Deceptions, Anna Porter [ebook reader with built in dictionary .txt] 📗

one of the more thuggish Russian oligarchs, Piotr Grigoriev, had been behind the museum’s reluctance. He, after all, had sold them one of the paintings she had failed to authenticate.

“I assume your client wants me to see it?” She had meant to be ironic, but what with the handkerchief, the noise from the engine, and the insistent loudspeaker, her tone would have been lost on the lawyer.

“Today. We checked your credentials. You have a reputation for being tough. And fast,” he said. “You don’t look like your photograph in the journals,” he added.

“Since you invited me here to see a painting, why are we taking this boat tour?”

“. . . passing the old Douane building on the right. It’s where in past centuries you had to deliver your goods for inspection. . . . Look for the thirteenth-century slaughterhouse bridge coming up . . .”

“Excuse this extra caution, but we wanted you to understand that your visit here has to be absolutely confidential. The husband . . .” He coughed as the Musée Alsacien slipped by on the left. “Details of your appointment are in your hotel.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here?” she asked.

“N—”

The lawyer dropped his hand from his mouth to clutch at his throat. He fell back, blood squirting between his fingers, trickling down his shirt front past the feathered end of an arrow protruding from his neck. Helena resisted her first impulse to pull out the arrow. She shouted at the guide (still talking about the thirteenth century in Strasbourg) to call an ambulance.

She saw a man standing at the railing of the bridge above, looking down at the tour boat, waiting. Then he pulled his grey hat low over his face, tucked something that looked very much like a longbow down the inside of his beige coat, and began to walk toward the French Quarter. Helena jumped over the lawyer and the next two passengers to get to the railing. Using it to steady herself, she leapt off the boat and landed on the embankment. She ran toward the figure retreating to the other side of the bridge who looked once over his shoulder reflexively. She could see his round flat face with sunglasses slipping down (he was likely not used to wearing glasses), his flat nose, and his thin slash of a mouth. His coat flapped open as he ran, revealing the bow now flat against his side. He crashed into a couple looking into a gift-shop window, ran down Rue de l’Ail, over the tram rails, and up to the pedestrian street, mingling with a Japanese group. He checked over his shoulder once more, shoved past the umbrella-wielding tour guide, and ran into the cathedral.

Helena closed in on him as he pushed past the indignant ticket-taker and disappeared into the darkness. She handed the ticket-taker a €20 bill, jumped the metal rail, steadied herself against a pew, and scanned the aisles. Several white fedoras, a couple of beige hats, jackets, no long coats, no one running, but near the exit line, a uniformed woman trying to stop someone who tore free and hustled out into the sunshine.

The bow was lying under a low bench near the exit. She left it there. When Helena reached the cathedral warden, she saw that the long beige coat was draped over her arm. “Mon mari a laissé son manteau ici tout juste,” she said.

The warden looked at her suspiciously. “Votre mari?” she repeated, looking at the coat.

“Il été tellement pressé . . .” Helena said as she grabbed the coat and ran out the door, looking for the man’s grey hat in the crowd. She lost sight of it near the tourist office, but a moment later, as she sprinted around the side of the cathedral, there was a flash of movement up past the shops with trinkets and T-shirts, and the one shop stretching out toward the cathedral. As she ran by, she saw a display of hats — some of them grey — on a low table where casual browsers may stop and be invited in by the smiling attendant offering today’s special discount. One grey hat lay casually on top of the display.

“For sale?” Helena asked.

“Je ne sais pas,” the helpful attendant said. “Il est juste returné.” Helena sprinted past the display and onto Rue de Dôme, past the textbooks shop and the alleyway that led to the small park. She balled up the coat and stuffed it under her arm. No sign of the man. She doubled back to Rue de Dôme, and up as far as Rue de la Mésange, but still no man. She retraced her steps, more slowly, looking into every shop. The sound of sirens grew louder as she approached the cathedral, but there was no sign of the man.

She stopped at the corner of the alleyway where a beauty salon’s wide windows stretched both ways and a sign advertised all-time low prices for haircuts. She opened the door and asked the stylist whether he had seen anyone a few minutes ago. “He could have been running in either direction,” she said. The clean-shaven stylist looked at her hair and offered her a welcoming grin. “No,” he said, “no one in a hurry.”

“I am trying to find a man,” she explained.

“Aren’t we all?” said the stylist, brushing a few bits of hair from his client’s shoulders.

Chapter Three

Much as Gustav enjoyed Irén’s cooking and the warm, cushiony arrangements in her apartment, he was always ready to come home after a few days of her company. Attila thought it could be her lilac perfume, or her incessant fussing, but delighted as Gustav was at the beginning of his visits, Attila usually found him waiting at the door when he returned. Irén, a few years older than Attila and built for comfort, was rarely able to race Gustav to the staircase, so she would follow more sedately with one of her inevitable chicken casseroles that Gustav enjoyed more than Attila did. Too