Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [105]
We pulled in behind her and followed her through the narrow Presqu’île and into the quiet area north of the busy centre, where her taxi pulled up in front of a block of flats with shops on the street level. I had my driver continue on slowly; when I saw the two travellers go through a door, I told him to take me to the Carlton.
Despite the hour, they had a room for me “and my husband, who will be arriving tomorrow, or possibly Saturday.” I went up, washed the travel from my face and hands, turned my coat to present a bland cloth façade to the world, and went back down and through the dark streets to the Hughenforts’ front door.
I had seen a brasserie across the street and up a bit—not ideally placed for my purposes, but seated at the window, I thought I should be able to see if a taxi pulled up in front of her building. It took the maitre d’ twenty minutes to produce the requested window table, but I did not think it likely their stop at home would be that brief.
So it proved. I no sooner took my seat than a glance out at the street showed a familiar dark-haired boy with a laden shopping bag coming out of a grocer’s. The shopkeeper locked the door behind the boy and tugged down the shades; the boy walked up the steps and into the building.
The Hughenforts would, it seemed, be stopping the night at home. I ate my lamb cassoulet and drank two glasses of Moulin-à-Vent, then returned to my hotel, where I slept very well indeed.
In the morning I was back at my brasserie, its evening linen and herbs-and-garlic odours given way to scrubbed-bare tables and the aroma of coffee and croissants. I manoeuvred until I was at a window table, which I shared with several changes of patrons during my own extended breakfast. I drank more coffee than I had at any one time since the Palestine wanderings (with an unfortunate effect on my nerves) and ate the equivalent of a couple of large loaves of bread, presented in a variety of shapes and sizes, from brioche to baguette, all laden with butter and preserves. Feeling like a child at a birthday party, quivering with excitement and stuffed with sweet things, I paid my bill, abandoned my table, ducked in and out of an unfortunately maintained lavatory, and traded the restaurant for the now-open shops.
Two hours in the brasserie, two more examining each shop’s wares with minute attention and a few purchases, and soon the noon hour would be upon me and I would be thrown out onto the street, to reclaim my window seat and eat yet more food. (I had, at least, left a good tip, by way of apology for my lengthy occupation.)
However, as the shopkeeper wrapped my parcel, too polite as he did so to point out that every other door on the street was closed tight and that all civilised persons were already seated at their tables, I saw a taxi pull up in front of the Hughenfort door. The driver got out to ring the bell, and I hastened to pay and scramble to find a taxi of my own.
Taxi drivers, too, are civilised people. It took me ten tense minutes to find a man hungrier for cash than for déjeuner and to urge him back to my target. To his disgust, we then sat at the end of the road, the engine idling, while the other driver and the two Hughenforts pushed the last of their cases into the car and got in. Only when the other taxi was moving did I allow my driver to follow.
We travelled little more than a mile through the city, ending up not far from the railway station where we had begun on the previous day. The taxi turned into a quiet street and came to a halt before a run-down block