‘You can telephone him from here, I’ll take these to my room and read them.’
‘I’d rather you didn’t. I promised the old doctor…’
‘They’ll be safe enough with me.’ Mitch looked shocked that Claire didn’t trust him.
‘I said no! I promised Doctor Puel. Please respect that and do not take them out of this room.’
‘Okay!’ Mitch put his hands up. ‘The documents and I will be here when you get back.’
Claire left Mitch reading and went down to the foyer. There was only one public telephone, which was in use, so she waited. When the phone was free she called Thomas. There was no reply. He was probably on his way to work at the University. She pressed the coin return button, fished the coins out of the narrow metal drawer and replaced the telephone. A second later she put the money back into the money-box and called Antoinette.
Assuming Thomas had told Antoinette about Dr Puel and the documents he had given her, Claire related briefly what had happened that morning. ‘I don’t have much time. I’ve booked a taxi to take me to see Guillaume Cheval. I’ll ring you when I get back and let you know what happened. Would you get in touch with Thomas? Tell him there will be no need for him to come up here at the weekend, because I am taking the documents to Guillaume Cheval, today.’ Antoinette assured Claire she would pass on the message and the two friends said goodbye.
‘So,’ Mitch said on Claire’s return, ‘Doctor Heinrich Beckman became the psychiatrist, Professor Lucien Puel. The twenty-six-year-old became a thirty-six-year-old - and the German National became French-Swiss.’
‘That about sums it up.’ Claire took the papers out of Mitch’s hand, put them in the correct order, and returned them to the briefcase. ‘The taxi will be here soon. Are you coming?’
‘Yes.’ Mitch’s eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘I didn’t think-- Hang on, I’ll run and get my coat.’
‘I’ll be in the foyer.’ Picking up her handbag and the briefcase, Claire took the lift down to reception. ‘I’d like to stay for another night. Would that be possible?’ she asked the manager.
He consulted the booking diary. ‘Your room is free tonight and tomorrow, so you can stay where you are if you’re happy with the room, Madame Belland.’
Claire said she was, thanked the man, and as she walked across the foyer to the hotel’s main entrance, Mitch ran across the reception area to her and together they went out to the waiting taxi.
CHAPTER THIRTY
As the taxi cruised along the narrow country roads towards Chateau Je Reviendrai, the nerves in Claire’s stomach began to tighten. She inhaled and exhaled slowly and told herself to calm down. It didn’t work. She looked out of the window. The sky was pale blue, the trees and hedgerows were in bud, and fine mist hugged the earth.
She recognised the crossroads where Thomas had taken the turn to the chateau. They were close. Claire began again to doubt her decision to take the old doctor’s documents herself. She would have to meet the woman her husband felt so strongly about. The woman who, after seeing her with Mitch last night, Claire had decided not to meet.
Perhaps she should have waited for Thomas to take them at the weekend. She closed her eyes. No! she said to herself. She was doing the right thing. The sooner Heinrich Beckman was arrested and put behind bars the better. And the sooner she met and got “Simone” out of her system the sooner she would be able to move on with her life.
‘He’s in love with you, you know?’
‘What?’ Claire had been deep in thought and only caught the words love and know.
‘Thomas Durand. He’s in love with you.’
Her heart thumped against her chest. She had intended to tell Mitch that she’d kissed Thomas and that she’d had feelings for him, but now she didn’t need to tell him anything. What she did, or had done, was none of his business. Even so, she felt she needed to deny this revelation. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘He made it quite clear on the telephone.’ Claire held her breath. Would Mitch tell her what Thomas had said? She knew her husband, knew he wouldn’t be able to resist telling her. All she had to do was appear disinterested. She did, and it worked. ‘He telephoned me at the hotel in the early hours, told me you were leaving in the morning. He said, if I had any sense at all I would tell you how I felt about you. Tell you that I loved you before it was too late, or I’d regret it.’
‘Well you did stop me leaving, and you have told me how you feel.’
Mitch laughed. ‘Sometimes you can be so naive, Claire. Thomas Durand wasn’t telling me to tell you how I feel about you, he was telling me that he should have told you how he felt about you when he had the chance. He was saying that it was too late for him, and now he regretted it.’
‘This is not the time to talk about how I-- we feel, or what we regret. I have a job to do, so do you, we’ll talk about who kissed who later! We’re here,’ she said, as the taxi turned off the road and began the slow drive up to Chateau Je Reviendrai.
The cab pulled up at the bottom of a set of steps leading to the chateau where the Cheval’s lived. The driver jumped out of the vehicle and opened Claire’s door. Mitch let himself out and paid the fare, while Claire stood and marvelled at the elegant building.
‘Beautiful isn’t it?’ Mitch said, at her side.
‘It is,’ she said, deciding there was no need for Mitch to know that she and Thomas had
