In Their Footsteps / Stolen: In Their Footsteps / Stolen. Tess Gerritsen

Then he saw the bright trickle of blood that had traced its way down her hairline and vanished into the black fabric of her turtlenecked shirt. In panic, he reached out to her and gave her shoulder a shake. “Colette?”

      She slid toward him and toppled into his lap.

      He stared at her head, now resting in his arms. In her temple was a single, neat bullet hole.

      He scarcely remembered scrambling out of the car. What he did remember were the screams of a woman passerby. Then, moments later, he focused on the shocked faces of people who’d been drawn onto this quiet side street by the screams. They were all pointing at the woman’s arm hanging limply out of the car. And they were staring at him.

      Numbly, Jordan looked down at his own hands.

      They were smeared with blood.

       Chapter 5

      From the crowd of onlookers standing on the corner, Amiel Foch watched the police handcuff the Englishman and lead him away. An unintended development, he thought. Not at all what he’d expected to happen.

      Then again, he hadn’t expected to see Colette LaFarge ever again. Or, even worse, to be seen by her. They’d worked together only once, and that was three years ago in Cyprus. He’d hoped, when he walked past her car, with his head down and his shoulders hunched, that she would not notice him. But as he’d headed away, he’d heard her call out his name in astonishment.

      He’d had no alternative, he thought as he watched the attendants load her body into the ambulance. French Intelligence thought he was dead. Colette could have told them otherwise.

      It hadn’t been an easy thing to do. But as he’d turned to face her, his decision was already made. He had walked slowly back to her car. Through the windshield, he’d seen her look of wonder at a dead colleague come back to life. She’d sat frozen, staring at the apparition. She had not moved as he approached the driver’s side. Nor did she move as he thrust his silenced automatic into her car window and fired.

      Such a waste of a pretty girl, he thought as the ambulance drove away. But she should have known better.

      The crowd was dispersing. It was time to leave.

      He edged toward the curb. Quietly he dropped his pistol in the gutter and kicked it down the storm drain. The weapon was stolen, untraceable; better to have it found near the scene of the crime. It would cement the case against Jordan Tavistock.

      Several blocks away, he found a telephone. He dialed his client.

      “Jordan Tavistock has been arrested for murder,” said Foch.

      “Whose murder?” came the sharp reply.

      “One of Daumier’s agents. A woman.”

      “Did Tavistock do it?”

      “No. I did.”

      There was a sudden burst of laughter from his client. “This is priceless! Absolutely priceless! I ask you to follow Jordan, and you have him framed for murder. I can’t wait to see what you do with his sister.”

      “What do you wish me to do?” asked Foch.

      There was a pause. “I think it’s time to resolve this mess,” he said. “Finish it.”

      “The woman is no problem. But her brother will be difficult to reach, unless I can find a way into the prison.”

      “You could always get yourself arrested.”

      “And when they identify my fingerprints?” Foch shook his head. “I need someone else for that job.”

      “Then I’ll find you someone,” came the reply. “For now, let’s work on one thing at a time. Beryl Tavistock.”

      

      A TURKISH MAN NOW OWNED the building on Rue Myrha. He’d tried to improve it. He’d painted the exterior walls, shored up the crumbling balconies, replaced the missing roof slates, but the building, and the street on which it stood, seemed beyond rehabilitation. It was the fault of the tenants, explained Mr. Zamir, as he led them up two flights of stairs to the attic flat. What could one do with tenants who let their children run wild? By all appearances, Mr. Zamir was a successful businessman, a man whose tailored suit and excellent English bespoke prosperous roots. There were four families in the building, he said, all of them reliable enough with the rent. But no one lived in the attic flat—he’d always had difficulty renting that one out. People had come to inspect the place, of course, but when they heard of the murder, they quickly backed out. These silly superstitions! Oh, people claim they do not believe in ghosts, but when they visit a room where two people have died…

      “How long has the flat been empty?” asked Beryl.

      “A year now. Ever since I have owned the building. And before that—” he shrugged “—I do not know. It may have been empty for many years.” He unlocked the door. “You may look around if you wish.”

      A puff of stale air greeted them as they pushed open the door—the smell of a room too long shut away from the world. It was not an unpleasant room. Sunshine washed in through a large, dirtstreaked window. The view looked down over Rue Myrha, and Beryl could see children kicking a soccer ball in the street. The flat was completely empty of furniture; there were only bare walls and floor. Through an open door, she glimpsed the bathroom with its chipped sink and tarnished fixtures.

      In silence Beryl circled the flat, her gaze moving across the wood floor. Beside the window, she came to a halt. The stain was barely visible, just a faint brown blot in the oak planks. Whose blood? she wondered. Mum’s? Dad’s? Or is it both of theirs, eternally mingled?

      “I have tried to sand the stain away,” said Mr. Zamir. “But it goes very deep into the wood. Even when I think I have erased it, in a few weeks the stain seems to reappear.” He sighed. “It frightens them away, you know. The tenants, they do not like to see such reminders on their floor.”

      Beryl swallowed hard and turned to look out the window. Why on this street? she wondered. In this room? Of all the places in Paris, why did they die here?

      She asked quietly, “Who owned this building, Mr. Zamir? Before you did?”

      “There were many owners. Before me, it was a M. Rosenthal. And before him, a M. Dudoit.”

      “At the time of the murder,” said Richard, “the landlord was a man named Jacques Rideau. Did you know him?”

      “I am sorry, I do not. That would have been many years ago.”

      “Twenty.”

      “Then I would not have met him.” Mr. Zamir turned to the door. “I will leave you alone. If you have questions, I will be down in number three for a while.”

      Beryl heard the man’s footsteps creak down the stairs. She looked at Richard and saw that he was standing off in a corner, frowning at the floor. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

      “About Inspector Broussard. How he kept trying to point at that photo. The spot he was pointing to would be somewhere around here. Just to the left of the door.”

      “There’s nothing to look at. And there was nothing in the photo, either.”

      “That’s what bothers me. He seemed so troubled by it. And there was something about a briefcase…”

      “The NATO file,” she said softly.

      He looked at her. “How much have you been told about Delphi?”

      “I know it wasn’t Mum or Dad. They would never have gone to the other side.”

      “People go over for different reasons.”

      “But not them. They certainly didn’t need the money.”

      “Communist sympathies?”

      “Not the