A Dangerous Goodbye: An absolutely gripping historical mystery (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 1) by Fliss Chester

Author:Fliss Chester [Chester, Fliss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781838886431
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2020-08-19T18:30:00+00:00

Fifteen

‘Bonjour, Monsieur,’ Fen whispered to the cat as she passed him, almost pausing to try and stop him biffing bees with his furry paws. ‘No time to parlay, I’m afraid.’

She trotted on at pace to try and catch up with her quarry. Estelle kept to the track alongside the château, but instead of going in, she made her way through the gardens, past the orchard and towards the church. But Fen lost sight of her as she turned a corner out of the Place de L’Église.

Fen paused by the church, using one of the large stone buttresses as a shield in case Estelle looked behind her to see if anyone was following. ‘She wouldn’t be wrong,’ Fen mumbled as she watched the other woman head towards the little road that passed as a sort of high street. Unlike in England, where there would have been more of an obvious central trading road to a town, here in France the roads were mostly residential and peppered with commercial buildings. Yes, there was a main square with a cafe and the greengrocer, but Fracan’s boulangerie, again on the square, was sandwiched between two houses, while the butcher was almost on the outskirts of town and the pharmacy belonging to Pascal Desmarais was a few streets away.

‘Of course, the pharmacy!’ If Estelle was heading anywhere into town, perhaps with some chemicals to hand, her pharmacist lover was the obvious port of call.

Fen peered into the glazed noticeboard outside the church. There was just about enough light to see her reflection and she adjusted her headscarf and slicked on a quick dash of Revlon’s finest.

It wasn’t much of a disguise, but at least if Estelle found her ‘following’ her now, she looked less like a furtive investigator and more like a tourist heading for an aperitif before lunch. She tried to walk as nonchalantly as she could down towards the pharmacy and it took almost all her effort to retain her composure when a few yards away from her destination she heard the familiar sound of a shop bell and Estelle came bustling out of the pharmacy, slightly flushed.

‘Bonjour, Fen,’ Estelle greeted her. Was she more flustered than usual? Fen couldn’t decide.

‘Bonjour, Estelle.’

There was an awkward impasse as the two women blocked each other’s way on the narrow pavement.

‘Are you going to see Pascal?’

Fen should have had an answer prepared, though, in her defence, the last twenty minutes or so had mostly been run off sheer adrenalin. Not wanting a repeat of the embarrassing ‘I’m called Churche and like visiting churches’ debacle, Fen hurriedly thought on her feet.

‘You know, Estelle, I’m so terribly upset about the deaths in the château that I’m worried I won’t sleep and I don’t want to keep you awake with my tossing and turning…’ Fen was rather pleased with herself for coming up with her instant excuse.

‘Keep me awake? As if I could sleep? It is I who have lost a friend and a priest.’

‘Yes, of course. I’m sure you won’t sleep a wink either.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.