Seen and Not Heard by Anne Stuart Page A

himself. Right now he wasn’t so sure. He might very well have come to Paris to find Claire.
    The old lady had opened the door, and Yvon knew why. Even soaking wet he looked the model of a French bureaucrat, sane, unimaginative, unthreatening. France had more people in civil service than the rest of Europe combined, and the French were used to interference in their lives.
    The old lady was already dressed for bed. Her soft wool bathrobe would have cost him a week’s salary, and her faded blue eyes were chilly with hauteur. She believed him when he said they were checking gas meters, though her snobbery and impatience were clear. She didn’t look like
Grand-mère
Estelle, but the cool contempt in her eyes brought back his childhood with dizzying force. That, and the smell of her apartment, of papery old skin, of wool and cough drops and strong tea. Of sweet pink roses.
    She let him go into the kitchen alone. It didn’t take him long to find the knives, and his conviction strengthened. It was right, it was his destiny. Everything was falling into place so easily. The old woman had let him in, the knives were at hand, the rain was falling, beating against the old house.
    His hand was still damp with rain, with sweat, as he clutched the knife. He’d chosen a sharp one, not too big, not too small. He would take it with him when he finished, and at last he would be free.
    She was just replacing the telephone in its cradle when he walked back into the coolly elegant living room.
    “Your meter is in order,” he said. “Who were you calling?”
    She couldn’t see the knife. He’d done nothing to alarm her, he knew that. So why was she backing toward the door? There was no fear in her disdainful old face, only contempt, and he felt the black hole in his heart reach out to engulf him.
    “The police,” she said in her cool, upper-class voice. “Iwas very stupid to let you in without proper identification, particularly at this hour. They will be here in less than five minutes. I would suggest you leave.”
    “Five minutes,” said Yvon. He smiled, and he could feel the grin devour his face. “That should be time enough.” He started toward her, the knife no longer hidden.
    The police car raced through the wet streets, klaxon blaring to warn away the nonexistent traffic. They’d come to fetch Malgreave, Josef and his nemesis, Vidal, driving. Malgreave barely had time to give his excuses to Marie.
    Not that excuses would do any good anymore, he thought. It was a lucky thing he hadn’t yet gone to bed. He’d pulled on his heavy raincoat and battered old hat and followed his assistants out into the rain. He’d known all along something would happen that night. His instincts were well honed after all his years on the force, and he knew the killer, the killers, would be half mad with bloodlust after their forced inactivity during the last sunny spell. He’d even considered staying late, staying all night if he had to, waiting for the call to come in, but then had decided against it. If he’d been waiting, the call would never come. And he knew, ghoulish as it was, he would have been disappointed.
    “This may be a wild-goose chase,” Josef said as they careened around a corner. “The call came in and they passed the message on to me while they sent someone to investigate it. Just an old woman near the Pompidou Centre with a late-night intruder. Probably harmless—the man said he was with the Department of Public Works and she said he looked respectable.”
    “Then why did she call? Why the hell did she let him in in the first place?” Malgreave fumed. “Doesn’t she read the papers, doesn’t she know old women are being murdered? Why the hell can’t these people show some sense?”
    “They’re probably all senile,” Vidal offered from the driver’s seat. He was younger than Josef, not nearly as thorough, but he made up for his lack of attention to detail with flashes of intuitive brilliance that couldn’t be