‘No one will notice. I was given a couple of days to prepare for the conference. Unfortunately, I can’t get out of that and I’ll have to turn up and show my boss my grinning face, I’m afraid. You can telephone me at the number you have at any time – if I’m not there someone will take a message. It’s pretty central . . . Left Bank . . . nothing very special but my mother’s happy there. The rue Mouffetard – do you know it?’

Joe knew it. A winding medieval street of old houses, market stalls, cafés and student lodgings, one of the few to escape the modernizing hand of the Baron Haussman.

‘Just south-east of the Sorbonne? Near the place de la Contrescarpe?’

‘Exactly. You need the place Monge Métro exit. Let me write the address on the back of the card I gave you.’

Joe was amused. ‘You don’t give out your address to all and sundry?’

‘Matter of security,’ said Bonnefoye. ‘Mine!’

‘You have an apartment?’ Joe asked.

‘No. It’s my mother’s apartment. On my salary it will be some time before I can afford to rent one of my own. You have to pay fifteen thousand francs a year for a decent place in Paris. It’s the foreign invasion that’s put up prices.’

‘Invasion? You’d call the tourist influx an invasion, would you?’

‘Hardly tourists! Ten thousand semi-permanent residents have flooded in, mostly American, some British, all keen to take advantage of what they consider the low prices in France and all able to pay more than an ordinary copper for a decent place. Do you know how I’ve spent my time, this last month? Sorting out cases of grievous bodily harm and damage to property on the Left Bank. The indigènes of Montparnasse have started to show their resentment of the way the Yanks have taken over whole quartiers. They don’t like the way they buy up cafés and turn them into cocktail bars, they don’t like the food they consume or the way they consume it . . . they don’t like their loud voices . . . they don’t like the way they look at their girls . . . You know the sort of thing. It’ll only take a spark to blow the lid off. Might try raising that with Interpol.’

The hastily summoned doctor examined Sir George and passed him as perfectly well – suffering from shock, naturally, as one would, being the victim of a street robbery – and from the obvious contusions but otherwise nothing to be concerned about . . . Nothing broken. No – a very fit specimen for a man of his age, was the reassuring verdict. All the same, the doctor grumbled, attacks like this were growing more frequent. And on the Grands Boulevards now? Tourists to blame, of course. A honey pot. Too easy and tempting a target for the local villains. It was quite disgraceful that a respectable gent like the patient couldn’t return from the theatre to his hotel along the most civilized street in the world without being beaten up. Where was the police presence in all this, the good doctor wanted to know.

A complete rest with plenty of sleep was his prescription. Of course, there was always the danger at any age of a delayed reaction to a head wound. Was there someone they could summon to sit with him . . . just in case . . . a compatriot perhaps would be most suitable in the circumstances. He left his card and took his leave.

‘A nurse?’ Joe, eager to dash off to the morgue was impatient at the doctor’s request. ‘Is that what he’s suggesting? Where on earth do we dig up a nurse at a moment’s notice?’

Bonnefoye grinned. ‘This you can leave to me, Joe. I think I can work my way around the problem.’ He took out a small black notebook and began to flip through the pages. ‘You go off and interrogate the corpse. You’ll find all well when you get back.’

On the ground floor a lean-faced man in his mid-thirties, unremarkable in sober city clothes, was waiting for a friend. He watched Joe step out of the lift, cross the lobby and greet the doorman. He looked at his watch, shrugged and decided to abandon his assignation. Following Joe outside, he stood patiently by, next in line. He heard Joe speak to the driver of the cab: ‘Ile de la Cité. Institut Médico-Légal.’ The man smiled and walked back into the lobby.

Joe was admitted with courtesy into the Institut. Sombre, forbidding and dank, the building was everything Joe expected of a morgue and forensic pathology department combined. He was going to have to return in the evening escorting Somerton’s widow and he wanted to be certain that he could find his way about, to be prepared to answer any questions she might have. The usual run of grieving relatives tended not, on first confrontation with the corpse, to be particularly searching with their queries. A combination of feelings of loss and the oppressive atmosphere of the viewing room was enough to reduce them to an inarticulate silence, a nod or a shake of the head or, at best, a few muttered words, most frequently: ‘Did he (or she) suffer?’

Somerton certainly suffered. But not for long, Joe estimated, staring down at his corpse. The pathologist in charge of the case who had officiated at midnight the night before had returned, he now told Joe, straight after breakfast to continue his examination. Le docteur Moulin was wearing the white overall, cap and gloves of a surgeon and was as cheerful as the depressing circumstances allowed. His intelligent brown eyes were the only source of warmth in the whole building, Joe thought. He was expecting Joe and looked only briefly at his identification before leading him past three other livid corpses laid out in a row to a marble-topped, channelled table where the body of the Englishman was laid out.

‘Were you gentlemen acquainted?’ asked the doctor, extending a hand to Somerton.

‘Not in the slightest. I’m here to investigate, not identify. He has been named by the man who discovered the body and his papers confirm his identity. The widow, Lady Somerton, is on her way and will attend this evening to sign any documents you may present. Before she turns up, I’d like to familiarize myself with the details, so that I can guide her through it, if you have enough to go on . . .’

‘Oh, yes. More to do, of course, but peripheral to the police enquiry, I’d say. I shall be obtaining a toxicology report, checking stomach contents – the usual – but the cause of death I think you’d agree is pretty obvious.’

Joe stared with pursed lips at the body laid out on the slab. He was struck by the way in which the hair and moustache, retaining their luxuriance and dark colour, were at odds with the waxen flesh from which the humanity seemed to have drained away. What was the dead man telling him? What could he possibly learn from the already decaying features of a man he’d never seen alive, had never heard speaking? Joe recalled a phrase the usherette had used in her statement: ‘Visage de fouine.’ Weasel-faced. Yes, he could see why she might say that. The sharp nose and chin in a narrow face offered a contrast with George’s broad and handsome features. The expression and animation of the living man would also most probably have coloured the girl’s impression of him and on this Joe would never be able to form an opinion. The eyes were closed, the thin, well-shaped lips set in a tight line.

The five franc tip, Joe remembered. What a frightful epitaph!

The knife slash that had killed him went from ear to ear. Cleaned and closed, it was still a fearsome sight. Joe could only imagine the shattering effect on George of discovering his friend – dead? dying? – with blood pumping by the pint from the gaping wound.

‘Have you any views on how the wound was administered?’ Joe asked.

‘I have. Dealt from behind, I’d say. I understand the victim was watching a performance at the Folies? In a box either by himself or accompanied by a young lady? A question for the police to clear up. Obviously, if she were sitting or standing next to him the lady would be drenched in blood. When she went to the vestiaire to retrieve her coat, someone would have noticed her state.’