same man I saw, the one we now think is the victim. But what if someone else had been on his trail, or trying to find Madame Yvette?”
“Philippe du Bois?” Watkins shook his head incredulously. “He’s lost all contact with the real world. She said so.”
“Crazy people can be very cunning when they want to.”
“You’ve seen him now. You want me to believe that he slipped out of this place, went over to England, then found his way to Wales, killed someone and got back again?”
Evan sighed. “I suppose it is a little far-fetched. If he’s checked as often as they say, someone would have noticed him missing. And he would have needed money and a passport—which he might have had, of course. I just wanted to see whether he could have possibly rented the car, not our victim. But you’re right. Now I’ve seen him I think it’s highly unlikely that it was him. We’ll have to put Terry’s sinister stranger down to too much television.”
“And he didn’t react at all to the mention of Jean Bouchard’s name,” Watkins said. “So where now? To the orphanage to check on Yvette?”
“I wouldn’t say no to a bite of something to eat,” Evan said. “It’s been hours since we had breakfast.”
“Sounds good,” Watkins said. “Let’s find out where this orphanage is first, shall we?”
They found the young nun at the reception desk and asked her the question. She looked puzzled. “Zere is no orphanage ’ere, monsieur.”
“But we were told it was in Abbeville.” Evan managed the words in French.
“Once I sink zere were zee orphans who live in our convent,” she said. “Wait ’ere. I bring one of zee sisters who perhaps remember zis.”
She bustled off and a few minutes later returned with a round-faced nun who smiled shyly at them.
“Zis is Sister Angélique,” the young nun said. “She once ’elped wiz zee orphalines.”
The nun nodded. “Les petites filles,” she said, holding out her hand to indicate the height of the children.
“Ask her if she remembers Yvette Hétreau.”
The older nun’s face became animated. She spoke rapidly to the younger woman, nodding and smiling as she talked.
“She remember ’er,” the young nun said at last. “She was very clever—no? She leave ’ere when she is maybe sixteen and she go as au pair to work in England and zen later Sister Angelique ’ear zat she become zee famous chef. Sister Angelique say she is very proud of ’er.”
“Does Sister Angélique know anything about her marriage or where she lived more recently?”
The older nun shook her head when asked the question.
“She ’eard no more from Yvette after she write to say she will study at zee Cordon Bleu school in Paris. She wish Yvette would write to her or come to visit.”
“We’ll tell her to write,” Evan said and the old nun’s face lit up again.
“All right, let’s go over what we know so far,” Watkins said. They were sitting in an outdoor café on an old square and working their way through a basket of croissants and brioches.
“We’ve established that Jean Bouchard could have got his hands on Philippe du Bois’s identity. We’ve learned that Yvette went to England as a young girl and then to the cooking school, but we’ve no proof of her marriage or what she did when she came out of cooking school. I’d like to know what the Bouchards did before they came to England. Did they own any previous restaurants that burned down, or did they get themselves mixed up in undesirable company.”
“And how do you think we’re going to find that out?” Watkins reached for another croissant and helped himself to another spoonful of apricot jam to go with it.
“I think it will be easy enough to come up with the marriage certificate,” Evan said, “but I think that maybe we should go to Paris and check on her time at the cooking school.”
Watkins grinned. “Any excuse to get to Gay Paree, eh?”
“Not me, Sarge,” Evan said. “I can’t say I like big cities, not even Paris. And I certainly don’t want to drive there. I don’t harbor a death wish at the moment. When we get to the outskirts I suggest that we find a place to park the car and then take the metro.”
Delicious smells wafted through the hallways of the Cordon Bleu school, reminding Evan it must be lunchtime, even though they had had a late breakfast at Abbeville. He felt exhausted and his nerves were frazzled from driving into Paris. They