Girls Best Friend : Part 8

Millie was sweating again but without running, she tried to shake the feeling that it was her bag, surely it couldn't be, other people must wrap their items in cling film too, and she slid down into her chair and rested her head in her hand. Millie tried not to think about what kind of trouble she would be in if it was hers? She took the earphones out and tried to sleep. Soon she would be in Paris and it would be OK
.…
The sergeant looked around the briefing room; slowly taking in the officers he had available for the task. He figured that Miss Banloach would be more likely to trust someone closer to her age and the youngest officer who was the most able was Officer Justin Anwalt.
‘Anwalt’ he said. ‘I want you on the next train to Paris.’

As the train pulled into Gare du Nord in Paris Millie was already standing in a queue with her remaining bags waiting to get off the train. She had put all thoughts of her missing bag to the back of her mind and spent the two or so hours sleeping. In all honesty she wasn’t quite awake as she stood there leaning precariously on her bag willing her eyelids to stay open.

The train stopped and the other passengers began to alight and Millie watched in a daze as people alternated coaches, first one from her queue then one from the other queue. She yawned and felt her jaw crack and she winced. As she got closer to the door she checked to make sure she had all her bags, repositioned her shoulder bag and bent over to check the zips were all closed on her main luggage. It was then that she heard it, the distinctive shrill of Denise from Marketing rang out, bouncing along the seats of the coach. Millie froze too afraid to look and hoping that she was wrong and it was just someone that sounded like Denise from Marketing. She peeked up through her fringe to see her marching along the coach towards the door, shoving people out the way as she did so, one hand positioned as though she was a waitress carrying an imaginary tray whilst her bag was swinging from the crook of her arm. Millie didn’t want to move but the man behind her in the queue was shoving his bag into her bum as he grew impatient with waiting.

Still bent over Millie tried reversing into some empty seats at the end of the coach much to the bemusement of the man, who pushed past mumbling something in French and managing to slam the corner of his bag into Millie’s face as he did so. Who knows what he had in there but the weight of it nearly pushed her backwards as the zip scratched along her forehead and the base whacked her nose. The man didn’t even stop and not wanting to draw attention to herself she stayed put, hands clasped over her mouth and nose as her eyes dribbled damn-that-hurt tears.

As Denise reached the door so too did the French man who wasn’t going to let her barge through before him and so she had to wait.

‘Come on Mark, how long does it take? I have a car booked to take us to the Hyatt!’ whined Denise from Marketing.

Millie peered around the chair, hands still covering her face, and saw Mark from Accounting red faced and panting as he followed up behind her with the bags. Just one look and she could see that he was not in the best of spirits.

‘For crying out loud Denise, what the hell have you got in these bags? We’re only here for the weekend. Why do you need all this stuff?’ grumbled Mark from Accounting and Millie felt a little bad for him.

‘Oh grow up Mark! Don’t you know a woman has needs?!’ and then she was gone from the train and marching along the station.

Millie could hear her clip-clopping down the platform and was relieved as she watched Mark leave laden with bags and looking furious. She had always thought he looked quite cute when angry and wondered what he saw in Denise, they say love is blind she thought and in this case deaf and dumb. Laughing at her own joke she pushed her bag back into the aisle with her legs. Temporarily distracted by a shrill voice from outside the window she spun around to look through the glass in case Denise from Marketing was back and instantly grabbed her face again just in case. It turned out not to be Denise but a woman who looked to be doing her very best impression of Cruella De Ville from 101 Dalmatian’s and she stood there watching as the woman shrieked instructions to her husband/brother/butler. As she watched her the woman looked up and saw Millie looking through the window, she pursed her lips and pointed at her and then in a flourish, turned and walked to the exit with her Chihuahua neatly tucked under her arm.

Welcome to Paris thought Millie, would it all be this flamboyant and dramatic she wondered and turned to leave the train.

It took her a few seconds of staring blankly at the aisle to realise her bag was gone! She couldn’t believe it, how could it be gone, it was just there, why?, why would anyone take her bag?, oh not again!

Millie got off the train after frantically searching the coach and was stressing as her money had been in that bag. Here she was in Paris with no directions, no details, no money except the 50 euros she had in her purse but at least she had a bank card. She told herself that it was all part of the adventure and that she shouldn’t panic after all she was in Paris.

The station was busy and she looked for the lost property sign after deciding she should report that first. Her stomach grumbled and she went to grab a kit kat from one of the newsagents. She never made it that far as she was distracted by the pastries that were on sale in the bar. It was odd but they looked delicious and if anyone needed comfort food and a Baileys it was Millie Banlaoch.

She found a corner to snuggle into and devoured her pastry in less than a minute, then felt quite gluttonous and sick and started sipping her Baileys. It always amused Millie that they showed sport in pubs and it rarely mattered where in the world you were that seemed to be the norm. She glanced up at the screen as her face appeared on the telly, it was a photo that had been taken about 5 years ago just after the hair disaster of 2008 which she had been lucky to escape from without being bald. She swallowed. The news was in French but she distinctly heard them mention her name. She looked around the bar to see if anyone had noticed it was her but they all seemed far more interested in their pastries. Looking back at the screen she saw St Pancras and her bag that she left behind, and realised that it was her they were talking about on the radio, and then she saw her scrawled handwriting of her list of lottery numbers and balked. She was going to need another pastry…STAT!