Paris Love Match

Chapter 7





The girl piled out of her apartment and down the stairs, the ice cream tub tucked under her arm and the spoon in her mouth.

As she fumbled to open the front door, Piers caught up with her. “What’s your name?”

She looked back at him, “Who, me?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head in bewilderment.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, right. Sidney.”

She peered out of the front door.

Piers did the same. “Don’t you want to know mine?”

“Your what?”

“Name. Don’t you want to know my name?”

“Oh. Yeah. Right. What’s your name?”

“Piers.”

She screwed her face up. “What, like at the seaside?”

Piers sighed. “Yes, like at the seaside.”

She stuck a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “Umm. Nice.”

He didn’t bother to clarify what she considered nice. “Which way to the police station?”

She shook her head and peered out of the door. “Nah. We need to lie low for a while. I have a good friend. We can stay at her place.”

“Who’s the good friend?”

“You’re all questions, aren’t you?”

“I just want to know what I’m getting into. Do you know this friend well?”

“I just said so, didn’t I? I met her in a bar last week. She’s cool.”

“Last week? In a bar? How can that be a good. . .”

She turned away, stepped out of the door, and began walking fast.

Piers rushed to keep up. “I still think we need the police, but where does this friend of yours live?”

“A few blocks away.”

As they turned the corner, police sirens rang out. Piers grabbed Sidney’s arm.

She flashed him a disgusted look. “Oh relax. You hear sirens all the time in Paris.”

Three police cars screeched around the corner and raced down the street in their direction.

“Oops.” Sidney stepped sideways into a small café.

The patrons paid them no attention as she chose a table for two at the back of the café. Piers squeezed into a tiny seat wedged in the corner. His skin prickled with sweat.

The police cars raced by and their wailing sirens receded.

Piers gave a great sigh.

Sidney raised her eyebrows. “See. Just because they had sirens on didn’t mean they were coming for us.” She scraped the last of the ice cream from the tub and pushed it to the corner of the table.

The waiter arrived.

Sidney smiled at Piers. “Do you have any money?”

Piers scowled and ordered two coffees.

“I can’t take this any longer. We need to go to the police,” he said after the waiter left.

Sidney shrugged. “How can we trust them? You saw what happened. We need to—”

A phone rang, a crude, old-fashioned buzz that reminded Piers of his own ringtone. She rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a battered looking flip phone and stared at the number on its small display.

Piers eyes went wide. “Wait. Is that the dead guy’s phone? You took his phone?”

“Well, it wasn’t like he was going to use it, was it?”

“But that’s evidence. Incriminating evidence. And now you’ve got it. We’ve got it.”

“Oh, calm down.” She looked at the number again and gave a disparaging grunt. “Don’t know who they are. Not answering it.”

“No bloody wonder you don’t know who they are; it isn’t your phone.”

“Okay. I get it.” She tossed the phone onto the table. It stopped ringing.

The waiter returned with the coffees. Sidney downed hers in one gulp and handed the cup back to the man. “Great. I’ll have another.”

The waiter took the cup and stared at her. She smiled. “It really was very good. You should try some.”

The waiter grunted and walked off.

Piers put his lip to the coffee, found it too hot, and put it back down. “Like I said, we need the police, at a police station.”

Piers blew on his hot coffee.

The man’s phone rang again. Sidney looked at it without picking it up. “Merde. Same number.”

“It might be someone wanting to know he’s all right.”

“So what am I going to tell them? Sorry, he’s dead and I’ve got his phone?”

Piers shrugged. “You could play dumb.”

She rolled her eyes and flipped open the phone. “What?”

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re not going to get away with it.” Piers could easily hear the other party’s high-pitched voice spilling from the phone’s earpiece.

“Who’s this?” said Sidney.

“Go to the police and you and lover boy are going to be in deep trouble. Got it?”

“Lover boy?” said Sidney with her top lip curled up.

“Don’t get innocent with me. I know your sort, I’ve dealt with girls before.”

“Really? How fascinating.”

“Not as fascinating as what Auguste was carrying.”

“Who’s Auguste?”

“The man whose phone you nicked.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, indeed, missy. You return what Auguste stole and maybe we’ll let you go free.”

