[Fen Churche 02] - Night Train to Paris, Fliss Chester [free ebook reader for pc TXT] 📗

that dissected the apartment in half. Magda led Fen through to a room on the right that was the bed-sitting room, the double bed the couple shared was neatly made up but semi-hidden behind an upholstered fabric screen. The rest of the room consisted of just enough space for a small table and chairs and two armchairs. There was a wireless on the table and a small cupboard for their crockery and linens.

‘I’m so sorry about last night…’ Fen started, aware now more than ever of how frightfully she’d behaved. And Magda didn’t even know the half of it.

‘Oh please, don’t worry.’ Magda pointed to one of the chairs and Fen sat down.

‘I can explain… I think.’

‘I assumed you had a better offer.’ Magda reached down and received a few licks from Tipper.

‘No, it was nothing like that. I was on my way over and I spotted Henri Renaud, oh I don’t know, it sounds even sillier now that I say it out loud, but he was acting furtively, if you know what I mean.’

‘Fenella dear, I think maybe the stress of Rose’s murder is getting to you. Henri is our friend, he was helping Rose.’

‘I know… And I’m sorry, again. Can I at least give you this as an apology?’ Fen handed over the parcel of Rose’s clothes and explained that Henri had asked her to clear out the closet. ‘I thought you’d look lovely in some of these tea dresses, though I dare say they might be a little out of date.’

‘Thank you, Fen.’ Magda turned to where they had a small gas burner and a kettle. ‘Tea? Or whatever approximates for it these days.’ She gave a nervous laugh as she lit the stove. Fen wondered if she really was forgiven for last night; Magda didn’t seem herself at all and had barely acknowledged the hand-me-downs. Fen hoped she hadn’t offended her, adding insult to injury on top of standing her up last night.

As they waited for the kettle to boil, Magda didn’t chat away as she might have done and Fen watched as she ran a tea towel through her fingers, then folded it and unfolded it again and again. Fen pulled Tipper up onto her lap and made a few throwaway comments about her walk over until finally Magda had made the tea and sat down on the other armchair herself.

‘Magda, is there something wrong?’ Fen decided to just ask.

‘Well, you see…’ Magda started and then chewed her cheek as she thought. Finally, she spoke again and said something that Fen wasn’t expecting to hear at all. ‘You see, Fen, well, I’m afraid it’s about Rose. I have a confession to make.’

Thirty-Seven

Magda sat back and took a sip of her tea. ‘Please don’t be cross.’

Fen, who had for just the most fleeting of moments, feared the worst, let out a sigh. ‘Of course I’m not cross. In fact, it clears up something that’s been troubling me. Ever since James said that the countess downstairs, or at least her pampered puss, had heard Tipper bark just the once that afternoon, I’d wondered who it might be.’

‘I’m afraid it was Joseph. He’d kept his appointment, you see, and let himself in. He said Tipper here,’ Magda leaned forward and stroked the dog’s head, which made Tipper jump up and scramble off Fen’s lap and onto Magda’s, much to her joy, ‘well, he said Tipper was beside himself and going crazy, barking and chasing his tail, weren’t you, poppet?’

‘So Joseph was the first to find Rose. Oh, Magda, I do feel sorry for him. I know how it feels, really I do.’ Fen thought back to when she asked him about it. ‘Why didn’t he tell me though, he said he’d missed his appointment with Rose, that he was never there that day at all.’

Magda concentrated on stroking the very top of Tipper’s head, then looked up at Fen. ‘Well, of course, he didn’t know what to do. He feels rightly ashamed at his cowardice in not reporting it there and then, or in trusting you with the truth, but you see, when you’ve heard stories like the ones we’ve heard…’ Magda tailed off and Fen reached over and touched her on the knee.

‘No one would have thought he’d done it, surely?’ asked Fen.

‘The police might have suspected him…’ Magda looked pale and Fen realised that even voicing these concerns was paining her.

‘They didn’t suspect us…’ Fen trailed off, realised that wasn’t exactly reassuring. There was no reason why any Jewish person should trust the authorities after the horrors their people had been through. Fen rethought her words. ‘I mean, there is absolutely no way that Joseph could be suspected of killing Rose. She was helping him, he had no motive whatsoever. Please don’t distress yourself with it, Magda, but thank you for trusting me with it. I won’t tell the police. Those dunderheads think it’s all a burglary gone wrong anyway.’

‘And you don’t?’ Magda seemed visibly calmer after Fen’s reassurances.

‘No. And not just because of the rich countess downstairs, dripping in diamonds, mind, who seems to have mysteriously escaped the burglars. No, it was something Antoine Arnault said when we spoke to him. That the murder seemed like something The Chameleon would have done.’

Magda shuddered when Fen spoke the double agent’s code name.

‘The Chameleon… I would spit on the floor, if I hadn’t spent days scrubbing it clean.’

‘How did you know it was him who betrayed Joseph’s and your parents?’

‘Just whispers… but then that was all there ever was with those networks anyway. We made plans in whispers, we escaped in whispers, but Mama and Papa and Jacques and Selena…’ her voice faded as she said their names and Fen waited as she mouthed a quick prayer for her dead parents and in-laws. ‘They were ready to go and were expecting an agent to pick them up and transport them to the docks, where a boat was ready to take them out of the city and from there to the