Night Train to Paris by Fliss Chester (best romantic novels to read txt) 📗

The word, as much as the image itself, of PAINTBRUSH stuck in her mind. It was the brutality of it. It was so forceful, yet also silent. Silent… There would have been no sound of a pistol to alert the neighbours, but it also didn’t feel like the weapon of choice for a premeditated murder. A paintbrush… It was so pertinent to the woman herself, too. Like a writer being killed with a pen, or a lorry driver being killed with a wrench.

Gervais ‘The Wrench’… perhaps Henri had a point after all.

The rain started up again and, with little motivation to leave the café, Fen decided to order a late breakfast of simple baguette and jam and wait out the storm until it, hopefully, passed.

Pass it did and Fen followed the now familiar route back towards the large grey doors of Rose’s apartment building. She turned the cast-iron handle and let herself into the communal hallway. The rank of mailboxes caught her eye, and before she headed up the stairs, she walked over to them and paused to look at the names.

‘Aha. Mde Coillard, Apt 5,’ she read out from the card slipped into the slot on the front of one of the boxes.

The box had a simple but effective lock, like that of a safety deposit box, and apart from the narrow slit at the top of the door, there was no way to get into it, or see what might be inside.

There must be a key upstairs somewhere, Fen thought to herself as she gave the mailbox’s door one more rattle just to make sure, before she carried on up the stairs.

‘Hello! Simone!’ Fen called as she opened the front door. ‘Oh hello, Tipper.’

The dog jumped up at her and she picked him up, and was rewarded with a quick few licks to her nose.

‘Oh Tipper.’

Dog breath aside, she was relieved that the essence of Rose was still very much apparent in the apartment. However, the familiar smell of ylang-ylang and turpentine, with some cigarette smoke thrown in, was now tinged with the throat-burning smell of bleach.

As Fen walked with a squirming Tipper in her arms through the darkness of the hallway to the light-filled studio, she saw Simone on her hands and knees, scrubbing the wooden parquet floor, a bundle of dust sheets next to her that looked ready for the rubbish bin.

‘Simone, oh dear. Here, sit up,’ Fen put the little dog down and went over to the weeping girl.

‘Someone had to do it,’ she sniffled as she scrubbed, not even looking up from the floor. ‘Oh… Rose.’

Mrs B would tell me to get a good strong brew on, Fen thought, remembering her old landlady. ‘Simone, come and sit over here and I’ll pop some tea on. You’ll hurt yourself with all that bleach and no gloves on, gosh your poor hands. What’s come over you?’

‘I just couldn’t bear it! How could you bear it?’ Simone let herself be helped up by Fen and sank into one of the armchairs.

‘The police cleaner had done a very good job, don’t you think? Now, look at your hands, you silly thing.’ Fen reached over and took Simone’s red, sore-looking hands in hers. ‘If only I had some decent hand cream. Here, let me pop the kettle on and then I’ll raid Rose’s room. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’

When Fen returned, with a teapot of Lipton’s finest and a tub of aqueous cream from Rose’s dressing table, she sat down opposite Simone and started to pour.

‘I’m sorry, it should be stronger really, but I’m too impatient to let it brew.’

‘I don’t mind, thank you. And for this.’ Simone started rubbing the white cream into her hands.

Fen sipped her own tea and then the thought occurred to her about James.

‘I’m so sorry, I thought I was leaving you in good hands with James here this morning. I would never have left you alone after, well, after last night, if I thought he wouldn’t be on hand to… to stop you from getting upset.’ Fen glanced over to where the bleach and scrubbing had left the old parquet floor in a terrible state.

‘James was here for a bit, yes.’ Simone shifted in her seat, then reached down for her own cup of tea. ‘But he wanted to start talking to the other residents before they left for work or out for the day. Then he said he had some errands of his own to run. I’m afraid I was quite alone.’ She sniffed and Fen fished around in her pocket for a hanky.

I’d hoped of better from him, she thought, sighing out a long breath as she handed over her handkerchief to sniffling Simone. She would have to have another word with him about leading the poor girl on; he really shouldn’t just be present for the fun bits. But she did appreciate his help with canvassing the other apartments. Hopefully his interviews would turn up some useful clue, such as ‘man seen running away clasping a wrench’ or ‘sound of newly tuned engine running outside’. She could but hope.

Simone started weeping again, but with tea and hanky administered, Fen wasn’t sure of what else she could do. She took in a deep breath. ‘This isn’t what Rose would have wanted,’ she said, leaning forward and gently wobbling one of Simone’s angular knees. ‘Why don’t you go and get washed and brushed and I’ll pack away all this bleach. Then we can have another pot of tea and work out what to do next.’

‘Rose always said you had more of a practical head than an artistic one,’ Simone said, through her sniffles.

‘As much as I’d love to have been the next Michelangelo, I fear she was right, Simone.’ Fen got up and squeezed the younger woman’s shoulder as she walked past her. ‘Give me a puzzle over a paintbrush any day of the week!’

Twenty-Three

The two women sat opposite each other on the armchairs in the studio room, which now reeked of bleach. Fen