"An old man turned ninety eight."

 

Name: Floren Villeneuve
Nickname: Flo
Age: 25
Birthplace: Paris, France
Family:
Trainer Orientation: Lawful Good
Trainer Title: Journalist
Starter Pokémon: None

"He won the lottery and died the next day."

 

Slim and slender, such as to comply with the stereotypical view of French women, Flo stands at just under six feet tall, her eyes a striking shade of hazel, thin but substantial amounts of hair strand down her face to frame it, short but often kept up in a bun or other compilation using various hair accessories. Like a huge percentage of people with Parisian heritage, she has a paler skin tone. She is frequently equipped with various contrasts of lipstick.

She wears a pinkish-indigo, long-sleeved, knitted sweater dress with creased cuffs, reaching down to above her knees. Mostly always accompanied is her trusty whale-colored jacket, also long-sleeved, it has no hood, and minimally waterproof - it raises at the top to form a 'mane' where you would otherwise expect a hood to be. To accompany her dress, she wears a pair of black tights, accompanied by a pair of regal blue stilettos.

"It's a black fly in your Chardonnay."

 

One of those people whose life has been incredibly unspectacular would be the way Floren would describe herself and to be fair to her, that's probably the truth. She wakes up in the morning and barely has breakfast, slams her door on the way out of her tiny, often too cold flat, struts her way to work mulling over how she'll react to her boss being a twat today and then thinking whether or not she turned her stove off for the first fifteen minutes at work.

She's entirely kind-hearted and probably wouldn't beep her horn if somebody cut her up. Well... not likely, she doesn't have a car. Her solitude, although probably perceived as a bad thing, has almost certainly made her a stronger, more independent woman and this fact resonates to all of those around her. She can hold her own.

Longing for the day when she can tell people what to do rather than the other way around, it's her ambition and her ambition alone that keeps her going. A perfectly naturally curious person, if something piques her interest, there's no chance she won't explore it and anything or anyone behind it.

Quote:

 

To be added.

"It's a death row pardon two minutes too late."

 

Born and raised in the French capital, Floren was and is an only child. Her parents had initially planned a younger sister for her, but the idea went out the window. Ultimately, she was much closer to her father than her mother and he was the rock to which she leaned. At the age of eight, her parents split up and her mother left the two and ran off with her new boyfriend. Four years later, her father died in a plane crash, causing her to go and live with her mother and her boyfriend for the next twenty-four months before boarding at college.

The driving force and ambition behind Floren was spurred in her by her father, who had always wanted her to study art. She knew from the age of eight that photography was her biggest love and forte. It was that photographic dream that she would later follow in life, however, journalism was not the professional field she expected to fall in to. Still, she was good at it and it paid the bills. Her father, Thierry, bought her first camera when she was eight.

Once her father died, she inherited enough of his money to go to college. As was his wish, she honored it and stayed to study art by living in. Having spent all of her accessible inheritance on tuition, accommodation and scholarship, she’d run out of money for her supplies and tools. College was hard and she had very little friends there. It was frustrating to be studying art as per her father’s request, when she could just have easily studied photography at the same college instead.

Once she hit eighteen and graduated from college, the rest of her inheritance was now accessible. She immediately moved in to an apartment closer to the center of Paris and started paying rent. Within a couple of months, she was employed under Ronnie working for La Liberté. The hours were crap and the pay was minimal, but she knew what she was doing and hey, she was good at using a camera.

She still lives in the same apartment, the same job, but the same ambition. She’s still currently waiting for her big break to happen and will do whatever it takes to get it. All she really wanted was a comfortable life doing what she adores, but so far it hasn’t and isn’t happening.

"And isn't it ironic - don't you think?"

 

The below character sample is very long. If you intend on reading it, I suggest you obtain a drink and snacks before hand to help combat dehydration and hunger. The character sample has been colour coded for each character's dialogue to help ease reading. Sentences that are in nested tags (<'s) are first-person thoughts of the character. Whenever you see a line of -'s, this indicates a drastic change in scene or time to prevent confusion. Lastly, the character sample contains adult themes, foul language, minor blasphemy, references to real events, real world history, varying language changes and a general lack of Pokémon-related content. Happy reading.

"It's like rain on your wedding day."

 

To understand the story effectively, please alternate with this character sample.

"It's a free ride when you've already paid."

 

« Paris. City of love, romance and dreams. So they say. I used to say too - but ever since that day, the day of the murder, I’ve always associated my beloved Paris... with death. »
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« I was at home having a bath when my editor called. »
“Villeneuve, get your ass over to The Palais Royale, now. You’ve got an interview - with Hector Carchon. Yes, the Hector Carchon. No photos, so leave your gear at home. He asked for you personally, don’t ask me why. Anyhow, this could be big, so if he makes a pass, don’t forget, just smile, say yes and keep taking notes.”

« So charming, and so very apt. Hector Carchon was a media king, a national hero – and one of the most infamous adulterers in Europe. He and his wife, Imelda, were just one step down from royalty. »
The exterior of the Palais Royale was breathtaking. It must have taken years to build, what with every intricate detail and every perfectly laid brick, the window frames were magnificent, but so were the barely-visible drapes inside. A large two-door was hidden amongst a small porch, beside what looked like a garage - the entrance to which wasn't visible. A large, unexplainable sculpture was set outside the porch itself. It was like a giant oval, with a line of hollow rhombuses through the middle. It stood on a flat circle base, held upright by two firm, evidently strained wires. The whole thing looked unbelievably heavy and was clearly made from bronze or a similar element.

A previously shadowed figure emerged from behind it, presumably up to no good, until Floren saw the figure in light. There was no mistaking who or what it was.

« Woah! I hate mimes, but unless you humor them, they don’t go away. »
With that, the mime slid in front of Flo's path, blocking it. As annoying a hindrance he was, he had his miming skills on par with the thousands of others dotted across the French capital. The mime looked menacing, actually, as it enacted opening an invisible door with a wicked grin. Feeling like an idiot, Flo ducked down through the fake doorframe and carried on her way with a roll of her eyes.

« Here I was, the palace of the Media King and the Ice Queen. I pressed the doorbell and set in motion a chain of events which would change my life forever. »
She hit one of the six buttons, each relating to a section of the palace, which was pointlessly huge.

“Yes, what is it?”

An abrupt, haughty English accent responded. Floren wasn't expecting it.

“Madame, my name is Floren Villeneuve. I’m here to see Monsieur Carchon.”

“Come up, we’re on the first floor.”

With that, the door unlocked and Floren weaved her way up the stairwell. The door at the top was already open, with Imelda standing in the doorway.

“Madame Carchon, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Floren offered her hand to shake - she sneered at it but was dismissed immediately. How humiliating.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

The Ice Queen was certainly living up to her reputation.

It was beautiful, everything was beautiful. The walls were a glorious shade of orange, all wooden, varnished, polished wood. Stunning, like something out of a fairytale. The tops were engraved with intricate patterns, a glorious blue-crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling to the top of the doorframe in the centre of the room, decorated with fourteen candles. A perfectly maintained red carpet adorned the stone flooring, golden lace woven in to the edges of it, a large golden circle of the same lacing in the centre.

The window closest to the door was accompanied by a majestic loveseat with red satin and polished oak. It even had a matching occasional table with glass top. A fantastic, old-fashioned black telephone sat above. Next to it, a red and gold privacy divider stood. It looks unused but wasn't even remotely dusty. An easel stood on a corner of the wall, where the carpet joined to another down the corridor. A painting was already in process, various ink splatterings on the wood and tubes of paint on the bench. 

Imelda lead her about four steps in to the room and turned to face her again. Past the easel, where Floren and Imelda now stood was a priceless table. Also wooden, it bared various patterns on the legs and mainframe. The carpentry was flawless. The wall in which it faced was decorated with a colossal tapestry, the largest that Floren had ever seen. There was a gathering of people outside a building.

“Will you be... staying for the interview?”

“Mademoiselle, I know little of my husband’s business affairs and I care even less. I certainly have no intention of watching him pore over yet another pretty little journalist.”

“Pretty? You’re too kind, Madame.”

Flo tilted her head back awkwardly as a giant figure emerged from a room at the end of the corridor.

“Ah, the talented and very beautiful Mademoiselle Villeneuve. Such a pleasure to meet you at last.”

“Monsieur Carchon, I am honored.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are.”

The Ice Queen chimed in condescendingly with her rather unneeded comment.

“Call me Hector, please. But I do not flatter you idly, I was a friend of your father. He was a great man.”

Floren's expression changed drastically. This certainly wasn't why she had come to speak to him, or at least not what she had presumed, not in a million years.

“My father? He never mentioned—.”

“He and I were very close, and then his death. So tragic. I must—."

He was cut short by a loud smashing in the next room. It sounded like crockery, or an urn.

"...Imelda, your damned Meowth’s in my study again! Another Ming vase, I suppose. Excuse me for one moment, my dear girl.”

With that, Carchon turned around and entered the room to the left down the corridor.

“You journalists are getting younger each year.”

“Perhaps it’s the rest of the world getting older, Madame.”

She didn't have time to perceive Imelda's reaction before a deafening gunshot was heard.

« That was no Meowth. »
Floren ran straight past Imelda and in to the study, the first room on the left. There, laying on the floor inanimate was Carchon. Standing directly above him with his hand over his mouth, wide-eyed and gasping was - the mime.

“My god! What!? Monsieur Carchon!”

The mime looked at Floren, to Carchon and then back to Floren before beckoning her over. Timidly, she moved towards Carchon, her eyes glued to him. She stood beside the mime, unstuck her eyes from Carchon to see a fist coming towards her. Then everything went black.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Floren quickly came to, the punch to the face was dazzling, painful, but easily resisted when adrenaline kicked in from the gunshot. Her first sight was that of Imelda crouching over Carchon. She had no time to assess whether the mime was still around or whether they were now in a hostage situation, she just assumed not.

“He’s dead! I must call the police, you’d better stay here!”

“There was a man! It was the mime! Do you think he—?”

“Well, I believe we can rule out suicide, don’t you?”

The sarcasm resonated in her voice, it was unnerving.

