The Pleasures of Autumn (33 page)

‘So you are awake,’ he remarked. ‘Which one are you?’ He looked her over carefully, taking in every detail. Those cold green eyes lingered on her hands and unpainted nails. ‘Let me guess, you’re the librarian.’

‘Curator,’ she snapped.

He shrugged. ‘Same difference. Imagine my surprise to find out there were two of you. And both hot in a red-headed kind of way.’

Her breath caught. His expression was a combination of sadistic amusement and lust. All her female instincts went on alert. ‘You have an advantage over me. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.’ She was aware she sounded like Granny O’Sullivan at her worst, but she wasn’t going to let this monster know how much he scared her.

He laughed and made a half bow in her direction. ‘You don’t need to know who I am.’ He gestured to her to sit down.

Reluctantly, she took a straight-backed chair as far away from him as she could manage. He waited until she was sitting before he lounged on the couch.

This had to be the elusive J. Darren Hall that Niall and Andy had been talking about, the one that had fought with Niall in the RER station. The fact that he was allowing her to see his face sent a chill through her. She had seen enough crime dramas to know this wasn’t a good sign.

‘What do you want?’ she asked. Get him talking, maybe he’d let something slip.

He laughed. ‘As if you didn’t know. I want that ruby, the Fire of Autumn.’

‘I don’t have it.’ At least she could say that with complete truth.

‘I know that. I already searched you. But if you don’t, your sister does.’

She shivered at the thought of those hands on her body, but something he said caught her attention. ‘How do you know I have a sister?’ She had spent years trying to convince people that Roisin existed and now this – this psychopath just took it for granted.

‘Your cross-dressing pervert friend told me all about it.’

For a moment, she scrabbled to work out who he could mean. ‘Clara? Clara wouldn’t tell you anything.’

He crossed one leg over the other. She couldn’t help noticing the muscle in those long thighs. ‘Is that his name? He was a little reluctant, but it’s amazing how easily a knife to the nuts can loosen a tongue.’

‘Did you hurt her?’

He laughed. ‘Her? Oh, I have proof that fucking pervert is a man where it counts, and he’s still fond of his tackle. He put up a good fight, I’ll give him that, but he could have saved himself a lot of blood if he had told me what I wanted to know when I first asked. How do you think I knew where to find you?’

‘How badly is Clara hurt?’

Hall shrugged. ‘He’ll probably live.’

Oh god, no. Gabriel, Niall and now Clara. Everyone
who came into contact with her seemed to get hurt. If she had stayed in Geneva, instead of running off to Paris to find her sister, none of it would have happened. She hadn’t done it, but they were all hurt because they were involved with her.

Anger rose in her, keeping her fear at bay. ‘Do you hurt everyone you meet?’

He smirked at her. ‘Oh no. I’m very good to people who please me. And if you find me the ruby, you’ll please me a lot.’

‘In your dreams. I’m not giving you the Fire of Autumn.’

‘No, your boyfriend will, if he wants to see you again. And if you misbehave, I’ll kill him. It’s not as if I need him for anything once I have the ruby.’

Sinead swallowed. She had no doubt that he meant every word.

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded.

‘Then get in the car.’

It was late afternoon as they drove through the Paris streets. Her favourite city in the world was turning into a nightmare. They parked behind a tour bus on Place Denfert-Rochereau and the driver switched off the engine. ‘Last tour is at 4pm, boss.’

The blond glanced at his diver’s watch and nodded. ‘Remember what I told you, Red.’

She nodded. She had dragged Niall into this. There was no way that she wanted him to be hurt. They followed the tourists emerging from the bus and merged into the crowd filing into the catacombs.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,
Mesdames et Messieurs
, we will
shortly begin our tour of the catacombs. Please note that there are no bathrooms or other facilities here and our visit will last approximately one hour.’

Sinead looked around her. There was no sign of Niall or Andy. Where were they going? As they descended a narrow spiral stone staircase into the darkness, the silence was broken by the sound of dripping water and the occasional cough from one of the tourists.

After what seemed like an age, the passageway opened out and they stopped before a stone portal over which were inscribed the words ‘
Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort.
’

‘Stop! Here lies the Empire of Death,’ Sinead translated. She only hoped that it wouldn’t prove true.

