The King of Thieves: by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks [Jecks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Contemporary Fiction, blt, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Contemporary, _MARKED, Historical, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 0755344170
Amazon: B00IX5CSOU
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2014-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Outside north-west Paris

Hélias had a client who had stayed with her all night, one of her long-standing men, as she liked to call him, and she had just bade him farewell at the door when the whisper on the street reached her ears.

‘What’s all this?’ she demanded. Bernadette, one of her girls, a buxom brunette with eyes of startling emerald, stopped talking to her cully and turned, ashen-faced, to Hélias.

‘The Procureur, Hélias. He’s dead.’

‘Don’t talk stupid, wench. Who’d kill him?’ she scoffed.

‘There are a few who’d like to remove a man like him,’ the client said. He was a flash fellow, with bright yellow and scarlet clothing, apart from an old cowl of faded green. He had been digging in his purse, and now he lifted a coin with the demeanour of a man who had performed a magnificent conjuring trick. ‘Ah! An hour of your time, girl!’

Hélias rudely shoved him from her path. ‘Be still! Tell me, who could have done this? Has anyone confessed?’ She was torn between scorn and the dawning horror that Jean might actually be dead.

‘No, of course not. What, you think someone would kill Poissy and then rush to the officers and roar, “It’s me! I did it!”’

‘You, Bernadette, get inside and fetch the other girls. She can do you later, man. For now, you want to have her for free?’

The man’s eyes were fixed on the girl’s bouncing figure as she hurried inside to get the other girls. ‘Is this a trick?’

‘No. I want to know who killed my friend.’ Hélias took a shuddering breath. ‘Anyone who can bring me information about him will be rewarded – and you will be first. If you go to all the taverns in the city – start with those nearest to where he died, and then go to the farther ones – you can have her for free, and any of her friends you like. You understand me?’

The man nodded wildly.

‘Good, then go! Now, Bernadette, where the hell are you?’ Hélias bawled.

Louvre

The Bishop had slept well, but upon waking he felt as unrefreshed as ever. He rolled in his bed, grunting and grumbling until he rose from the mattress and made his way over the floor. There was a jug and bowl on the table at the window, and he threw open the shutters, staring out into the castle’s courtyard.

For all his life, he had been a servant. At first he was merely a servant of the Church, and as a student, he had proved adequately to himself how important learning was to the youthful mind. Later, when he became a Bishop, he had decided to take more interest in other spheres of public life, and especially the government of the realm.

There were many who decided to go into politics in order to enhance their own position or to enrich themselves. In Christ’s name, he had known many of them himself: from the slovenly, dull-witted fools who thought themselves so grand if they could but earn a few pounds without work, to those myriads who were callow, corrupt and venal.

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