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‘Entrez,’ she said, and, seeing that it was only Clément, adjusted her face to its sternest setting. It was just her luck that her lacklustre nephew, freshly graduated, should land in her station for the very first of his trainee placements. ‘Excusez-moi, Commissaire.’ Clément stood nervously in the doorway.
‘Entrez, entrez,’ growled the commissaire, who hated to repeat herself. ‘Des nouvelles?’
The commissaire, determined to avoid any hint of favouritism, had assigned her nephew to the task of trawling through CCTV footage from the train station. So far, Clément had reported plenty of footage of the Ukrainian girl walking up and down the platforms, but nothing particularly incriminating. Rénard Barreau, neat in his navy suit, small and canny, seemed to know every trick to avoid the cameras spread liberally around his hunting ground.
‘Rien de nouveau.’ There was nothing new to report.
‘Alors, Clément, pourquoi es-tu ici?’
Clément looked at her with a blank face, as though he had completely forgotten his purpose.
‘Clément?’
‘La vielle dame demande à vous parler.’ She waited him out until he added a nervous, ‘s’il vous plaît.’
Oh great. The old woman wanted to add her two centimes worth to the debacle. That was just what the commissaire needed on a Sunday afternoon, to spend her time easing the fears of a shaken-up pensioner. Couldn’t Clément make himself useful? Couldn’t he put her off?
‘S’il vous plaît, Commissaire, elle insiste.’
Commissaire Cloutier twitched her mouth and waved an impatient hand across her face in an ambiguous gesture that left the decision more or less up to poor Clément, who turned to leave.
‘Attends une minute,’ said Commissaire Cloutier, and her nephew turned sharply on his heel.
‘Oui, Commissaire.’
‘Examine ce portefeuille, Clément,’ she said, throwing the evidence bag in his direction. ‘Vois ce que tu peux en tirer.’ Might as well see what, if anything, could be gleaned from the mystery wallet.
Clément made the catch.
‘Oui, Commissaire.’ He nodded enthusiastically, suppressing a smile, and reversed out the door, narrowly avoiding taking the dustbin with him.
‘Merde,’ said Mathilde Cloutier, putting her head of curls down on top of her neat pile of paperwork. ‘Je lui ai donné de faux espoirs.’ The very last thing she’d intended was to get her nephew’s hopes up.
A Wonder Told Shyly
Claire and Ronan left the park side by side, a foot apart, each taking care not to touch the other. They followed the trail Claire had planned around the literary landmarks of the Left Bank, but without the enthusiasm she’d felt in the planning. The streets were quiet, making their lack of conversation all the more uncomfortable. On rue Ortolan, they looked for Orwell’s boarding house but didn’t find it. Claire considered taking a photograph of Hemingway’s blue door on rue du Cardinal Lemoine but couldn’t quite summon the energy. It wasn’t as though this was a moment in time she especially wanted to remember. At the flat where Joyce had lived, someone had drawn a cartoon sketch of his head on the wall. Ronan took out his phone and snapped a picture, as if he felt that somebody should. Turning around, they were faced with the cheery red of Le Descartes straddling the junction of two roads.
‘I could do with a coffee,’ Claire said. ‘What do you say to two café crèmes?’
They pulled out two spindly chairs at the front of the café and sat down.
‘We could have something stronger?’ Ronan’s voice was low and soft. He was still behaving as though she were made of very fine glass.
‘Yeah, okay.’ Her head was splitting, but she didn’t want to say no to him.
‘How about a half carafe of a nice white?’ He was being cautious.
She tried to make her smile reassuring. ‘I think we want something stiffer than that.’
‘Brandy?’
She shrugged. Why not? Why not drink brandy at three in the afternoon? Who the hell cared if she was being good, or not?
She remembered a conversation she’d overheard in the restaurant on Friday night.
‘Make it Armagnac.’
He let the back of his hand touch the back of hers where it lay on the tabletop. Her fingers twitched, involuntarily, against his. With a deliberate effort, she stilled them, pressing her fingertips against the cold metal surface.
