Belle - Lesley Pearse [201]
But for now Etienne just had to wait.
A flurry of women came out of the hotel back door at a few minutes past eight. Etienne assumed they were chambermaids. A couple of men came out too, waiters maybe or maintenance men. Then, just when he was beginning to think Pascal had left by the front entrance, he appeared too.
He had changed his smart livery for a dark suit, and he stopped by the door to light up a cigarette. Etienne felt his blood rising, for everything about the man, his thin, bony face, the carefully trimmed moustache, goatee beard and oiled hair, reminded him of other weasel-like characters he’d met in the past. He knew that if he got real proof this man had hurt Belle, he would want to tear him apart, limb by limb.
Pascal threw the cigarette butt down and stamped on it, then walked up the street towards the Boulevard des Capucines. He was moving at a brisk pace, and it looked as if he was going to catch a bus.
Etienne stayed well back, and when he saw Pascal join others waiting at a bus stop, he hailed a fiacre and told the driver to wait until the bus came, then follow it until he told him to stop.
It was a fine, mild evening, the roads were busy with traffic and there were moments when Etienne feared the cab driver would lose the bus for carts and carriages kept getting in the way. But as they approached the Gare du Nord, he saw Pascal get off the bus. For a moment he thought he was going into the station to catch a train, and cursed, for that would make it hard to follow him, but as Etienne stopped the cab and paid the driver, he saw Pascal was walking up Boulevard Magenta in the direction of Garrow’s, the undertaker.
He didn’t go that far though. Instead he turned into a left-hand side street, then turned right again. Etienne stayed just twenty yards behind him and fortunately there were enough people out and about for Pascal not to notice he was being followed. They were in a narrow street of tall houses which were probably all apartments, and Pascal went right to the end before disappearing into one.
Etienne waited a moment or two, then slipped into the hallway. It was like a thousand other apartment houses in Paris, gloomy, reeking of stale cooking smells, with a tiled floor, grubby-looking walls, and a winding staircase going up the six floors at the back. Beneath the staircase there were a couple of bicycles.
Twelve post boxes hung in the hall, and Pascal’s name was on number four, proof that this was where he lived. Etienne supposed that as there were two apartments on each floor Pascal’s was on the first.
Somewhat disappointed, Etienne jotted down the address on a scrap of paper and put it in his wallet. He had expected the man to be living somewhere fancier as he had been making so much out of Belle.
He waited a little further down the street until after nine o’clock, and as Pascal didn’t reappear, it seemed likely that he was in for the night. As Etienne turned to go back down the street he decided to go to Philippe’s restaurant and pay another fiacre to go and collect Noah so that the evening wouldn’t be entirely wasted.
Philippe Le Brun greeted Etienne warmly at Le Petit Poulet. It was a traditional Parisian restaurant, long and narrow, and it was packed with diners. But Philippe led him to a table he had kept free and was pleased to hear that Noah would be joining them shortly.
‘So did you manage to contact Pascal this afternoon and ask him if you could meet Belle again?’ Etienne asked the moment they were seated.
‘I did indeed, and he looked furtive,’ Philippe smirked. ‘I mean, more so than usual. He responded just how I’d expected, saying I was to leave it with him to contact her. Then I said I didn’t know how he was going to do that because I’d already called at the hotel she lived in and her landlady said she’d been gone for a few days.’
‘What did he say to that?’
‘He was visibly