Chapter 25

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, for political prisoners and citizens of Allied countries caught in the crossfire of the occupation. Fen shivered a little as the bus dropped them close by to where thousands of innocent people had been sorted and labelled and sent on to perhaps even less desirable places.

The address of the warehouse was just around the corner and a few minutes later they stood in front of what looked like a large farm building, similar to the cinder-block winery they had both worked in in Burgundy last month. The blocks made up the first ten foot or so of external wall, and then corrugated metal took over. There were no windows, but there was a large grey door, which James pushed open.

Fen had expected to see a bustling workplace full of crates and stock, and she was more than a little surprised to find the cavernous space almost empty, save for a few packing cases stacked up in one corner and barrels of varying sizes along one wall. Electric lights hung from swooping wires, suspended from the cross-beams, and much like a simpler version of the Gare de Lyon, daylight came from vast skylights, each mottled with dirt. Clunking great chains on pulleys hung down from the highest girders and as Fen looked up at them, she could see dust motes hang in the air, gently floating in the stillness of the empty space.

Then, from nowhere, a crack of a pistol sent Fen to her knees.

Suddenly James had thrown his own body over hers, shielding her, turning the air blue with his language.

Crack!

Again, a report from a gun, echoing around the empty warehouse.

‘Get down, Fen, stay down!’ James all but pushed her to the dirty floor as he risked looking up. The sound of another shot ricocheting around the building had James swiftly ducking back down. This time it was followed by a metallic ping and the sound of breaking glass.

Fen raised her head. ‘James,’ she hissed. ‘James!’

He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

‘I don’t think they’re shooting at us,’ she whispered and he nodded, helping her up from the floor.

She was just about standing when a fourth shot echoed around them and James risked shouting out a warning to the shooter.

‘They’re a lousy shot if they are. Still…hallo there!’ he shouted again and his voice was met with a shuffling and the sound of a bullet chamber being emptied.

‘Who’s there?’ The man’s voice echoed from the darkness at the back of the warehouse.

‘Captain Lancaster—’

‘And Fenella Churche!’

Their introductions were met with a belly laugh and gradually out from the murkiness of the far corner of the all-but-deserted warehouse a man’s figure appeared.

‘Thought I was taking potshots at you, eh?’ Antoine Arnault laughed again, twirling the pistol around his forefinger as he walked.

‘What were you doing?’ Fen had just about brushed herself down and didn’t feel the need for any more pleasantries. She did feel the need, however, to know why Antoine was walking towards them with a gun.

‘Target practice,’ he simply replied. When he was just a few feet away from them, he brandished the gun one last time and then tucked it into the back pocket of his overalls. He stuck out his hand for James to shake.

‘In the dark?’ James asked, taking the words out of Fen’s mouth. He looked disturbed at Antoine’s behaviour.

‘Best place to practise.’ Antoine smirked and eyed Fen up and down. ‘Sorry if I shocked you. You’ve probably never heard a gun before, eh?’

Fen tried to disguise the shake in her hands by making a show of nonchalantly patting down her hair and adjusting her coat. And she’d heard guns before all right, just not like this.

‘Unless it’s pointed at a pheasant, no,’ she replied quite tersely, as she crossed her arms, still trying to hide her shaking hands. She didn’t like his overt style of machismo and was annoyed at herself for being a bit shaken up.

Luckily, Antoine laughed and ushered Fen and James towards an internal door that had a sign saying ‘OFFICES’ over it.

Fen had to remind herself that, as far as they knew, Antoine was still just the fun, if slightly buffoonish, man she’d met the other night, and, target practice with an old service revolver besides, it was only Henri that suspected him, or at least his brother, of being part of some sort of gang. Still, asking the right sort of questions to work out if he was or not wasn’t going to be easy, especially with her heart beating like she’d just finished the Tour de France…

Antoine sat himself down behind an old wooden partner’s desk and it reminded Fen of Henri Renaud’s at the Louvre, just much, much smaller and far less imposingly ornate. ‘Sit down, friends. Can I get you a drink? A coffee? Perhaps a little cognac?’

Fen could see James’s eyebrow raising in interest, but quickly declined it herself – her hands had finally stopped shaking and she wasn’t in the mood for early-morning drinking. Luckily, it seemed James wasn’t either and he shook his head, too.

‘How can I help you both?’ Antoine asked, and James turned to face Fen. They had agreed, while on the bus on the way over, that Fen would do most of the talking and James’s role would be to wrestle the conversation back to the jovial if Antoine started to get a bit tetchy. So Fen jumped in and started the ball rolling.

‘Antoine, we’re here with terribly bad news, I’m afraid…’ Fen told him about Rose, and as she spoke she noted the colour drain from Antoine’s face. He fidgeted as she went on and when she got to the part about finding Rose with the paintbrush piercing her neck, he jerked up from his chair, leaving it spinning on its central column and skidding across the floor on its castors.

‘He couldn’t have, he couldn’t have…’ he whispered to himself.

‘Who couldn’t have, Antoine? Do you know who might have done this to Madame Coillard?’

