Paris Love Match - By Nigel Blackwell Page 0,20
glance.
April pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose. “What happened?”
“We were in a taxi. He jumped in.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“He did. People were shooting at him.”
“There shouldn’t have been … no … he wouldn’t have been in a taxi.”
“All we know is he jumped in our taxi.”
April blew her nose. “So how did you find me?”
Piers pulled the wallet from his pocket and held up the train tickets.
Sobbing, April took them. She ran her finger down the line of the blood on the leather. “Are you police?”
Sidney shook her head.
“Then why do you have this?” April held up the wallet.
“We took it,” Sidney said.
April’s eyebrows narrowed. “You took it off my Auguste?”
Sidney hesitated then nodded.
April put her hands around the wallet. “You took it from him when he was dying?” She shoved Sidney backward. “You stole it. You’re a thief. You’re a con … you, you … maybe you killed him.”
“No, no. He jumped in our taxi. He was injured.”
April turned to Piers. “You had his phone. You took his phone. You must have killed him.”
“No, the men he was running from were shooting at us. They killed him. They did.”
“You used his phone.”
“To find you.”
April’s face jerked and contorted, a slow dance of pain and grief. “No, no, no.”
Auguste’s phone buzzed in Piers’ pocket. As he reached for it, April launched a punch. She hit him at the base of his ribs. He didn’t think it was going to hurt but the pain welled up through his lungs and down through his stomach. He gripped his side and stumbled backward, crashing into the railing overlooking the platform.
April ran.
Sidney took off after her.
Piers fumbled Auguste’s ringing phone from his pocket. “What?”
It was Little’s high-pitched voice, but without a hint of his sarcastic tone. “Don’t know what you’re doing up there, but you might want to leave quick. You’ve got company. The police are heading your way.”
Chapter 11
Piers heard Sidney calling for April to stop. He watched the pair come to a halt a short distance from the steps. For a moment, he was relieved that April appeared to be heading back, but it was only a moment, because a line of French police officers, gendarmes, appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Find a bloody door!” Sidney shouted as she sprinted toward him, April just a pace behind.
He forced himself up and worked from door to door until he found an open one that led to a staircase.
“Go!” yelled Sidney as she arrived at the door.
He didn’t need further prompting. He headed up the bare concrete stairs, three at a time.
On each floor, he slammed into the exit doors, but they were locked, designed only to be opened from the other side. Sweating, he reached the top of the stairs. He hammered on the last door while crushing his face against a small wire-reinforced porthole and peering left and right. Beyond the door, he saw a plush corridor with an old painting of the station and its famous train wreck dangling from the second floor. Sidney joined in hammering on the door.
“They’re on the steps,” April said.
Piers started kicking the door to make more noise. A waiter’s face appeared at the window. Sidney pressed her face up to the porthole, screamed help, and implored him with her eyes. The door lock clicked in an instant.
Piers shoulder-barged the door. It flew open, smacking the waiter in the face and sending Piers stumbling into the far wall. Sidney and April were right behind. Sidney slammed the door. They were in a corridor with imposing entrances at either end.
The waiter rubbed his face. “Madame et monsieur, the entrance is at the next stairway.” As he pointed to a grand door at the end of the corridor it swung open, and two police officers rushed through.
“We’ve got to go,” Piers said.
The officers shouted for them to stop. Piers grabbed Sidney’s hand and ran in the opposite direction down the corridor. He heard April’s shoes thumping behind him. He ran through an archway, and they stamped into an ocean of tranquility. A thick carpet padded gently underfoot. The walls were decorated with a dark, velvet wallpaper and gold-framed paintings. Spotlights picked out intimate tables. In uncanny unison, the diners at those tables turned to look at them.
“Excuse us,” Sidney said, as she dodged her way through the well-dressed patrons toward a pair of swing doors on the right side of the room. April followed and Piers brought up the rear. A rotund maître d’