Murder in the Latin Quarter (23 page)

T
he alleyway
at first looked like no more than a simple chasm in the brickwork of the wall. But Maggie had seen enough of them to know it for what it was. Without thinking, she dashed down the alley, looking wildly for another corridor, or a door, a balcony…something.

She could hear him behind her, his foot tread heavy and thudding on the cobblestones. Mila squirmed in Maggie's chest holder and began wailing ensuring there would be no chance of hiding anywhere undetected.

Even if she were able to disappear before his very eyes, whoever was behind her would be able to find her easily by the sounds of her distraught child.

Maggie darted down another even narrower alleyway but as soon as she turned into it she could see it was a dead end. A brick wall loomed at the end of the alley. She ran towards it anyway. Her only hope was to find something on the ground—a weapon of some kind—that she could use to defend herself.

“Help me!” she screamed, scanning the walls of the alley for any hint of life or activity. But there were no windows, no balconies.

The man behind her snarled, “
Khalfak tamarnaan
.”

Maggie didn't know what it meant. It wasn't French. She tried to block out everything but the path before her. Her lungs burned as she ran, her mind was a fusion of desperation and terror.

Just before the brick wall, she spotted a door on her immediate right, half open and flanked by two sets of broken windows, the building itself was clearly abandoned. Maggie darted through the door, dodging around debris and broken furniture.

Once inside, she chanced a look behind her and saw him. His eyes were narrowed and small and focused on her.

In his hand was a knife.

He no longer attempted to match her speed. A thin smile was etched across his features.

He doesn't need to hurry. He knows I'm trapped.

Maggie clutched Mila tightly and bolted into an adjoining room. The first thing she saw was a set of descending stairs. Without thinking, she ran to them, knocking debris out of her way. Not knowing if it would even hold her, she plunged down the stairs taking the steps two at a time.

She could hear him moving relentlessly behind her across the room. The smell from the basement rose up to meet her. It was terrible, musty and foul. Before she hit the bottom step, she pulled out her phone and flipped on her phone's flashlight function to shine the beam in front of her.

The darkened room emptied into a long hallway.

With no other option, Maggie ran down the tunnel, Mila now screaming the whole way.

N
oel sat
in the taxicab outside Delphine's apartment with his cellphone in his hands. And his hands were trembling.

Should he feel guilty?

But why? Hadn't it always been coming to this moment?

He looked up at Delphine's apartment window. The light in the living room was on just as he'd left it.

There was no more to do. Now he could finally walk away.

No, he refused to feel guilt. Whatever Delphine had felt for him—whoever she had been to him—that was gone now. None of it mattered now.

Dear God. Did I really just jeopardize everything I have? For what? Is this peace? Do I feel peace?

Insanity. That's what this was. I was temporarily insane. I was not myself. What better defense could there be?

I was not responsible for my actions.

He bowed his head in the back of the taxi and began to rock himself slowly back and forth.

M
aggie ran
, slipping once on the slick floor. She caught herself and plunged onward.

Why had she come down here? At least if he'd caught her on the street, Mila would eventually be found. But down here…

She shook the thought from her head.
Neither of us are dying down here!

She heard him hit the last step on the stairs. He still wasn't running but he wasn't stopping either.

The hall going forward seemed to narrow. It sides were now clearly ancient stone like a medieval underground tunnel. Maggie hit a small puddle of water and the water splashing up against her legs startled her and spurred her to go faster.

One hand held the cellphone lighting the way ahead while the other hugged a still crying Mila or touched the narrowing tunnel walls of the tunnel, whose ceiling was dropping noticeably the further she went.

Her pursuer seemed to have slowed even more. He clearly felt there was no reason to hurry. Did that mean he knew for a fact there was no way out? Even so the distance between them gave Maggie hope and she quickened her pace to lengthen it further.

Mila's howls echoed off the stone walls until Maggie couldn't hear her own breathing or the pounding of her heart or the sounds of her steps splashing through the puddles. The cellphone light illuminated only four or five feet of tunnel ahead, never more than that. The sides of the tunnel were slick with mold.

She glanced down at her phone. The screen indicated
no service
. She wasn't surprised but she felt her hopes plunge even further at the sight.

Suddenly, Mila stopped crying. And when she did, Maggie realized they were completely shrouded in silence. There was no sound at all. Anywhere.

She turned and shone the light over her shoulder. There was no sound behind them. Just empty tunnel.

Mila sniffled.

Was he still back there? Waiting? Did he know there was no way out? Was he just waiting for her to come to him?

She stood still and held her breath, waiting to hear something. She looked in the direction she'd been running.

If it
was
a dead end she would eventually have to turn around and go back the way she'd come.

But if it wasn't…if there was even a breath of a chance that it led out…she had to see.

She patted Mila on the back and held her phone up to show the way forward. It was then that she saw the luminescent objects built into the walls on both sides.

She sucked in a breath and looked closer.

