CHAPTER 16
The journey to Rouen took three hours. Paul and Jasmine remained silent on the journey saying little as Paul slept most of the way. Jasmines mind was elsewhere thinking of who would want to kill her uncle. She knew she was in the eye of the storm and she could not see a way out. All her training and experience was being tested, she knew that whilst it had prepared her for this she would have to dig deeper to bring her uncles killer to justice.
They arrived at her uncles apartment in Seine Maritime on the edge of Rouen. The neighbourhood was lined with pink and white panelled tower blocks over ten storeys high set close together surrounded at there base by car parks, green fields and large mature trees. Paul was asleep in the passenger side and he woke up as Jasmine turned off the cars engine.
Paul looked around and saw towering apartment blocks dotted around the car park and his eyes scanned the unfamiliar surroundings "Where, where are we?"
Jasmine smiled at him "Somewhere safe for now. This is my uncles apartment. No one knows we're here."
Paul yawned and stretched walking with Jasmine a couple of hundred yards to the flat and they both entered a lift. Jasmine looked ahead as the lift ascended she glanced back to Paul and believed that he should be at home rather than here. However she knew that she was glad of his company and she needed a friend.
They got to the fourth floor of the apartment block and they entered the corridor, it was dimly lit with a single window at the far end. They walked a few metres to apartment sixteen.
Jasmine looked to Paul as she opened the blue door of her uncles apartment and they both walked in.
Jasmine had been to the apartment before and she hadn't been here in over twenty years. She recalled the smell of her uncles cigars and the times they spent playing chess and going for walks around Rouen.
Paul walked in and he felt relaxed for the first time in days. He looked around and he liked the chocolate brown sofa, white walls and there was a TV and radio in the lounge and the flat was not as barren as he had been expecting.
The day was getting late and the winter sun had set low on the horizon and a deep red sunset shone through the sky.
Jasmine put down a carrier bag of produce on the kitchen counter top. Her mind was focused only on one thing, her uncles paperwork and what he was involved with. She walked to his study located near to the front door where they had entered and spotted a large green metal cabinet.
The cabinet was locked. Paul walked from behind and leaned against the door frame saying nothing. Jasmine undid her hair pin and fumbled with the lock for a minute and the cabinet came open and she looked inside, but it was empty. She opened the remaining two drawers and again she found nothing. Paul walked over and he had an idea where the paperwork might be.
"Here let me" he said.
Paul took out the bottom drawer and tipped it over. The paperwork Jasmine had been looking for was there sellotaped. She tore off the sellotape and looked to the paperwork.
Jasmine sat in a dark brown chair. She turned on the main light and scanned the paperwork. A smile crept across her face.
"We've got it."
Paul's eyes narrowed as he sat opposite her "Got what?"
Jasmine continued as she flicked through Giovanni's paperwork "The paperwork doesn't say much. Its really a journal from my uncle . He must have known that his life would be in danger. The paperwork is really his private thoughts. He mentions something about the Brethren and repeatedly talks about a great sin but it gives no mention and then it stops."
Jasmine showed Paul the journal.
Paul grabbed it and he sat back in his chair and quickly scanned through the journal "It confirms what we suspect and backs up what happened in London. But does it really move us forward?"
Jasmine looked towards Paul "Not really but the fact that he mentions the Brethren. His fear over them and."
Paul looked to her unsure of what she was saying "And what?"
Jasmine took back the journal off Paul and she read it more it slowly than before and she raised her head towards Paul "I have just reread parts of this journal and I didn't see it on my first reading. I sense his fear and their are also pages missing."
Paul looked to her with concern "What next?"
Jasmine "I need to go to Paris tomorrow to speak to some people who might be able to help."
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