« No wonder they called her The Ice Queen! She would have been top of my list of suspects if I hadn’t seen the attacker myself - and if I hadn’t come across a couple of murders just like this already, one of the most important men in Europe, murdered. And here was I, Floren Villeneuve, alone at the scene of the crime. Should I wait for the cops, or start my own investigation?  »
« It was a no brainer. »
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Carchon lay dead on the ground, close to the window. His body was like a ragdoll in every way. His right arm lay limp on his chest, his left was outstretched above his head. It was disturbing, but Flo kept her cool.

The study was huge too, but she mostly expected that. Directly opposite the door she ran through from the corridor was a two-door on to a balcony. The brass handles shimmered under the light, but from afar she couldn't see the lock mechanism in place. The doors weren't locked. A pair of glistening white drapes were covering the bulk of the doors.

«You had to hand it to the Ice Queen, she sure knew her fabrics. »
Floren walked over to the doors, minding herself not to step on what was now Carchon's corpse. With a gentle brush, she moved the drapes to the right, granting vision to outside and exposing the door entirely.

« A small round piece of glass had been cut out of a pane. This was a professional job. This was the work of the mime. Unless the Meowth was in on it too. An incredibly sharp blade had been used to cut a near perfect circle in to a pane of the door just above the handle. From then on, it must have been easy. It was still razor sharp though. »
Floren reached out to the circle, but retracted her hand halfway through the action.

« I didn’t want to cut myself and leave blood on the glass. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to keep my DNA to myself. »
She looked at the door handle to the outside balcony.

« Your original eighteenth century high security window handle. »
She took a hold of the brass handle and pushed it downwards. It opened much easier than she had expected because it looked heavy.

She stepped out on to the balcony which ironically was tiny. It was the only thing in the palace that was. Even the occupant was hefty - or was.

« The killer must have used a ladder to reach the window. He was long gone. I guess he folded the ladder up, popped it in his pocket and took it with him. »
It was early morning but yet there was not a soul in sight bar the distant drivers in cars on the nearest road. That mime could very well have had a car. The bronze sculpture artwork was the only visible feature from the balcony. It remained untouched, unsurprisingly. Floren headed back inside the study.

At this point, she began to take in her environment. It was more inspirational from this angle. Again, this room was the bearer of more chiselled woodwork, baroque patterns and perfect varnishing. The far wall went inwards to form an in-the-wall bookshelf. the bookshelf crammed, all the typical library dark-green and maroon colours you'd expect.

« The bookcase was filled with obscure first-editions. »
A table stood just in front of it, making the bottom row of books inaccessible without moving it. Two books lay atop, one open, one closed and a crooked lamp sat between them. Next to it, was an outdated chair that matched the love seat in the other room - the same fabric and colour. Behind it was a bust.

« A bust of... 'Hector Carchon, humble servant of Le France'. »
On the ground was a delicately woven rug, circular in shape and cream in colour. It would have looked even more magnificent if the dead legs of the owner weren't covering a part. Directly above Carchon's body was another bust.

« Hector Carchon again. His eyes seemed to follow me round the room. »
Moving from the door over to Carchon's body, Floren knew what she had to do next. She crouched down beside him.

« Mimes and guns don’t usually go together. But I had an idea that this was no ordinary mime. I’d come across this murderer before, and written about him. The Costumed Killer. At least, that’s what I called him. Hector Carchon was stiff for the last time. »
He laid on his back, his face now drooped but mouth still shut - his eyes, however, were not. He'd landed in such a way that his suit still covered his torso. Impressively, his blue and black striped tie had managed to stay straight.

« His lifeless eyes stared blankly at nothing. »
Floren put her hand out and paid tribute.

« I closed his eyes – it was the least I could do for the poor fellow. »
She retracted her arm and pulled down the left side of Carchon's suit jacket, a typical shade of black. It wasn't speckled with dust or fluff - again, impressive.

« Some people hate searching corpses for clues. Me - I’m okay with it. Reminds me of an old boyfriend. Carchon had been shot. »
It was hard to tell, and Floren was no expert, but the blood stain on the front of his suit shirt may have indicated he'd been shot from behind. Regardless, a circular blood stain encompassed Hector's left side, most likely a bleed from his lung. He'd probably received a broken rib or two in the process as well.

Just below the stain, in a satin pocket, something caught her eye.

« In his pocket I found a ticket stamped ‘Bateaux de la Conciergerie’. Taking the ticket meant that I’d tampered with the evidence. There was no going back now. »
To the right of his head, Floren saw something shimmer in the light.

« It was one of my hair clips. My favorite, in fact! It must have fallen when I was knocked down. »
Grasping the flimsy piece of metal and after enveloping it in her pocket, she pulled his suit back up to his chest and stood upright. After a brief yawn, she looked at the ticket.

« It was a boat ticket, stamped ‘Bateaux de la Conciergerie’. When I was a little girl, Papa used to take me on the Bateaux Mouches as a treat. »

Floren looked down at Carchon with regret, but it was too late now, she couldn't help him any further. She moved towards the door she ran through, it felt as if she'd been in the study for hours.  She ended up at the other end of the large red carpet. There was a yellow laced circle on this end too.

« The police could turn up at any minute. Somewhere there were clues to the murder – and I needed to find them. »
At the end of the corridor, just past the table she stood with Imelda at, was another room.

« A fine baroque door. It would look great in my apartment. »
There was no harm in trying, and so that's exactly what she did. She had no idea what was in there anyway. Knowing Imelda, it was probably her Meowth's room.

« The door was locked. »
She shuffled back down the corridor towards that centrepiece table. From here, she had a better view of the tapestry. Just under the tapestry was a huge, nordicesque table, with an octagonal pattern adorning its polished surface.

« A medieval pageant. Original no doubt. The tapestry must have cost a fortune. »
She glanced down and ran her fingertips across the smoothest table she'd ever seen.

« A Louis Quatorze table with an antique cloth. Imelda had taste. But hey, with a husband that rich, taste is easy. »
Despite the incredible decor and furniture, there was something on the table that caught her eye ever so slightly.

« A beautiful cloth had been draped over the table. It was embroidered with an unusual cross. I reckoned that cloth might just turn out to be useful. »

She snagged the cloth from the table and stuck it in her jacket pocket. It was no larger than a handkerchief. With the cloth removed, the entirety of the octagonal pattern was now clearly visible. Suddenly, however, Floren noticed something in the octagonal pattern.

« There was a tiny hole in the tabletop: part of the inlay had been chipped away. Even my fingernail wouldn't fit in to such a small hole. »

Floren delved in to her pocket and pulled out her trusty hairclip in an effort to prise it open. It didn't work as she had planned though, it wouldn't lift. Instead, jamming the hairclip in to the hole did the trick. A minute button must have been at the bottom of the hole because when she hit it, a lid in the tabletop opened up from the left.

"Aha!"

« Flo – you are just so damned good at this stuff. »

"It's the good advice that you just didn't take."

 

A smaller hexagonal shaped compartment had been unveiled, the interior of which sported that bizarre green material you get on pool tables.

« A key had been hidden inside the secret compartment. A modern key. Instead of comforting Imelda I was ransacking her flat. Why? Because there was something going on here and I had to get answers before the cops arrived. Somewhere there were clues to the murder and I had to find them. And hey, she had been rude to me, so she had it coming. »
Carefully closing the lid of the tabletop so that it didn't make a sound, Floren looked at her newfound key. There was nothing distinctive about it.

« A key - maybe a safe key... »
Whilst she was at it, she also looked at her new cloth.

«The cloth was embroidered with an unusual symbol. »
Walking towards the entrance, Floren reached the easel she saw on her way in. From here, she could see Imelda was sitting on a love seat, using the fantastic black telephone, presumably on the phone to the police. A canvas was already in work. A very basic painting of a lake view was currently drying.

« Imelda had talent. But I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that. »
Directly below the drying canvas was a slim wooden bench for storing tools and placing wet brushes. There was only one thing on it though. It was a tube of acrylic paint. Without hesitating, Floren picked up the tube.

« French ultramarine. Just the colour I was after for my bathroom. »
“I’m sorry, I have to go, someone is—."

She abruptly hung up on them, put her hands to her face, rubbed her eyes and peered questioningly at Floren.

"Young lady, what are you doing?!

“Uh – this paint – it’s my favourite color!”

“For God’s sake - keep the damned stuff.”

With that, she sighed and went back to masking her face with her hands. Warily, Floren left the comfort of the easel and edged towards the love seat. To her left was the occasional table she saw on the way in. The telephone, now slanted slightly thanks to Imelda, looked priceless.

« Even the telephone was antique. Never trust anyone who owns a phone like that. »
Floren knew it was now time to do what she had been trying to avoid. The talk.

« Imelda looked shocked. But still every bit as hostile. »
"Excuse me, madame."

"Yes?"

“I am so sorry for your loss, madame.”

“No you’re not. You’re a journalist, journalists don’t feel sorry.”

“Not true.”

“We shall see."

She said it with a brief inhale as if her expectations had already been decided.

“Why did your husband send for me? What did he want to discuss?”

“I have no idea, his business was his business.”

“He never told you anything?”

“No. And frankly I preferred it that way.”

She didn't even seem remotely upset anymore. It was easy to assume she was upset, she just didn't show it, like a shroud of carefree had coated her.

“How did your husband know my father?”

“I have no idea.”

“You didn’t know him? Thierry Villeneuve?”

“Hector knew a lot of people I didn’t know. Most of them women.”

Floren considered showing Imelda the various items in her pockets to see if she would give her any further information.

« So her husband took secret boat trips. Did she really need to see the ticket? Imelda might not have been so cool with me poking around if I'd shown her the key I found - the last thing she needed to talk about was paint. »
Floren plunged in to her pocket and pulled out her beloved hairclip, blue in colour and made from a very flimsy, pliable metal.

“Would you like to see my favourite hairclip?”

“What a ridiculous question, of course not.”

“Huh – another time I guess.”

Returning the clip to her amusingly spacious pockets, she then pulled out the cloth she'd found.

“You’re upset, madame. Please take it.”

“That is the lace cloth from the table. What can you be thinking?”

Alarmed at the reaction Imelda gave, wide-eyed, Floren returned it to her pocket with an awkward wince.

“Why would a mime want to kill your husband?”

“Hector had plenty of enemies. Half the husbands in Paris, for a start. This is quite a scoop for you. I suppose you’re already inventing the headlines.”

“Just because I’m a journalist—.“

"—Don’t patronize me. You’re all cut from the same cloth. Do you have any moral sense at all?”