“We’re free at the moment, if you hadn’t noticed.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“Just return what you took.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play stupid with me, missy. You’re talking to an expert here. I mean … I mean get us what we want and I won’t have to set Gerard onto you.”

In the background Piers could hear a deep voice. “I … I thought we weren’t going to use names, boss?”

There was a high-pitched groan. “Well, that may or may not be his name, because you don’t know. That could have been a ruse to make you believe it’s his name when it isn’t. Right.”

“Riiiiight,” said Sidney. “Look. I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, and I’ve got a lot of things on my mind at the moment, so I’m going to have to go.” She lowered the phone from her ear. Piers grabbed it before she could close it.

“Who is this?”

There was a laugh at the other end. “Ah, it’s lover boy.”

“I’m not anyone’s lover boy, okay?”

“Ooohhh, touchy, touchy.” There was more sniggering.

“Look, if you’re trying to threaten us, the least you can do is explain what’s going on.”

The owner of the high-pitched voice cleared his throat. “Then listen up. If you don’t return what Auguste stole within 24 hours then Matchstick Morel will be paying you a visit. And you don’t want that do you?”

“Who’s Matchstick Morel? And we don’t know this Auguste guy, so how are we supposed to know what he might have taken from you?”

“Pierre Matchstick Morel is a man you don’t want to meet. And you know perfectly well what he took, so you better start looking. Speaking of looking, you better leave out the back, because some nosy old bat pointed you two out to those police guys who just raced past, and they’re on their way to the café now.”

Piers looked up. A knot of police officers was outside.

“Shit.” He grabbed Sidney’s wrist and dragged her down a corridor that led to the kitchen.

She fought back. “What are you doing?”

“Police. Outside.”

The waiter stood in front of them holding Sidney’s coffee. She downed it in one mouthful as they pushed past.

They raced for the rear door. Piers hit it first, shoving down the emergency handle and tumbling out into a narrow, trash-filled rear lane.

“This way,” said Sidney, racing to a featureless door on the opposite side of the road. She started hammering on the door. “Don’t just stand there—get knocking.”

Piers added his fists to the noise. “What are we doing?”

“This goes into a shopping area.”

“Shopping?”

“There’s a Métro station underneath.”

The door opened. Sidney leapt forward, embraced a security guard, and gave him an exaggerated kiss on the cheek. “Thank god. We went out there by mistake and didn’t know how to get back in. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

She let go of the guard. “Got to run. Train to catch.”

She bounded off. The guard turned his stare to Piers who shrugged and raced after her. To his relief, the guard closed and locked the door before there was any sign of the police following.

Sidney took a sharp left and bounded down a set of stairs, three at a time. Piers caught up with her at the bottom. “Where are we going?”

“One more floor to the platform.” She pointed at a line of machines. “Tickets, quick.”

Piers sneered. “Do you ever have any money?”

She stepped back. “You’re going to argue about money at a time like this?”

He held his hands up in mock surrender. “All right, all right.”

While he shoved euros into the ticket machine, she headed down the next set of steps, waving. He grabbed the tickets from the machine and ran after her. “Wait!”

Arms still waving, she turned right at the bottom of the stairs and disappeared from sight.

Piers leapt the last six steps in one go and crashed to the ground on a slick marble floor. A platform full of people turned to look at him. He rolled to his feet and held his hands up. “I’m okay, thanks. I’m okay.”

A presenter on an overhead TV babbled excitedly about a disturbance in Paris, but was drowned out by a train rolling into the station. He kept looking around. “Sidney, Sidney!”

The people on the platform backed away from him. Sidney appeared, grabbed his hand and dragged him, stumbling, into the train. He couldn’t take his eyes off the stares of the people on the platform. He knew he’d made a dramatic entrance onto the platform, but sometimes people were just weird. Sidney pushed him into a seat and wedged herself beside him.

He wiped his brow. “Nearly missed—” His gaze flicked from one person to the next. Half the subway car was staring at them. “Shit,” he mumbled.

She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and pressed her mouth to his ear. “Shut up. Act natural.”

“What’s going on?” he said without moving his lips.

“Shut up,” she hissed. “We’re getting off at the next stop.”

The train slowed and entered a station.

