The Man from Section Five: A Brinley Knight Spy Thriller by Jana Petken

Author:Jana Petken [Petken, Jana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Six

Heat rushed out of John’s black Citroën Traction Avant as he opened the passenger door and bent down to retrieve the large envelope lying on the floor.

“I parked beneath this tree hoping its leafy branches would give the car shade and keep it cool, but it’s like an oven in there,” he said, handing Ursula the envelope.

Ursula looked at the front and back of it and saw no name or address.

John teased, “You remember Gerhardt’s name and where he lives, don’t you?”

“Of course.” She spun around towards the road just as a gendarmerie police van drove past John’s car. It upset her to think about the murdered man lying in the same spot in the garden that she had walked across that morning. She wondered if his blood still stained the grass. “I should go on alone,” she told him. “The police are everywhere. I didn’t say anything to you earlier about it because I was having such a lovely time, but they found the dead body of a man in the hotel grounds a few hours ago. Someone shot him several times, apparently. It’s terribly upsetting.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Someone murdered a man… in the hotel? Tell me about it?”

“I don’t know anything. Please, John, I can’t think about it.”

“Of course. How awful for you.”

Ursula saw the envelope wouldn’t fit into her purse and suggested she sit in the Avant so she could deal with it. “Would you mind turning your head for a moment? I’m going to hide this. Apart from the police, international newspapermen are roaming the lobby, and I don’t want to walk into the hotel with it in my hand.”

John opened the passenger door, and Ursula got in. “I’ll keep watch,” he said, leaning against the driver’s door with his back to the car.

Ursula undid her dress buttons from the collar to her waistline, then slipped the envelope inside until the top rested against her stomach and the bottom tucked into her blue waist belt to hold it in place. Afterwards, she re-buttoned the dress, pulled her large silk summer shawl around her, and held it across her middle to conceal the slight bulge at her tummy.

“There we are. No one will ever know. It was so nice to see you again, John. You can’t know how much I appreciate the perfume. I will think of you when I wear it.” She giggled, adding, “But you mustn’t tell Gerhardt. Please take care of yourself in Spain.”

“I will, dear one.”

Brin kicked a loose stone on the cobbled road as he walked from the bar, where he’d drunk a watery pale beer and eaten a smoked hard cheese baguette. He’d found the hotel’s menu too rich for his stomach. Everything he ate had thick concoctions poured over the food, like the red wine sauce that had gone over the venison he’d had in Berlin. If someone were to give him ‘toad in the hole’ followed by ‘spotted dick pudding’ right now, he’d be delighted. There was something to be said for bland English cooking smothered with plain gravy.

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