The tour guide continued, ‘
L’Ossuaire Municipal
holds the remains of more than six million people. Opened in the late eighteenth century it has been a tourist attraction since 1874. On your right you can see …’

They followed the shuffling crowd of elderly tourists along the dark passageways of the catacombs. When a bespectacled man ventured down a poorly lit path he was cautioned by the guide. ‘Monsieur, I would ask you to stay with the group. Philibert Aspairt was lost in the catacombs in 1793 and not found for eleven years. We will see his tomb later.’

That drew an uneasy laugh and there were no further attempts to wander. They paused at a semi-circular wall made from skulls and femurs arranged in rows with a stone cross set into the middle. Sinead shivered.

The tour guide rambled on, ‘Since their opening, these passageways have been used by the communards in the
nineteenth century and members of the French Resistance during World War Two.’

Further on, they filed past a rusting gate guarding a dark passageway. More endless passageways led off in different directions; someone could be lost here for years. Is this what Hall had planned for them when he got his hands on the stone? She risked another glance at her fellow tourists – a mix of wealthy Swiss, Germans and Americans. Not one of them was under sixty. She couldn’t count on them for help.

Hall appeared to be perfectly relaxed, he might have been a tourist enjoying a holiday, but the slight bulge in the pocket of his jacket told her differently. Hall was armed.

Sinead glanced at her watch. They had been here almost forty-five minutes. The place would be closing soon. She checked the crowd again. There was no sign of Hall’s buddy. When she risked a sideways glance, Hall draped an arm around her shoulders as if in a lovers’ embrace.

‘Don’t try anything,’ he murmured against her hair.

Niall looked around. Why had Hall sent him here? It was a nondescript Parisian square, with an elaborate metro station and a couple of official looking buildings on the other side of the green. There was nothing remarkable except a tour bus parked under a tree. Fuck Hall. He was laughing himself sick watching Niall run ragged around Paris while he had Sinead all to himself.

The thought of Sinead at Hall’s mercy made him feel nauseous. Now he understood why doctors were not allowed to operate on family members. He was ice-cold during an operation, able to balance risk and reward analytically. Of course he knew what would happen if the op went wrong, but it didn’t affect his planning. Now all he could think of was the ruined face of Gabriel Bertrand. Hall would do that, and more, to Sinead if Niall didn’t get there in time.

‘This is a dead end. Give me back my whip,’ Roisin demanded. Damn, she was like a burr, sticking to him no matter where he went or what he did. With a detached part of his mind, he wondered how she kept in shape. He and Andy had been trained by the Irish Ranger Wing to be able to run for hours in all conditions, and they were sweating and panting. Roisin’s skin was flushed and sweaty strands of hair straggled down her neck, but she was coping.

‘When Sinead is safe, you can have it.’

Giving away that stone could well end his career, but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting Sinead back safely.

His phone beeped. ‘Good boy. Now get down.’

Niall snarled silently. ‘He’s fucking with us,’ he said, showing Andy the text message.

‘Or maybe not. Look over there.’ A small sign said ‘
Catacombes de Paris
.’

That made sense. The catacombs went on for miles, and whoever got there first had the advantage of picking the spot for the handover.

The little kiosk selling tickets looked old, but the credit card machine was modern. The bored attendant pointed at a spiral staircase and went back to watching Jack Winter playing Superman on the television.

This was it. All his instincts told him that now they would meet Hall. ‘Are you carrying?’ he asked Andy.

His second-in-command snorted. ‘Are you kidding? I’ve got a torch and a night-watch stick. That’s all I’m permitted to carry in France.’

Grimly, Niall nodded. He didn’t even have that. He would have to depend on his training and strength. And ignore the throb from his recent injuries and the nausea from his breakfast. ‘Let’s go.’

He led the way down the stone staircase that wound its way into the bowels of Paris. Halfway down, he got another text. ‘Meet you at the tomb of Philibert Aspairt.’

As he descended, the bars on his phone disappeared. No calling for help now. They were on their own against Hall and his men. The only priority here was getting
Sinead back safely. And, he realized, keeping Roisin safe as well. She might be an immoral thief, but she was a civilian, and had no business going up against a psychopath like Hall.

