Paris Love Match - By Nigel Blackwell Page 0,35
know, I know.”
“And we stink.”
“We can blame it on the dog.”
She glowered at him and stomped off.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to get new clothes. I am not going to smell worse than the damn dog.”
Piers pulled the black plastic bag out of his pocket and chased after her, waving it in the air. “Wait, wait. I found this.”
She stopped and grabbed the bag out of his hand. “And when were you going to tell me?”
“I just did!”
“I asked you what you found and all you told me was how clean the place was.”
“You asked what I found.”
“Exactly.”
“I found the place clean.”
“Do you really think I was interested in that?”
“Well—”
“Perhaps I should have asked about the color of their drapes.”
“Give it a rest.”
“Pah!” She flapped the bag in his face. “And what else did you find, eh?”
Piers stepped back. “Nothing. That was it. The place was empty apart from that.”
She gave an exasperated sigh. “Sure.”
“Really,” he said.
Rover hopped over and rubbed against her leg. She pushed him away.
“Really,” he repeated.
Rover moved gingerly back and stood beside her.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out one way or another.” She tucked the bag inside her jacket and walked off. “I’m still getting new clothes.”
Chapter 16
Piers ran after Sidney. “We can’t just go shopping. We need to check out that bag.”
“We? So you’re including me in your plans now, are you?”
“When haven’t I included you?”
“How would I know if I wasn’t included?”
He screwed his face up. “I don’t understand. Look, we need to find somewhere quiet to open the bag.”
She glowered at him. “Quiet? What’s the point?” She pulled out the bag, dug her fingernails in and ripped it apart.
Piers glimpsed a flash of something shiny, and caught it. “It’s a key.” He turned it over. “There’s a number.”
He tried to look in the remains of the bag. She moved it away from him, pulled out several sheets of paper, and flipped through them. “Swiss Free Bank. Safety deposit box.” She turned the page over and gestured for the key. He handed it over and she compared the key and the papers. “Different numbers. We’re screwed.”
He held his hands out. “Can I?”
She glowered at him before handing the papers over. He looked through them. “What’s the number on the key?”
“It’s no good. There’s more digits in the account number.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Please?”
She grunted and read out the key’s six digits.
He smiled.
She snatched the papers from him. “What?” Her eyes bored into him. “What?”
He forced himself to stop smiling. “The key’s six digits are in the middle of his account number.”
She furrowed her brow and flipped from examining the paper to the key and back again. “What do you know?” She smiled. “You’re not just a pretty face.”
He couldn’t help himself grinning. She drove him mad, she defied all reason, and she changed her moods faster than Parisians drove, but she was the most wonderful person he had ever met, and he trusted her completely.
Chapter 17
Sidney stuffed the key and papers into her pocket, and set off fast.
Piers raced to keep up with her, with Rover only too pleased to bound alongside. “Will you stop?”
“Why? You got another admission to make?” She continued her rapid walk.
“No, I don’t know where we’re going.”
“I do.”
“Well, I don’t and we need to—”
“Need to what? Work as a team? The same sort of team that kept the existence of the black bag to himself?”
“I didn’t keep it to myself. And you have the bag.”
She huffed. “And how can I trust anything you say?”
Rover and Piers kept up, trying to stay alongside her. They walked along a line of shops until Piers called for them to stop.
She stood with her hands on her hips. “What?”
He pointed to the shop behind her. A bank of TVs displayed the frozen image of a girl, one eye half-open and the other closed, rushing toward a Métro exit. Her mouth was wide open and her tongue stuck out. Her wet black hair formed clumps that zigzagged across her head. Her jacket was twisted sideways and the roof-mounted camera was pointed down the cleavage of her blouse.
“Merde!” Sidney said.
He turned and she was already stomping off down the street. He gave chase. “Okay, so they have a picture of you, but it was a miracle they didn’t get a picture on the motorbike.”
“Oh yeah, right. They couldn’t get a picture of me on the bike, could they? No. No action shot for me. No dramatic pose. No catching my best side. No, no,