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.Trent felt the floor tilt beneath him.The car ballooned in his vision, then slammed into focus.A blue Renault Clio.The driver’s door was scratched and dented.The silver diamond emblem was missing from the front.Aimée’s car.Unmistakable.No doubt about it.He staggered forwards.Extended his gloved hand in slow, jerking increments and tentatively spread his fingers on the window glass.A groan escaped his mouth.He fumbled downwards.Grasped the catch.Wrenched open the door.The scent of her favourite perfume rushed out at him.Notes of citrus and jasmine.A synthetic embrace.He grasped the steering wheel.Bent forwards and mashed his cheek into the plastic.A horrible logic was bearing down on him.Aimée was very beautiful.Strikingly so.She was given to flirtation and she was funny and sweet.On a couple of occasions, clients had misread her signals.He thought of Jérôme’s terrible temper.The rage he’d been in with the dancer who’d spurned his advances.Had Aimée done the same thing? Had Jérôme snapped?The sound of cautious footsteps roused him and he became aware of Girard stepping around the back of the car.A short pause, then Trent heard the clunk of the boot mechanism, then nothing more.The silence lingered.Slowly, Trent raised his eyes to the rear window.He could see Girard’s gloved hand on the boot lid.He stumbled round to join him in a daze.But all the boot contained was Aimée’s spare umbrella and the warning triangle Trent had equipped her with in case she broke down.He tried to speak.Found that he couldn’t.He dumbly opened and closed his mouth as a stinging wetness clouded his vision.‘I’m sorry,’ Girard said, voice pitched low.‘You can wait outside, if you prefer.’Trent shook his head roughly and backed away from the car and burst through the door into the kitchen before his thoughts could catch up to his actions.He lurched through into a hallway, torchlight arcing wildly from side to side.The front entrance to the villa was ahead of him.Stained-glass panels on either side of a glossy black door.There was a carpeted staircase to one side.Trent clambered up.The balcony at the top overlooked the darkened foyer.Girard came pacing along behind him, his torch projecting a fast-moving disc onto the floor.Four closed doors led off from the balcony.Trent burst through the one immediately facing him.It opened into a luxurious bathroom.Beige tiles lined the floor and walls.There was a walk-in shower cubicle and a sculpted bathtub.The fittings were high-quality, the soft white towels fluffy and dense.A mirror above the sink jabbed the flare of his torch back at him.He shielded his face with his arm, then lowered the beam and caught sight of his macabre reflection.His face was gaunt against his liquid black clothing, lips peeled back from gums and teeth.He wheeled away towards a pebble-glass window positioned over the toilet.It hinged open from the top and looked just large enough for a slim person to climb through.A ballet dancer, say.Trent seized the handle.He twisted it and forced the unit outwards.It opened very wide.He poked his head through the gap, water dripping onto him from the plastic frame.He shone his torch into the vaporous, shimmying black.A wooden trellis was fitted to the wall just below.Scented plants were knotted around it.It was no ladder but it was just possible that it could bear a young woman’s weight.Especially one as light and athletic as a ballet dancer.Trent was poised to withdraw his torch when he felt a hand on his shoulder.He reared upwards and whacked his head on the window.‘My friend,’ Girard said.‘Something you should see.’Trent clutched his hand to the back of his skull.Girard’s expression was sombre.His eyes quivered with a sorry pleading.‘Show me,’ Trent managed, before following Girard out of the bathroom towards the open door that lay in wait.Girard led him into a generously proportioned bedroom.Trent’s torchlight revealed a low double bed, neatly made, with a plain grey duvet and plenty of cushions.He saw two bedside units and a single armchair that faced one entire wall of mirror-glass panels.A rounded wooden beam was fitted horizontally across the mirrors at approximately waist height.A balance barre.So this was where Moreau had made dancers perform for him.Perhaps some had been happy to do it.But at least one of the girls had been terrified.Girard coughed discreetly and squatted next to a circular rug in the middle of the floor.He aimed his torch downwards and rolled the rug back.There was a rusty brown stain shaped like a lopsided figure eight on the cream carpet beneath.Trent swayed.He reeled.‘Could be the dancer’s,’ he muttered.‘We can test it,’ Girard replied.‘Take a sample.I can speak to some people I trust.’‘Probably the dancer’s,’ Trent said again.But even as he spoke, there was more still to come.He’d spotted something.It was glinting at the edge of the pool of light being cast by Girard’s torch [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]