Sepulchre by Kate Mosse Read Free Book Online

once I have seen you into a carriage.' Moments later, they were standing outside on the pavement. 'You are not returning with me?'
    Anatole helped her up into the cab and fastened the catch. 'I think I'll pay a visit Chez Frascati. Perhaps play a couple of hands of cards.' Léonie felt a flutter of panic. 'What shall I tell M'man?' 'She will already have retired.'
'But what if she has not?' she objected, trying to delay the moment of departure.
    He kissed her hand. 'In which case, tell her not to wait up.' Anatole reached up to press a note into the driver's hand. 'Rue de Berlin,' he said, then stepped back and banged on the side of the carriage. 'Sleep well petite. I shall see you at breakfast.'
    The whip cracked. The lamps banged against the side of the gig as the horses jerked forward in a clinking of harness and iron shoes on the cobbles. Léonie pushed down the glass and leaned out of the window. Anatole stood in a pool of smoggy yellow light beneath the hissing gas lamps, a trail of white smoke twisting up from his cigarette.
    Why would he not tell me why he was late? She kept looking, reluctant to let him out of her sight, as the cab rattled up the rue Caumartin past the Hotel Saint-Petersbourg, past Anatole's Alma Mater, the Lycee Fontanes, heading for the junction with rue Saint-Lazare.
    Leonie's last glimpse, before the carriage turned the corner, was of Anatole flicking the burning end of his cigarette into the gutter. Then he turned on his heel and walked back into Le Bar Romain.
CHAPTER 6
    The building in the rue de Berlin was quiet. Léonie let herself into the apartment with a latchkey. An oil lamp had been left burning to light her way. Léonie dropped the key into the china bowl that stood beside the silver post salver, empty of letters or calling cards. Pushing her mother's stole off the cushion, she sank down on a hall chair. She slipped off her stained slippers and silk stockings, massaging her sore toes and thinking of Anatole's evasiveness. If there was no shame attached to his actions, then why would he not tell her why he had been late to the opera?
    Léonie glanced along the passageway and saw that her mother's door was closed. For once, she was disappointed. Often she found Marguerite's company frustrating, her topics of conversation limited and predictable. But tonight she would have been grateful for a little late-night company. She took up the lamp and walked into the drawing room. A large and generous room, it occupied the entire front of the house, overlooking the rue de Berlin itself. The three sets of windows were closed, but the curtains of yellow chintz that hung ceiling to floor had been left open.
    She placed the lamp upon the table, then looked down on the deserted street. She realised she was chilled to the bone. She thought of Anatole, somewhere in the city, and hoped he was safe.
    At last, thoughts of what could have been started to creep up on her. The high spirits that had supported her through the long evening drained away, leaving her frightened and fearful. She felt as if every limb, every muscle, every sense was overtaken by the memory of what she had witnessed.
Blood and cracked bones and hate.
    Léonie closed her eyes, but still each separate incident flooded back, distinct, as if caught in the click of the shutter of a box camera. The stench as the homemade bombs of excrement and rotting food burst. The frozen eyes of the man as the knife plunged into his chest, that single paralysing moment between life and death.
There was a green woollen shawl hanging over the back of the chaise longue. She wrapped it around her shoulders, turned down the gas lamp and curled up in her favourite armchair, her legs tucked beneath her.
    Suddenly, from the floor beneath, the sound of music began to filter up through the floorboards. Léonie smiled. Achille at his piano again. She looked to the clock on the mantelshelf.
Past midnight.
    Léonie welcomed the knowledge that she was not the only one