Celia and Granny Meg Return to Paris

de Rohan Margaret

Description

This book is the second in Margaret de Rohan's trilogy and the follow-up to Celia and Granny Meg to go Paris: A Survival Guide. Celia and Granny Meg return to Paris to give their evidence at the trial of Bruno Escargot, who murdered The Professor, the architect of the secret plans for the nuclear defence of the French Republic, and stole those plans. This time, the travellers expect a trouble-free visit to the French capital, but nothing could be further from the truth...No sooner do they arrive at Gare du Nord than the surprises start. As the intimidation escalates with the unwelcome arrival of ten perfectly-formed but very dead snails on their doorstep one morning, a number of questions must be urgently answered. Who is trying to kill them? Who were the sinister men behind the plot to abduct Celia? What is Bruno Escargot up to now? And what have Prince Charles' ears got to do with the price of poisson? It must be time for Celia and Granny Meg to remove their gloves and take matters into their own four hands again!Celia and Granny Meg Return to Paris: The Man with No Faceis a crime adventure story that will be enjoyed by readers aged twelve and older. The author is inspired by Rumer Godden, whose bookThe Greengage Summeris Margaret's favourite.Updated 2021

Sujets

• Children's
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781780888422
• Langue: English

Extrait

CELIA AND GRANNY MEG RETURN TO PARIS:
the man with no face

Copyright © 2012 Margaret de Rohan
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 978 1780888 422
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
For Alison and Francis ... ‘until we meet again ...’
Zeebrugge, 6 March 1987
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to ‘the family treasures’ - Celia, Max, Timothy and Nathaniel – for encouraging their Granny to keep writing her stories, and to their parents for their patience.
Thanks also to Danny Burgess for his original cover design, and to the patient Matador people, and my wonderful band of adult readers – both in Australia and the UK – who enjoyed my first book and wrote some lovely reviews for me. They know who they are!
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter One
‘Here we go again,’ Celia said as the Eurostar rolled slowly into Gare du Nord in Paris. ‘I wonder if anyone will try to kill us this time.’
‘I sincerely hope not! I’ve only just recovered from the last time when we escaped by a bee’s whisker,’ Granny Meg replied.
‘I was joking, Granny! How can there be any danger now that Bruno Escargot and The Thin Man are in jail? But it’s still exciting, isn’t it? I never thought I’d have to be a witness in a Paris court, giving evidence and everything, when I’m only twelve! All my friends think that’s really cool, and so do I.’
‘I’m not looking forward to seeing that dreadful man again. I’m sure when I do it will bring back a lot of very bad memories.’
The one subject they were not permitted to talk about was the sequence of events that made the trial necessary. Nor could they discuss the evidence they would give in the court the next afternoon, nor how they might answer any questions that were put to them. If they did that would be “collusion” and had something to do with the Rules of Evidence – or some other legal guff which neither of them fully understood but about which Chief Inspector Maigret had been most definite on a number of occasions.
‘You must not tell you granddaughter what to say, Madame Lisle , or coach her in any way, not even to help her remember the details of what happened. Do you understand?’ he’d asked during their phone conversation the previous night.
‘Of course I understand, Chief Inspector, and so does Celia: we are not morons. In fact, as far as I’m aware, neither of us is intellectually impaired in any way, shape or form.’
How dare he, she thought. The English legal system is far superior to that of France, even if theirs was devised by Napoleon Bonaparte. He may have been an extraordinary man in many ways but that was one thing he got wrong. And very wrong indeed !
At this point it should be explained that Granny Meg knows precious little about the French legal system: she just thinks that she knows, in a general kind of abstract airy-fairy way. However, most of us would quickly notice the difference between an abstract painting and a photographic image of the same scene, and so it is with her grasp of this particular subject. Grannies are like that; sometimes their confidence overtakes their knowledge. Not that they ever seem even mildly embarrassed when this fact is pointed out to them! It is, perhaps, one of the great benefits of age.
‘Oh look, they’re all there!’ Celia exclaimed excitedly as the Eurostar finally stopped.
And indeed they were. They were standing on the platform waving and smiling: Chief Inspector Maigret, Inspector Martin, and Jacques, who had been injured when a heavy truck deliberately rammed his car not far from Napoleon’s tomb. It could so easily have been Jacques’ tomb too, and it had all been part of Bruno Escargot’s plan. But there he now stood, fully recovered and as good as new, with his senior officers, all of them from the Paris headquarters of the Police Nationale.