Floren considered her options to responding very carefully. She could have just said that her loyalties lie with her job, but she'd be lying. Working for Ronnie was never the greatest achievement of her life, and there were other newspaper agencies around she could grovel to. But that wasn't the point she wanted to make, her profession was just a little thing compared to this.

“Yes. That’s why I do this job.”

“You do it to see your name in print.”

She stung firmly, like an angered drill sergeant.

”As if. My editor gets the byline, I just do all the work.”

”Well don’t expect my sympathy.”

Sympathy from The Ice Queen was the last thing Floren had planned.

”The police will be here soon, madame. Is there anybody would like me to contact? Family? Friends?”

”No. I have no family. Hector and I were… he was all I had really. Not much was it? The dutiful wife – that was my role. He never talked, never let me in...”

”I know one thing, madame.”

”What?”

She asked it more out of confusion as to why she interrupted her chat rather than a question.

”If you want to find out who killed your husband, then you let me do the job – not the police.”

”Why? How do I know I can trust you?”

Journalism clouded her judgment momentarily as Floren mused over the idea of fear-injecting Imelda with tales about The Costumed Killer, but it soon passed. Even if she had been rude since her arrival. Floren genuinely did think that perhaps Imelda could have been endangered too, but it was probably best not to tell her that. The idea of downgrading the police force to sway her vote was another idea too but Floren stayed focused.

”Your husband invited me here today because he needed me. I think he knew somebody wanted to kill him – and he knew I could help!”

”I doubt it was your database he was after.”

”You’re wrong. I was onto his killers already, I’m sure of it. Please, you owe it to him.”

”I don’t know…”

The cracks were beginning to show...

”All I need is a few more minutes to look around before the police come.”

Her face lifted and for a moment, the slightest smile may or may not have been present.

”You really do have a moral sense, don’t you? I trust so few people… and perhaps Hector really did think that you could help. Of course it wouldn’t have stopped him seducing you too. Here – take this. It’s the key to the Drawing Room next to the Library at the end of the hall. It was Hector’s room. I rarely went in there. I couldn’t. I was too scared of what I might find.”

That last sentence was all it took to melt the defences. Imelda succumbed to Floren's expert interrogation skills and was making progress. Imelda offered her palm, of which a small golden key rest atop.

”Thank you. I promise – you won’t regret this.”

« It was the Drawing Room key. »
The woman dressed in white reverted back to her miserable self, burying her face between her hands again.

« Imelda now looked shocked and scared. Almost human, in fact. »
Taking strides so as to not waste any more time, Floren reached the door at the end of the hall. Inserting the freshly obtained key, the lock unlatched with a comfortable click.

« Now we were getting somewhere... »
This room was huge too. On the ground lay a colossal red and peach rug, the centre of which was too weaved with a mesmerising pattern. A love seat stood in the middle of the room, this one made from a yellow faux leather. A grand stone fireplace equipped with a metal guard was just left of the door Floren had walked through, two giant candleabras on either side, sculpted in the shape of a naked lady. A painting was on the wall between the two.

The stunning chandelier matched the one in the library-study. It was identical. On the far end of the room was a handsomely crafted desk, holding various items. The only thing Floren could make out at this distance was the lamp. A portrait hung from that wall too.

At the far end of the room was another two-door with matching white drapes. Fortunately, this one had no carefully cut circle missing from a glass pane. Immediately to her left was a button.

« Even the light switch looked impressive. »
Floren started by examining the love seat, perhaps there was something on it.

« The sofa was antique. For one horrible moment… I had an image of a naked Carchon wriggling around with a young journalist. Ugh! This wasn’t the time for me to lie on the sofa doing my Marie Antoinette impression. Though it is very popular at parties. Especially with gay guys – don’t ask me why. »
She moved toward the portrait above the fireplace.

« The Carchons. Noblesse oblige. The painting showed The Carchons together. In love. As the poet said: “the past is a different country”. Or did I read that in a fortune cookie? »
The painting stared back at her. Even in death, Hector Carchon persisted to keep his eyes suggestively attached to a woman.  They were both wielding shotguns, clothed in hunting gear. Sat in front of them were two Growlithe. In the background - the Palais Royale, obstructed by a hedgerow. This wasn't even a photograph, this artist had talent.

The painting was attached firmly to the wall. The framing itself was made of an expensive copper alloy, presumably as homage to their typical metallic frames you'd see in a proper gallery or museum. The left side was raised for some reason, and then Flo figured out why.

"Aha!"

« There was a small button hidden in the picture-frame. »
Hitting the button proved dramatic.

« There was the very faintest of clicks. »
Floren grabbed the bottom left corner of the frame and pulled it from the wall.

« Behind the picture was a safe. »
Obviously metal, it was a brightly-shining shade of silver. Hinged from the right, the only redeeming features were a key lock at the top, a bar handle to the left, a numbered dial on the right and the words 'WARRINER SAFE CO. Paris, France' at the bottom, featuring their three triangle logo.

Reaching inside her pocket, she pulled out the key she'd found hidden in the table's compartment in the hall. The key fitted perfectly, as she had hoped. The safe door ground open, sounding a lot like a mortar and pestle in the process.

« There was a strange stone cylinder in the safe... »

Assuming that it was very old and delicate, Floren reached out and plucked it from the safe with her thumb and middle finger, but quickly reasserted her grip when she discovered it didn't crumble in her hand. Plus, it was weighty and her fingers lacked the strength to hold it with just two digits.

« In the safe was some kind of... artefact. There were strange symbols on its surface – it looked like the printers blocks I made at art school. If there was one thing I learned about symbols… they are always important. But these symbols – scratched into stone – were impossible to read. I needed to find a way of printing them. At least the stone was round! But what could I use for ink? And what could I print on. Sure, I was stealing. But I knew Imelda didn’t know about the artefact, and Carchon was past caring. »
To avoid destroying the trust that Imelda had granted her, Flo closed the safe door, the grounding noise returning, and pushed the painting back to its original place against the wall.

Strutting over to the desk, Floren could concentrate closer on the items it held. She gave it a quick browse.

« As expected, the desk was yet another priceless antique. Yawn. The blotter and in-tray had clearly been placed with mathematical precision.  »
Including the lamp, there were just four things on it. Unexpectedly, the first changed everything.

« My heart skipped a beat. It was a carved Donphan. But not just any carved Donphan. It had been made… by my father. I knew for certain because in my apartment I had its exact twin, carved into a box he had made. So Carchon had known my father. They really must have been friends… »
She looked at it from every angle, absorbing the discovery she had just made. There was no signature or initials carved in to it, but it was definitely the work of her father. Made from a dark mahogany, it was featureless other than the expected protruding tusks. No eyes had been carved, the mouth hidden, but the varnish work was impeccable.

« I decided to take the carved Donphan – it clearly meant nothing to Imelda. »
She ignored the priceless silver lamp and focused on the closest object to her.

« Its cracked surface looked ancient. Reminded me of its owner. It was a sheet of blotting paper in a leather holder. »
To the right of the blotting paper, sat an in-tray.

« The in-tray – like everything else in this place – was beautiful. One day I was going to have an in-tray like that. Even if I had to sell my apartment to pay for it. »
At that moment, Flo remembered she picked up Imelda's paint from her easel earlier, obtained it from her pocket, and gave it a good squeeze over the desk.

« I’d spread blue paint over the bottom of the tray. It was ruined. I was a very bad, bad girl. But also, quite a clever one. »
She returned the now half-emptied tube of aquamarine paint to her pocket and looked amusedly at the in-tray. Diagonally, across the bottom of the tray laid an artistic scribble of fat paint, like a snail's trail.

Diving back in to her other pocket, Floren pulled out the artefact she just stole from the safe. Using both hands, she quite boisterously steered the artefact through the paint.

« I rolled the artefact in the paint until it was completely coated. »
Now, she had an artefact that was coated with a thick layer of blue paint, and an empty in-tray.

« There was still some traces of paint in the tray. It would never be the same again. »
She took the artefact and rolled it steadily over the blotting paper. With accuracy, she managed to replicate the pattern from the in-tray to the blotting paper.

« Genius! The roller and the paint worked just as I’d planned! But what did it say?  »
Floren dipped the artefact, still wet with ultramarine paint in to her pocket, careless as to whether or not it would stain her jacket, which it almost certainly would. She leant over the blotting paper to read the message that had been successfully printed.

« A secret message had been printed on the blotting paper. It was some kind of coded message. It read: ‘Sub-Judice’. I may not have learned a lot as a journalist but that was a term I knew well: it means a legal case that is before the courts. Below it was a sequence of letters that made no sense. »
She removed the pegs that held the blotting paper to the desk by its corners and folded the blotting paper in half to slide in to her pocket. It fit inside snugly.

« I suddenly realized there was a connection between the boat ticket and the coded message. The boat ticket was stamped ‘Bateaux de la Conciergerie’. The Conciergerie on the Ile de la Cite – by the river – housed the ancient law courts. So, ‘Sub-Judice’ could, in this case, mean literally ‘under the law courts’. Below the Conciergerie! I was pretty sure I had found all I could here… and besides – all this opulence was making me pine for my regular life of poverty. This was a huge story. It was also one heck of a puzzle, with a lot of pieces missing. But I was going to crack it. And if I could just remember the name of that fancy prize you get for being an ace journalist – I was definitely going to win it this time. »
Having put the blotting paper delicately in to her pocket, Floren strut her way towards the door, she was sure she'd found everything she could here. Returning from the hall, Imelda was still sat there with her hands over her face. The Ice Queen looked up at her as she approached the love seat.

“Did you find anything useful?"

“This carving – do you know anything about it?”

“It was Hector’s. What does a statue have to do with—.“

“—Please, I need to know.”

Floren pleaded her for any information she might have known about it. This was about her father now, after all.

“He was given it – by a friend. Something to do with Africa.”

“He never explained any more?”

“No, but I think it was important to him. Always on display. Why?”

“It was carved by my father.”

“Oh, I see. I didn’t know…”

She dropped the hostility immediately, she seemed more sympathetic which struck Floren as ironic because ten minutes earlier and that would have been like digging for diamonds.

“Imelda, I will do everything I can to find the killer.”

“Thank you, my dear.”

“And if the police ask—.“

“—Don’t worry. You were never here.”

