Joe longed for that drink. Instead, he rose from his seat, carefully, feeling the pain travelling through him but trying to ignore it, and began to follow the girl.

She walked the short distance to the end of the park and out of it again and down below, into the Métro station of Monceau. Joe felt the pain through his body and his clothes were damp from the rain and clung to his skin and made him itch. He followed the girl down below, purchased a ticket, and followed her at a distance on and off trains until they had crossed the Seine and surfaced again at St. Michel.

The sunlight hurt his eyes. In the square the pigeons seemed suspended in mid-flight. Above the fountain the saint was frozen in the act of slaying a dragon. The water seemed to hover like mist. An accordion player teased out sad, despondent notes from his instrument. A girl was painting the Notre Dame cathedral in the distance, sitting on a folding-chair beside a small easel, brush and palate in hand. The wind picked up out of nowhere, snatched a hat from a man passing by and threw it in the air. Joe followed the girl, who made for the narrow twisting alleyways of the Quartier Latin. He lit a cigarette and blue smoke followed him as he passed, like the steam being snatched from a moving locomotive. The streets were paved and old and thronged with people, but no one paid him attention. He caught his own reflection in the window of a flower-seller: he looked like a wash-cloth that had been squeezed dry.

The thought made him smile. He followed, safely anonymous in the crowd. The girl marched on, finally passing through the courtyard of a church and entering the narrow Rue de la Parcheminerie. Joe could smell roasting coffee and smoke and cooking meat and the pervasive smell of frying garlic, and his stomach growled; and at the same time he felt nauseous. At number twenty-nine there was a bookshop, untidy heaps of books scattered outside, more books pressing against the windows inside the shops, looking out as if trying to escape. There was a side door. The girl disappeared through it. Joe leaned against the wall and watched. It was comfortable to rest against the stones. The Rue de la Parchminerie smelled of cooking foods and old paper and dust. There were few people walking past. There was a light up on the second floor but the curtains were drawn shut. Five minutes later the girl emerged through the door and began to walk down the road. Joe went to the door. There was no occupant’s name. He tried the door but it was locked. There was a small intercom and a buzzer, and he pressed the button and heard a man’s voice say, ‘What is it now, Marlene?’ in an exasperated tone, and then there was a buzzing sound, and when Joe pushed the door again it opened.

He climbed up the stairs. The stairwell was dark and musty, and wet-looking moss grew on the walls. At the top of the landing was a door and it was being pushed open as Joe climbed and he reached it and found himself face to face, at last, with his quarry.

the fat man

——

The bartender’s description, Joe thought, had been accurate enough. A pale, fat man, shaped a little like a closed-cup mushroom. He wore a flowing white robe and a dandyish hat and his feet were bare, the toes bulging and puffy. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said and made to push the door closed, but Joe was already there and holding it from shutting, and he said, ‘I just want to talk.’

‘Sure,’ the fat man said, and blinked. ‘They are all just want to talk.’

‘Please,’ Joe said. The fat man looked at him and said, ‘What happened to you?’

‘I think some people didn’t want me to find you.’

The fat man suddenly grinned. ‘And they didn’t persuade you?’ he said.

‘No.’

‘Pity.’

But his hand left the door and he moved aside, and gestured for Joe to come inside. ‘You look like you could use a drink.’

‘That,’ Joe said, ‘is truly perceptive. My name’s Joe. I’m a private detective.’

The fat man laughed. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a private detective,’ he said. ‘Sit down. Scotch?’

Without waiting for an answer he made for a small drinks cabinet in one corner. Joe looked around him.

The apartment was full of books. An old wireless box sat precariously on top of a wooden cabinet. There were prints on the walls showing women in various stages of undress. The majority of the books were paperbacks. They lay everywhere, like fallen comrades, on the two brown armchairs and the round coffee-table before them, on shelves, in piles on the floor, in cardboard boxes. The light was dim, and the blinds were thick red velvet and let in little natural daylight. There was a double bed in one corner, the bed-sheets pulled back, more books lying exhausted on top. Above the bed on the wall was a large poster showing a man with clear, penetrating eyes and a long beard, and beneath it the caption read: Wanted: Dead or Alive. Osama Bin Laden, Vigilante. A sweet, cloying smell hung heavy about the room.

The fat man came back with a glass for Joe, and one for himself. Joe took it gratefully and drank. The liquor tunnelled through him and he felt distant explosions erupt deep inside him, their warmth spreading out through his body. He was still looking at the poser and the fat man, following his gaze, said, ‘More trouble than it’s worth, this Vigilante business. They want me to stop, you see. But the money’s good. Are you a fan?’

He made ‘fan’ sound like a dirty word. Joe slowly shook his head. At last he was here, had located Longshott’s publisher. The man seemed to take an inordinate amount of precaution regarding his location. And yet he had let him in with little argument… interesting. He said, ‘Who wants you to stop?’

‘Besides the critics, you mean?’ He laughed and put out his hand. ‘I’m Papadopoulos, by the way. Daniel Papadopoulos, purveyor of fine literature to the masses.’

‘Papa D…’ Joe said.

The fat man looked up. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The girls like to call me that. I think I bring out the maternal in them. Or is it the Oedipal?’

‘Maybe it’s a bit of both,’ Joe said. He examined Daniel Papadopoulos. There were fine cobweb lines at the corners of his eyes, and – now that he looked closely – what looked like a fading bruise on the man’s face, below his left eye, masked unsubtly with white make-up. ‘I’m looking for Mike Longshott,’ he said, and Daniel Papadopoulos sighed. ‘Are you one of them?’ he said, and he in turn was also examining Joe. ‘Refugee?’

He wasn’t making sense, but Joe merely shook his head and said, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You mean you don’t know.’ The look in the fat man’s eyes made Joe uncomfortable. ‘That’s all right. Live and let, well, live, is what I say. If you get my meaning.’

Joe didn’t. He said, ‘Who did this to you?’ and pointed at the bruise. Papadopoulos shrank back. ‘The same people who worked you over, maybe?’ he suggested.

‘What did they look like?’

‘Like gangsters,’ Papadopoulos said, and Joe thought – I’m not the only one who reads too much pulp. ‘Gangsters with the law on their side. They smelled like bacon.‘ He smiled, though there wasn’t much amusement in his eyes. ‘They were pigs. The worst kind of gangster of all is a gangster with a badge. ’

‘You mean they were policemen?’

‘Full marks, boy.’ Joe stared into the fat man’s eyes. Papadopoulos didn’t meet his gaze. Joe thought – he talks big, but he’s frightened.

‘Did they say who they worked for?’

‘No.’ Papadopoulos paused and chewed on his lower lip. It was not, Joe thought, a pleasant sight. He lit a cigarette. His mouth tasted raw and full of smoke, like the inside of a collapsed building. He washed it away with the scotch. ‘Maybe. When they were leaving I heard one of them – the leader, big guy, grey hair –’

‘I think I ran into him, yes,’ Joe said.

‘He said – I think they thought I was out by then – he said something about reporting back to the…’ the fat man fell quiet.