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As I spoke, I wondered if I could somehow convince him to leave without making him suspect me of something. I didn’t like that he made Mina uncomfortable.

“Have you met the landlord?” he said.

“Only the caretaker, Yannick. Do you know him?”

“Yes,” he said, and the word was like a wall, stopping me from enquiring further. I was startled and a little alarmed—I thought of Yannick, with his puppyish enthusiasm and transparent expressions, and wondered what on earth he could have to do with anything under Laurent’s remit.

“I’m not surprised the owner didn’t interview you himself,” Laurent continued. “I understand he’s abroad at present, and that he spends little time in the city. Did you have any qualms about renting a place from a person you’d never met?”

It was clear he felt there was only one correct answer to this, and meant to make me flustered. I replied politely, “Not particularly, for I was in no position to be choosy.”

I gave him a summary of my situation and the state of the place on Rue Sainte-Roseline, which he digested with a thoughtful expression. As I saw no reason to beat around the bush, I added, “The rent was surprisingly affordable. I wonder if you know the reason—I guessed the place might have acquired a reputation from some prior tenant’s misbehaviour. Is the owner perhaps not as discerning as one might hope?”

Unfortunately, Laurent seemed well practiced in deflecting curiosity, and the noise he made in response to this could have meant anything. “I wouldn’t mind speaking with him, should he turn up,” he said. “My aim isn’t specific; I like to be acquainted with the local business owners, and I’ve found him—difficult to pin down. Would you mind telling me if you see him? I’ll stop by again.”

“Ah,” I hedged, thinking of Mina. “Perhaps we could meet elsewhere? There’s a café down the street. I’d be happy to buy you a coffee.”

He blinked at me, and his ears reddened. Only then did I wonder if there was an additional significance to the warmth in his eyes, and, short on the heels of this, I heard my own words again. This, coupled with his evident embarrassment, made me turn pink. “I meant—well—”

“Yes,” he said, running a hand through his hair, which only made him look more inconveniently handsome. “That would—Only I’m not supposed to—Well, I should be off. Thank you for—the cat. I’ll think about it.”

“Wonderful,” I said, now thoroughly desperate for him to be gone. I’d always been dreadful when it came to flirtation—it had been lucky for me that Robin, alone among men, found my awkwardness charming. Now it seemed I’d found a way to deploy my awkwardness at men I wasn’t even interested in.

Well, if nothing else, I’d landed on an effective strategy for dampening police interest in my affairs. Laurent was out the door within seconds.

“Did you just invite a man to coffee?” Élise demanded. She’d edged closer during the tail end of our conversation, and stood looking equally astonished and delighted. “An attractive man at that?”

“No,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that. He won’t be back.”

Élise regarded me with a considering smile, and her gaze followed Laurent across the street. “I wouldn’t be so certain.”

Time passed quickly at first, a haze of long days spent cleaning, sorting and resorting, and rushing off to purchase some accessory that we hadn’t needed at the old place but was suddenly critical at the new one. I grew used to my bed, to the clank of the hot water pipes, the smell of the old oak parquet, and the way the sun poured through the west-facing windows in the afternoon. I doubted I would ever feel at home in the warm luxury of the upstairs apartment and tried to spend as little time there as possible—I never used the sitting room, and crept from the bedroom to the bathroom in the morning like a mouse navigating a clearing. Not once did the curtains open of their own accord, though some mornings I could have sworn I saw them twitch, as if they wished to. Overall, the shop continued to present itself as lacking in both ghosts and magic.

This lasted one week.

The oven was the first dark omen, as I could have guessed it would be. I had noted on my first visit that it smelled of baking, and I came to realize, once the scent of our floor polish had faded a little, that it still did—but only in the mornings; the smell dissipated after a few hours. It often varied: sometimes citrus, others chocolate, and sometimes it was clearly sourdough or otherwise savoury. Was someone breaking into the shop and making use of the oven in the night? It was the only explanation I could think of, and yet it was impossible. Not only did I lock up carefully, but the stones of the oven were cold in the morning, the decaying ashes within undisturbed.

Of course, I soon realized that there was no need for someone to break into the shop at night. Someone was already there.

It was only in growing used to the shop that I realized it. As I came to recognize the clanking of the pipes, which would sound even when no one had touched the taps, and the groaning of the lightless well that was the staircase, I also came to know which sounds did not fit the old building’s pattern. Namely, the intermittent bangs and creaks from the basement.

A particularly loud thump sounded one morning when Élise was assisting a couple interested in one of our tabbies.

“Ghosts acting up again,” Élise said, the barest hint of a smile in her eyes. The couple tittered. When the noise came again an hour later, Élise stamped on the floor.

“What do you think that will accomplish?” I said despairingly.

Élise shrugged. “Whatever it is, it will have to learn to keep it down when I’m with a client.”

She spoke dismissively enough, but I saw, and pretended not to see, how her shoulders stiffened when the noises came again.

The woman in the unidentifiable fur did not return, but others like her did. I could not work out why they reminded me of her, for they all looked different; perhaps it was only in the way they drew my eye, as most were finely dressed and took up space in the way of wealthy people, but I didn’t think so. The closest I could come to describing it was to say to Élise, nonsensically, that they reminded me of paintings.

First there was a man with an ivory cane and an immaculately tailored black cloak lined with emerald silk. He spoke not a word to me, merely gave me a nod when I welcomed him to the shelter and swept past, making for the back room as if he were late for a meeting. I was on my own then, and the shop was quiet, and so I heard the distinct creak followed by—as if I had not guessed already—a thump and a slight tremor in the floorboards that could only be the trapdoor to the basement falling shut.

He emerged perhaps an hour later, giving me that same polite nod, and went out the front door. Most of them exited through the door to the alley—or I assumed they did. I supposed it was possible that some fell monster made a meal of them down in the basement, and they never left.

After him came a pair of men, muttering to each other, more subtly but also more expensively attired, their hats worn low enough to shade their eyes. They didn’t acknowledge me in any way, though the shorter one frowned at the cats, as if they offended his eyes. He returned the next day alone, once again striding through the place as if he owned it. Happily, His Majesty was in a foul mood that day, crouched glowering by the back door like a gargoyle, and slashed at the man’s ankles as he passed. The man made a movement as if to kick him—deeply unwise where His Majesty was concerned—and ended up with two clawed ankles and a long tear in the hem of his cloak, the latter inflicted by a grey tabby named Céline. His Majesty had no interest in either friends or minions, but some of the younger cats paid fealty to him anyway, and would take it upon themselves to harass anyone His Majesty took a dislike to.