Imelda had shown Floren so many different attitudes, facets and tones in the last twenty minutes that it was now impossible to gauge how she was feeling or how much she trusted her. Still, she was cooperating and that was the best Flo could ask for right now.

« 'Sub-Judice’ was the key. I was going to have to find a way under the Conciergerie. I decided to head straight for the quayside on the Ile de la Cite. If there was a way of getting under the Conciergerie it would have to be from there. »
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« Carchon wasn’t the type for messing about on the river. He was up to something down here. Something that got him killed. If I was right about the meaning of ‘Sub-Judice’ then the answer had to lie somewhere here on the quayside. »
After a short walk from the Palais Royale and after doubly checking that Imelda's front door was securely locked after her, Floren arrived at the quayside. Just past a bridge, a small set of steps lead down to a platform next to the riverbank. The crazy paving was decorated with a sprinkling of autumnal debris, maple leaves in each and every direction. Three walls formed a structure of some kind on the same platform, there was no visible entrance from where she was stood.

Tied to the steps wall, under the bridge with the most erratic knotting ever, was a large boat.

« An old boyfriend of mine owned a barge once. Dampest relationship I ever had. In every way. »
Walking across the jagged pavement and around the walls, Floren realised what the structure was. It was the old boathouse for the Conciergerie.

The wall she'd just seen from the steps down was featureless, but the wall facing the river had two railing fences, each roughly three metres high, topped with a stone arch too. She walked over to the left fence and gave it two tough nudges towards her. It clunked in the arch like a padlock.

« The fence wouldn't move. »
It was a permenant fixture. Ambitiously, she tried the second fence. The same clunking noise occurred and so did the end result.

« This fence wouldn't move either. »
To her surprise, the rightmost wall which was hidden from sight wasn't featureless. In fact, it had more steps leading up to where she came from. It just so happens that she came from the northern steps and didn't see them. However, under those steps was another brass railing fence, the added stone arch above it, and a stone slab to the left had an engraving on it. The engraving featured a cross.

« The cross looked familiar. I’d seen it before. It was embroidered on the lace cloth I picked up at Carchon’s apartment. I knew I was on the right track. »
The metal fencing was wider and taller than the other two, but otherwise identical.

« I tried pushing the fence but it wouldn’t move. A strange pair of locks stopped the latches from releasing the gate. »
On either side of the fence's hinges were two square panels. The leftmost panel featured ten magnets attached to the panel that needed to be rearranged so that the hinge could be pulled back, releasing the bar behind the door, granting Floren entry. After examining the puzzle first, Floren quickly analysed where to move which magnet. Working quickly, she raised certain magnets left and right and others up or down depending on what way they fit. Once she'd cleared its path, pulling the hinge back was easy enough. It sprung loose and a grinding noise was heard.

The right panel looked easier initially, but it wasn't. The path was already half cleared, but that was the trick. At first, Flo thought the puzzle mirrored the first panel, but it wasn't the case. She wouldn't be able to reverse the procedure she'd just completed anyway, she'd already forgotten it. After a while, she figured it out and the hinge too came free with a rewarding clunk.

With both hinges released, the fence had no support, and simply fell backwards on to the ground.

« For a room full of junk that was one very sophisticated lock system. This place was definitely fishy. In more ways than one.  »
The room she'd just stepped inside was dank, dirty and dark. A small amount of water was running between the archway that held the fence and the rest of the boathouse. It was almost as if the fence was intended to double as a bridge.

To her right, Floren could see a much larger but lower archway with yet another metal railing. This one faced the river and it was likely that when it rained heavily, the boathouse would flood. She could tell because there was plantlife stuck on the railings - and it looked wet. Resting upright against the railing was the shell of an old and decrepit rowboat. To her left was another, this one laying flat on the ground. Opposite her, was - a stone door. An airvent was above it, ironically it looked like the newest thing here.

Moving towards the rowboat on her right, she noticed a patch of golden leaves cushioning it from the ground. They'd likely been washed in by the river.

« The skiff hadn’t been touched for years. I’ve got an exercise bike just like that. »
Standing next to it, Floren gave the vessel a good shove. It stayed firm for a while, but once the momentum kicked in, it heroically fell to the ground, landed on its back. In doing so, the entire bottom of the belt fell through. The wood was quite clearly rotting at an alarming rate.

"Oops!"

« I’d wrecked the skiff – not that it was particularly seaworthy anyway. »
Hidden beneath the now utterly destroyed skeleton of the skiff was something shining under the sun, laying neatly above the pile of dampened leaves. It was an old shell case. She knelt down to get a closer look at it.

« An old shell case, I wondered what that was doing there. Probably from the 50s. I knew what I was talking about, I grew up watching war movies. »
Scooping it up, there was nothing redeeming or interesting about it. It was golden, about two centimetres in length and undamaged, but used.

Strutting away from the manky and wet part of the boathouse was a welcome self-suggestion, her real interest was in the far end of the boathouse.

« So. A stone door. There had to be a mechanism to open it. »
The stone door was fixed in to a boring stone archway. It was quite obviously made from a thick and sturdy type of stone, she wasn't able to break it with anything in the room, and she certainly couldn't knock it down herself.

« No handle. Nothing obvious. But there had to be a way to open it. »
Pillars wasn't her speciality but the right one brandished something the left didn't.

« A rough hole was cut into the pillar. The words "sinister" and "dexter" were carved on either side. Now, any good convent girl like me knows the old Roman for left, right, left, right. But what did it mean here? »
The hole wasn't too big, about the size of a peach. Around the circle, tiny marks formed another larger circle, but they were purely decorative. The words featured each letter downwards, "sinister" on the left, "dexter" on the right. Above the words was two mossed buttons. Sporadically, she pushed the left one but nothing happened.

The stone that the entire wall was made from, however, matched something. Her artefact from Carchon's safe. Pulling it from her pocket, she forced it inside.

« Mystery solved. Carchon’s stone cylinder slotted into the hole with a satisfying click. »
As for the wording and the buttons, Floren had already worked out what they were for. She dug in to her pocket again and pulled out the blotting paper.

« Rolling out the painted cylinder had given me a print of a secret message. It read ‘Sub-Judice’. Below it was a sequence of letters – SDSSDSS. »
Putting two and two together, she pushed the left button.

« A satisfying click told me I’d turned it to the right position. It felt like… tumblers in a safe…»
Next, she pushed the right button.

« Another click, another step closer. »
The third push went back to "sinister". The same click was heard.

"Yup!"

Another push for "sinister" was performed.

« I always knew I’d make a good safe-cracker. »
Pushing "dexter" next and "sinister" twice more proved rewarding. Another final, more substantial click was heard and the stone door raised upwards.

« I love the sound of locks clicking open. »
Carchon's cylinder had fitted snugly into the hole. But Floren wanted it still. The final click had left her to believe that the artefact was no longer needed, so she removed the stone cylinder. As she'd hoped and expected, the door didn't close, so she moved through it.

As she walked through, a stone slab just inside the door read a message.

« Ut lex vel ut nex summitto. ‘To the Law or unto Death, Submit’. I guess these people didn’t believe in Liberté, Čgalité or Fraternité. Yes, I’ll admit it. I was a swot at school. I also wore lipstick and the nuns never knew. »
The next room was smaller yet, and the only light coming in was from the vent above the archway. The stonework on all the walls was brilliant, but dry and cracking. Many chunks were missing, but not visible on the ground here. The only notable attribute of the room was on the rightmost wall. It was a stone cross, seemingly attached to the base of the wall.

« The cross looked familiar. I'd seen it before. »
Taking a hold of the cross and lifting it upwards presented some interesting results. As she lifted it, the stone door she'd come through came belting downwards.

"Oh my god!"

« The slab came down with a hell of a force. »
The wall to her right, however, had unveiled a panel with a hole in it. Unexpectedly heavy, she released the cross again.

« With nothing to hold it up, the cross dropped back down again. »
In doing so, the panel concealed itself and the stone door opened again.

Having regained her strength to raise it again, she took hold of the heavily-decorated cross and lifted.

« Lifting the cross closed the entrance door and also opened some kind of stone panel. Ingenious! »
Hatching a plan in her head, Floren thought she had an idea. Her trusty hairclip would never have held the weight of the cross, and she didn't want to risk damaging anything else under its weight. Holding the cross with one hand and rummaging through her pocket with the other, she pulled out the shell case she'd just found and rested it between the cross and the base it fell to. Slowly, she let it go. It had worked.

« The stone cross was propped up. Now I was getting somewhere. »
Walking back to the centre of the room to absorb the situation and boast to herself about her amazing thinking skills, she could see that the stone door was well and truly sealed, the new panel was exposed and the cross was steadily held by a simple shell case.

Wandering over to the panel was her next best option.

« A round slot precisely carved into the stonework. »
She reached out to it cautiously.

« I touched the slot, nothing bad happened. Which was good, I've always been attached to my fingers. This slot was designed for something specific – but what? »
It too was circular and after a moment, she realised that it was identical to the entry slot she'd used to get inside. Her new favourite object appeared from out of her pocket once more and haphazardly, she steered the artefact in to the gap with one hand.

« The artefact slotted into the hole perfectly. Behind the old walls, I could hear some kind of mechanism groaning into life. But whatever had been triggered, had now jammed. »
Walking over to the new revelation, directly opposite the door she'd come through, Floren began to analyse the slab.

« A hidden door – this was getting interesting. Shame the mechanism jammed. I was going to have to find some way to prise it open. »

The slab that had jammed wasn't identical to the entry door, in fact it was much thinner. Plus, the bottom half was severely cracked while the other was mossy and featured brown stone. A very small gap separated the bottom of the slab and the ground. The very faintest of draughts was coming through. Kneeling down, Flo attempted to raise the slab with her fingers. To no avail.

« The gap was too thin for me to get a grip. I needed something thin enough to prise the door open. »
She thought for a moment about what she could do. The only things small enough to fit under that gap was her hairclip, but it would simply bend and break if she tried. Then she remembered the shell casing. It was too thick now, but perhaps she could flatten it.

Trudging across the maple leaves and over to the cross, she raised it, and unsnagged her shell casing.

« The cross didn't drop back down! Some kind of mechanism must have been holding it up. »
Despite not going as she had planned, this was useful knowledge. Presumably, her artefact was keeping the cross aloft, the slab held down and the panel opened.

