Page 2 of Nothing Left

Juliette had been about to give up on the impossible task of finding out who her father's murderer had been. Her diplomat father had been killed in a Munich hotel room more than ten years ago, stabbed to death by a person, or people, unknown.

Juliette had been staying elsewhere in the hotel. Even today, she felt cold with fear, as if she was that scared twenty-one-year-old all over again when she remembered the shock of that crime. She vividly recalled the surge of worry when her dad hadn’t been down at breakfast or answering her knock on his door, even though she could hear his phone ringing inside when she called him. And then, the rush of sheer, icy terror when she got hold of an access card and opened the door. The sight of the blood, those deep cuts to his chest and neck, that rusty handprint on the wall that spoke of a brief, violent struggle.

“Oh, Dad,” Juliette whispered, squeezing her eyes shut to try to blot that image from her memory, feeling that shock all over again, together with agonizing regret.

If she had decided differently, she could have been sharing a suite with her dad, and then would they have killed her, too? Or an equally difficult thought – might they have spared him if they’d seen her there?

The case had gone cold - a tragic crime, never solved. It was only now that she felt she had the strength to confront those demons again.

The investigation had gotten her nowhere until a search through her father's possessions in storage unearthed a love letter to her father, written shortly before his death, by a woman, Paulette Bouchard.

It was clear from the letter that Paulette was married.

And that gave Juliette a whole new direction to explore. She wasn't giving up on this after all. Not yet.

Sitting at her desk in her Paris apartment, where she was now based as part of the FBI task force tackling international crimes, she had accessed the systems and tracked down Paulette's phone number. She’d found that Paulette was still alive, still living in Paris. And now, Juliette was making the call she'd dreaded and anticipated. This might open doors, and she knew she needed to be ready to see what lay beyond them.

Taking a deep breath, tugging at a stray piece of her honey-blond hair, she listened to the call connect.

It rang and rang. With every ring, her stomach tightened. She stared around the small, tidy apartment, her gaze resting on the window, warmed by the late summer sun.

And then, a woman answered. Her voice was low; her words clipped as if she was in a hurry.

"Bonjour," she said. "Paulette ici."

Juliette's heart skipped a beat. This was her. She was speaking to her, at last.

"Paulette? It's Juliette Hart here, FBI. I wonder if I could come and speak to you urgently regarding a cold case. Do you have time to meet?" She asked the question in French, which she spoke fluently and rapidly, almost as well as a local.

"Time to meet?" Paulette sounded first surprised and then wary. "What case is this?" Her tone was guarded.

Juliette bit her lip. She needed to choose her words carefully.

"I would prefer to explain to you in person," she insisted.

There was a pause.

"I am busy today. I have meetings in Lyon. I am taking the train in an hour and will only be back tomorrow." She paused. "If you are close by, I suppose you could come past now if the meeting will be quick?"

She read out her address to Juliette, who immediately plotted it on the map, glad that her Paris apartment, though in an attractively suburban part of the city, was central to a couple of the Metro stations and also not far from the highways and airport.

"I can be with you in thirty minutes," she said. If she dashed to the Metro station and was lucky with a train.

"I will wait," the woman said decisively.

Juliette jumped up, rushed through to the bedroom, and checked her appearance in the mirror. Her hair was neat, the honey-blond locks tamed and shiny. Her black pants, and royal blue top, were smart. Her low-heeled black boots – striking a balance between fashionable and utilitarian – were shiny. She hoped she would look the part and make a good impression that would put Paulette at ease and encourage her to talk.

She grabbed a soft, gray leather jacket and her laptop bag and rushed out of the apartment, grateful to have been given a chance she never expected. Meeting face-to-face with Paulette this morning? That was a huge bonus.

But, as Juliette raced out of the apartment, she saw that the one next door to hers, which had been vacated a week ago, had a new owner moving in.

A tower of boxes was being slowly unloaded from the elevator. Three removal men, perspiring in the hot morning sun, were shifting the boxes, while a slim man with a short, dark beard, who looked about forty, was lifting them onto a wheeled cart with surprising vigor and determination, Juliette thought.

But none of this helped the fact that the elevator was well and truly occupied at a time when she urgently needed to get downstairs. Her apartment was only on the second floor, but the stairway was all the way at the end of the long corridor.

She saw the bearded man's face change as she hustled up to the open doors, staring inside. She was sure her expression changed, too, when she saw those ranks of boxes because his brown eyes widened.

"Oh, madame, I am so sorry. We are occupying the elevator. Can you wait five minutes?"

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