Chasing Ghosts by Madalyn Morgan (best fantasy books to read .txt) 📕

said, hauling Claire’s case the short way along the corridor to his room. By the time he had put her case inside and locked the door, Claire was waiting for him on the landing, Doctor Puel’s briefcase in her hand.

Claire and Thomas, first down for breakfast, were served quickly. When they had finished eating, Thomas asked the yawning bellboy to fetch his and Claire’s cases from his room. With a cheeky smile and raised eyebrows, the boy ambled off. By the time they had paid the miserable proprietor the balance on three nights’ accommodation plus the bar bill, the bellboy was back. He trailed behind them to the car where Claire thanked him and Thomas gave him a tip.

‘Next stop, Fontainebleau,’ Claire said, Doctor Puel’s briefcase safely on her knee.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The weather, while no warmer by any means, was not as bad as the wireless presenter had forecast on the morning news and they arrived at Fontainebleau earlier than expected. They turned off the main road at a junction that said City Centre left, Vignes de la Seine, right.

‘We have twenty minutes before it will be dark. Do you want to take a look at Chateau Je Reviendrai?’

Claire closed her eyes and bit her lip. Her stomach churned at the thought of it, but without Thomas to take her there, she needed to know where she would be going and what she was to expect when she delivered Doctor Puel’s documents to Guillaume Cheval. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Driving through a small industrial area on the outskirts of Vignes de la Seine, Claire saw several bombed-out factories. There was evidence along many of the streets that offices and houses in the southern suburbs had been damaged. Some so badly by incendiary bombs or shells that they had been demolished. A reminder to residents and visitors alike that less than a decade ago the German Airforce had dropped bombs on the town’s residential as well as industrial area.

Claire caught her breath when she saw the Chateau Je Reviendrai, an imposing Eighteenth Century charterhouse set back from the road in as much parkland as Foxden Hall before the war. Surrounded by manicured gardens, shrubs and flower beds, there was no evidence that Simone’s family home had been touched by German or Allied bombs, let alone destroyed by them as some of the houses in Vignes de la Seine had been.

If she hadn’t met Dr Puel - and known better - Claire might have believed what Heinrich Beckman said about Simone and her family being German spies, sympathisers of Hitler’s Reich. Claire shook her head to rid herself of the doubts Beckman’s accusations had left her with.

A large black car passed them in the lane and swung onto the wide drive. Claire watched as a tall man in his mid-sixties, with greying hair, got out of the car and mounted the steps to the chateau’s door. The man took a key from his coat pocket, unlocked the door and went inside.

They waited for half an hour, but there was no further sign of life. No one came to the chateau, no one left. ‘It’s getting late,’ Claire said, ‘I think I should find a hotel. Do you know any hotels in the town?’

‘What kind of hotel do you want to stay in? Big and impersonal or small and friendly.’

‘Big and impersonal. I want to be anonymous.’

‘You’ll be that in the Hotel Central,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s huge. It’s mostly used by business people whose head offices are in Fontainebleau. It was the first really big hotel to be built after the war. It calls itself an International Hotel,’ he said, laughing.

‘How do you know?’

‘A friend of mine from the Resistance days is the manager of a small hotel here. I was going to suggest you stayed there, but I picked this up when we stopped for lunch.’ He took a brochure listing hotels in the area from the pocket in the door and dropped it in Claire’s lap.

It was too dark to read, so she put it in her handbag. They drove into the town and turned into Boulevard Principal. ‘It is a big hotel for such a small town,’ Claire said, looking up at four storeys of concrete and glass. I’ll be anonymous enough in there, she thought, jumping out of the car. Thomas took her case from the car’s boot and followed her into the hotel.

The foyer, a complete contrast to the hotel’s stark exterior, looked welcoming and comfortable. Large ornate mirrors framed in gold hung on the walls above ruby red seating that ran from the reception area to-- Claire stopped, and Thomas stopped immediately behind her. While taking in the hotel’s ambience Claire spotted a man on the far side of the foyer reading a newspaper. Except he wasn’t reading it. He was holding it in front of his face, but his eyes were fixed on the reception desk. On the opposite side of the room, a similarly dressed man was not smoking the cigarette he was holding.

‘What is it?’ Thomas asked.

Claire turned so her back was to the men, put her hand on his shoulder and stood on tiptoe looking dreamily into his face. ‘The guy with the newspaper at ten o’clock,’ she said, smiling, ‘is more interested in who is booking a room at the reception desk than he is in reading the newspaper he is holding.’

‘Uh-huh!’ Thomas said, ‘I see him.’

‘And,’ Claire swayed coquettishly, ‘At three o’clock, there’s a guy sitting with his back to the window holding a cigarette.’

‘There are several men holding cigarettes.’

‘Sharp features, small eyes, hooked nose. Holding a cigarette, but not smoking it. There’s an ashtray on the table in front of him that is full of fag-ends, but he isn’t a smoker.’

Thomas looked over her shoulder, ‘How can you tell?’

‘He puts the cigarette in his