Chasing Ghosts Madalyn Morgan (free e books to read txt) 📖

‘Then if you’ll excuse me?’ Édith said, leaning on the sink and peering out of the window. ‘It has begun to snow and my bicycle is in the yard. I must put it in the shed. The temperature drops to below zero in these parts, and if the tyres freeze and the rubber hardens--’ Édith clicked her tongue, ‘they puncture.’

‘I’ll put your bike away,’ André said, jumping up. He grabbed the keys from the window ledge and his coat from the hook on the back of the door. Putting on his coat he left, closing the door behind him.

Freezing air gusted into the room and Édith shivered. From the window, she and the man watched André take her bicycle from the far wall and wheel it across the yard. He held the bike with one hand, while he unlocked and opened the shed door with the other. Then, taking hold of the handlebar and saddle, he lifted the front of the bike and rolled it into the shed on its back wheel.

For a moment it appeared that André had disappeared into the small wooden structure with the bike. Out of the corner of her eye, Édith saw the man’s body stiffen. He leant forward and squinted. A second later André came out of the shed, closed the door and turned the key in the lock. Édith watched her son go back to where she had left the bike and lock the door in the wall. She turned on the tap and filled the kettle.

‘It is already freezing,’ André said, blustering into the kitchen and blowing hot breath into his cupped hands. He closed the back door as the man who had been upstairs using the toilet opened the door opposite. ‘All locked up,’ André said, turning the key and smiling at his mother.

‘Thank you, son. You can’t be too careful these days,’ Édith explained, looking first at one of the men and then the other. ‘It wasn’t so long ago that you could leave the gate to your yard open. You could even leave the door to your house open. My mother never locked her back door. No one did in those days. But,’ she said, throwing her arms up in the air before taking the coffee pot from the table, tipping out the used coffee and rinsing it out under the tap, ‘times have changed. I can remember--’

The kettle whistled and the man looking out of the window jumped. ‘They have,’ he cut in. He looked at his associate. ‘It is time we were on our way.’

‘André? Show the gentlemen out, please,’ Édith said.

‘Goodbye, Madame.’ The man standing next to her offered Édith his hand and she shook it.

‘Monsieur.’ Édith looked across the room to the man standing in the doorway and nodded. After wishing them a safe journey to wherever they were going, she set about making another pot of coffee.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘Where is Claire?’ André asked, flustered.

‘She left,’ Therese said, ‘when you went to answer the front door she went out the back door. Did you not see her in the yard?’ she asked, ‘or in the shed?’

‘No!’

Therese joined Édith at the sink and stared out of the window. ‘She must be out there somewhere.’

‘Unless she went out of the door in the wall. If she did, she won’t be able to get back in because André locked it.’ Édith made for the kitchen door, but André put out his arm and barred her way. ‘I must unlock it, André. The girl will freeze to death if she stays out there much longer.’

‘It isn’t locked, Maman.’

Édith looked up at her son. ‘But I saw you lock it.’

He shook his head. ‘No. You saw what I wanted you to see, or rather, what I wanted the intelligence guy to see. I put the key in the lock, but I did not turn it. I loosened my grip and turned my hand. I made it look as if I was locking it, but when I realised Claire was not in the yard or the shed, I guessed she had left by the door in the wall so I pretended to lock it.’

Worry was etched on Édith’s face. ‘She’ll catch her death out there in this weather. Could you not take a look along the avenue, see if you can see her?’

‘No. We don’t know who those men are, or the real reason they want to speak to Claire. We must be cautious. They might still be outside, so let us go through to the front room as we would on any other night. I shall go in first and switch on the light. You and Therese come in a couple of minutes after me. If they are watching the front of the house, we need them to see there are only three of us here. I shall add coal to the fire while you turn on the wireless, Maman, and Therese closes the curtains.’

André switched off the kitchen light and escorted his mother and wife into the hall. ‘If the men are watching the back of the house, I want them to think we have retired to the sitting room for the evening.’

‘And Claire?’ Édith said. ‘The child--’

‘She is not a child, Maman! Claire worked with us in the Resistance for years, or have you forgotten?’ Édith lifted her shoulders and nodded. André put his arm around his mother. ‘Do not worry. Claire will be fine. She will stay out of sight until she is sure the men who are looking for her have gone.’

André gave his mother’s shoulder a squeeze, went into the sitting room and flicked on the light. The women followed two minutes later. When Therese had drawn the curtains,