(Bruno Escargot, as you might remember, was the despicable creature who masterminded the scheme to murder the elderly professor, the friend and mentor of Chief Inspector Maigret, so that the plans he had devised for the nuclear defence of the French Republic could be stolen. Those plans would then have been sold to the highest bidder. And it was none other than Celia and Granny who thwarted that scheme, at near-fatal risk to their own lives).
The guard passed their luggage to Jacques and they climbed down from the train. As they prepared to exchange kisses, they heard the sound. Heard it, but didn’t know what it was. But the two senior policemen recognised it. Without warning, Celia was knocked to the ground by Georges Martin while Granny received the same treatment from Philippe Maigret.
Only then did Granny realise what the sound had been. Gunfire. Three shots in rapid succession.
And now the chief inspector was lying on top of her not moving, not even breathing as far as she could tell, while his blood poured freely over her new linen jacket.
Chapter Two
Stunned silence reigned for about forty seconds. Then came the pandemonium. Pandemonium with a capital P. And panic. People running. People screaming. People scrambling, falling, tumbling over each other in a frantic attempt to get out of Gare du Nord.
Next the plaintive wail of approaching sirens. Orders being shouted, whistles blown and, in the distance, the sound of dogs barking.
Inspector Martin was struggling to his feet and pulling Celia up too.
‘Where did it come from?’ he shouted to Jacques, who was scanning the sky-line.
‘I don’t know, Georges. I can’t tell for sure – but somewhere up high. I can’t see anyone now.’
‘Excuse me,’ it was the muffled sound of Granny’s voice coming from under the chief inspector’s motionless body, ‘can someone lend a hand here? The chief inspector’s been shot and he’s bleeding all over me!’
She was on the verge of hysteria. She knew this because the words ‘ après moi, le délugé’ (‘after me, the flood’) were being repeated over and over in her head. They had supposedly been spoken by King Louis XV of France, who died on 10 th May 1774, and so they had no place in a 21 st century, Anglo-Saxon granny’s head.
(Did he mean that after he died there would be a break-down in law and order and that the whole country would descend into chaos and anarchy? No one knows, but the French Revolution began with the storming of the Bastille prison on 14 th July 1789 and that was only fifteen years after Louis died. So maybe that particular Louis knew a thing or two. On the other hand, he might just have been a megalomaniac nutter!)
Granny took several deep breaths. That felt better. Her head was clear now. And quiet. No more quotes from long-dead French kings.
‘Are you okay, Granny?’
‘I will be, when I’m up on my feet again the way the Lord intended us to be at this time of the day. But the chief inspector’s not – I think he’s dead.’
‘Mon dieu!’ exclaimed Jacques, crossing himself.
‘Get the paramedics over here – and a stretcher,’ Inspector Martin shouted to no one in particular. Then he went to his boss and he and Jacques gently turned him over, moving him off Granny. Celia helped her get up. Her clothes were saturated with blood and she was very pale. She moved as if in a trance.
‘Are you okay, Granny?’ Celia asked again. Who knew blood would smell like this, she thought. It’s gross. Sweet and yet foul. Truly, totally, gross.
‘Yes. Or at least I hope I will be very soon. I wonder what time the next Eurostar leaves for London.’
Celia frowned. This was a very strange thing for her Granny to have said but then she’d never almost been shot before so Celia made allowances.
Meanwhile, the paramedics had arrived and they and Georges Martin were inspecting Chief Inspector Maigret’s injuries.
‘He’s been shot in the shoulder,’ the senior paramedic said, ‘and he’s lost a lot of blood. But he’ll be okay. I believe it’s a through and through.’
‘Then why isn’t he moving?’
‘I think he’s concussed, Madame – he must have banged his head on the ground as he fell. But we’ll know more when we get him to the hospital.’
At that moment, a minor miracle occurred. The chief inspector’s eyes began to flutter and then opened. He tried to sit up but sank back on to the stretcher, then beckoned to Inspector Martin and whispered something. His voice was very faint but the inspector heard and understood.
‘ D’accord ,’ he said. Then he stood ramrod straight and assumed control.
‘Mrs Lisle,’ he began, ‘the chief inspector says that you and Miss Celia are to accompany us to the hospital and wait there until suitable arrangements can be made for your protection following this… er… unfortunate incident. But under no circumstances are you to check in to the Hotel Celeste as had been arranged.’ Then he re