Starburst (29 page)

“If they discover you’re living in the same flat as Angélique Pascal, they’ll find what you have to say pretty important, I can tell you.”

Rene nodded. “Right,” she said, realizing now that her young landlord was seriously concerned about something to do with the violinist’s welfare. “In that case, of course I promise. Ye’ve been me bloody saviour up here in Edinburgh, Jamie Stratton. The last thing I’d want to do is get ye into trouble.”

So, as they continued on their way up to the lights on Queen Street, Jamie told Rene about his chance meeting with Angélique in the coffee shop. By the time they turned into George Street and he had told her of the assault the violinist had suffered at the hands of her manager, Rene was so captivated by the story she forgot all about her lack of fitness and made sure she kept pace with Jamie, even breaking into an awkward trot at times to avoid missing one word of what he was telling her. When the one-o’clock gun thundered out from the battlements of Edinburgh Castle and the pigeons, sitting high on the flat stone ballustrades of the buildings, rose momentarily in panic, Rene listened on, seemingly immune to the sudden, ear-pounding disturbance. They stepped off the pavement in unison to avoid the disorderly but boisterously good-natured queues that meandered along the street, readying themselves with plastic beer glasses in hand to squeeze into unlikely basement venues for the early-afternoon Fringe performances. And then, on reaching Charlotte Square, where crowds mingled on the grass outside the white marquees of the Book Festival, dappled with shadow under their sun-glistened umbrella of trees, Rene let out a loud expletive describing her thoughts on Albert Dessuin and stepped out into the street without looking. Had it not been for Jamie’s restraining arm, she no doubt would have ended her days beneath the wheels of one of the vehicles in the ever-constant stream of traffic, with the vulgar word frozen on her lips.

“So, this is where they were staying, is it?” Rene wheezed when they eventually came to a halt, looking across Festival Square at the glass-fronted rectangle of the Sheraton Grand.

“Yeah, it is,” Jamie replied distractedly as he cast an eye around the packed area.

“Do ye think ’e’s still somewhere abouts?”

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s headed back to Paris.”

“So what’re ye going to do?”

Jamie exhaled a deep breath. “Just go in, I suppose.”

“D’ye want me to come in with ye?”

“No, don’t worry. You should go off and do what you’ve got to do.”

“Oh, I’ve got nowt pressing. Anyway, ye’ve got me ’ooked now, lad. I want to ’ang around and see the outcome.”

Jamie smiled at Rene, secretly pleased she was there with him as an accomplice, her quirky banter calming the nervousness he felt at carrying out the task in hand. “All right. Maybe you could stay here then, just in case I’m followed out of the hotel.”

“D’ye think that’s likely?”

“Anything’s possible.”

Rene shot him a wink. “Okay, then, consider it done. I’ll ’ave a seat over there at the café and keep me eyes peeled.”

As Jamie hurried across to the steps and entered through the swing doors of the hotel, Rene walked over to the café, put her bag on an empty table and flumped down into one of the metal chairs facing the hotel entrance so that she had an unhindered view of all that was going on in Festival Square. She was taking this whole “private eye” business pretty seriously.

And had she not been so attentive while waiting for her cup of cappuccino to arrive, she would never have noticed the woman with the wild mass of red hair and the huge pink scarf wrapped around her neck get up from the table beside her, nor the brown leather purse that lay dropped beneath her chair.

“Excuse me!” Rene called out, pushing herself to her feet. She leaned over awkwardly and picked up the purse. The woman had not heard her, continuing on in the same direction as Jamie had taken five minutes before. Rene bustled off across the square after her. “Excuse me!” she called out again, this time much louder.

The woman turned and looked back at her, a querying frown on her freckled, moon-shaped face.

“Ye dropped yer purse,” Rene said as she approached her. “It was under yer seat.”

The woman’s mouth dropped open in horror. “Oh my God!” she said, taking the purse from Rene’s outstretched hand. “I can’t believe I’d do that. My whole life’s in this purse. How can I ever thank ye?”

Rene smiled at her. The woman spoke with an accent not dissimilar to her own, and although Rene could tell she didn’t hail from Yorkshire, just the very tone of her voice was like a homecoming, a comfort to hear.

