Paris Love Match - By Nigel Blackwell Page 0,30

At last she flipped open the umbrella and he had to fight back the urge to run downstairs and hold it for her.

He dragged himself away from the window and into the kitchen. The drawers were full of pots and pans, all well-used. He rummaged through them and found nothing. An enormous collection of sharp knives lined the work surfaces and Piers felt a chill as April’s words trained killers pushed into his mind.

He used a spoon to stir the sugar, the coffee beans, and the flour, but there was nothing hidden in any of them. The breadbasket contained an old French loaf, which was hard enough to be classed as an offensive weapon. Outside the kitchen window was a rusty fire escape that looked like it hadn’t been used in years.

The bedroom was different from the other rooms. He felt uncomfortable as he looked at an array of candles and a line of furry animals. Auguste wouldn’t have had them without April. Piers bit his lip as he remembered her walking off into the crowds. He should have treated her better. He hadn’t appreciated Auguste and April’s relationship, he’d only thought of him as the man that nearly got them killed and her as a woman keeping secrets.

The scent from the candles was feminine and a blessed relief from the stink from his clothes. He gave a short laugh as he remembered Sidney’s apartment. She dressed well, but her home had been a mess—not dirty, just well-used. He ran his finger over the candles and wondered if there was a softer side of Sidney.

The closet was divided down the middle, April’s clothes on the right, Auguste’s on the left. Each of them had three pairs of shoes. He had a black umbrella in his corner; she had a red one in hers’. Piers looked back around the room. They had been very exact about everything. This man didn’t improvise.

Piers drummed his fingers on the closet door. Auguste didn’t just decide he was going to steal the painting on a whim. He’d planned it in advance—when he was going to steal it, how he was going to steal it, and how he was going to get away. It wasn’t a heat of the moment thing; he had train tickets and his girlfriend waiting at the station for him.

Piers moved to the bathroom and found it had April’s touches, too. A painting of a sunflower hung beside the door and a line of creams and fragrances stretched along one side of the sink. Auguste’s razors and shaving foam were in a cabinet above the toilet. The cabinet had a slope to it, and Piers had to catch a razor that fell out as he opened the door.

Under the sink there were the usual cleaning items and a metal bar with two points that Piers couldn’t envisage a use for.

He slumped onto the edge of the bath. He’d found nothing. The place was a model for clean and organized. Everything had its place and everything was in it. April must have had her own apartment, because her presence in this one was restricted to the bedroom and bathroom. But where she had a presence, everything had been shared, fifty-fifty, even steven, right down the middle. He looked up with a wry grin, everything except the cabinet above the toilet, and who’d want to put anything in there, if it was going to roll out into the toilet?

Piers stood up and looked at the cabinet. The rest of the house was well looked after, organized, cared for. It wouldn’t have taken much to adjust the cabinet so things didn’t roll out. He ran his fingers around the edge of the cabinet. It was solidly fixed to the wall. He opened it up and saw why. The rear of the cabinet was metal and two tamper-proof security bolts secured it, top and bottom. He ran his finger over them. They were rough with small holes in them.

He heard voices downstairs.

He wrestled with the cabinet, but it wasn’t going to move. Whoever put it on the wall, didn’t want it to come off.

The voices grew excited, something about a hoax caller, a misuse of police time, and tracing the call. The police were back.

He thumped the cabinet on the side. The razors and shaving foam fell out, clattering onto the floor and splashing in the toilet bowl. The security bolts were weird. They had a sloped surface with two small holes. French engineering, he thought,