“Merde,” says Nick, at the same time.
He goes over and speaks to them. I stay where I am. They don’t seem friendly. I can feel them looking us over.
“It’s the riots,” Nick says, striding back. “They’re expecting a bit of trouble.” He looks closely at me. “You OK?”
“Yeah, fine.” I remind myself that we’re literally on the way to talk to the police. They might be able to help. But it suddenly feels important to get something off my chest. “Hey—Nick?” I start, as we begin walking again.
“Yup?”
“Yesterday, when I spoke to the police, they said they wanted to take my name and address, for their records or whatever. I, er . . . I don’t want to give them that information.”
Nick frowns at me. “Why’s that?”
Because even though he had it coming, I think, what I did to that arsehole is technically still a crime.
“I—it’s not worth getting into.” But because he’s still looking at me oddly and I don’t want him to think I’m some sort of hardened criminal, I say: “I had a little trouble at work, just before I came here.”
More than a little trouble. Two days ago I walked into the Copacabana, smile on my face, as though my boss hadn’t flashed his dick at me the day before. Oh, I can play along when I need to. I needed that bloody job. And then at lunch before opening, while The Pervert was taking a crap (he went in there with a dirty magazine, I knew I had a while), I went and got the little key from his office and opened the till and took everything in it. It wasn’t loads; he was too wily for that, refilled it every day. But it was enough to get here, enough to escape on the first Eurostar I could book myself onto. Oh, and for good measure I heaved two kegs in front of the toilet door, one stacked on the other and the top one just under the door handle so he couldn’t turn it. Would have taken him a while to get out of that one.
So no, I’m not desperate to be on any official record of anything. It’s not like I think Interpol are after me. But I don’t like the idea of my name in some sort of system, of the police here comparing notes with the UK. I came here for a new start.
“Nothing major,” I say. “It’s just . . . sensitive.”
“Er, sure,” Nick says. “Look, I’ll give them my details as a contact. Does that work?”
“Yes,” I say, my shoulders slumping with relief . . . “Thank you, that would be great.”
“So,” he says, as we wait at some traffic lights, “I’m thinking of what I say to the police. I’ll tell them you thought there was someone in the apartment last night, of course—”
“I don’t think there was someone,” I interject, “I know.”
“Sure,” he nods. “And is there anything else you want me to say?”
I pause. “Well . . . I spoke to Ben’s editor.”
He turns to me. “Oh yes?”
“Yeah. This guy at the Guardian. I don’t know if it’s important but it sounded like Ben had an idea he was excited about, for an article.”
“What about?”
“I don’t know. Some big investigative piece. But I suppose if he got mixed up in something . . .”
Nick slows down slightly. “But his editor doesn’t know what the piece was about?”
“No.”
“Ah. That’s a shame.”
“And look, I found a notebook. But it was missing this morning. It had these notes in it—about people in the building. Sophie Meunier—you know the lady from upstairs? Mimi, from the fourth floor. The concierge. There was this line: La Petite Mort. I think it means ‘the little death’—”
I see something shift in Nick’s expression.
“What is it? What does it mean?”
He coughs. “Well, it’s also a euphemism for orgasm.”
“Oh.” I’m not all that easy to embarrass but I feel my cheeks growing warm. I’m also suddenly really aware of Nick’s eyes on me, how near we are to each other in the otherwise empty street. There’s a long, awkward silence. “Anyway,” I say. “Whoever was creeping around this morning took the notebook. So there must be something in it.”
We turn into a side street. I spot a couple of ragged posters pasted to some hoardings. Pause for a moment in front of them. Ghostly faces printed in black and white stare out at me. I don’t need to understand the French to know what—who—these are: Missing Persons.
“Look,” Nick says, following my gaze. “It’s probably going to be tough. Loads of people go missing every year. They have a certain . . . cultural issue here. There’s this view that if someone goes missing, it may be for their own reasons. That they have a right to disappear.”
“OK. But surely they won’t think that’s what’s happened to Ben. Because there’s more . . .” I hesitate, then decide to risk telling Nick about the voicenote.
A long pause, while he digests it. “The other person,” he says. “Could you actually hear their voice?”
“No. I don’t think they said anything. It was just Ben talking.” I think of the what the fuck? “He was scared. I’ve never heard him like that. We should tell the police about that too, right? Play it for them.”
“Yes. Definitely.”
We walk in silence for a couple more minutes, Nick setting the pace. And then suddenly he stops in front of a building: big and modern and seriously ugly, a total contrast to all the fancy apartment blocks flanking it.
“OK. Here we are.”
I look up at the building in front of us. COMMISSARIAT DE POLICE, it says, in large black letters above the entrance.
I swallow, then follow Nick inside. Wait just inside the front door as he speaks in fluent-sounding French to the guy on the desk.
I try to imagine what it must be like to have the confidence Nick has in a place like this, to feel like you have a right to be here. To my left there are three people in grimy clothes being held in cuffs, faces smeared with what looks like soot, yelling and tussling with the policemen holding them. More protestors? I feel like I have much more in common with them than I do with the nice rich boy who’s brought me here. I jump back as nine or ten guys in riot gear burst into the reception and shove past me and out into the street, piling into a waiting van.
The guy behind the desk is nodding at Nick. I see him pick up a telephone.
“I asked to speak to someone higher up,” Nick says as he comes over. “That way we’ll actually be listened to. He’s just calling through now.”
“Oh, great,” I say. Thank God for Nick and his fluent French and his posh boy hustle. I know if I’d walked in here I’d have been fobbed off again—or, worse, bottled it and left before I’d spoken to anyone.