“Think nowt of it,” Rene replied with a shrug of her shoulders. “Lucky I saw it.”

“Well, let me at least buy you a coffee.” The woman flicked a thumb behind her towards the Sheraton Grand. “I’m going into that hotel there.”

Rene shook her head. “Thanks, but I can’t. Ah’m waiting for someone. Any road, ah’ve just ordered a cappuccino back there at the café.”

“Right, well, in that case, what can I say other than thanks.”

Rene stuck her hands deep into the pockets of her huge coat. “It was a pleasure.”

A quizzical frown came over the woman’s face once more. “’Ave we met before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s just that you look quite familiar.”

“Maybe you’ve seen my double in
Vogue
or summat like that.”

The woman laughed. “Aye, maybe that’s it.”

“I’m always being mistaken.”

“I’m sure y’are.”

Rene turned to see the waiter put her cup of cappuccino on the table. He lit the patio warmer that stood next to it, and then glanced around for his customer. She caught his eye and raised a hand. “Ah’d better get back, then,” she said, pointing a finger.

“Aye, ye’d better. And thanks again for the purse. That was a real lifesaver.”

Giving her a brief wave of farewell, Rene turned and walked back to her table.

She was savouring every sip of her frothy cappuccino, floating with an overabundance of flaked chocolate, when she saw Jamie appear back through the swing doors of the hotel and cast a searching look around the square. When he caught sight of Rene, he beckoned for her to come quickly. She stood up, her eyes darting back and forth between him and the inviting cup of coffee. “Oh, damnation!” she said under her breath, rummaging in her handbag for her purse. She showered some coins onto the table, slung her handbag onto her shoulder and hurried over to the steps.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Bloody Dessuin’s standing in the queue right now at the reception. He was meant to have gone back to Paris.”

“’Ow d’ye know it’s ’im?”

“Because I’ve seen his picture in a newspaper. Anyway, he’s also got her blue suitcase and the violin with him.”

“But I thought yer lawyer had said he’d booked out.”

“I know. That’s what’s puzzling me. He must have come back, which means…”

Rene saw the gaunt look of realization on Jamie’s face. “Means what?”

“Somehow he’s worked out Angélique is still here in Edinburgh.”

Rene blew out a long breath. “Aye, that
would
seem the logical answer. So what should we do?”

“Only one thing for it. I’ve got to get her suitcase and violin now. There’s never going to be another opportunity.”

“But ’ow?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Jamie replied, turning back towards the swing doors. “Come on, you’d better come with me. If the worse comes to the worst, you’ll have to set up some kind of diversion.”

Rene pushed through the swing doors in pursuit of Jamie and scurried along the carpeted corridor to catch up with him. “’Ow do I do that?”

“I have no idea,” Jamie said as he descended the wide black-banistered staircase leading down to the reception area. “Hopefully, it won’t be necessary, but you’ll just have to use your imagination, if need be.”

“We’re not going to break the law, are we?”

But Rene got no answer to her question. She stood transfixed on the final landing of the stairs, watching Jamie as he made his way over to the reception where a tall thin man with a belted mackintosh was in heated debate with the young receptionist, his hands gesticulating in annoyance as he tried to put his point across to her.

Rene slowly descended the remaining few steps in a knee-knocking trance of panic, her eyes never leaving Jamie as he nonchalantly reached down to pick up the blue suitcase and the violin that stood in the row of luggage behind the man. This is not going to work, she thought to herself.

“Oh, I’ve suddenly come over all faint,” she said shrilly to no one in particular, theatrically grabbing hold of the large square banister knob and weaving her body in a circular motion, not unlike a spinning top that was coming to the end of its centrifugal momentum. The true fact was that the tension of the whole situation was making her feel particularly light-headed, which helped to reassure her of the realistic nature of her performance. Unfortunately, though, she delivered her line with such clarity and volume that she not only attracted the attention of all those who were present in the hotel lobby but also the very person whom Jamie was so far doing a very good job of evading. There was a brief moment when he glanced over to her with an agonized look on his face before he made a fast and furtive dart for the back entrance of the hotel, clutching Angélique’s suitcase and violin. Through her oscillating vision, Rene watched as the Frenchman’s unsympathetic glare turned from her, the lady in distress, to Jamie, the boy in quick retreat, his expression changing in an instant from annoyance to open-mouthed horror.

