Turncoat by Aaron Elkins

Author:Aaron Elkins
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2001-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

It took all of three. Like Paris some thirty miles to the east, Melun straddled the Seine. Like Paris, it had a medieval cathedral called Notre-Dame on an island in the middle of the river. But there the similarities ended. A mid-sized commercial and agricultural town, larger than Veaudry, it had been heavily damaged in the war, Juneaux told me. As a result, most of the central buildings had been rebuilt in the Fifties in a style in which cost necessarily came first, architectural interest a distant second.

But what it did have that greatly interested me was an American Express office, up to which Juneaux pulled his black Citroën so that I could replenish my supply of cash. I’d had enough on me to pay the hospital bill before leaving, but only just barely. The money situation wasn’t dire yet; I’d set aside twice as much in travelers’ checks as I’d thought I might need in even the most extreme circumstances, but unanticipated expenses were starting to pile up anyway. It wasn’t only the hospital, but the unanticipated trip to Veaudry in the first place, and now the upcoming return to Barcelona. I wasn’t down to counting pennies, but the time had come to start counting dollars. I’d spent a lot of them so far, and if I was any closer to tracking Lily down than I was when I started out from New York four days ago, I wasn’t aware of it. It was true that I’d learned a great deal, though; I now had critical insight into Lily’s makeup that I’d never even known I lacked. But would I ever get the chance to put it to use? Not unless I found her, and there I’d drawn a blank.

I’d expected that the inspector would want to interview me further on the short drive, but once we left the town behind he seemed to forget about me as he drove through the flat countryside, keeping occasional time to some tune in his head by tapping on the wheel with his fingers.

“Inspector?”

He looked over at me with friendly interest.

“Inspector, what you were saying about that gunman deliberately coming after me …” I shifted in my seat. This was not my favorite topic. I could hardly believe the words had come out of my mouth. Who, me? Still, I’d given some thought to what I had to say, and I went ahead and said it.

“Look, you’re basing it on a single witness, right? A waiter who says the guy was shooting at me. But the whole thing only took a few seconds, and it was pandemonium in there. You know better than I do that eyewitness reports under conditions like that are next to worthless.” (I knew it because I’d heard movie detectives say it a dozen times.) “What was this waiter doing, standing around and watching? Why wasn’t he ducking for cover like everyone else?”

“You know, that’s a good point,” he said obligingly. “Possibly you’re right.”

Did he mean it,

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