by Morgan Rice
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Gone?” Pinsley stood in front of the landlady and stared at her in incredulity. “You’re sure Kaia is gone?”
“The girl who speaks no French is gone,” the landlady repeated.
Fear for Kaia sprang up in Pinsley. Had she left because of what he’d said? Was this to be the same as with Olivia? Was she going to disappear the way his daughter had?
“Probably off shopping with your money on the Champs Elysée,” the landlady said in a dismissive tone. “All the girls who like theatre and shopping go there. Here, she left a note. It’s in English.”
Pinsley didn’t point out that there was an implicit admission that she’d read it in that. Instead, he read Kaia’s note. It was infuriatingly brief, without any details on where she’d gone. Didn’t she realize how dangerous it could be out there, with a killer on the loose?
Well no, because he hadn’t told her.
Pinsley realized the enormity of what he’d done by keeping Kaia uninformed like that. He’d put her in danger, and now he was going to have to find her.
“You let her go?” Pinsley asked. “When there is a killer out there?”
That just earned him a particularly Gallic shrug. “She is not my daughter, or niece, or whatever you are saying. And she is not an actress, so she should be fine. Did you hear that the killer got to another one?”
“That was two days ago,” Pinsley said.
“Non, last night. Oh, it is not in the newspapers, but only because the department of the censor is so strict,” the landlady said. “Another actress, strangled, just like that, and from the same play!”
“Where?” Pinsley demanded. That fact only made all this more urgent. It brought other worries to the front of his mind, too. Olivia was an actress. If someone was killing actresses… his daughter might be in danger. That thought was almost too much to bear.
“In an alley off the Rue de l’Universite,” the landlady said.
Instantly, Pinsley found himself heading for the door, trying to work out how best to go about finding Kaia. If she stumbled around the city blindly, trying to find these shadows of hers, there was every chance that she might end up in danger.
Another thought propelled him forward just as quickly as that one. Olivia was in at least as much danger as Kaia. She acted in the theatre where the others had. She was exactly the kind of young actress who had been killed.
Pinsley was sure that it was her he had seen back at the theatre, but now, it seemed that he might have found her only for her life to be in danger.
*
Pinsley plunged out into the cold of the Paris streets. It wasn’t as bad as London might have been on a February morning like this, but it was still enough for his breath to frost the air in front of him.
He set off in the direction of the theatre first, reasoning that Kaia might head that way. In any case, if it was open, there was a chance that Pinsley might be able to find Olivia there. He walked quickly, knowing that every moment he wasted was another in which the two of them might be in more danger.
When he got to the theatre, though, it was quiet and dark. Perhaps there would be people inside, but he doubted that they would open the doors to some random Englishman. He could try to force his way inside, but would Olivia even be there if there was no performance taking place? Kaia certainly wouldn’t have been able to talk her way inside when she couldn’t speak the language.
That left the site of the murder as a next spot to check. Whatever instincts Kaia possessed had drawn her towards the theatre and the murders there, so it made a kind of sense that she might find herself drawn to the spot where this killing had occurred as well. The landlady had given him at least a general location for it, so Pinsley set off.
He observed the people he passed. Most were just going about their mornings, whether that involved trying to get to places of work, shopping, or delivering things. He could see a tension in some of it, though. People were moving quickly, not really talking to one another. Perhaps it was just the aftermath of the attacks in the city earlier that month, but people had seemed friendly and open enough just yesterday. Pinsley suspected that the people of this district of Paris had heard about the murders, and they were starting to leave their mark.
If this had been London, the newspaper criers would have been shouting the news to anybody who would listen. Here, though, it seemed as though the Emperor’s control over bad news meant that the story would only come out in the newspapers once the killer had been safely apprehended by the SSûreté, assuming that happened at all.
Almost as the thought came to him, Pinsley found himself passing an office of the French city police force, marked with the imperial N and sporting the classical stamp that Baron Hausman seemed to be imposing on the city under the Emperor’s direction. It had the kind of Corinthian columns and elaborate carvings that… well, that one might find on the British Museum or one of the royal palaces. Britain had an empire of its own, after all.
He stood there staring at the office of the Sûreté for several seconds, trying to make up his mind. Logically, the best way for Pinsley to ensure that his daughter and Kaia both stayed safe was to catch whoever had been killing actresses. The best way to do that was probably to work with the French police, who would presumably have more information about what was going on.
It wasn’t a decision that Pinsley made lightly, though. When he and Kaia had set off from London, it had seemed vital to stay away from the Gendarmes and the SSûreté, because the whole Orsini business would not have them reacting well to anybody English. Especially to a police inspector. On that level, walking into a police station and declaring who he was seemed like a recipe for trouble to Pinsley.
Yet, if it would allow him to potentially protect his daughter from a killer, he would do far more than that. His mind made up, Pinsley started to walk towards the police station.