‘Andy, your job is to keep Roisin out of trouble.’ He didn’t bother looking back over his shoulder as he spoke. He could hear the pair of them bickering behind him. He ignored the curse under Andy’s breath, but Roisin didn’t.

‘And the same to you, asshole.’

The stairs ended and the tunnel stretched out in front of them, silent except for the gurgle of water. He followed the signs and headed down the unpaved tunnel. It was warmer than he had expected, and electric lights picked up the dull sheen of bones.

A large circular cavern was lined with bones, piled neatly from floor to ceiling. A row of grinning skulls watched from amid the piles of femurs.

Roisin muttered, ‘Bloody hell,’ in a subdued voice. Finally, something that silenced her. But Niall himself was unsettled by the thousands of bones in this chamber alone.

He pressed on, hearing voices ahead of him. A tour group was plodding along, discussing last night’s television, the price of eating in Paris and occasionally remarking on the bones that lined every wall.

Niall pushed past them, heading for the tomb of Philibert Aspairt.

‘Monsieur, be sure you do not get lost,’ the tour guide shouted after him, but he kept going.

The tunnel opened out into another bone-lined cavern, this one with a thick column of bones in the centre. Just
how many people were buried down here? Millions, he suspected.

He found the exit and kept going, with Andy and Roisin following.

Something, a change in the air, a half-heard sound, alerted him. He flattened himself against the wall, and listened. Nothing. But he knew Sinead was near. The tomb of Aspairt, who took getting lost to a whole new level, was near. He merged with the shadows and approached soundlessly.

The stone marking Aspairt’s death was deserted, but within sight of it was a padlocked gate. That was where Sinead was. Niall knew it. And if Sinead was there, so was Hall. He longed to kill the bastard, but Sinead was more important. It didn’t matter what he wanted, this was about getting Sinead out safely.

He hand signalled Andy to stay where he was, and broke cover. He walked forwards boldly.

At the tomb, he stopped and waited. His back itched. He knew, just knew, there was at least one gun pointing at him. Sweat trickled down his back, but he kept his face bored. ‘Are we done playing hide and seek, or are you finally going to show yourself?’ he asked the air.

‘Hands in the air,’ Hall told him.

Niall obeyed.

He turned slowly, carefully, and saw Hall and two goons in the short tunnel behind the gate. Sinead was there too, looking eerily like Roisin in a red catsuit and with her hair slicked back into a sleek hairstyle that showed the dramatic bones of her face. And the large bruise on her right cheek.

Rage boiled up and, despite himself, his fists clenched. They had hurt her.

Hall’s Sig Sauer pistol was aimed at him, and one of the goons, a thickly muscled blond, held a similar one pointed at Sinead.

‘You couldn’t have sent a SWAT team, could you?’ Sinead asked him, as if they were the only ones there. ‘You had to come yourself, without any backup.’

‘Living on the edge,’ he agreed.

‘Next time, I’m looking for a man with a brain, not just a pretty face, muscles and long hair.’ Her words were pure bravado but he heard the tremble in her voice.

‘Don’t forget the ten inch cock,’ he said.

She gasped. ‘It is not ten inches.’

‘You never measured it.’

Hall cut across him. ‘Enough with the billing and cooing. Have you got the Fire of Autumn?’

Niall nodded.

‘Toss it on the ground.’

‘Can I take my hands down? My ten inch cock is not prehensile,’ he said.

‘Fucking comedian,’ Hall said. ‘Take your hands down and toss the stone on the ground. And remember I have a gun on you, and my friend has one on your little slut.’ It was a deliberate taunt, designed to anger him.

He would pay for that.

Niall lowered his arms and slowly took the whip out of his pocket. He held it up so the light glittered on the stone in the handle, and heard Sinead suck in her breath. She recognized it. He threw it on the ground, close by his feet. Let’s see what Hall did now.

‘Hands back in the air.’

Niall obeyed.

‘Okay Red, go and fetch the whip. And remember that I have a gun on your boyfriend.’

‘Does he look like anyone’s boyfriend?’ she snapped. God, he loved that she still had her wits and spirit, even in the hands of a certified loony like Hall. She walked towards him, her eyes on his face.