Moving to the next wall, she grabbed the end of the artefact and pulled it out. It slid out nicely, the cross behind her fell and the slab to her right cascaded upwards with great speed, revealing the phrases she'd read earlier. Momentarily, she had a plan that could turn fruitful.

Making her way towards the stone slab, she placed her freshly obtained shell casing and popped it on the ground just below, so it rested on the edge of the phrased slab. Moving back to the cross, she once again lifted it. As per usual, the stone door came down with ridiculous pressure and crushed the shell casing with a hurt noise. Releasing the cross, she went and gathered the casing.

« The stone slab had flattened one end of the shell case. »
Once more, she moved over to the cross, raised it by hand, and propped it up again with the shell case. Sure, it was flattened on one end, but the other was still willing to take the weight. With the panel to the right exposed, she moved back over and inserted the stone cylinder again. Assuming everything was in place, like she thought it was, she returned to the cross and removed the shell case. The cross remained raised, thankfully.

The new door hadn't changed its mind about moving, so she'd have to do this the hard way. She crouched down on to her toes and wedged the flattened end of the shell case in to the gap at the bottom. After a tight shove and a lot of effort, it gave way and the stone slab raised at an alarming speed.

« Another good use for a shell case. Another secret room. Somebody had something to hide. But was it what I was looking for? »
Walking through the doorway, she entered a much a larger room that was... unlighted.. Floren walked straight in to the centre.

"Wow!"

« Through the darkness I could see that this was a state room. But for what purpose? And how did it tie in with Carchon? »
She moved back towards the entrance, where the sunlight was still shining in to the other room through the vent above the archway. There was just enough sunlight to see a red light flickering to the right.

« It was an old circuit breaker. Like something from a Frankenstein movie. »
Just above the flashing light was a small knob, which Floren appropriately smacked.

« Amazing! The thing still worked – the room lit up bright as day. »

The room featured nine pillars, each golden and gray in colour, forming in to a domed triangle as it hit the ceiling. Attached to every single one was a red flag with a black cross on it. There was six desks placed on either side of the room, with matching chairs, one at each. On top of all but one was a thin layer of dust. A large blue rug with golden and white embroidery covered the most of the plywood flooring. It was dustier than the floor. Golden busts of various famous French historical figureheads lined the walls between the pillars. Floren recognised none of them.

However, between the last pillar and the circuit breaker in the corner, in place of a bust was a portrait. On a closer inspection, she realised that it wasn't actually a portrait, but a miniature stone door built in to the wall.

« Lady Justice stared out from a stone door, which was locked and reinforced with steel bands. A door like that always has something important behind it – I had to find a way to unlock it. »
Presumably, another safe was behind the stone door. Immediately to the right of it, was a slot. There had been no effort to conceal or hide it, it was quite casually drilled in to the wall.

« A slot next to the safe door. All I had to do was find something to fit into it. It was like being back in Kindergarten - all I needed now was a shape that would fit the slot. »
She didn't bother with the slot any longer, she knew she didn't have the key to open it, there was no point in trying. Edging away from it, she examined the desk closest to her. The carpentry was excellent, but she didn't have time to admire woodwork. The desks were covered with a layer of dust. No one had worked here for years.

At the end of the room, was a sepia map of old Europe. A lot of Northern and Western Europe had been cut from it. Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and Portugal weren't visible. Then, the flags above her caught eye.

« The flags had faded, but their message was still pretty clear. Fascist regalia. A message of hate. »
The only thing worth checking was the desk in the far corner.

« It was pretty clear from the lack of dust that something had been working very recently at this desk. »
On top, was a mug on a coaster, a folder with some photographs and some newspapers.

"Oh my god!"

« The sheet was a printout with my personal information. Everything from my favourite food to my waste size. They were right about chocolate, but come on guys - I’m a size ten… there was even a picture of me taken with a telephoto lens. Carchon wouldn’t have taken these pictures himself. This was big. And organized. I was a part of it. And people were getting murdered… »
She rummaged through the newspapers on the right. Various headlines were all capitalized in bold. The largest of which, at the back, Floren was a journalist for. La Liberté. The headlines read 'TUEUR DČGUISČ : LE JUSTIÇIER DU 21E SIČCLE?', 'Pourquoi les autorités ne reconnaissent pas les crimes du Tueur Déguisé' and 'LA POLICE NIE TOUT RAPPORT AVEC LE TUEUR DČGUISČ'. It was her proudest piece of work, but working for Ronnie had gotten her no where yet.

« This was the article I'd written about The Costume Killer. My suspicions were right. Carchon had cut it out. Two businessmen had been killed - one in Italy, one in Kanto. In each case, the killer had worn a costume. A Prinplup, and then a snowman. But that wasn't the only link between the two murders. Both the victims had been big media do-gooders, and I'd proved that they were the opposite. So, how did they fit in with Carchon? »
She looked at the mug. White ceramic with a red, single-lined brim.

« The dregs at the bottom of the mug hadn’t dried out or gone mouldy. It wasn’t more than a day old.  The congealed coffee wasn’t appealing. »
Her eyes slightly watering from failure to blink after being taken aback by her own photograph laying on the table, she stepped back from it. A drawer in the desk on the right hand side was protruding more than the rest. She gave it a tug and scraping against its holder, it opened.

« Inside the drawer I found a note written in some kind of code. »
Finishing with the drawer, she attempted to close it. It stuck fast, like it had fallen out of its slot. She pulled it forward again so she could start again, but in doing so, pulled the entire drawer from its grooves.

"Damn!"

« Don’t you just hate it when that happens? »
Annoyed, she placed it on the rug in front of the desk. However, it wasn't all bad. With the drawer removed, she noticed something in the place it used to be.

« A photo, long lost had fallen down the back of the drawer. It was very old, but there was no mistaking the guy in the foreground: Carchon. Behind him were soldiers, a burning village and a corpse. The photograph was cropped on the right hand side. Somebody else in the picture obviously didn’t want to be in it anymore. I wasn’t surprised. This was Africa in the sixties. An uprising was being brutally suppressed. And here was Mister Media himself, Carchon – doing the suppressing. The photograph was not just powerful evidence. It was also my ticket to one explosive story. »
Perching herself on one of the cushioned seats in the corner of the room, next to the used desk, she looked at the code she'd found in the drawer. The note had been written using a substitution cipher.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

▼ ▬ ☼ ૐ ♦ ♠  ۞ ● ▲ ♫ ♂ € ◊
▓ ○ ۝ ◙ ► ♀ ☺ ♥ ۩  ஃ ◘ ◄  ♣

● ஃ ۝ ☺ ▓ ♀.  ◙ ♦ ► ► _ ♀ ஃ ♫ ▓ ♀ ☺ _ ☺ ▓ _ ◙ ▓ ► ► ▓ ♣.  ۞ ♦ ☺ _ ☺ ● ○ ☼ _ ○ ☼ _ ☺▓ ▓ _   ♦ ♀ ◘ ஃ ▬ ☺ _ ☺ ▓ _ ♣ ۩ ○ ☺. ۩  ♀ ▬ ▓ _ ۩  ▬ ૐ _ € ۩ ▲ ۩ ૐ ۩ _  ۞▓ ☺ ● _ ૐ ஃ ۩ ૐ. ☺ ● ○ ☼ _ ○ ☼ _ ▬ ▓ ☺ _ ۩ _ ۝ ▓ ○ ▬ ۝ ○ ૐ ஃ ▬ ۝ ஃ. ○ ▬ ૐ ஃ ஃ ૐ _ ○ ☺ _ ☼ ஃ ஃ ▲  ☼ _ ☺ ● ۩  ☺ _ ۩  ► ► _ ▓ ◙ _ ♦ ☼ _ ♣ ● ▓ _ ۝ ۩ ▲ ஃ  _ ☺ ▓ ◘ ஃ ☺ ● ஃ ♀ _ ○ ▬ _ ◄ ♦ ► € _ ۩  ♀ ஃ _ ○ ▬ _ ૐ ۩  ▬ ◘ ஃ ♀. ☺ ۩  ▼ ஃ _ ◘ ♀ ஃ ۩  ☺ _ ۝ ۩  ♀ ஃ. ♠

She worked on the code for a good twenty minutes, her journalistic traits shining through in the process. She knew that the first word had to be 'Hector', after all, it was he who had gotten wrapped up in all of this. Secondly, she knew that vowels were likely to be more prevalent, such as the 'e' and 'o'.

« I had decrypted the note. It read: ‘Hector. Full report to follow. But this is too urgent to wait. Arno and Yamada both dead. This is not a coincidence. Indeed it seems that all of us who came together in July are in danger. Take great care. X’ »
« I wasn’t the only one to make the connection between The Costume Killer murders. I’d been right all along. That was why he had asked to meet me, but what did I know that he didn’t? I had enough for a story. An amazing story that was going to make my reputation - and blow Carchon’s to pieces. I needed to get home fast - and start typing. »

Overexcitement got the better of her as she rushed out the room and under the stone door, forgetting to turn off the circuit breaker. In the octagonal room, she hurriedly removed her artefact from the panel. The cross fell as expected, the entryway opened again and the stone slab that had become ajar previously, now slammed itself to the ground with great force.

With her passage now clear, she skipped frivolously across the boathouse, over the railing bridge and up the southern steps of the Conciergerie. Once back on the main road, it took less than a minute before a taxi arrived for her to hail. Next stop, her apartment.
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Floren had been home for several hours now, back in her tidy but tiny apartment. She sat at her desk, scribbling away a follow-up story to the article she'd published about Carchon a few hours ago. Furiously writing, she sat content with the knowledge that this would make her career. Other newspaper agencies would be begging her to sell them the story.

The lime green telephone on her desk began to ring deafeningly. Popping her pen down on her pad and pulling the phone towards her, she picked up the handle.

"Bonsoir, Villeneuve."

"Flo, it's Ronnie."

"Hey, Ronnie. You cracked open the champagne yet?"

"Are you crazy?"

His dry and gruff Italian-American accent vibrated through her ear like a power drill.

"What's wrong? Wait a minute - you didn't print it, did you...?"

"Course I didn't print!"

"That's the best piece I've written—."

"—The last, as far as I'm concerned."

She completely ignored the life changing comment he'd just presented to her, this was far too personal for her to care about employment.

"It's important—."

