Downfall (Delphine Rougier Thriller) by Sally Spedding

Author:Sally Spedding [Spedding, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2019-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

23.

10.35 hrs.

From a sudden flicker of insight to a churning over and over of the very latest developments, Delphine left the D338 just past Beaumont-sur-Sarthe and pulled into a deserted, pot-holed parking area in front of a small guest house and campsite named Auberge de l’Aube. Here, another, more decrepit sign indicated the Bois des Hermites some two kilometres away.

Jérôme Meyer’s last-minute discovery on his computer had left her firing on more cylinders than her loyal but underpowered wheels. Sensing that now more than ever, the dead baby boy in the Hôtel les Palmiers was somehow connected to Basma Arouar’s former enterprise on the Rue des Mazières, in Saint-Denis. There, in April 1996, another infant, this time a mixed-race baby girl of just five days old, had been found dead in her cot in the bedroom she’d shared with her mother. Also unnamed.

‘… Her little kidneys failed. Then everything else… too quickly… too quickly…”

Unnamed? Why? Could she have been Basma’s child? Delphine had thought out loud before the archivist reminded her of the country’s privacy laws to safeguard the identities of those at risk. Especially if a lunatic was on the loose. But in this heartbreaking case, it seemed that the birth mother, a forty-four-year-old Algerian, had fled the capital, never to be seen again.

Delphine had swiftly done the maths. Hadn’t her former boss worked at the Hôtel les Palmiers for seven years? Been fifty-four at the time of her death?

“Was there a Coroner’s report?” She’d asked her new ally before leaving his domain.

“Nothing. No birth certificate either, and no record of any burial or cremation. My curiosity was aroused at the time, but then,” he’d shrugged. “Too much other, bigger news was surging in.”

*

Delphine pushed her defunct, spotted umbrella into an already full poubelle, and brought up the substantial collar of her mother’s coat to cover her ears. Then she picked her way past various chained-up pieces of play equipment and the odd bench-style table and chairs badly in need of a lick of paint. But this was winter. Most things excusable because of it.

Most things, except the freezing hybrid of hail and rain still falling.

To the right of the shabby-looking Auberge de l’Aube, stood a row of what must have once been smart log cabins, each with its own, faded sign naming an exotic animal. ZÈBRE, LION, PANTHÈRE and the like. She wondered which one the Seghers’ had stayed in. Or even in the house itself? Meyer’s online research hadn’t said.

The door for deliveries was signed towards the right-hand side of the house, beneath a large, wooden trellis supporting a jungle of dead vines. A sorry sight, and one which made her want to tear them down and start again. Like her efforts at Bellevue when there’d been some hope.

An elderly woman so hunched over, her face was almost hidden, opened the door. It then took a huge effort stirred more by anxiety than curiosity, for her to raise her gaze and, with a surge of sadness, Delphine could see she’d once been beautiful.

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