Floyd looked back at her. “What?”
“Get out of here. Fast.”
“I can’t. I have to pick up Greta.”
“Wendell—just drive.”
Something in her voice made him obey her without further question. He lurched the Mathis out of the parking space, not minding that he scraped the car in front of him in the process. He just had time to glance towards the lobby of the hotel and see the small child standing on the steps immediately in front of the door, playing with a yo-yo. The child was male, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and shiny buckled shoes over white socks. But there was nothing boyish about the child’s face. Floyd would never have given the boy a moment’s attention had Auger not been so obviously alarmed, but now that he looked more closely, he saw that his face was wrinkled and cadaverous: a withered parody of a child’s.
The boy looked towards them and smiled.
“The boy?”
“Just get us out of here,” Auger said.
Across the street, the glass door to a brasserie swung open. Greta rushed out with her coat bundled over one arm, a waiter following her with a tray in his hand and a bewildered look on his face. Greta turned around without stopping and threw some money towards him.
Floyd hit the brakes.
“What are we waiting for?” Auger asked, her alarm increasing. She leaned forward anxiously and grasped the back of Floyd’s seat, trying to see what was holding them up.
Floyd leaned over and popped the front passenger-side door. “Make that ‘who,’ not ‘what.’ I had Greta watching the Royale in case I didn’t pick you up in Cardinal Lemoine.”
Floyd’s attention darted back to the boy. He had reeled in his yo-yo and was taking slow, thoughtful steps towards the car. Behind the Mathis, a queue of vehicles was already making its impatience known.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Auger said, her knuckles white on the seat back.
Floyd signalled to Greta to move faster. She slipped behind the Mathis and slid in through the passenger-side door, pushing wet strands of black hair from her brow. Even before she had pulled the door shut, Floyd had the car moving again, picking up speed towards the Mirabeau bridge. At the intersection with the quayside road, he swung the car back north, towards the Eiffel Tower. The low clouds had snipped off the top of the structure, as if it had never been completed.
“Would someone mind telling me what’s going on?” Greta asked, pushing her coat over the back of the seat.
“I found Miss Auger.”
Greta looked at the woman in the back of the car. “So I gathered. But why the sudden excitement?”
“She told me to drive,” Floyd said. “She sounded as if she meant it.”
“And you just do whatever she says?”
Floyd caught Auger’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “Is it safe now?”
“Just keep driving,” she said. “Since you made a point of not crossing the river, I presume you’re taking us back to your office?”
“Unless you have a better idea,” he replied. “What happened back there? What made it unsafe for us to hang around?”
Auger shook her head once. “It doesn’t matter. Just drive.”
“It was the boy with the yo-yo,” Floyd said. “Wasn’t it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He turned to Greta. “You kept a good watch on the hotel since I left?”
“No, Floyd. I painted my fingernails and browsed fashion magazines. What do you think I was doing?”
“Did you see the boy?”
“Yes,” Greta said, after a moment’s consideration. “I did. And I didn’t like the look of him either.”
From the back seat of the car, Auger watched Floyd check the mirrors as he turned the car into rue du Dragon. It was now late afternoon and the street had already taken on something of the gloom of evening. Auger found it difficult to believe that only seven hours had passed since she had paid a visit to the detective’s office. It might as well have been weeks ago, for all she had in common with the determined and confident version of herself who had walked out of the building, prize in hand. She had thought that the mission was all but finished, barring the trivial business of returning to the portal. You poor, pitiable fool, Auger thought. Had she stood face to face with her former self, she would have slapped her cheek and laughed in spite.
“I don’t see any nasty-looking children,” Floyd said.
“What about the tail from the Quai?” asked the woman in the front passenger seat, whose accent was distinctly German. Floyd had told Auger her name, but she had forgotten it as soon as she saw the boy waiting outside the hotel.
“I don’t see anyone,” Floyd said. “But you can bet someone’s still got their eye on me.”
Auger leaned forward. “Someone’s following you as well?”
“I’m a popular guy.” Floyd parked the car outside the horsemeat butcher Auger remembered from her visit that morning. The shop front was covered in a mosaic of red, white and black tiles, with the figure of a red prancing horse picked out in a Romanesque style beneath the words “Achat de Chevaux.”
“Floyd,” said the German woman, “this is all happening a little too quickly for me.”
“It’s happening a little too quickly for me as well, if that’s any consolation,” Floyd replied. “That’s why we’re all going up to my office to have a nice little chat, and maybe we can sort some of this out.”
The German woman looked at Auger with a sneer of disapproval. “Is she seriously going to walk along the street looking like that?”
“We’ll take her upstairs, let her get clean and dry,” Floyd said. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind if she borrows some of the clothes you left behind.”
“She’s welcome to any that will fit her,” the woman replied, looking Auger up and down with a less than complimentary eye.
“Thank you,” Auger said, with an exaggerated smile.
“Ladies, if you’re going to start scratching each other’s eyes out, could you at least wait until I’ve had a shot of whiskey? I can’t stand violence on an empty stomach.”
“Shut up, Floyd,” the German woman said.
Floyd got out of the car and went around to the passenger side to open the door for Greta. Auger was already out of the car, looking around for anything she didn’t like, or that seemed out of place. But the street was as quiet and sleepy as she remembered it, and even a loitering child would have stood out.
“He wants to talk to you,” the German woman said, tapping Floyd’s arm and pointing to the shop with the horse sign. Behind the glass, the proprietor was gesturing at Floyd, waving him inside.
“Monsieur Gosset will have to wait,” Floyd said. “He only ever grumbles about the rent, or the noise from his upstairs neighbours.”
The three of them entered Floyd’s building. The elevator that had stalled Auger’s exit earlier was waiting for them like an iron trap. They all got in and Floyd pushed one of the brass buttons. With a buzz and a lurch, the car began its climb to the detective’s floor.
“I’m still waiting for an explanation, Floyd,” the German woman said.
“Maybe I should begin by introducing the two of you properly,” Floyd said, putting on a veneer of civility. “Verity Auger, Greta Auerbach. I’m sure the two of you will get along like a house on fire.”
“Or something,” Auger muttered.
The elevator came to a stop. Floyd opened the gate and led them on to the landing. Gesturing for them to hang back, he walked to the pebbled-glass door that led into his office and examined the gap between the door and the frame, just above the lock. He turned back to them with a finger pressed against his lips.
“Something’s wrong,” he whispered. “I put a hair across this gap before I left this morning. It’s not there any more.”