"—It's suicical. You can't destroy a national hero."

"He deserved it."

She held her own. No way was this being taken away from her so soon after she'd found the truth about Carchon in Africa.

"His corpse isn't even cold!"

"Ronnie, two hours ago I told you what I'd found - you loved it. You begged me to write it up immediately."

"Two hours is a long time in newspapers, Flo."

"Someone's got to you, haven't they?"

"Listen up, Floren, and listen good. Hector Carchon had a lot of friends. Powerful friends. For your own sake—."

"—Forget what happened?"

"You got it. End of conversation. Good night."

The moment he'd finished his last syllable, he hung up. Floren had already braced herself for the abrupt ending though, it was a typical trait of Ronnie's. Retired, she put the receiver back on top of the base and sighed heavily.

« This should have been my big break. But I knew there was nowhere else to sell the story - if Ronnie wouldn’t print it, nobody would. »

Emotionally exhausted after the day she'd had today, Flo laid back on her chair and put her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes - mimicking the actions she'd seen of Imelda just hours ago.

She'd been daydreaming for about seven or eight minutes by now when the sudden ringing of her telephone made her jump out of her skin. Pulling her hands away from her face, she gazed at it with confusion. The only person she thought it could possibly be was Ronnie, calling back to change his mind, but she knew he'd be too stubborn to do that.

Once again, she tugged the telephone towards her and picked up the receiver.

"Bonsoir, Villeneuve"

"Mademoiselle Villeneuve, my name is Faucheux. I need to talk to you about your story. Your…. Hector Carchon story."

The name rang no bells, not even from work. The voice was very unique, she'd have recognised it if she'd heard it before. He too was gruff, like Ronnie, but unmistakably French. With a name like Faucheux, he had to be.

"How did you know about that?"

"There are people out there, madame, who will be very… upset… by this story."

"Oh really? Well, it’s their lucky day, it's been spiked."

"Yes, I know. We must meet."

"We must?"

"I have information relating to your Costume Killer stories. Tomorrow morning. 8am. Café de la Chandelle Verte, Rue Alain Corre. I shall be wearing a gray overcoat. You must talk to no-one about this."

"You can’t tell me what to—."

"—Tomorrow at eight. I’ll be waiting."

Perhaps it was he that burrowed his way under Ronnie's skin to pull the story. They were both as gruff and abrupt as each other as he hung up on her. Twice in one night.

« People complain about newspaper articles all the time. But not usually before they’re printed. I was beginning to feel scared. This guy, Faucheux… could I trust him? Should I meet him, or forget the whole business? I didn’t have an answer. »

"Who would've thought... it figures."

 

“Look, why don’t you come here to my apartment later this afternoon?”

“Uh, fine! Where do you live?”

“Three-six-one, Rue Jarry.”

“Okay, I’ll… come over.”

Gently placing the receiver back on to the telephone on her tiny, chipped desk, Floren gave a brief and subtle smile.

« I was used to working alone - but I had to admit, it felt good with Howard on the case too. But there were some things I was going to have to do alone – and fast. I needed the answers to some questions. Who was the Costume Killer, and why did he murder Carchon? Why did Carchon ask for me to interview him? How did he know my father? And why was my editor so scared? There was some kind of secret war going on out there – but who was on which side? One thing I did know – I wasn’t going to get the answers sitting at my desk… »
Placing her hands on the desk and pushing, her chair scraped backwards across her wooden flooring. Pulling herself up and out of the desk, she stood up, leaning with one hand on the edge of the desk and mused for a moment. As she went to move across her room, her desk creaked heavily. She looked at it and frowned.

« My old table had seen better days. I was beginning to know how it felt. »
Feeling quite emotional, Floren knew she had things to do. The problem with that was she couldn't muster up the courage to even open her apartment door. Two people she was supposed to meet had been assassinated within the past forty-eight hours. Was she expected to just sleep like a log last night? She couldn't forget everything that had happened, thoughts whirring through her head. Things going bump in the night were a lot more common all of a sudden and she'd jump out of her skin whenever the phone rang.

Drained of all strength, she decided to take things slow and look around her room for a bit first, to remind herself why she was pursuing something so dangerous. It was for her own good. That was her justification.

Leaving the odd security her table gave her, Floren walked over to her window, glanced down at the darkening French street and continued her walk to her bamboo shelving unit. Hitting the button of her answering machine was pointless, there was no new messages, as it clearly announced. Beneath her answering machine, next to a pot of ivy was a framed photograph. Reaching out, picking it up and looking it, she smiled down at the printed picture.

It was a photo of a handsome man, perhaps mid-thirties, with short black, but very neat hair, wearing a mustard yellow knitted sweater over a slightly lighter yellow shirt. His eyes were bright blue and airy, like little diamonds.

« It was a photograph of my father. The first one I ever took – with the first camera he ever bought me. »
Placing the frame back where it belonged, she reached to the left of the ivy pot and switched on her stereo. A slow, considerably indie song began to play. It was that female singer than Floren always forgot the name of, because she had one of those fancy American industry names that was particularly trendy nowadays.

~ No, I'm not giving up--  ~
As soon as the lyrics began, she hit the Next Track button. Now really wasn't the time for ironic lyrics, she just needed something to chill out to. Even music was hopeless at mellowing her out, so she just paused the song. She didn't turn off the stereo because then she'd have to reset the clock again.

Walking past her shelves, tripod and desk, she looked up at the shelving unit above her red satin sofa. There, sitting on its own, on a shelf next to some books and directly above an empty handbag, was a stuffed Teddiursa.

« My first teddi. Never had a boyfriend as loyal as him... »
Letting out a brief 'happy noise', she smiled at the teddi and, as if intentional, glanced over to the foot of her bed. Her bed was sat in the corner of the room, immediately left of the front door. There, at the end, was a chest made from mahogany. It was rested between the bed and several stacks of ageing newspaper, all of which contained an article that Floren had published. She'd been hoarding them as a reference to all her hard work. It was more of a habit than anything.

Turning on her heels and walking to the foot of the bed, she looked down at the chest, unhooked the latch and lifted the lid with both of her hands, letting out a faint creak from the unoiled hinges at the back.

« A chest containing all my valuables – it was pretty empty. »
Inside were various important documents, pieces of paper and several books. The only visible thing that wasn't paper-based was at the top. It was a wooden box, about thirty centimetres across and ten up, made too from mahogany. Carved in to the lid was a perfect sideways figure of a Donphan. Scooping it up with great care, Floren looked at it for remembrance. No attempt had ever been made on her half to open it.

« The box was one of the few things my father left me. The Donphan on the lid was a perfect match to Carchon’s. »
The tiniest of keyholes was installed at the front of the box. After looking at it for a while, she remembered exactly what she had to do. For the sake of her father, she had to get to the bottom of this. Of Carchon, of Faucheux, of the mime, the clown and of Thierry.

She placed the box gently back on the top of the pile of books she'd just taken it from, slowly closed the squeaking chest lid and edged towards her front door. Looking back around her room on the way out with a pout, she bit the inside of her lower lip and left through the door, closing it behind her.

Closing the door to her apartment complex and walking out on to the street, Flo could clearly see that it was quiet. The sun was setting in the east and cars were driving past at the end of the road. Across the street, next to a chain of parking bollards and a single tree, was a woman, crazily knitting away. She was sat on an upturned shopping basket, supervising her flower stand.

« It was my neighbour, the so-called psychic. »
As Flo walked over to examine the woman's flowers - of which she needed a new bunch, hers had died last week and her desk was looking rather bland - the eccentric old dear looked up at her with a sideways glance.

“Mam’selle Villeneuve.”

The woman was aged, fat, and wore horrible colours. She had this weird rain hat thing made from what looked like silk on top of her straggly grey hair. Her salmon pink cardigan looked more like a pyjama top, and her scarf, a terrible shade of Pakistan green. Her hands were frantically moving back and forth as she knitted a blue sweater from a ball of yarn resting in her lap.

“Oh… hello there. Don’t tell me – I’m going to meet a tall dark man.”

“No… I don’t think so… why would you say that?”

“Oh – just a wild guess.”

“Hmm. Anyway. Your cousin’s female and very pretty.”

“What?!”

“Your cousin from Marseille, how could you forget her so soon? She was only in your apartment yesterday.”

“Oh... really…”

“Such a charming young girl.”

“ Isn't she? And in my apartment you say…”

“She let herself in of course; she’s got a key.”

« Suddenly everything made sense. My apartment had been bugged. That was how Faucheux knew all about my article. How did I know? Because the only cousin I have is a sweet little guy called Jean-Marc who runs a patisserie in Le Touquet. These people were determined: which also meant that they were very dangerous. »
“I suppose she’d forgotten which apartment was mine?”

“Ooh, Miss Villeneuve, you’re a mind reader. That’s just what she said.”

“Oh, I bet it was. Well, I’d better be going – see what my sweet cousin’s been getting up to…”

“Au revoir, mademoiselle.”

Giving the apartment door a brief nudge directly above the handle, the building's front door stuck a little before becoming ajar. From then, she went inside and up to her room, which she soon unlocked. It was getting cold outside now.

« So – where had my pretty new cousin hidden her little bug, eh? I was going to have to search everywhere. »
Floren started with the shelving unit above her sofa. After searching between the books, behind her teddi and inside a vase, there was nothing.

« Undisturbed. No bugs there.  »
Flo walked across the room to check the other shelving unit. She looked under the stereo, in the ivy pot, under the messaging machine and behind the photo frame.

« They hadn't placed the bug on the photo. No one had hidden a bug on the machine.  »
Moving to the table, which was relatively in the centre of the room, she knelt down and looked underneath the table, to see if it had been planted on the underside.

« No bug. Just a twenty year old piece of gum. »
Flo looked around the room for a moment, her finger on her mouth, thinking for a moment. The only other place she thought it could be was her chest. Despite needing to find the bug, she hoped it wasn't in there because she'd already been inside that chest today and saw nothing.

Still, flicking the latch up and having a quick rummage proved useful. After lifting up the lid, she took hold of her delicate wooden box.

« The box was carved by my father – it never had a key. But that small metal disk tucked underneath it was a recent addition. A small, sinister looking metal disk had been tucked under my father’s box. »

“Oh! Chčre cousine! You left me a little present. You shouldn't have..."
Reaching inside her chest and plucking the disc from its hidey-hole, Flo looked at it unimpressed, held it between her thumb and index finger and strut her way over to the bathroom.

