Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,62

to the B & B’s bedside table, it was just light enough to check her watch. It was five thirty in the morning. Dawn was breaking and the room’s shadows were beginning to slowly lighten. Abby looked across at Ellie’s bed.

It was empty.

Puzzled, Abby got out from under the covers. She checked the bathroom but Ellie wasn’t there either. Her suitcase was still beside the bed, but her shoes that she’d left by the door were missing.

Abby quickly got dressed and packed up her things. She took both her and Ellie’s luggage and quietly carried it down the shadowy stairs. As she neared the ground floor, she thought she could hear a muffled voice, but then it became quiet and she felt she must have been mistaken. Where the hell is Ellie?

‘Morning,’ whispered her little sister as she appeared from somewhere in the darkness at the back of reception. ‘You couldn’t sleep either, eh?’

Abby jumped in fright. She looked at Ellie, who seemed pale and a little distracted. ‘Is that why you came down?’

Ellie nodded. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’

Her sister was staring at the bags in her hand. ‘I think we should get going,’ said Abby, by way of explanation.

Ellie snapped her head up in alarm. ‘What, now?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s the rush?’

‘Shush! Don’t wake anyone,’ said Abby. ‘We should go while the roads are quiet.’

Ellie didn’t move. She seemed to be searching for something to say.

‘You want to stay longer?’ queried Abby, a frown appearing on her face.

‘No,’ said Ellie quickly. She attempted a smile. ‘Happy to get on.’

‘Good.’ Abby hurried over to the desk and opened her purse. Suddenly she stopped. Agonized, she bit her lip.

‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Ellie, her heart racing.

Abby looked up. ‘You don’t have a five-euro note, do you?’

‘What for?’

‘The room is eighty-five euros and I only have tens.’ Abby saw Ellie was staring at her incredulously. Abby grudgingly put some money on the table. ‘Guess Madame will get a tip,’ she said, then made her way to the front door. When she looked back, Ellie was still standing in the hallway. ‘Well, come on then.’

‘Yes,’ her sister said and finally picked up her suitcase and followed her.

The sun was lightening the very bottom strip of the sky, a pale blue line flecked with gold. The girls crunched across the gravel and put their bags on the back seat of the car. Then they got in and buckled up. As Abby pulled away, Ellie quietly, anxiously, checked her watch.

‘No tolls, remember,’ said Abby and Ellie jumped to, retrieving the road map from the door pocket. She concentrated for a moment on their route, directing Abby to the quieter roads. After a few minutes they heard the sound of sirens. Abby urgently looked in her mirrors but the road behind was empty. Then they saw them: two, three police cars on a road running adjacent to theirs, going in the opposite direction.

‘I wonder what that’s all about?’ mused Abby.

‘Hmm,’ said Ellie, but then the police had gone, their sirens fading into the distance.

They continued to drive, away from Carcassonne. Abby saw Ellie glancing in the wing mirror. After the third time she asked, ‘Is there something up?’

‘No! Nothing,’ said Ellie.

‘Only you keep looking behind us.’

‘There’s nothing there,’ reassured Ellie.

Abby frowned. ‘Is everything OK? You seem a bit jumpy.’

‘Just tired. No sleep, you know.’

Abby nodded and then looked back at the road. ‘At least the police have gone,’ she said.

Ellie kept silent.

FORTY-THREE

The three police cars, sirens now silenced, pulled up into the driveway of Le Jardin Bed & Breakfast. Police emptied out of the vehicles, running stealthily up to the building, spreading out, covering every exit.

‘Ouvrez cette porte! Police!’ shouted the French chief. His colleague stood by with the ram – he’d give it five seconds before giving him the nod to use it. His team were in position at the back of the building. A window opened a couple of floors up and a bleary-eyed woman leaned her head out, asked what was going on. They ignored her.

The front door suddenly opened. An imperious middle-aged woman in a bed jacket, her long grey hair curled over one shoulder, stood on the threshold.

‘Are you the owner of this business?’ asked the police chief, in French, as he entered, his team streaming past into the property.

The madame eyed him haughtily. ‘Yes.’

‘We’re looking for two English women, mid-thirties.’

‘They’re on the second floor. Room five.’

The words were barely out of her mouth when the police chief, accompanied by his colleague,