Inside, there was more of the classical motif, including a marble bust of the Emperor after the Roman fashion, and a large N on one wood paneled wall. In other senses though, it was simply a police station, as familiar in its general form as any in England might have been. There were the desks at which the constables worked, and a door at the back that obviously led to the cells. There were stairs leading up to other parts of the building, and, of course, a large desk sat at the front with an even larger sergeant standing behind it. He had the look of an officer who had been chosen for his bulk, and had a moustache that only added to it, giving him the general countenance of a walrus.
“Can I help you, citizen?” the man asked in French.
Pinsley collected himself. “Yes, and I believe I can help you, as well.”
“You are English?” the sergeant said. His meaty hands rested on the counter.
How did everyone know? Pinsley was certain that his French was flawless.
“I am,” he admitted. “Inspector Sebastian Pinsley, of the London Metropolitan Police.”
“An English… how do you say? Bobby? Here? Now?” The sergeant seemed to be reddening, as if he couldn’t quite believe that Pinsley was there, and the pressure of it was building up inside him. “An English policeman comes to Paris so soon after the English helped a madman to set off bombs here?”
“It was necessary for me to visit,” Pinsley said. He didn’t want to go into the whole reason why he had, mostly because he suspected that it would sound insane to any reasonable police officer. He had to believe that the sergeant in front of him would be that. “I had to chaperone a young lady of my acquaintance while she visited, and I also wanted to visit some family of mine living in Paris.”
That might not have been his intention when he set off, but it was definitely his purpose here now.
“What family?” the sergeant demanded. “Where do they live?”
“My daughter,” Pinsley said. “And I don’t actually have an address for her.”
Even if he’d had one, he would have been careful about simply handing it over when that would onl
y create trouble for Olivia.
“You don’t know where your own daughter lives?” the sergeant asked. Pinsley knew why, because any good police officer would pick up on an inconsistency like that one. Even so, he could feel his own frustration rising.
“We’re getting away from the point,” Pinsley said.
“And what is the point meant to be, sir?” the sergeant asked.
“My point is that I happened to be in Paris when I heard about the murders that are occurring. Actresses being killed. I want to help, if I can.”
“You want to help?” The sergeant stood there for a moment and then called back to the others in the station. “Hear that, lads? This Englishman wants to help us solve our murders!”
The whole front office of the police station laughed along with the sergeant. Pinsley felt a tinge of humiliation at that, and also anger at the disdain in it. Yet at the same time, if some Frenchman had walked into Scotland Yard and demanded to be allowed to help, how would he have reacted?
“What on Earth do you think you can offer us by poking around in our affairs, Englishman?” the sergeant demanded.
“I believe that my investigative skills may be of some use,” Pinsley said. “Just a few days ago, in London, I solved a murder inside a lunatic asylum, when everyone else was trying to blame the situation on-”
“I don’t care!” the sergeant shouted at him, bellowing just a little way from Pinsley’s face. “I don’t care if you have solved the mystery of exactly how you English murdered the first Napoleon, the case of how some tiny island got to think so much of itself and the mystery of how you British manage to eat what passes for your food. Here, murders are the business of the SSûreté, not of ‘random’ travelers.”
The emphasis he put on the word random suggested that he didn’t believe Pinsley’s motives. That was potentially a problem, but not as much of a problem as the rest of this.
“Now,” the sergeant said. “Why don’t you get out of my station, find this daughter of yours at the address you don’t have, and then get out of Paris before I start thinking that maybe the English sent you for a reason? Maybe to tidy up your country’s involvement in the attempt to kill the Emperor?”
“I assure you,” Pinsley said. “I am just here to help.”
“And if you’re still here in ten seconds, I’ll arrest you for wasting my time,” the sergeant said. “One, two…”
Pinsley beat a retreat. Sometimes, discretion really was the better part of valor. He couldn’t help feeling utterly foolish as he did it. Of course the French police would turn away some civilian, some Englishman, offering to help. He would have done the same if someone off the street had offered to help with his work.
Except that he’d taken Kaia out of the cells to do exactly that.
That thought caught Pinsley a little by surprise, but the next one did not: he wasn’t going to give up. Perhaps the SSûreté would find the killer, but what if they didn’t? What if Pinsley did as they asked and walked away, only to hear that more actresses had been killed? That Olivia had been killed? He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.
No, he decided as he stepped back out into the Paris air, he was going to have to keep going regardless of what the French police thought. He had the skills to do this, and he’d at least been into the theatre. He would find the killer, and make sure that Olivia was safe. If that made an enemy of the SSûreté, that was a price was well worth paying.
Pinsley checked his watch. If Kaia had been serious in her note, then she would be back at the hotel, and it would be better to have her with him. Mind made up, he started to stride back to the spot where they’d stayed the night.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Pinsley arrived back at the hotel, he was both relieved and slightly surprised to see Kaia sitting there in the dining room, eating an early lunch. He took the chair opposite her without waiting to be asked, and waved away the landlady when she approached. He had more pressing things on his mind than lunch.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “Kaia, going out on your own like that… you could have been in danger.”
