The Seven Turns of the Snail's Shell: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

stared at a British ship in the dark waters of Le Havre harbor. The quay was deserted. It was misting, overcast, and threatening to rain as a storm approached from the Channel.
    Anna tried to make out some activity at the end of the wharf. Breton fishermen, perhaps coming in with their catch. The wind was blowing stronger, and the light was dimming. The British ship, in full view, seemed to be turning around. As it did, it sent a series of waves into the Channel. Anna closed her journal as a small, white, unmarked truck pulled up to the end of the pier. Next, a yellow military helicopter hovered over the truck and landed behind it, its rotary spinning. From the distance, Anna couldn’t tell what was being said, but it was obvious that someone was motioning to the driver and yelling to him to get out of the cab. Two elderly men jumped out, both in berets. Without hesitation, they ran. Anna stared in amazement as they approached her. They didn’t look back. One of them seemed to have spotted her. He diverted his path to avoid looking her in the eyes. The two disappeared into the maze of corrugated iron warehouses in the streets that made up the port. Anna looked back at what was going on where the truck was parked. All the action seemed to be on the side opposite from her. In an instant, the helicopter took off and was gone. She couldn’t tell where it went because of the storm. It just disappeared into the mist. The truck seemed to have been abandoned.
    I wonder what that was all about , she thought as she opened her journal and briefly sketched the scene.
    Fate had brought both Anna and C-C to the same harbor on that last day of August 1997. Fate could not, however, arrange their reunion. Destiny intervened.
    The only person who saw Anna did not know who she was. With the keen wolf’s eyes, Diamanté had spotted the young woman watching him.
    In Rouen, Jacques turned on the television in the bar of the restaurant. A press conference was being broadcast live from in front of La Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital.
The princess was pronounced dead at three a.m. Paris time after failing to survive emergency surgery.
    The phone rang.
    “ Allô ?” Jacques said anxiously.
    “It was a setup.” Diamanté’s hoarse voice was lower than usual.
    Jacques tensed. “What do you mean, a setup?”
    “André and I, we had to escape. I am at the gare in Le Havre.”
    “Where is Charlie?”
    “I don’t know, honestly, Jacques. I think the nurse was killed. I’ll be in touch.” There was a sound of footsteps and muffled voices in the background. The phone went dead.
    Jacques’ chest felt tight, and he was suddenly nauseated.

CHAPTER 7
     
    T he following morning, September 1, Anna stepped onto rue Beaujon, uncertain where the day would take her. Earlier, she had admitted to Monique over breakfast that there was one person in Paris who might know of C-C’s whereabouts: Elise, the Portuguese concierge who managed his apartment building in the fifth arrondissement. Anna crossed the busy avenue de Friedland. She breathed the familiar mix of diesel exhaust, bakeries, wet streets, and Gitanes. People were beginning to fill the sidewalk cafés, and the vehicle traffic was at its usual frantic pace. As she skillfully dodged an errant taxi that came screeching around the corner, it occurred to her that Elise may not even be still alive. She would be in her seventies by now.
    Putrid smells and the familiar ricocheting sounds of the métro assaulted her senses as she descended into the station at the Arc de Triomphe. It was all so familiar, as if she had never left Paris at all. Knowing that she would be spending some time in Paris, she bought a carnet of tickets at the guichet and plunged into the depths of the labyrinth. As she walked onto the platform, she recalled vividly how in her student days she had always compared descending into the métro to descending into Dante’s Inferno. While some of the stations were clean and well lighted,