The Third Woman. Mark Burnell
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a metre away, blood was oozing through cracked brick.
There was music. Weak, muffled, rising up from beneath the debris; Béatrice’s portable radio, still working, no matter how improbably. Petra looked to her right. Rue Saint Denis had gone, concealed by the cloak of smoke.
She began to cough, lining her nostrils and mouth with dust. Stunned, all her training suspended, she staggered away, each step as uncertain as the one before. A few metres on, a pretty blonde woman in a lilac cardigan and brown tweed skirt lay on the ground, twitching, flayed by glass.
Under the screams she heard distant shouts; people making their way towards the carnage. Boots scrambled over loose brick, muttered curses followed falls.
To her left, a large fire was taking hold, glass cracking in the heat. She came to a fork in the passage. Over the ringing in her head an orchestra of alarms grew louder. She veered right, then stopped.
‘… to be careful, okay?’
A snatch of conversation coming her way. Then another voice: ‘Check everywhere.’
‘… watch overhead for collapsing …’
Shapes were forming in the murk.
‘… somewhere in here … keep looking …’
‘… extremely dangerous … and armed …’
Two figures, certainly, perhaps three.
‘… take any chances …’
Petra coughed again, spitting out brown saliva.
The first figure emerged from the dust, a light grey raincoat billowing around him. The next was in uniform. An armed police officer with a full moustache. Other silhouettes took shape behind them.
The first man saw her, halted abruptly, then pointed directly at her. ‘Shit! It’s her! There she is!’
There who is?
Who was he looking at? Why was he pointing at her?
A third figure was forming, another armed officer in uniform, then a fourth man in a tan leather coat.
‘Shoot her.’
A mistake, clearly. Except Petra knew that it wasn’t.
The first armed officer looked unsure.
‘It’s her,’ barked the man in the grey raincoat. ‘I tell you, it’s her!’
‘I don’t see the …’
‘She’s armed! Now shoot her!’
The man in the leather coat was already raising his right hand. The second officer was pushing past the first. And Petra was moving, taking the passage directly ahead, already aware of the fact that it was too straight. In a matter of seconds, before she could melt into the smoke, they would have a clear view of her back.
Behind her now, the same voice again. ‘Henri! Watch out! She’s coming your way! She’s got a gun …’
What gun?
Movement grew in the dimness ahead. Petra entered the smoking remains of a boutique; retro-punk T-shirts, studded leather mini-skirts, frayed tartan hot-pants, a severed hand with a silver thumb-ring. She dragged a sloping chunk of partition wall from across the doorway at the back.
‘Shit – Didi, you asshole! I nearly shot you! Where is she?’
More coughing. ‘I don’t know. Maybe you passed her …’
‘In there!’ cried a third voice. ‘Look!’
There was a single shot as Petra plunged into more darkness. She felt the thud of a bullet hitting a panel of MDF to her left. She came to a shoulder-wide passage with stairs to her right. Up to the first floor, a cramped storage area, the ceiling less than a foot taller than she was. The blast had blown the glass from the internal window overlooking the passage. She could hear them arguing below.
No weapon. No way out.
Except for the window. She approached the hole cautiously. Just above her was a web of iron struts, pipes and rubber cable, all of it ancient. Through the dust-haze she watched the four men beneath her. They were looking into the blackened shell of the boutique, shouting at those who’d followed her inside.
No choice, so no need to think about it. Up on to the sill and out on to the ledge, the remaining fragments of glass in the window-frame nibbling the palms of her right hand. There was a rusting water-pipe above her head. She gave it a quick tug; it seemed secure. She held on to it and swung, her toes catching the corner of a sturdy junction box, one of six bolted to a panel, cables spewing from them like black spaghetti.
‘Up there!’ bellowed a man below. ‘Quick!’
But not quick enough. She was already over the ledge above, propelling her body through a mesh of twisted metal ribs. On the roof, she gauged the way the passages worked, the ridges, the intersections. Most of the glass had gone. To her left, thick black smoke was curling skywards, the flames beneath undeterred by the rain.
It was slippery underfoot, years of grime given gloss by the downpour. She tried to work out where rue Saint Denis was so that she could head in the opposite direction. It wasn’t obvious from the backs of the surrounding buildings but there was a gap so she headed for that. The roof tapered to a short stretch of crumbling wall that abutted a taller building; apartments from the first floor up, a business at street level, the shutters pulled down over the windows.
She took the drainpipe to the first floor, swiping three potted plants from a window-ledge, then lowered herself on to the roof of a white Renault Mégane that was parked on the pavement.
Now she was in a small triangular square: rue Saint Spire, rue Alexandrie, rue Sainte Foy. She took Sainte Foy.
Five-past-two, the sirens now a long way behind her. She was still walking, the rain still falling. And helping. Under the circumstances, better to be drenched than dirty. Which was all the logic she could handle.
Head for Gare du Nord. Use the return ticket. Go home, have a shower, catch the plane. Worry about it over a cocktail on the beach.
She was sorely tempted yet knew she couldn’t. Stations were out. So was home. Which meant Marianne Bernard’s integrity was suspended. And it was Marianne’s name on the air ticket.
How had the police got there so quickly? How had they identified her so quickly? And the order to shoot – because she was armed – what did that mean?
One part of her wanted to stop and think. To collate. But another part of her wouldn’t let her. She had to keep moving. That was the priority.
Never stop. The moment you do …
Three-thirty-five. The cinema provided a temporary sanctuary of darkness. The film was a Hollywood romantic comedy, predictably short on romance, utterly devoid of comedy. Stephanie waited until the main feature had started before going to the washroom. She peeled off her denim jacket and the black polo-neck. Both were soaked. The long-sleeved strawberry T-shirt beneath was stuck to her skin. She filled a basin with warm soapy water, rolled up the sleeves to the elbow, scrubbed her face, hands and arms, rinsed, refilled the basin with clean warm water and dipped her head into it, before trying to claw some order through her hair.
A little cleaner but still dripping, she locked herself into one of the stalls, hanging the jersey and jacket on the door-peg. She lifted the T-shirt, examined her torso and ran her fingertips over as much of her back as she could. Nothing but a few cuts and grazes. She pulled down the toilet lid, sat on it, pulled off a dark grey Merrell shoe and checked the right ankle; swollen, tender to the touch, but no significant damage. When she envisaged Béatrice it seemed little short of a miracle. And all because of Petra; Stephanie would have stayed at the table for Jacob Furst.
She pulled on her wet clothes and checked her possessions;