Belle - Lesley Pearse [193]
This was why he eventually told Jacques he couldn’t work for him any longer. He made out it was only because he wanted to spend more time with his family and Elena couldn’t manage the restaurant alone.
He would probably never know for certain whether the fire that killed them was Jacques’s revenge, or a genuine accident. But there was one thing he was certain of – if he did find Belle, then he was determined to expose this evil trade in children and young girls. He’d already lost everything that was dear to him, he had nothing more to lose other than his own life, and he’d die happy if he knew no more children would suffer that way.
The Trois Cygnes hadn’t changed. There was the same faded red and white checked half curtain on a brass rail across the window, peeling paint and the same blast of cigarette smoke, mildew and garlic as Etienne opened the door. A wizened old man was playing the accordion just the way he remembered, and although the faces of the customers were different, they were the same mix of whores, pimps, struggling artists, dancers and students. A few of the older ones might even be the same he used to drink with all those years ago. But his memory of this place was that it had been bursting with life, with heated arguments about politics and art. Colourful characters, strong opinions and eccentricity used to be the order of the day, but the present customers looked surly, jaded and dull.
‘Etienne!’
He looked over to where the shout came from at the back of the bar, and smiled at the delight in the woman’s voice. It had to be Madeleine, even if the years hadn’t been kind to her.
She wriggled her way through the close-packed tables and chairs, fat now and in her mid-forties, but she still had a smile to light up a room.
‘Madeleine! I hoped you’d be here,’ Etienne said and held out his arms to embrace her. He’d learned everything about lovemaking from her, and even more about life. In her thirties she’d been a flame-haired beauty, with a soul as beautiful as her face. Her hair was still red, but all too clearly dyed, and the porcelain-like complexion was muddy and lined now. Yet all the warmth she’d had was still there, and as he held her the years slipped away and he felt as he had at twenty.
‘Let me look at you,’ she said, stepping back a little. ‘More handsome than ever, and a suit that tells me you won’t need me to buy you a drink! But what brings you here? I heard you’d become a recluse.’
‘I came looking for you,’ Etienne said.
She took his hand and led him to a free table right at the back of the bar, calling to the barman to bring them cognac. As he had half expected, she’d heard about Elena and the boys – bad news always spread far and wide – and as she offered condolences her eyes filled with tears of sympathy.
‘It is good to see your heart is still as big,’ he said, taking her hand across the table. ‘After the way I left you, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d wished bad luck on me.’
‘You were never for me, I always knew that,’ she said, and he noticed her green eyes were still as vivid. ‘If you’d stayed we would’ve destroyed one another, and I was too old for you too. But let’s not talk about that – tell me why you are here in Paris. You weren’t one for social calls, as I remember.’
‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that anything I say must stay between us?’ he reminded her.
‘Of course.’
Etienne outlined Belle’s story. ‘You were right in believing I’d become a recluse. If I hadn’t got a message to say Belle had disappeared I would have finished clearing the land around my cottage and planted some crops and got some chickens.’
Madeleine laughed. ‘Surely not! You a farmer?’
‘Working the land suits me,’ he said. ‘I hope I can go back to it. But first I have to find Belle to put things right.’
‘She may have just gone off on a jaunt with this client of hers.’
‘No, she has left all her belongings at the hotel she was staying at.’
‘Pssst,’ Madeleine said scornfully. ‘A few clothes would not hold a girl, not if the man was rich