Standing in front of the toilet, she held the bug aloft.

"You don’t scare me. Espčce de...!"
Then, with a satisfying plop, she valiantly flushed the hunk of metal down the toilet.

Having bolted up both her chest and her front door, Floren once again stepped out in to the street, having dealt with the vicious bug in her apartment. She figured it'd be a good idea to speak to her neighbour again regarding her intrusive cousin.

“Bonjour.”

“Bonjour, mam’selle.”

“The woman who claimed to be my cousin – could you describe her again?”

“Well… she was your height. Had hair… lighter than yours. But otherwise, she was very like you. But with impeccable manners of course.”

“I bet.”

Floren dove in to her pocket and pulled out something thin, flimsy and delicate, showing it to her pudgy neighbour.

"What do you think of my hairclip?"

"Very nice. One of these days I might be able to afford one of them, mademoiselle."

The idea of being charitable crossed her mind, but this was her favourite hairclip! Briefly, Flo felt like she was at a show-and-tell, like when she was at Kindergarten.

"Do you know anything about this boat ticket?"

"No, mademoiselle, I am not a tourist office."

She said it with a mocking tone that didn't overly sit well with Floren, but she brushed over it, she hadn't got the time to nitpick.

"Take a look at this cloth.

"It looks expensive. Did you steal it?"

"Uh well… no, of course not!"

With a guilty conscience, Floren awkwardly returned the borrowed lace cloth to her jacket pocket and pulled out another of her fancy little items.

"Ever seen a safe key like this?"

"In my business I don’t come across many safes."

That was a fair enough comment for Floren, as she returned the key and pulled out the tiny shell casing.

"What do you think of this shell case?"

"I think whoever stopped that one must have a sore bottom."

Rolling her eyes, she put the case back in her pocket and pulled out the next thing she could find, the printed message.

"What do you make of this message?"

"It will take you on a journey… that begins where it ends… in laughter and in tears… in sadness and in joy."

"You got all that from this paper?"

"No. It’s from a song. I heard it on the radio this morning."

Looking dumbfounded at the psychic lady, Floren really was astounded by this woman, who had just repainted the mental image she had in her head of the lady's intelligence. Next, she pulled out the wooden Donphan.

"What do you think of this carving?"

"It’s nice. But I wouldn't flash it around this neighbourhood."

Heeding the lady's actual good advice, she hurriedly returned it to her pocket, as if walking through a pack of intimidating teenagers on a dark, unlit evening. She took out the encrypted code and flashed it at her neighbour.

"I don’t suppose you’re any good at unravelling codes?"

"My beautiful grandmother was a cryptologist for The Resistance, but all I inherited were her good looks."

It was ironic. She looked like a gourd.

Time was getting on, so she pulled out the last thing she could feel, the artefact, and showed her the item.

"I took this stone cylinder from a safe."

"Interesting. Let me give you a word of advice: if you ever want to know what is written on it, you should smear it with paint and then roll it on paper."

"What?!"

"It is a gift, mam’selle, I never question it."

"Au revoir."

“Au revoir, mademoiselle.”

As Floren walked away from the flower stall, she knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to check in on Imelda and make sure she was all well and good. It'd been two days since she'd last seen her and there was no sound on her end. It was worth checking in, just to make sure.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a short cab drive to the Palais Royale, the sun had yet to set. Walking past the metal sculpture from where she was stood, Floren could see that the window that had been cut by the mime was now sealed. Just outside the front door, sitting on a tired looking chair, was a man dressed in dark green.

« A bored looking gendarme sat staring at the sculpture. »
"Bonsoir, monsieur."

"Bonsoir, mademoiselle. I'm sorry, mademoiselle. This is a crime scene and I cannot permit you to past beyond this point."

"Can I ask what you're doing?"

"I am guarding the scene of a terrible and heinous crime."

"Yeah, this statue. Tell me about it!"

"Au contraire, mademoiselle! This statue is a pure and visionary statement... a comment upon man's self-imposed isolation within a debased societal framework."

"Not a crime then?"

"The only crime you will find here... is the murder of the great Monsieur Carchon."

"No? How dramatic!"

"I know. Here in this very building no less. It is top secret but according to Carchon's wife... the killer was dressed as a mime! Police believe there was an accomplice, a young female journalist. Even as we speak she is being hotly pursued up and down the land. No stone is being left unturned."

"Good place to look for a journalist, officer."

"We police are no fools."

"Evidently. How was Monsieur Carchon killed?"

Floren decided to play it off coolly, she couldn't afford anything not to swing in her favour at this point. Anything the gendarme might have heard could be useful information.

"He was shot, in cold blood. With a gun."

"Why was he dressed as a mime?"

"I have my own theory. Either he was mad."

He paused.

"Or...?"

"Or he was a real mime, trying to throw us all off the scent by cunningly not wearing a disguise."

"How long have you been in the police force?"

"All my life, mademoiselle.

"It shows."

"Thank you."

"Why would a mime kill Monsieur Carchon?"

"He was a hired killer I expect. Everybody knows mimes don't leave prints."

Initially, she thought the gendarme was spouting absolute rubbish still, but he had a good point. Mimes don't leave prints. They don't even touch things.

"You must be quite an aficionado of modern art?"

"Au contraire, I adore it! In fact, I dabble myself..."

"Oh, really? I used to dabble myself but I managed to quit in the end."

The gendarme looked at her, baffled by her last comment. Her dry wit and insurmountable humour, wasted on a buffoon. She decided to gauge the gendarme's reactions to her inventory.

"What do you think of this boat ticket?"

"Mademoiselle, if you think taking me on a boat trip down the Seine is going to get me into bed with you... then you are mistaken. I have been trained to resist women offering boat tickets. And men too - we are up to date on gender issues, you know."

"Mr. Play It Safe was afraid to fly."

 

"What do you think of this pretty cloth?"

Her heart pounded when he began to reply.

"Wait a minute? What is this?! I have seen this before... but where?! Of course, now I remember! At my dear grandmama's, bless her little dressing table."

Calming herself, she returned the cloth and whipped out her favourite item in the whole world.

"How would you like a nice hairclip like this?"

"I must warn you, mademoiselle, that I have been trained to resist such improper advances."

"Take a look at this shell case."

"My god! This must be from the gun that killed him!"

"Are you sure? I think it is from an army field gun..."

"Ah, yes of course. The size - that's the give-away, isn't it?"

Returning the shell casing and the hairclip, she next whipped out her sculpture.

"What do you think of my Donphan?"

"Hmm... a poor piece, to be honest. Derivative, crude, forgettable."

"Oh really? I was just wondering where I should stick it."

"Hmm... somewhere that doesn't get much light?"

"That's just what I was thinking."

The next item on her list, having placed the carving back in to her seemingly limitless pockets, was the coded message.

"Ever see symbols like these?"

"Only at the bottom of a bottle, mademoiselle. Ha - you see what I did there? I always find a little humour breaks the ice at a crime scene, don't you agree?"

Lastly, Floren flushed her hand in to her pocket and fished around for the last item she wanted to show him. The stone cylinder from Carchon's secret safe.

"Ever seen one of these?"

"Not since I was a boy. My father taught me how to whittle using a metal cylinder like that."

"I bet that kept you quiet."

"Hmhm, indeed it did! I never talked to him again. He died before I finished."

As she walked away from the gendarme, who'd finally shut up, she stood facing the metallic sculpture, her expression making her look full of intent and purpose.

"Please do not finger the wires. They are high tension, titanium coated wires especially imported from Birmingham. In England."

« This guy was either into art or wire. Or both. »
"If they were to become freed, this superb piece of kinetic engineering would topple and fall. At the same time, the force of the recoil would take your eye out."

It was obvious that Floren was getting no closer to seeing or speaking to Imelda, so she gave up. Leaving the Palais Royale with swift movement, she soon hailed a cab and made her way back to Le Chandelle Verte. In the back-seat of the taxi, she took out her mobile phone and tried calling Imelda's house. Nothing. Either she was under some serious protection, wasn't in, or someone didn't want her to be contacted. It mattered not at this point, and Floren was only obsessing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon reaching her destination, Floren felt a sense of nostalgia - it was only this morning she was last here. Walking up from the road and past a row of houses, Floren recalled that the workman who was previously here was now absent. His tools and little standing hut thing were still here, however. Along with his telephone.

« It was the kind of ancient phone beloved of French workmen. I was surprised they still used them. »
She skimmed past the rest of the site with little interest, as she strode onwards to the courtyard. The debris and furniture from outside the café had been moved. There was no more tables and no more chairs, the glass from outside had been swept up. Instead, a portly builder with a red shirt and blue dungarees stood outside, hammering up a plank of chipboard to the window frame. He'd done the majority of it and looked like he was near completion. The door, however, he hadn't even started. The door frame was all that was left after the bomb blast, but it was unguarded.

Floren remembered how Howard had been down the sewers and said that the clown had previously escaped that way. She felt it worthwhile to go and investigate, to see if the manhole had since been moved. As she walked across the vista, a Pokémon in a tree above her let out a loud chirping noise.

As she stepped through the archway to the alley, she noticed something to her right immediately.

« The drainpipe had been pulled from the wall. Some idiot had clearly tried to climb it. The pipes weren't going to help my investigation. »
There, in the middle of the alleyway, previously unseen to Floren, was the manhole, however despite Howard's adventurous endeavours, somebody had covered it up.

« From the stench, the hole obviously lead down into the sewers. There might have been clues down there, but I was relieved I didn't have a sewer key. »
Having had enough of messing around in a trampy alleyway, she stepped back out to the fresh air in the vista and edged her way back over to the front of the café.

« The police had been quick to clear away the wreckage and arrange for the window to be boarded up. There was nothing I could do. The workman had everything under control. »
The builder had noticed her already. He was a tubby fellow, taller outwards than he was upwards, with hammer in hand he occasionally stepped backwards to examine his handiwork, only to step forth again and give it a good bashing. To be fair, he'd done it all very quickly, but it looked a bit haphazard.

« The workman looked about as eager and helpful as your average road-digger. »
With the man bashing away senselessly at the wooden planks, Floren took the opportunity to sneak in to the café as casually as she could, so as to look authoritarian. It didn't work.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

“I wanted to see the crime scene for myself.”