“Hey, you, come back with those!” he yelled out at the top of his voice as he took off after Jamie, who had by this time disappeared out into the street. Rene glanced down at the floor, measuring her distance, and with a final, desperate prayer that the Sheraton Grand had not scrimped on its furnishing budget and that the carpet was indeed a plush, top-of-the-range Axminster with a deep spongy underlay, she fell poleaxed to the ground, on the very spot where Dessuin was about to plant his neat black, highly polished shoe. Like a racehorse that had an obstacle the size of a Grand National fence suddenly dropped in front of it, Dessuin could do nothing to avoid the prostrate form. His foot caught the side of Rene’s body with such force she momentarily opened her eyes wide, muffling a cry of pain, as Dessuin’s charcoal-worsted legs flew over her in a horizontal arc. As she heard the thump of his body coming to rest next to hers, she hurriedly closed her eyes and feigned serene unconsciousness, hoping that her face was giving off the colour of insipid magnolia rather than the much more likely raging red of a well-stoked brazier. She sensed people gathering around her, some giving helpful commands like “Stand back and give her air,” and then, rather alarmingly, hands started to undo the top buttons of her shirt. If ye go to the next one down, she thought to herself, I’m going to slap yer bloody ’and away, regardless. And then she heard a female voice, farther away from those surrounding her, say something that certainly had the effect of draining any excess colour from her face.

“I’ll call the police immediately, sir.”

“No, don’t do that” came the immediate reply. “I do not want to involve the police.”

“But, sir, you’ve just had some luggage stole—”

“I said I do not want you to call the police.” Rene heard Dessuin let out a short unconvincing laugh. “It is all a bit of a misunderstanding. I know who has taken the cases. I will get them back from him.”

There was a pause, during which someone raised Rene’s head off the floor and slipped a soft cushion underneath it.

“Well, if you’re sure, sir.”

“Quite sure. I will deal with it all once I am in my room.” Rene heard the man’s soft tread skirt round the foot of her supine body. “Does anyone know who this woman might be?” he asked.

Oh, no, Rene thought to herself, this is it. I’ve been found out. This must ’ave been ’ow it felt for a member of the Resistance to be picked up by the Gestapo. I wonder ’ow I’ll ’old up under interrogation. Oh, please, God, all I ask is that I can get to go to the loo first.

“Aye, she’s a friend of mine,” a female voice replied, very close to Rene’s head. “We were about to have tea together when she said she was feeling faint and headed off to the ladies’ toilet.”

There was a pause before the Frenchman’s voice replied, “Very well,” and then Rene heard him walk away. She flickered one eye, trying desperately to see who it was that had come to her rescue. Through the diffusion of her eyelid, she could make out the wild tangle of curly red hair and the huge pink scarf.

“That’s about five minutes now,” the woman’s voice whispered to her. “I reckon that’s sufficient time to be in your so-called faint. Just flutter your eyelids a bit like you’re seducing Brad Pitt and then let out a bit of a moan.”

Rene smiled, her eyes still tightly shut. “I’m ’oping those were your ’ands that were getting dangerously close to my cleavage.”

“No such luck, pet. That was Brad Pitt.”

Rene fought hard to suppress a giggle, but it spluttered out nevertheless.

“I said moan, you daft cow, not laugh!”

Rene did as was requested, and with a dazzling flicker of eyelids looked up into the round freckled face of the woman whose purse she had returned. There was such an expression of hilarity in her greeny-grey eyes that Rene had a strong urge to burst out laughing there and then. Not that it would probably have mattered. She realized the woman was now the only person who was paying any attention to her.

“Ye’re Lancashire, aren’t ye?” Rene said, seeing no reason now to speak in hushed tones. “I’ve just worked it out.”

“Aye, and you’re Yorkshire.” The woman wrinkled up her squat little nose. “I remembered where I recognized you from. Ye’re Rene Brownlow, aren’t ye? I’ve seen yer show.”

Rene raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Well, fancy that. Fame at last.”

“You should write that fainting bit into your repertoire,” the woman said, giving Rene’s arm a light shove with her hand. “It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years.”

“I thought it was quite convincing,” Rene replied, feigning pique.