Sidney grabbed his hand. “Okay, we’re going.”

The doors rattled open. She yanked him from the seat and bundled him out of the train. The platform was packed. A loudspeaker squawked arrival and departure times. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the high-pitched voice of another TV announcer.

“All right, I can manage,” he said, shaking himself free of her grip. “What’s going on?”

Sidney kept pushing him across the busy platform. He threw her off, but she grabbed him again. “Just keep going.”

The TV announcer’s voice seemed close. Piers looked up. A large yellow cube housed a small television with a badly distorted picture. A reporter with a microphone stood in a sea of police officers. “ … less than an hour ago. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”

Sidney pushed. “Keep going.”

Piers stumbled a single step.

The TV camera panned back. Notre Dame came into view. “Shit,” mumbled Piers.

“Keep going.”

“We were there,” Piers said.

“Full marks. Just keep going.”

The TV picture cut away to the view from a helicopter. A police car was chasing a taxi. The taxi crashed and two figures stumbled out of the rear, a man and a girl. The men from the police car drew guns and dived for the girl, forcing her to the ground and cuffing her. The man mounted a motorbike and swung it gracefully around the front of the car in a macho cloud of smoke and raw power.

Piers remembered how his heart had tried to jump out of his chest when the bike started, and how it hadn’t stopped trying until they reached her apartment.

The bike leapt forward, the rider felling a giant of a man with one blow, and kicking a second clear over their car. The smoke was still clearing as the rider lifted the girl onto the back of the bike as if she were weightless. The helicopter’s perspective didn’t show how she had helped, or how she had twisted the throttle to launch them down the street on one wheel and a cloud of smoke.

The helicopter lost the bike, but it didn’t miss the men crawling back into the police car. Nor their zigzag departure after the couple.

“That was us,” he said, without moving his jaw.

Sidney pushed against Piers’ paralyzed form. “Can’t deny that, but there’s lots of people. Bad time to talk. Let’s go.” She pushed again, forcing him, stumbling, toward the opposite platform.

The TV announcer babbled excitedly about photo-enhancement.

A train approached the platform, but Piers couldn’t drag his eyes from the TV screen. People pushed forward, ready to board the train. He struggled to hear the TV, but he couldn’t miss the picture. The camera was frozen on him on the bike. Sidney’s arms were wrapped around his chest, only a thin arc of her dark hair poked from behind his head. He was gripping the handlebars of the bike, his terror looking for all the world like grim determination. The front wheel was off the ground. He had his leg outstretched, his foot hammering the bald man in the chest. The camera zoomed in. He looked poised and purposeful, balancing the powerful bike as if he were born to it, like a real life James Bond.

The train stopped and the doors hissed open. The crowd waited mere seconds for the travelers to exit the carriages before surging forward. Sidney clung to his wrists. He stared into her eyes as the crowd squeezed them into the center of the carriage. He grabbed a pole for support. “That was us.”

She gave a stupid grin, and a frantic shut-up-now nod.

Piers continued. “That was me. On the bike. Racing away.”

Her smile softened. She tilted her head. “I know,” she gushed. “It is a great picture. They really caught your features. You’re lucky they got such a good angle. Not that you’re really bad looking … I mean, if you got a decent haircut and used a little hair product. I hope they get a good shot of me, too.”

“But I don’t want to be on frigging TV.”

Her smile vanished. “Keep your voice down.”

“But—”

She clapped her hand across his mouth and dragged his ear to her mouth. “Shut the f*ck up,” she growled through clenched teeth. She pulled back and smiled. “Darling.”

Piers’ heart raced. He felt the weight of the people around him pushing. He tried to swallow, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Shit, what had happened? One minute he was talking to his mother and the next he was being shot at. Now he was on TV. It would be only a matter of minutes before the BBC relayed the images, and then his mum, dad, friends, everyone would know it was him. He let go of the pole and wiped his palms on his jeans.

The train slowed with a lurch as they entered a station, and there was a push for the doors. They allowed themselves to be swept out and up the escalators with the crowd, with Sidney gripping his wrist tight the whole time.

They emerged into a fine drizzle. Sidney held her free hand over her head. “Great, this is going to ruin my hair.”

