Author: Anne Stuart
Category: Suspense
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A cold, wet breeze blew in his open window, and he shivered lightly. Maybe it was time to go back.
Chief Inspector Malgreave leaned his weary face out into the rain, letting the cool mist cover him. He couldn’t sleep—he never could on rainy nights. Not since they’d realized that the old women were always murdered in the rain. He would lie there, careful not to wake Marie, and picture Rocco Guillère skulking through the city.
He had to get over that fixation. Rocco was only part of the answer. There had to be at least three different people murdering the old women—Rocco was only one of them. Homicide had borrowed some of the best minds in law enforcement in the world, and the physical evidence they were amassing was prodigious. But given the angles of the wounds, the saliva on the women’s mouths, the traces of hair and fiber, it was certain they were dealing with perhaps a whole band of lunatics.
He shivered. His mother’s mother had been a warm, comfortable farm wife in Provence, with a ready cuff to the ear and an inexhaustible supply of cakes for a greedy grandson. His father’s mother had been more austere—a retired schoolteacher who stood no nonsense. He’d loved them both, grieved when they died, and then continued on with his life. Who could hate old ladies so much that they would deprive them of their last few years on this earth?
Of course, the lives that were snuffed out weren’t always the most pleasant. The women lived alone, in tiny, crowded apartments, living out their days in discreet, genteel penury. He’d toyed with the idea that the murderers were fanatics, convinced they were doing the old women a mercy by ending their lonely existence.
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But he didn’t think so. It didn’t ring true, any more than the notion of copycat killers felt right to a man of his remarkable instincts. But he had to be wrong about the latter. There was no logical reason for three or four people to be murdering old women.
He looked back over his shoulder at his wife’s sleeping figure. She’d creamed her makeup off, and her mouth was open slackly as soft, polite snores issued forth. She would hate it if she knew he was watching her. At times like these she looked a bit as she would when she was very old. Like the old women who were murdered. And he loved her still. Would she still be with him when she grew old? Or would she leave him?
There was no sleep for him tonight. If he wasn’t tormenting himself about the murders he was tormenting himself about Marie. Maybe if he rewrote his notes something new would catch his eye. Besides, he needed a cigarette, and Marie hated it when he smoked in the bedroom.
Carefully he closed the window, shutting out the steady, merciless beat of the rain. His feet were silent on the carpeted floor as he left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. By the time he started making notes, Marie was forgotten. She lay alone in the tiny bedroom, her troubled brown eyes staring blankly at the rain-splattered window and the night outside.
Claire measured the coffee carefully, then returned the jar to the freezing compartment of Marc’s state-of-the-art refrigerator. It was just after six, and the rain had finally let up. Maybe they would have a few days of sun.
Nicole was still sleeping when Claire had checked on her, her pale, plain face streaked with the telltale stain of tears. She must have woken some time during the night, Claire thought with a surge of guilt. Marc’s bedroom was at the opposite end of the huge apartment, and Nicole never, ever entered that room. Claire hadn’t figured out whether it was by inclination or Marc’s command, but even when Marc was out of town Nicole avoided it.
Clear liquids for Nicole, fresh croissants for Marc. She’d found a baker who spoke English. She had to walk twice as far to get to it, but it was worth it. And she enjoyed the empty streets of the Left Bank, the sense of solitude. Early morning was like a piece of time stolen from a jealous god—it didn’t even exist for those who slept through it. It was a secret, precious gift and Claire wouldn’t have given it up for anything, not even the dubious comfort of her bed. The time was hers alone, away from suggestions, opinions, and spying eyes.
God, she was getting paranoid! She hadn’t dealt with the accident properly, that was her problem. She’d been so caught up in guilt and misery and running away that she hadn’t had a chance to come to terms with it. It was no wonder that it was affecting the rest of her life, making her unable to open up, to trust.
Maybe she could find a therapist who spoke English. She’d suggested it once to Marc, and he’d promised to look into it, but the subject had been dropped. She knew he didn’t really approve, considered it a weakness. But damn, right now she felt weak.
The American embassy might be able to help. That was it. Once Marc left next week she’d go over there and talk to someone. They could recommend an American or British therapist living in Paris. They could probably even help her find a laundry where the people spoke English. She’d been passive too long. It was time to face things.
She’d left the address of the embassy sitting on the counter while she went out to the bakery. When she got back Marc was up, sitting there sipping coffee, smiling at her with lazy charm, extending his hand for the newspaper she never forgot to buy.
“Merci, darling,” he said, opening the paper to the grisly picture of a dead old lady. Claire had deliberately folded it inward, hoping not to look, but Marc spread it out on the narrow table and she had no choice. Another murder, she realized with a shudder.
The scrap of paper with the embassy’s address on it was exactly where she had left it. She went over and poured herself a cup of coffee, keeping her eyes averted from the table, when Marc’s low, soothing voice reached her. “I did want to mention something, chérie,” he said. “Did you know the American police are looking for you?”
CHAPTER 3
Gilles Sahut shoved his burly arms into the bucket of water and sluiced the blood from his skin. The water was already a murky shade, and the fresh red diluted swiftly, turning it even darker. Gilles pulled his arms back out, but they were still coated with a faint maroon cast. He shrugged his massive shoulders and wiped the rest off on a filthy towel that had once been white.
He glanced around, not even noticing the carcasses hanging from the rafters. He was glad it wasn’t yet summer. It wasn’t that he minded the smell of blood as it pooled on the cement floor at his feet, but the flies were a nuisance.
He’d been working since five that morning, hacking, slicing, carving. He was proud of his profession. He was a butcher, owner of his own boucherie in a tidy little back street in the Belleville section of Paris. He’d worked hard for it, with no one to help him. His foster parents hadn’t given a damn for the brutish boy who’d been foisted upon them, and he’d cleared out as soon as he could, apprenticing himself to old Maître Clerc. He’d been diligent, patient, and not the slightest bit squeamish, not about butchering cattle, not about putting dye in diseased meat and selling it to nursing mothers, not about putting up with Maître Clerc’s drunken affection. He’d put up with worse in his life.
And he’d waited. Waited until the boucherie had started to show a fair profit, waited until Maître Clerc’s brother died, waited until he’d become indispensable to the old man. And then he’d given him a little push down the stairs and taken over the business he’d worked so hard for.
He no longer sold diseased meats. He had his own reputation to consider, not Clerc’s. It was his name over the shop now, and every morning he looked on it with pride.
And he no longer had to put up with the drunken fondlings of a raddled old fag. Instead he could afford a clean, decent-looking whore who wouldn’t complain if he liked it a little rough. He paid well, and he never marked them.
No, he thought, splashing some of the bloody water over his sweating moon face, life was good. He had his work, he had sex when he needed it, he had friends to drink wine with and play cards. And every few weeks, during the heavy rains, he had the old women.
Why had she lied to him, Claire demanded of herself. Surely she could have told him the truth after so long? Marc wasn’t likely to pass judgment—he had a la
issez-faire attitude about morals that sometimes shocked her.
After all, she was planning to marry the man. Was she fool enough to think a marriage would survive with secrets between them? Oh, by the way, Marc, I happened to have been involved in a hit-and-run accident just before I met you. One of the reasons I came to Paris with you was because I wanted to get away from the police in case they found out what happened. And you thought I came just to be with you?
He wouldn’t like it. He wouldn’t like it one bit. But she had lied to him, quickly, instinctively. “The police? Why in the world would they want to see me?”