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

of her nails kept her looking more glamorous than grieving. She began clipping two large pearls to her ears and clasped a neat little bag under her elbow. She closed her bedroom door behind her before Fen could see if she’d found a vase for the flowers.

‘Gosh, don’t you look pretty,’ Fen complimented Simone, relieved to have a change of subject – she hadn’t liked the tension that had building between her and James in regards to the Arnault brothers. ‘What super pearls.’

Simone finished clipping them onto her ears and smiled, meekly. ‘They were a present from dear Rose.’

‘How lucky the thief didn’t raid our rooms,’ Fen caught herself thinking out loud.

‘Yes,’ Simone agreed. ‘Ready, James?’

‘Yes.’ He got up to leave, but then hovered by where Fen was still sitting, Tipper now gently snoring on her lap. ‘I’ll come with you tomorrow. To go and question Antoine and Gervais. I don’t want you heading over to that part of town, and, well, especially not if Henri is correct.’

‘Thank you, James.’ Fen smiled up and him and then shooed him away. Personally she couldn’t contemplate a night out, not so soon after Rose had died, but then people grieved in different ways. Perhaps Simone needed the distraction to help her cope with the shock. With this in mind, Fen tried her best to sound jolly. ‘Now go and have fun, you two.’

Simone waved and was gone with barely a backward glance, while James hesitated just slightly before wishing Fen a good night. ‘Just you and me then tonight, Tipper,’ Fen said as she wandered through to the kitchen to see what else she could scrape together from Rose’s rapidly diminishing cupboards. The day had taken its toll on her, emotionally at least, and while they were gallivanting she was happy to have a quiet and early night.

Before bed, though, that evening she did find the napkin she’d been writing on and carefully printed out two more words on the grid.

She wasn’t sure why quite yet, but the little dog who was now curled up at the end of her bed kept coming to mind, and, of course, with the Arnaults possibly involved, it made her think of Rose’s list of paintings and how they all had a hand in the scheme. Fen also wondered, as she wrote the words down, if someone had had a hand in something altogether less virtuous to do with all that artwork, and if that had led to Rose’s death?

Twenty-Five

Fen woke up with the napkin stuck between her cheek and the pillow. She peeled it away from her skin as she blinked her eyes open and then looked at the words again. There was definitely something ringing out at her about them… Paintbrush, cipher, forgeries, chameleon, Tipper, list… Why had those words stuck out to her in particular? She recited the words over again and then put the napkin to one side and slipped out of the blankets.

She had barely opened her bedroom door when she was met by a soft wet nose and a ball of fluffy energy and Fen leaned down and picked up Tipper.

‘Good morning and goodbye Fen,’ Simone called out from the hallway and Fen called back a goodbye as she carried Tipper to the kitchen, where she found some meat scraps for him for his breakfast.

‘Looks like I’ll have to sweet-talk the butcher this morning for you,’ she said as she stroked the little dog between the ears as his muzzle was deep in his food bowl. Fen’s own stomach rumbled and she added, ‘And for me, too, I think.’

With thoughts of crispy bacon sandwiches and a proper roast leg of lamb milling around her head, she washed and dressed and then took Tipper out to the courtyard garden so he could uncross his legs. She was back up in the apartment and ready in good time for James’s arrival. He knocked on the door at 8.30 a.m. sharp and was heralded by Tipper yapping.

‘Calm down, fella,’ James knelt down and played with the dog, winding it round in circles as it followed his hand.

‘You’re just winding him up, James,’ Fen ticked him off as she led him through to the studio.

‘You’d think he’d know me by now, wouldn’t you?’

Fen laughed, not unkindly, but she teased him with the thought that perhaps Tipper knew exactly what he was doing, protecting the ladies of the house…

‘I’ll have you know that I left Simone chastely untouched and by this very front door by eleven o’clock last night.’

Fen chuckled again. ‘I know! I heard you both not very chastely saying goodbye in the corridor!’

James blushed slightly and shrugged his shoulder and murmured something about the ‘heat of the moment’ and ‘best intentions’.

‘Anyway, you’ve already missed her, I’m afraid – she headed off at the crack of dawn to get to work.’

‘Did Tipper alert you to that fact?’ James crouched down and started playing with the miniature poodle again.

‘No, Simone and I obviously pose no excitement whatsoever for the little beast.’ Fen grinned indulgently at the dog, then sighed. ‘And I’ll have you know I was up and about in time to say goodbye to her. Sort of. Anyway, I suppose we better get this visit to Antoine over with. I have Monsieur Blanquer the solicitor arriving at eleven, so we better get a move on.’

The two of them took the bus to the north of the city, where the ancient Gothic cathedral of St Denis stood in what was now an area of small residential streets and industrial warehousing. Fen had studied the great cathedral church under Rose’s supervision during her art lessons and knew all about the beautiful stained-glass windows that would apparently bring the congregation closer to the light of heaven.

It was a lovely thought, and no doubt the birthplace of what became the Gothic style of architecture, but St Denis held a darker secret too. The old barracks in the neighbourhood had been an internment camp during the war,