was badly burned in the fire. Did you decide to take her place, knowing she’s still lying in some hospital, burned and disfigured?”
Yvette got to her feet. “You policemen, you sink you are so clevair. You sink you know everysing. But you ’ave zee whole sing wrong,” she said. “It was I who was badly burned. I who was disfigured—I who lay in zee ’ospital suffering for months—” With a dramatic gesture she grasped at her hair and whisked it from her head. The right half of her scalp was bald, covered with angry red and purple scars that ran down the back of her neck.
“Not very attractive, eh? Why do you sink I always wear zee high necks and long sleeves, monsieur? I wish to hide my burned body from the world.”
“And yet you tried to seduce me,” Evan said, conscious of Bronwen standing behind him. “Weren’t you going to take your clothes off if I’d taken up your offer?”
The Frenchwoman laughed. “Zat was just a game—to prove to myself zat I was still a woman and I still ’ad zee—how you say—sex appeal. I didn’t really sink you would take me up on it. But if you ’ad, I would have turned out zee light—and I sink you would have been too busy to notice!”
Evan cleared his throat. “So you’re trying to tell me that you were the one in the restaurant fire, not Yvette Bouchard? Where the hell was she, then?”
“She died, monsieur,” the Frenchwoman said simply. “She died in a fire so hot that nozzing remained. And zay didn’t search for zee leetle pieces of bone zat might have been ’ers, because zay thought only one person was in zee building and zay rescue one person—me. You see, nobody but Yvette knew zat I was zere.”
“Why?” Bronwen asked.
“Let’s just say I got out of France in a ’urry.”
“You were running from the law?” Evan asked.
The Frenchwoman laughed bitterly. “From zee law? From zee law zat would not protect me, monsieur.”
Bronwen pulled a chair close to the stove and patted the cushion for Evan to sit. “I think we’d better hear the whole story,” she said. “I’m still awfully confused.”
Evan sat and Bronwen pulled a kitchen stool beside him.
“Very well, I tell you zee story.” The Frenchwoman toyed with the wig in her hands. “And zen you can see zat I am not a criminal.” She stared at the stove, turning away from them. “You are correct—my name is Janine Laroque. Yvette and I were classmates at zee Cordon Bleu. We become friends immediately. We came from zee same situations. We both had nobody in zee world: she was from an orphanage and zen she had worked as an au pair in England for many years. I was raised by an old aunt who died when I was sixteen. We both wanted to be zee world’s greatest chefs . . .” She smiled at the memory and looked up with the smile still on her face. “I was better zan she was. She was—pas mal. I was good. I could have been a great chef, I sink, but I was stupid. I did what young girls do. I fell in love.” The smile faded.
“When we finish at zee Cordon Bleu, I get a job in a famous restaurant in Paris. She goes back to work in England. She loved England. She spoke English very well—she ’ad zee gift of languages. I ’ad zee gift of cooking. I tell her she should be zee teacher or zee interpreter, but she want to be zee chef also.
“Yvette also fall in love wiz a young man she meet on zee Channel boats. She makes a good choice. I do not. I meet my husband when he came into zee restaurant. He was very ’andsome—bronze skin, dark curly hair—like a young god, monsieur. And he was rich. He spend lots of money on me. He sweep me off my feet, as you say. But what do I know of men? When I marry ’eem, I find he is zee bad man—jealous and violent. If I speak wiz a man in the market he goes crazy! I know I must get away, but where? I ’ave nobody.” She turned to look at Bronwen, her eyes imploring her to understand. “Zen my friend Yvette write to me. She has saved up enough money to buy a little restaurant in England. And zen tragedy comes to ’er as well. Her husband falls from his