“Who the hell cares?” Piers said. “We’ve been shot at, watched a man die, been threatened by god knows who, and you’re worried about your stupid hair?”

She glowered at him. “And they say old school British charm is dead.”

“No, I meant . . .”

Sidney walked down the street. “I know what you meant. You said it. My hair is stupid. Come on. I haven’t got time to teach you manners. We’ve got to move.”

Piers rushed to catch up. “Look, I meant after all we’ve been through, your hair is the least of our concerns.”

“Least of your concerns, maybe. But me? I don’t want to look like some tramp if they get my picture.”

He grabbed her hand and stopped her. “Get your picture? Get your picture! This isn’t a bloody game!”

Her expression hardened and she spoke through clenched teeth. “Keep your voice down.”

“Keep my voice down? Keep my voice down?” He felt his anger flash through his veins, and forced himself to take a deep breath. “All right, all right. We need to find somewhere quiet, safe.”

“Wow. No one can say your education was wasted. If you’d shut up and follow, I was on my way to somewhere safe.”

She wriggled out of Piers’ grip and walked on down the street. He rushed to keep up.

“I thought we were going to your highly trusted friend’s, the one you met in a bar last week.”

Sidney smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Well obviously that idea lost its appeal when the police turned up.”

Piers ground his teeth and kept silent.

She took several turns and crossed numerous roads until they arrived at a large building with grand steps and tall columns outside.

“This is it?” he said. “This is your idea of somewhere quiet?”

She scowled at him. “Of course it’s bloody quiet; no one ever goes here.”

“It’s a library. Libraries are quiet so people can concentrate. We can’t walk in there and start talking without everyone noticing.”

“Trust me,” she said, and walked into the building.

They took a narrow set of stairs that wound up to the third floor. She threaded her way through the long rows of shelves to an alcove in the corner.

A statue of a mythical male creature stood on a dark wood plinth. Piers couldn’t help but notice the creature was very well endowed.

Sidney elbowed him in the ribs. “It’s Greek. They used to exaggerate things.”

“You’ve been here before?”

Sidney beckoned him behind the statue. There was a half height door in the wall with a plaque that said “Enfants Seulement.” His eyes grew wide as she opened the door and ducked inside. He followed her into a small room.

Sidney flipped on the light, a single bulb dangling from a wire in the center of the ceiling. The walls were lined with books and posters. He saw images of Tintin, Asterix, and Jules Verne’s sea creatures. In the middle of the room were two comfortable chairs and a coffee table. Small clouds of dust took flight as they sat down.

She leaned back and massaged her neck. “I used to come here with my parents when we were on vacation. Told them I sat here and read all day.” She winked. “Actually, I used to stare at the statue a lot.” Her grin faded. “I made a lot of friends in this room. Teenagers. We used to run around Paris. I found out how to ride the Métro for free, and places where you could pick up food, and … well, then my father wouldn’t bring me back because of the group I’d fallen in with. He didn’t want me to grow up with a bad crowd.”

“Well I’m glad to see his efforts weren’t wasted.”

Sidney screwed up her face. “Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Concern evaporated from her face. “Anyway, we’ll be safe here.”

“That’s a relative term.”

Sidney grunted and lapsed into silence.

Piers hung his head down. “Those people at the station knew I was the person on the TV.”

Sidney nodded.

“So, I can’t show my face without people recognizing me.”

Sidney nodded. “Maybe. Well, probably. Look, we should split up and get out of Paris until this blows over.”

“Blows over? How do you think this is going to blow over?”

She shrugged and stood to leave.

Piers looked up. “Where are you going?”

“To stay with friends.”

“And what I am going to do?”

“It’d probably be best if you went back to England.”

“You think? Wow. Amazing how you come up with these ideas.” Piers’ head sank into his hands. “And how am I going to get through customs when they have my picture?”

Sidney hummed then smiled. “Go to Spain. Or Portugal. You can get a boat back to England from there. Probably. They’re not as strict with the passports, I don’t think.”

“And how am I going to get to Spain?”

She threw her hands up. “Am I supposed to think of everything?”

Auguste’s phone rang, shockingly loud in the small space. She flipped it open. “What?”

Piers could hear the high-pitched voice again. Only this time it sounded different. Closer, more lifelike. “You two staying in there much longer?”