“What, from murderers?” Kaia shot back. The look she gave Pinsley wasn’t entirely pleased. “That’s right. I know about the actresses being murdered. Sidonie last night, and the ones before that you didn’t tell me about.”
“I… didn’t want to spoil your first experience of the theatre,” Pinsley said, although even to him, it sounded like a weak excuse. “I wanted to be sure about what was going on before I said anything.”
“You wanted to protect me,” Kaia said.
“Yes,” Pinsley agreed.
“No!” Kaia shot back. “I thought we’d been through this? I don’t want to be kept in the dark for my own protection. I want to know what’s going on. I want to be a part of this. Including finding out what’s happening with these murders.”
Pinsley sat there, trying to think. She was right of course; he’d tried to cosset her, and it hadn’t worked, because Kaia had only ended up exposed to the truth anyway.
“You’re right, of course,” he said.
“I… am?” Kaia replied. She sounded as if she had been expecting more of an argument regarding her involvement.
“I should have told you about what was happening once I knew,” Pinsley said. “And you know about the other murder, last night as well.”
“I got close to the spot where it happened,” Kaia said, “but there wasn’t much that anyone would tell me.”
“The French police told me even less,” Pinsley said.
“So you’ve been looking into this?” Kaia asked him. There was just the hint of an accusation there still at not being included.
“I began when I heard of this morning’s killing,” Pinsley replied. “The murder at the theatre was worrying, especially so soon after the disappearance of another actress. Another murder, though… that is a sequence, with the theatre as the obvious connecting factor.”
“There are shadows involved,” Kaia said. “I could feel them in the theatre. I know you won’t believe me, but that’s at the heart of this.”
“I believe that much,” Pinsley said. He wasn’t sure what he felt about this business of shadows just yet. Clearly, Kaia could do some things that he couldn’t explain at this point, but it didn’t necessarily follow that she was correct about the shadows she claimed to see.
At the same time, though, he couldn’t just leave this to the Paris police, not when his daughter was in the place where the killer chose his victims. She might or might not be in danger of being targeted by the killer, but at the very least, going back to the theatre was Pinsley’s best hope of reconnecting with Olivia, and trying to solve this seemed like his best chance to spend time there.
“We need to go back to the theatre,” Pinsley said.
“It’s closed,” Kaia replied.
“They are probably rehearsing,” Pinsley said, “but that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to find a way inside.”
“All right,” Kaia said. “Just as soon as I’ve finished my… what are ‘escargot’ anyway?”
“Snails,” Pinsley translated without thinking.
Kaia pushed her plate away from her, making a face. “I’m done.”
Pinsley had to resist the urge to laugh. “It’s really no different than eating whelks, or cockles, or-”
“Let’s go.”
*
They walked back to the theatre, and it was still as quiet and dark as it had been when Pinsley had walked over there earlier. Still, he had to hope that there was a way inside, and that his daughter might be in there somewhere.
“There’s a door around to the side,” Kaia said. “But when I knocked on it, someone just shooed me away from it.”
“Still, it gives us a possible point of entry,” Pinsley said. He started to think of ways that they might do that without the advantages conferred on him by his warrant card when he was in London.
“Even if we get inside, won’t people
throw us out?” Kaia asked. She imagined that they wouldn’t react well to people interrupting their acting.
“My impression is that theatres are chaotic places,” Pinsley said. “People come and go, everyone is moving quickly. In a place like that, I suspect that once we are inside, people will assume that we are meant to be there. They might think that we are guests of the play’s patrons, or visitors.”
He saw Kaia nod, obviously seeing the logic of that idea. She raised the issue that was currently occupying Pinsley’s mind, though.
“So, how do we get in there in the first place?”
That was the problem. If the front door was locked tight, then that left this side door of Kaia’s. It might be possible to force entry there, but if anyone saw them, there would be no chance of gaining cooperation later on from anyone in the theatre. No, they needed to find a way in that wouldn’t be seen.
For the moment, Pinsley and Kaia stood there, watching the door at the side of the theatre. Pinsley saw it open a couple of times, first so an actor could step outside, taking a break, then so that a delivery boy could bring a package.
He saw their chance.
“Come on,” Pinsley said to Kaia. “We need to go shopping.”
He led the way down towards the boutiques of the Champs Elysée , seeing Kaia’s face light up at the sight of them. He went into a small store that sold lace goods, and picked up a pair of gloves, taking them over to the clerk there.
“Could you wrap them, please?” the inspector asked.
“Your young lady does not wish to wear them from the shop?”
“They are for a friend of hers,” the inspector lied. “A present when we see her.”
“Ah, of course.”
The clerk wrapped up the gloves, and Pinsley paid, before leading the way back in the direction of the theatre.
“What was all that about?” Kaia asked, and then answered her own question. “Wait, you saw someone getting in with a package, so if we’re there to deliver a package, then they might let us in.” She seemed to think for a moment. “But that won’t work, because they’ll hear that we’re English, so we can’t be delivery people.”
