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

She covered her eyes with her hands and shook her head to try and dislodge the image in her head. ‘James, this can’t be a coincidence, it just can’t be.’

‘I only saw him… He seemed so full of life…’ James’s sentence just faded away.

‘James, I’m so sorry.’ Fen turned away, finally, from the dead body and looked at her friend. They both stood there in silence for a few moments more, taking in the fact that another body was now lying in front of them.

‘So, you don’t think this is a coincidence?’ James was the first to speak, his voice steadier now.

Fen took a deep breath. ‘No. How can it be?’

‘Well, in that we only have Henri’s word that Gervais was blackmailing Rose.’ James looked up at the shiny black car on the ramp. ‘Perhaps it’s a gang thing after all and that Italian chap didn’t like the look of the bill for the paint repairs?’

‘James, be serious.’

‘I am. It’s far more likely that Gervais had got himself involved with some sort of criminal gang than started blackmailing Rose, don’t you think?’

‘I understand what you’re saying, but… two bodies, one so soon after the other? Both connected to the Louvre and artworks in some way, even if Gervais wasn’t blackmailing Rose.’ Fen thought for a second. ‘And, personally, I’m inclined to believe Henri and say that he was. Look, James, this is going to sound terribly callous, but once you’ve phoned the police, we should spend the time before they arrive searching this place for clues.’

‘No three down then yet?’

‘Well, he was it – so no, not any more. But we might at least find something that could tell us who did this to him.’

‘Fine. I’ll call, and you can start with those drawers.’ James nodded to a filing cabinet in the office, which thankfully hadn’t been splashed with any blood from Gervais’s grizzly end.

Fen thought the desk might yield some clues, too, as to what Gervais might have been up to, but she felt understandably squeamish about disturbing the remains of what lay on top of the papers there. One piece of paper, partially hidden under a telephone exchange directory, caught her eye though. Fen waited for James to finish his telephone call and pointed it out to him.

James had a cursory glance at the manifest, holding it between finger and thumb in his left hand.

‘Do you see what I see?’ Fen asked him.

‘A lot of crates of paintings going to the Jeu de Paumes?’

‘And to Valreas & Co auctioneers, by the looks of it.’ Fen thought back to meeting Valentine Valreas at the party the night before. He had known Rose, too, and was perhaps another connection between the murders.

James handed back the manifest to Fen. ‘Well, Henri and Rose told us that the Nazis liked to auction off the art the Führer didn’t want back in Germany, so your new friend Valentine must have been the auctioneer they used.’

Fen frowned and looked at the papers. ‘It’s something else. I don’t know, maybe what isn’t here is as important as what is.’

‘What do you mean?’

Fen shook her head. ‘I don’t know, something Joseph said about the codes being the proof. This list doesn’t have any of Rose’s code on it. And look, the paintings are listed… a Cezanne, a Degas… It’s terrible, isn’t it. Those poor families, robbed and then murdered most likely. No wonder Rose and Henri were doing their utmost to restore what they could to the rightful owners, or their heirs at least. Could this have been what Gervais was blackmailing them for?’

James shrugged his shoulders. He slipped the manifest into a plain envelope he found in the filing cabinet and the two of them carried on their search.

The garage was filthy, but that hadn’t surprised Fen much and, in fact, rooting around the spare parts and cans of oil and lubricant had been a good distraction from the two rather gruesome murders that had happened so close together. All this one needs is a whiff of ylang-ylang, Fen thought to herself as she recoiled from a particularly potent jar of turpentine.

‘Ah,’ James was still at the filing cabinet, coping better it seemed with searching the area closest to the dead body.

‘What is it?’ Fen asked, hoping she wouldn’t have to come too close to see.

‘More lists. Manifests, itineraries, that sort of thing. Hmmm.’ James picked up a document and read it through before reading it aloud to Fen. ‘Invoice to Monsieur M. Lazard, for transporting three crates of paintings to Valreas & Co Auctioneers, Paris.’

‘He knew Lazard, of course,’ Fen stated. ‘Antoine told us that.’

‘And by the looks of some of these chits, he knew the Germans just as well, and Henri Renaud, too. Here, look at this invoice: for transporting one marble bust and three oil paintings to Strasbourg – five hundred francs.’

‘Crikey, that’s a tidy sum. He certainly had his finger in quite a few pies.’ Fen looked up at the black motorcar with its decoration of bullet holes. ‘Do you think these were done at the same time?’

James looked up from the filing cabinet and across to the car. He thought about it. ‘No. It looks like Gervais was killed with a single gunshot to the forehead. That’s a machine gun, like you see in the films.’

‘James…’ Something clicked into place in her head and Fen suddenly pointed to the papers James was holding. ‘I think we might have our answer.’

‘About who killed him?’

‘No, as to whether he was the blackmailer. Look at the piece of paper you’re holding. It’s the same colour as the letter Rose received – blue! And that one has his handwriting on it, does it?’

James looked at the handwritten note towards the bottom of the bundle of paperwork he was holding. He was quiet for a while.

‘It’s his handwriting all right,’ he said quietly, and exhaled. Then he looked at Fen. ‘Looks like you might have been right about him being the blackmailer after all.’

By the time the police