“It’s too dangerous. I am under strict instructions to stop gossipmongers and vandals from getting in.”

“But I am a journalist.”

“Exactly. Didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“What if I told that I was from the insurance company?”

“I’d ask for your ID.”

“Ah…”

« One thing I’d learned as a journalist – find the weak spot. There was more than a hint of hairspray about this guy and for a workman he was pretty well turned out. »
Remaining quiet for a while, and standing directly behind the workman as he continued his hammering with a determined face and a heavy hand, Floren bided her time for a bit before interrupting him to ask questions. He looked busy, so it was going to have to be quick, but she needed to gain access to the café.

“Hello, could I ask you some questions?”

He turned to face Floren with all the energy and enthusiasm of a melting icicle.

“Bit late aren't you? They already took away the body.”

“I’m doing a follow-up on the story. Tell me, are you related to the workman I saw digging up the hole?”

“Don’t talk to me about Flobbage. Pah!”

He was pretty mad, it kind of startled her, but clearly this topic was on thin ice.

“Okay!”

“He just won a fortune on the Ponyta and he won’t give me a cent.”

“Well, it’s his money.“

“When he was broke, he was happy to touch me for a loan. 'Brothers should look after each other!' he used to say. He’s changed his tune now he’s brassed up.“

He was beginning to ramble, and Floren was entirely bored of it. She was so bored of it, she had created a joke in her head within the time he'd been rambling on. She was 'board' of it. A classic.

“Have the police finished with the crime scene?”

What does it look like? I've got orders to board up the windows, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“So the body’s been removed?”

“I certainly hope so or it will stink to high heaven when they take down these boards.”

“ Shouldn't you check?”

“Are you kidding? They don’t pay me enough to put up boards, let alone check for dead bodies.“

Faucheux was no longer in there, which wasn't surprising, but Floren had hoped to search his body for any clues she might be able to find. Despite being unable to do that, she hoped Howard had the intelligence to do that whilst he was in there. No matter, despite Faucheux's corpse no longer being inside, there still could be some kind of clue in there, she just needed to check. Perhaps getting herself in the workman's good-books was a start.

“You’re doing a fine job!”

“Damn right I am! You should be writing about me, not that idiot that got blown up."

“The heroes who pick up the pieces when disaster strikes…”

“Exactly.”

“Well, give me your best smile and maybe I’ll put your picture in the article.”

“Oh! Right! Just give me a minute to do my hair…”

As he finished his sentence, he turned around to face the end of the side walk, brushing his snowy hair from side to side, dusting himself off and the like. Floren took that moment to enter the café, sideways, so as to not make a sound.

« The police had removed the body, but nothing else had been disturbed. »
The journalist had been to many sites of disarray like this, but she'd never seen anything quite like this. There was very little that hadn't been damaged inside the café, just a few barstools and sofas and the like. Looking around the room, it soon dawned on her that she didn't... actually know where the body was. She'd just have to guess his position before being removed from the scene.

One thing in particular caught her eye. A mirror was positioned rather precariously on a table. It was badly damaged but there was a lot of glass shards around the edges. From the way it was positioned, it must have been put there, the bomb blast would not have made it so that it was laying against the table. Some idiot had clearly tried moving it.

As she knelt down so her eyes were equal with the shard at the bottom of the frame, she noticed something in the reflection. In the reflection, she could see a displaced piece of wooden panelling and some metal bars.

« A panel had been blown away, revealing a gap. From this angle, I could see that something had been lodged in the gap behind the pipes. »
Standing back to her feet and peering behind a table just to its right, she could see the entire situation better now.

« Behind the table were some damaged pipes... »
Between the wall and the table was a chair laying on its side and the wooden panel that been blasted from the wall. Four bars were now visible where it once belonged, each of them bent, twisted and contorted from the explosion. Behind the fourth, most damaged one, was what looked like a little bag.

« Now I’d seen it in the mirror, I could make out something behind the pipes. »
Stretching herself out as best as she could without injuring herself, hoping the table would support her momentarily, she wiggled the container free from the piping with relative ease.

« Voilŕ! The police and forensics team had missed a vital piece of evidence: some kind of pouch. On the pouch was the cross symbol of Carchon’s organization. I was on the right track. »
Having found the pouch, Floren went over to the bar and sat sideways on one of the barstools, placing it on the bar itself. Looking up for a second, she noticed a bottle on the bar adjacent to her.

«  It was a brandy bottle. Some journalists drink on the job. Not me. »
After musing about how it had survived the explosion, she assumed it had something to do with Howard. Then, she burrowed through her newly obtained item. Despite it being small, made from leather and felt, and having a messenger strap, there was nothing particularly unique about it.

« On the pouch was the cross symbol of Carchon’s organization. Inside the pouch were two items – a strange metallic artefact and a letter in some kind of code. »
« The artefact had a sword laid across scales. The Scales of Justice. There was a picture of Lady Justice on the locked panel... in the room below The Conciergerie. I wonder if this connected to the room below the quayside. »

She placed the widget in her pocket, beside the stone cylinder. They looked similar, sort of. Actually, they didn't, but she felt they belonged together.

Laid on the bar still was the coded message. It was very similar to the previous one found in the drawer beneath the river, but this was on a different kind of paper.

« Another coded message – using the same cipher system. So Faucheux was involved with Carchon. »
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

▼ ▬ ☼ $ ♦ ♠  ۞ ● ▲ ♫ ♂ € ◊
▓ ○ ۝ ◙ ► ♀ ☺ ♥ ۩  ◘ ◄ 0 ♣

◙ ۩ ♦ ۝ ● $ ♦ ♠.  ● $ ۝ ☺ ▓ ♀ _ ▼ ○ ► ► $ 0. ▲ ♦ ♀ 0 $ ♀ $ ♀ _ ▲ ♦ ☼ ☺ _ ● ۩ ♥ $ _ ◙ ▓ ► ► ▓ ♣ $ 0 _ ☺ ♀ ۩ ○ ► _ ◙ ♀ ▓ ▲ _ ۩ ♀ ▬ ▓ _ ۩ ▬ 0 _ € ۩ ▲ ۩ 0 ۩. ● $ _ ♣ ○ ► ► _ ۝ ▓ ▲ $ _ ◙ ▓ ♀ _ ♦ ☼ _ ▬ ▓ ♣. ♣ $ _ ▲ ♦ ☼ ☺ _ ۞ $ _ ♥ ○ ◘ ○ ► ۩ ▬ ☺. ☺ ● ○ $ ♀ ♀ €’ ☼ _ ◘ ○ ♀ ► _ ۞ ♀ ▓ ▼ $ _ ○ ▬ ☺ ▓ _ ● $ ۝☺ ▓ ♀’ ☼ _ ☼ ۩ ◙ $. ☼ ● $ _ ♣ ▓ ♀ ♀ ○ $ ☼ _ ▲ $. ○ ▲ $ ► 0 ۩.

Working quickly by coordinating with the other already deciphered code, Floren soon came to the code's conclusion.

« “Faucheux. Hector killed. Murderer must have followed trail from Arno and Yamada. He will come for us now. We must be vigilant. Thierry’s girl broke into Hector's safe. She worries me. Imelda.” »
« So much for Imelda’s innocence. Faucheux was working for her – and for Carchon. But why did Faucheux want to meet? Was it a trap? Or maybe he was in too deep and needed me to tell the story. Whatever the story was. One thing was clear – it was a story worth killing for... »
Code in hand, Floren made her way over to the barely remaining doorway. Just outside, the workman was looking very agitated. He noticed her coming out of the café, his hammer still wielded in one hand.

“Hey! What about my photos?”

“Oh! Of course! How could I forget?”

“Well. I’m waiting. Get your camera out.”

“Camera? Oh, I forgot! It broke!”

“Alors! They should never send a woman to do a man’s job.”

He turned back to his boarding and carried on hammering away, he was almost complete anyway.

« Well, this woman had fooled him easily enough… and found the evidence the police had missed! »
As Floren walked down the side walk, through the vista, past the dig site and giant gate and out to the main road, where she hailed a taxi and sat in the back seat, she thought to herself about her next move.

« The strange metal artefact I found in Faucheux's pouch had pointed back to the quayside. »
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An hour or so later, Floren had returned to Ile de la Cite. Stepping down the flight of steps to the riverbank, she knew exactly where she was heading. Past the stone archway where the iron gate-bridge awaited her and through the boathouse and under the stone slab she'd raised with her stolen stone cylinder - she'd finally reached the cross room.

Stepping past a pile of dried, autumnal leaves, she put some effort in to lifting the cross with one hand, while slotting her crushed shell casing underneath it with the other. As per procedure, she moved across to the right and gave the stone cylinder a good shove in to the crevice, thus opening the secret door to the left. The circuit breaker was still on from her last visit- she'd forgotten to switch it off.

Immediately to her left was a pillar attached to the wall with the frames and desks. There, next to an excessively dusty desk was the golden-framed portrait of Lady Justice. Next to it, was the obviously shown slot. Without hesitation, she plummeted in to her pocket, pulled out her new artefact and tested it out.

« Faucheux’s key fitted the lock. So he must have used this place too. »
Inside was a load of boring papers, many of which were torn unintentionally around the edges, alongside a few red and blue binders, nothing interesting. However, on the second, middle shelf, was some scraps of a photo.

« A photograph had been torn up. »
Gathering them all together, Floren scooped them up and laid them out on the desk beside her with one hand.

« If I could just arrange the pieces…»
There was a few significant pieces, and Floren could easily identify two parts of a face, putting them together horrified her.

« Oh my god! It can’t be... »
Without another thought, she worked quickly to identify the edges of the photo. The only thing left to piece together was the torso of the face, which she soon did with some haste. The photo, now completed, sent a terrifying fact through Floren. This was another part of the photograph that she had found behind the drawer in this very room, of Carchon in Africa.

« There was no doubt about it. This was a picture of my father. »
« Papa! Oh god! After what I’d gone through, I thought I could face anything, but not this. My father – the one person in the whole world who I truly admired - standing with Carchon while those murderers carried on with their evil work. My father, grinning at the camera - I couldn’t believe it. »

She scooped the photograph fragments back up with one hand and ran out of The Conciergerie.

« I realized that I desperately needed to get to the bottom of this story - and that I really needed Howard…»
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