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

‘Fear and doubt that I had got it wrong, that’s what my reasons were.’ Claire laughed.  ‘There was a fortune in that wallet. I had never seen so much money. Carrying it from Gisoir to Paris was a huge responsibility, never mind about meeting up with the right person and handing it over,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t until you picked up the newspaper and I saw the wallet had gone, that I dared leave.’

‘The Paris-Soir.’

‘That’s right!’ Claire laughed. ‘What a memory.’

‘Some occasions and some people are hard to forget,’ Thomas said.

Claire felt the blush of embarrassment creep up her neck to her cheeks. She took a drink of her brandy. Was this handsome Frenchman with curly, slightly-too-long hair, rugged complexion and smiling eyes flirting with her? Or, was he still joking?

By the time they had finished their drinks it was dark outside. And when they left the café it was snowing. Shielding Claire from the snow, Thomas draped the left side of his long coat around her shoulders and huddled together they ran across the road. He unlocked the passenger door and Claire dropped onto the seat. When she was safely in the car, Thomas closed her door, and ran round the front of the car to the driver’s side.

‘Next stop 65 Avenue St. Julien,’ he said, jumping into the car and slamming the door. The engine popped and spluttered a couple of times, then fired on the third press of the ignition. Feeling even colder after the warm café, Claire pulled up the collar of her coat and hugged her handbag. Only a short time passed before Thomas turned on the heater. Tepid air at first, and then warmer air blew onto Claire’s legs. She relaxed back in the passenger seat and looked out of the window.

They drove alongside the River Seine for some time, crossing by the Austerlitz Bridge. The last time she was in the area it was summer and the sun was shining. She strained to see out of the window but the snow made everywhere look the same. The streetlights came on, but it was still too dark to see what was written on the street signs.

‘Rue de Lesseps,’ Claire said, as they cruised along the familiar wide tree-lined street. ‘We must have been in the 8th Arrondissement for ages, surely we are almost there.’ Thomas turned the steering wheel to the left and Claire whooped with excitement. ‘Look. Three-storey townhouses. And look,’ she said again, ‘that one has a tall arched window. We are here.’

Claire stepped out of the car and caught her breath. From the street, she hardly recognised the Marron house. New white shutters adorned the windows where during the German occupation the old shutters had been pulled off their hinges to make the house look as if it had been abandoned, and so deter looters. And the lower balconies, which had been purposely ripped out of the wall so thieves couldn't climb into the house through the downstairs windows, had been replaced to match those at the upper windows, giving the house symmetry and balance.

When Claire had last been inside number 65 Avenue St. Julien, it had appeared derelict. If anyone had broken in through the front door and had ventured beyond the leaking entrance with rotting floorboards to the main hall, which was bare but for a smashed mirror and several empty boxes, they would have assumed the house had already been stripped of its valuables.

She stood frozen to the spot. The white stone townhouse, with its tall upstairs windows and black wrought iron balconies, was nothing like the house Claire remembered. She turned at the sound of Thomas slamming the boot of his car.

‘After you,’ he said, arriving at her side with her suitcase. Unable to quiet her heart Claire climbed the steps and stood at the front door. ‘It’s green,’ she said, beaming a smile at Thomas who frowned and shook his head. ‘The door,’ she said, ‘in the war it was green. The paint was chipped and flaking off when I was last here but it was green. And it is still green,’ she laughed.

Thomas reached past her and rang the bell. The door opened immediately.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘My darling Claire.’ Antoinette put her hand up to her mouth. ‘I have longed for this day.’ Antoinette threw her arms around Claire and rocked her. ‘Come, it is cold out here. Hello, Thomas.’ Taking one of Claire’s hands, Antoinette held out the other to Thomas. ‘Come in, my dears, come in.’

Claire looked around, amazed at what she was seeing. The hall was no longer run-down. Where previously there had been bare dull floorboards, there was now a beautiful red Turkish carpet. And around the edge, eight or nine inches of highly polished wood between the fringes of the carpet and the wall.

‘Auguste?’ Antoinette shouted. ‘Auguste, look who is here,’ she cried when her husband, Claire’s old mentor, Professor Auguste Marron came ambling into the foyer.

‘Claire!’ he said, taking Claire in his arms. ‘It has been a long time.’

‘Too long,’ Antoinette added, as she and Thomas followed Auguste and Claire past the main salon and along the passage to the living rooms at the back of the house.

Instinctively Claire looked across the room, expecting to see Antoinette’s mother and father in their armchairs on either side of the fire. She wasn’t surprised the old couple weren’t there. They had been elderly when Claire knew them in the war. They had probably moved to a smaller house, or an apartment, somewhere on one level that was easier for them to manage. Even so, she felt a strange sadness at their absence.

‘Mother passed away in the autumn,’ Antoinette said to Claire.

‘I am sorry.’

‘Without her,