Another man in a raincoat pushed open the doors to the restaurant. He was hatless, but for a moment—as the steam from the coffee machine blocked her view—it could also have been Floyd. But the man had no sooner stepped inside than a slender woman in a body-hugging emerald dress stood up from her table, and the two of them kissed like the illicit lovers Auger was sure they were. The man had a gift for the woman, which she opened with a gasp of nervous delight. It was some kind of jewellery. He ordered a drink and the two of them sat there holding hands for ten minutes, whereupon the man kissed her goodbye and vanished back into the bustle of the station. A minute later, Auger heard the whistle of a departing train, and knew with absolute certainty that the man was on it, heading back to his provincial house and his provincial family, that ten-minute assignation as much a routine as brushing his teeth and kissing his wife goodbye each morning. For a dizzying instant, the people around her suddenly felt as real as anyone she had ever known, and it was only by a supreme effort of will that she was able to reduce their lives once again to something more manageable, like an echo or afterimage.
Auger checked her watch. In a few minutes she would be able to board the train and find her couchette. An hour from now she would be halfway to the French border, and by the time she awoke she would, for better or worse, have arrived in Berlin. She signalled for her bill, then began gathering her things. Perhaps it was the wine, but now she felt a steely resolve to complete the investigation Susan White had begun.
A waiter in a white cummerbund brought the bill. Auger dug through her coinage, satisfied when she found enough to include a reasonable tip. Smiling, she slid the money towards the waiter and made ready to leave, deciding she would be better off not finishing the wine.
It was then that she saw the children.
There were two of them, standing quite still next to each other in the middle of the concourse. The boy held the lank thread of a yo-yo, while the girl carried a toy animal that looked as if it had been rescued from a dustbin. The boy wore a red T-shirt and shorts, with white socks and buckled black shoes, the girl a dirty yellow dress and the same kind of shoes. It was only when one really looked at them that it became clear that they were not really children at all, but ghouls in the rough shape of children. The rain had distorted their make-up, making it sag and run. Travellers pushed around them, but gave the children a certain distance, perhaps without realising it.
Auger lost sight of the diminutive figures as a group of people blocked her view. She swallowed and tried to keep her nerve. Her imagination might be running ahead of her. They might just have been street urchins, after all.
When the group dispersed, the two children were gone.
She closed her eyes in relief, then quickly finished what remained of the wine. She told herself to get up and leave the restaurant, while the train was still waiting. There was no point reacting in horror every time a child walked by. Paris was full of strange little boys and girls, and they were not all out to kill her.
A couple of businessmen moved away from the front of the restaurant. There were the children again: standing perfectly still, but now much closer to the door. They were not looking at her, but they were regarding something or someone with the unblinking attention of snakes. Another group of passers-by obstructed her view, and when they had moved away, the children were even closer, their attention clearly directed at the restaurant itself. A moment ago she might have stood a chance of leaving without them noticing her, but now she was trapped.
Auger looked down at the remains of her sandwich, then pretended to read the menu again. The last thing she wanted to be seen to be doing was taking an unusual interest in what was going on outside. The children might not necessarily know exactly what she looked like any more, after all.
When she risked another glance towards the door, only the little girl was standing outside. The boy was now inside the restaurant, waiting by the illuminated counter where freshly made cakes were laid out for inspection. A pair of flies hovered near the boy, seemingly more interested in him than in the sugary delicacies.
Auger sank down into the booth. She had a clear line of sight to the boy, but he did not appear to have noticed her yet. Staying rooted to the same spot of floor, his head was rotating in a slow and level arc, like a tracking surveillance camera. She was tempted to move behind the cover of another of the mirrored screens separating the booths, but knew that the boy would probably notice. His eyes blinked but rarely, as if he had to remind himself each time. In a few seconds he would be looking directly at her unless she moved. Belatedly, she remembered that she was carrying two weapons: the automatic and the sleek gun that she had taken from the war baby in the tunnel. The knowledge gave her a flicker of confidence, but she soon dismissed any thought of using the guns. The children were probably armed themselves, and there might be more of them than the two she had noticed. Besides, even if she dealt with the children, she would stand little chance of leaving this busy station without being apprehended and arrested.
The boy’s gaze had almost speared her. Frozen, she knew that her only hope lay in his failing to recognise her. Perhaps he would not, given her state of dishevelment and the fact that she was wearing someone else’s clothes. She had no sooner clutched at this straw than she forced herself to dismiss it, for the boy was obviously looking for her specifically, and would not be fooled by a few superficial changes.
Auger’s hand reached under the table for the automatic. Perhaps she would have to use it after all, regardless of the consequences.
The boy looked at—or more exactly through—her. She felt as if a searchlight beam had swept over her. The smooth rotation of his head continued, taking his attention beyond her. His head had turned through nearly ninety degrees from the starting position of its arc and showed every indication of continuing, impossible though such a movement would be for a human child. Auger wondered how long it would be before someone else spotted the peculiar little boy, but as far as she could tell the other people in the restaurant had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
Then the child’s head stopped and reversed, until the boy was looking towards her again. This time she felt the focus of his attention: he wasn’t just looking in her direction, but was concentrating on the booth in which she was sitting. A barely recognisable change came across the powdered and smudged mask of his face, the tiniest widening of his mouth suggesting a smile of triumph or gluttony.
The boy’s head snapped back towards the restaurant door and he opened his mouth to emit a single shriek. To any casual bystander, it would have sounded like a meaningless, yodel-like exclamation—evidence, perhaps, of idiocy on the child’s part. But Auger knew that the shriek was crammed with sonic information, and that the other child was fully capable of deciphering it.
Stiff-kneed, like a puppet that wasn’t being worked properly, the boy began to walk towards Auger’s booth. She tried not to react in any way, keeping her own attention on the clock, hoping that the boy would have second thoughts before he reached her. He had pocketed the yo-yo and now something gleamed in his hand, mirror-bright and sharp as glass.
A hand touched the boy’s shoulder. The boy yanked his head towards the adult in fury and incomprehension, his face twisted into a scowl that served only to crack and dislodge the remaining scabs of make-up covering up his true appearance. The hand emerged from the dark sleeve of a suit belonging to one of the waiters. The man was large even amongst adults, and towered over the boy. Still trying not to look directly at what was happening, Auger saw the man crease himself down the middle to bring his moustached, fat-necked head into proximity with the boy. The man started to say something, his lips working silently across the room, and then there was a quick flash of silver and the waiter stepped back from the boy with a look of mild surprise on his face, as if the child had sworn at him in an ingenious and adult way.