunate that he was nearly the same size as me. I knew that I had been given an unbelievable chance. I sat down to think and it didn’t take too long to come up with a scenario that just might work. I switched my clothes with his and stuck my wedding band on his finger, although I didn’t expect the fire would leave much trace if I did everything right. The propane tank I was using for the heater was nearly full and had seen a lot of years, so the safety fence around the top was loose and a bit bent. I just helped it along with a mallet. After that, I laid the tank down in the stone fireplace so it couldn’t shoot off anywhere and placed the body about five feet in front of it. The rest you can figure out I’m sure. When I smashed off the guard and then the handle to make it look as if they’d hit something when the tank had been knocked over, you would not believe how the flames shot out. I almost didn’t make it out alive.” He chuckled. “I had to jump out a window.”
“You did it all very well,” I responded sourly.
The meal arrived but my confit de canard and potatoes simply stuck in my throat as I tried to eat. I’ve always had a vivid imagination and what I’d just been told would haunt my dreams for a long time to come.
Jean-Claude had been silent for several minutes, but as I swallowed a bit of my wine, he looked across at me. “You do know that I was working with the Crown and was going to testify?”
I nodded.
“It was either me or him, Marta. There was someone in the Mounties who was a rat. The other two witnesses had been brought down, and I only escaped twice by the skin of my teeth. They were at the front door of my house in B.C. only moments after I’d jumped out a back window. There were two of them that time. I was very lucky.”
“You seem to jump out a lot of windows.”
“The second time, I knew I had to leave without a trace and never come back, never contact anyone again. And that had to include you.”
“Lucky me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We ate in silence for a few minutes and I relaxed a little as the wine began having an effect. The confit was everything I remembered, but I simply could not enjoy it, which I resented more than I probably should have. The sooner I could get this mess over with, the sooner I could get back to a normal life — if you could call the life of an opera singer normal. And in the background hovered Tony, if that was still a viable relationship after what had happened earlier.
Masques and Murder — Death at the Opera 2-Book Bundle Page 24