Sidney rolled her eyes. “Oh, glee. You found us again. Whoever you are.”

“Never you mind who I am. When you’ve finished doing whatever you’re doing in that room, I want to talk to you.”

From outside the door Piers could hear a rumbling voice. “That should be we want to talk to you, not I. Because there’s both of us here. You and me, and we both want to talk to them.”

Piers let his head fall back into his hands. “Oh, shit.”

Sidney opened the door. Two men stood outside, one well over six feet tall, in a dark three-piece and sunglasses, the other considerably smaller, in an ill-fitting light green lounge suit. The small guy theatrically swiped his finger across his iPhone and placed it in his pocket. “So you’re done, eh?”

“Done?” said Sidney, her nose wrinkling up.

“With whatever you were doing in there.” The guy sniggered like a ten-year-old girl reading dirty words in the dictionary.

Sidney stared at him.

His smile faded in an instant. “Oh, never mind. Get out here.”

Sidney and Piers ducked out through the half height door. The big guy stood in the exit from the alcove and the small guy walked up to Sidney. He was a good four inches shorter than her.

She stared at him. “So, you’re the one who shot at us?”

“Me? No! No. I didn’t shoot at you. That was … well … that was someone else.”

“Who?”

“Do you think I’m going to tell you that?”

“Why not? Wait a minute, how did you find us?”

The small guy gave a smug smile and leaned on the statue. “It’s my business to know how to get hold of people.”

Sidney nodded toward his hand. “I can see that.”

The small guy looked at his hand. “Argh.” He jerked away from the statue’s exaggerated endowment. “Why do they have to do things like that? That’s sick, that is. Sick. Suppose they think that’s funny. Bloody artists.”

“Terpsichore,” said the large man.

“Terpsichore? Terpsichore what?”

“The person who carved it.”

“How do you know that?”

“There’s a plaque here, see. Tells you all about . . .”

“All right, all right. I don’t care.” He turned back to Sidney. “What I want to know is, what are you doing to return what Auguste took?”

“We don’t even know what he took.”

Little’s eyebrows inched closer together. “Don’t play dumb with me, I’m an expert at that game.”

“We’ve gathered that impression,” Sidney said.

Piers stepped forward, took Sidney’s hand, and led her around the small guy. “Okay, it’s been nice talking, but we’ve really got to go now.”

The big guy shuffled into the middle of the gap out of the alcove. He practically filled the exit. He grimaced and punched his right fist into his left hand, slow and firm. It made a loud smack. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to return what Auguste took, or …”

“Or?” Piers said, slowly.

“Or, we’ll have to do this the hard way. And we don’t want that. Not really.” He winked. “Best to do it the easy way.”

The small guy straightened his jacket. “So. You’ve got twenty-four hours, not a minute more. Got it?”

“We don’t know anything about—”

The small guy walked away, his arm held high. “Talk to the hand.” The big guy followed and in a moment the pair were lost in the rows of books.

Sidney blew out a long sigh. “That settles it. I’m going. I don’t know who that pair are, or what they’re talking about, but I don’t like it. I’m getting a ticket straight out of Paris.”

“What about me? I got a taxi, got shot at, got dragged round Paris by someone whose greatest concern is her hair in case she’s on TV, and now I’m on France’s most-wanted list.”

“Look, I know you’ve got your problems, but I’ve got to think about me.”

“That’s all we’ve done since we met.”

“All we’ve done? When have you thought of me?”

“I don’t know, let me see.” Piers crossed his arms and rolled his gaze upward. “Maybe it was when I rescued you from the guys with handcuffs, or when I bought you coffee, or tickets at the Métro, or . . .”

“Oh, right, typical man. Just because you buy things you think that means you’re thinking about me.”

“Well, I bloody well have been!”

An old lady with a remarkable resemblance to an eagle stepped into the entrance to the alcove. “Do you mind? This is a library. If you wish to continue your shouting match, please do so outside, where I am sure you will draw a larger audience.”

She stood to one side. Sidney looked at Piers and gave an exasperated sigh. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“Madame? Monsieur?” said the old lady, with one eyebrow raised.

Sidney stormed out and Piers assumed his usual role of following a few steps behind.