Murder in the Sentier

Friday Evening

STEFAN STOOD IN THE shadowy courtyard outside Action-Réaction’s window. He’d seen Jules Bourdon case the building an hour ago, then go inside. Even after all these years, his moves were classic. The same. Should he confront Jules? Ask Jules why he had killed Jutta and Romain Figeac and tried to shoot him?

Grow up, he told himself. For once. Stand up. After all these years of hiding, now he was being hunted by the con man who had recruited him. The big talker, the mastermind of the disaster-ridden Laborde kidnapping.

Strange to say, the Brigade Criminelle and the gendarmes had been the ones who’d actually killed Laborde. He’d seen it in the papers later. All the gunshot wounds resulted from the police rifle attacks on the farm before they firebombed it.

Was Jules ransacking the office, looking for twenty-year-old loot? He couldn’t be that stupid. Especially if he’d survived as a mercenary in Africa. Jules had a cultivated nose for money. So he’d be sniffing after whatever he thought Beate and Jutta had hidden.

Silence. He peered in, his head up against the yellowed lace curtain. No one. A door was open. The door to the cellar.

Stefan crept inside the Action-Réaction office. Beams from a flashlight shone in the darkness below. He moved toward the cellar, then stopped. The wooden floor creaked behind him. A whiff of patchouli wafted in his direction. The scent from the commune. Ulrike’s scent.

He turned, saw the gun, and stiffened, his baffled look replaced by fear.