Antoine shot a glare at Fen, then softened his look as he received an equally ugly look from James. Antoine licked his lips as he worked out what to say.

‘A burglar, you say?’ Antoine asked and Fen wondered if he was stalling for time, or if he was purposefully avoiding answering her question.

‘I’m only repeating what the gendarmes have said,’ Fen told him. ‘Personally, I think she was murdered for some other reason. Do you have an inkling who it might be?’

Antoine couldn’t avoid answering the question a second time, so once back in his seat, he leaned forward and said, ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know. But it sounds like something The Chameleon would have done in the war. Catching someone in their own home, unawares…’ he mimicked stabbing someone and then leaned back, gently rocking on his chair.

‘And I don’t suppose you know who The Chameleon is, by any chance?’ James asked, seeing that Fen was deep in thought.

‘Lazard…lizard…’ Fen tripped the words off the end of her tongue. Then she looked up at Antoine. ‘Do you know Michel Lazard at all?’

‘Of course, he’s a colleague here in the warehouse. An art dealer of sorts. He had a certain niche, shall we say, in the art market. For the more, how would you put it, duplicated paintings.’

‘He sells forgeries,’ Fen said matter-of-factly, explaining it to James as much as answering Antoine.

‘Ye…es.’ Antoine hesitated. ‘How did you know?’

‘Rose told me.’

‘Did she now?’

‘And Henri Renaud knew about it too.’

‘Ah, well, they say Monsieur Renaud has eyes and ears everywhere…’

‘Can you introduce us to Lazard?’ Fen asked outright, feeling emboldened by having James next to her.

‘Sure, sure,’ Antoine moved forward and shuffled some papers on his desk. ‘I think he’s away now down in the south, but I’ll get a message to him.’

‘Thank you, Antoine,’ Fen said, wondering if perhaps he was being just a little too helpful. ‘Henri Renaud also said that you and Rose had fallen out recently. About some sort of gang Gervais has got himself muddled up in.’

Antoine laughed. ‘A gang! Gervais? Can you believe this?’ He gestured towards Fen, looking at James.

James just shrugged one shoulder and the laughter left Antoine’s face.

He continued, ‘Look, if Henri Renaud has anything he wants to say to me or my brother, he should come here and say it to my face. I spend my life in this dump looking after his second-best paintings, and risked my life in the war to help him and Rose with their little scheme, not that I ever saw anything come my way because of it.’ He rubbed his fingers together to indicate money changing hands.

‘I should hope not,’ Fen interjected. ‘They weren’t exactly making any money out of it either!’

‘Ha, you say that, but…’ He sat back again with his hands crossed over his chest.

‘What do you mean?’ Fen was genuinely puzzled.

Antoine merely drew his fingers across his lips, as if zippering. This made Fen shudder with frustration, but, luckily, James fulfilled his brief and took over the questioning.

‘Antoine, my friend, we’ll be out of your hair in two ticks. And hopefully see you at the Deux Magots tonight? A drink on me, at least.’

Antoine nodded and sat forward slightly.

Fen took the opportunity to question him again. ‘Just one more question before we head back to the city. Were you and Gervais at the races a couple of days ago? Out in the Bois de Boulogne? I heard there was a fine filly who’s worth keeping an eye on?’

Antoine looked at James and then laughed at Fen. ‘Miss Churche, I’m glad that you were not in the Resistance with us. You are a terrible liar. If you want to know where I was at the time of Rose Coillard’s murder, just ask me outright.’

‘Well?’

‘I was here. At work.’ He got up from the chair, leaving it to spin again, and crossed the floor towards the office door, which he opened and called out into the warehouse, ‘Guillaume! Guillaume!’

‘What?’ a disembodied voice called back.

‘You know two days ago we had that shipment in, and you dropped that crate on my foot? What did I call you?’

There was a pause and then Guillaume, whoever he was, shouted back, ‘You called me a stupid ass only fit for donkey’s work, sir.’

‘Quite right!’ Antoine came back into the office, looking pleased with himself. ‘There you go, instant corroboration that I was here that afternoon, being sentimental and caring to my underlings.’

Fen frowned. ‘It’s not exactly an alibi, is it. I mean, I didn’t tell you what time in the afternoon she was killed and poor Guillaume out there might have been confused about dates or—’

‘If you don’t trust Guillaume, then you’ll trust the manifests. I can show you the time-stamped delivery papers signed by me.’ He went towards the filing cabinet. ‘What time do you think she was killed?’

‘Around two o’clock.’

Antoine pulled open a drawer and pulled out some carbon paper documents. ‘Here,’ he pointed at the bottom of the sheet. ‘My signature and the time of delivery, 1.45 p.m.’

‘Definitely not enough time to get from St Denis to St Germain, thank you, Antoine.’ James pushed himself up from this chair. ‘Come on, Fen, let’s leave this poor man in peace. Drinks later, yes. On me?’

Antoine snorted but nodded and bid them goodbye.

‘He’s not wrong, you know…’ James said to Fen with a wry smile as they closed the metal door of the warehouse behind them. ‘You would have made a terrible spy.’