Bones. They were bones. Stacks and stacks of human bones. And skulls.

Millions of them.

Maggie dropped her phone. It fell face up illuminating the wall in front of her and casting a ghostly distorted beam straight into to the darkness above where the ceiling must be.

The bones were stacked up as far as she could see on both sides of the tunnel.

Maggie bent over and snatched up the light, trying to force her breathing to slow.

Where is this place? Is this the basement to the cemetery?

A feeling of dread and foreboding crawled over her skin as she shined the light ahead—the beam bouncing now erratically with her shaking hand..

The silence was ominous and complete. Even Mila seemed touched by it. Her eyes were wide with fright.

Maggie took another step forward down the tunnel. Her whole body was shaking now. Keeping the light on the ground before her, she forced herself not to look at the walls of the gaping, mocking skulls.

We were alive once too. Your time will come.

Maggie swallowed. She realized that this tunnel must be part of the Paris catacombs. She remembered Laurent saying there were dozens of secret openings through basements and abandoned Metro tunnels. .

When was the last time someone walked here? When they stacked those bones? Hundred of years ago?

Her teeth began to chatter and she gripped Mila tightly.

Would the tunnel meet up with the main repository? She knew a part of the catacombs was open to the public. Her phone said it was seven o'clock. Was the tourist part of the catacombs closed by now? Was she even near to wherever the public part was? Dear God, would she end up trapped in here all night?

Forever?

She glanced again over her shoulder but still saw and heard nothing from behind her. Whoever had been following her had given up.

Does he know something I don't?

Khalfak tamarnaan
. That's what he'd shouted at her. So whoever he was, he wasn't French or even European. The words sounded like a Middle Eastern dialect. Maybe Arabic?

Maggie strained to hear any noise at all. She heard a slight vibration or rumbling in the walls and her stomach muscles tightened.

Heaven help me, are we under the Metro?

She knew the catacombs wound under Paris for hundreds of miles. If she didn't find another opening, she and Mila would both die down here. She stopped and looked behind her.

She couldn't go back there. She couldn't take the chance that he was waiting for her to emerge. She had to go forward—wherever that led. She glanced down at Mila but thankfully the baby was too young to understand what she was seeing. The walls of skulls and bones were just shapes to her, unattached to the horror and repugnance that even a four year old would register.

Maggie slowed her pace to avoid slipping on the slick flooring. The puddles were more frequent now and Maggie chose to believe that was a good sign. It had to mean, she hoped, that rain had somehow gotten in. Surely that meant she wasn't that far below the surface? But she recalled the basement steps had gone on and on and she feared she was still deep underground.

Because she had a goal—
keep walking and pray
—her shaking seemed to have diminished. She patted Mila and murmured encouragingly to her—more to hear the optimism in her own voice than anything else—and put one foot in front of the other.

For the first hour, the tunnel stayed largely the same—dark and cold. If it narrowed as it snaked around a corner, it widened again and continued on that way for long stretches. It was mind-boggling to realize how many skeletons had been entombed here. The stacks of bones along both walls never stopped.

Once, she stopped and considered turning around. It felt like madness to go further down this tunnel of death, not knowing where it would lead.

But every time she imagined the man following her standing in the doorway of the abandoned building waiting for her and she knew she couldn't go back. As bad as it was when she entered the alley, this time it would be worse. It would be night now.

She walked on.

The hours passed as she walked. Mila fell back asleep which gave Maggie a strange kind of comfort, feeling her against her chest.

In the hours that she'd been in the catacombs, Maggie had worked hard not to panic, not to think of putting Mila in a situation where she would die cold and starving deep in the bowels of a giant graveyard.

She couldn't think of Laurent or Jemmy. Both images weakened her and she needed every ounce of her strength for whatever lay ahead. When she got out—when she and Mila were both rescued and this was all just a terrible memory—she would indulge in thinking of the two of them. But not now. Now she needed to be stronger than she'd ever been before.

As she walked, Maggie devised a back-up plan to bring Mila to the surface in one piece. If worse came to worse—after a day of walking and getting nowhere—Maggie would make her way back to the abandoned house where she'd entered the catacombs. Her pursuer might well be there waiting for her but Maggie had to believe—whatever he did to her—he wouldn't hurt the baby.

It wasn't much to hope for, but it was better than imagining Mila dying in this cold underworld of death.

She walked on until her knees gave way and she slowly lowered herself to the hard, wet ground. When she awoke, she had no idea how long she had slept but when she looked at her phone—now blinking its low battery warning—she saw she'd been asleep for an hour. She pulled herself to her feet, kissed her sleeping baby, and began to move forward again.

She walked for another hour before she realized that once her phone died she would have to walk back in complete darkness. It was just before midnight—and oh, Delphine must be hysterical with worry!—but the morning would bring no dawn light. There was no time down here—no morning, no evening. Just perennial darkness.

Maggie switched off the light to save the battery but also to see how bad it would be without it.