‘Did you find her?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, she had it.’

Sinead crouched down to pick up the whip, glancing briefly at the stone that had caused so much trouble for her. ‘I want to meet her.’

‘I’ll introduce you.’ They might have been talking about the weather. Both of them knew they might die at any moment.

Hall interrupted. ‘Back here, Red. Now!’

Slowly, Sinead turned away from him, back to the tunnel where Hall and his men were sheltered. Niall saw Hall’s eyes flicker from him to the fiery ruby for a split second.

That was all he needed. He launched himself at the American, not caring that he might well get shot. Hall wasn’t going to leave witnesses, Niall knew it.

A bullet whirred past him, leaving a streak of pain along his shoulder. Not enough to slow him down. He hit Hall with a rugby tackle, taking him to the ground and his gun with him.

The two of them grappled, struggling to get the upper hand, fighting for grip and pressure points. Niall wedged
his forearm under Hall’s chin, forcing his head back, but Hall grabbed his nuts and squeezed.

He twisted to break his grip, and hooked his leg around Hall’s. This time, he wouldn’t let go. Hall had gone too far. He had pointed a gun at Sinead, and that was unforgivable.

Hall slammed his head into the ground, causing his vision to black over for vital seconds. He groped and found Hall’s head, then aimed his fingers at his eyes.

When his vision cleared, Hall had a knife in his right hand. Fuck. Where had that come from? He grabbed his forearm, holding on tightly to prevent that lethal knife from getting too close to him. His shoulder burnt and blood made his grip slippery. He and Hall twisted, as close as lovers as they fought for the upper hand.

Somewhere in the background, old ladies screamed. The minute distraction was enough and Niall lashed out, knocking the knife from Hall’s grasp.

Sinead bit her lip as a woman in a floral dress screamed again. The tall Englishman held onto her but Max had pulled a gun and pointed it at the corner where Niall and Hall were fighting. He moved around, trying to aim, but the two men struggling on the ground were moving so fast that he couldn’t risk firing.

With the knife gone, Hall had acquired another weapon, a blackened bone from the ossuary. He swung, and the bone walloped into Niall’s head.

Niall hissed, and a gash opened on his scalp. Blood
flowed, obscuring his face and getting into his eyes. How could he fight when he couldn’t see what he was doing? He used one forearm to wipe the blood from his face. The pause allowed Max to take aim at him.

She had to help him.

Squirming in her captor’s grasp, Sinead bit down on his hairy wrist and he roared and released her. She couldn’t let Max kill Niall. Not now. Not when they had found each other again.

The man who had been holding her reached for her but she caught a glimpse of something glittering on the floor – her sister’s whip. She ducked down from his grasp and snatched at it. Missed. How could she miss?

Sinead realized that her brain was still foggy from the drug they had pumped into her. She focused. She couldn’t miss this time. Lunge, grab, got it.
Please god let me be able to use it.

When she was upright again, the fight had progressed. Niall and Hall were grappling again. Hall had regained his knife and Niall was struggling to hold it away from his neck.

Max had moved again, lining up his shot. He cocked the gun.

The dark man who had been holding Sinead reached for her and grabbed her right wrist. His grip was so strong she could not hold the whip. She caught it with her left hand.

Niall was on top now, slamming Hall’s hand into the ground, and Max had a clear shot.

Fuzzy brain or not, she had no choice.

Sinead flicked the whip as precisely as she could. In agonizing slow motion, the lash moved out. It seemed that Max had endless time to avoid it as it took so long to
arrive. Finally, finally, it went where she had aimed it and hit Max on the wrist.

He howled, dropping the gun and clutching his wrist. The gun discharged as it hit the ground.

Time resumed its normal speed.

The screams of the tourists echoed around the chamber.

Sinead kicked back, her spike heels raking down the shin of her captor. He cursed and his grip loosened. Too bad for him. In her hands, a single-tail whip was a weapon and she was ready to use it again. She struck out.

Niall was vaguely aware of movement above him. A gun being cocked. He braced himself, as if a tense muscle was any defence against a 9mm bullet. Hall had his hand around Niall’s windpipe, tightening it.