The Paris Apartment

She watches through the shutters as he is carried from the building. Just as she watches everything in this place. Sometimes from her cabin in the garden, sometimes from the recesses of the building where she can spy on them unnoticed.

The body in its improvised shroud is visibly heavy. Already stiffening perhaps, unwieldy. A dead weight.

The lights in the third floor apartment have been on up until now, blazing out into the night. Now they are extinguished and she sees the windows become dark blanks, masking everything inside. But it will take more than that to expunge the memory of what has occurred within.

Now the light in the courtyard snaps on. She watches as they set to work, hidden from the outside world behind the high walls, doing everything that needs to be done.

Seeing him, she thought she would feel something, but there was nothing. She smiles slightly at the thought that his blood will now be part of this place, its dark secret. Well, he liked secrets. His stain will be here forever now, his lies buried with him.

Something terrible happened here tonight. She won’t talk about what she saw, not even over his dead body. No one in this building is entirely innocent. Herself included.

A new light blinks on: four floors up. At the glass she glimpses a pale face, dark hair. A hand up against the pane. Perhaps there is one innocent in this, after all.

Jess

I’m hunting through Ben’s closet in case there’s an outfit an old girlfriend left behind, something I could borrow. Before Theo hung up on me I was going to tell him that I don’t have anything smart to wear this evening. And no time or money to get something—he’s barely given me any warning.

Just for a moment I pause my riffling through Ben’s shirts and pull one of them against my face. Try, from the scent, to conjure him here, to believe that I will see him standing in front of me soon. But already the smell—of his cologne, his skin—seems to have faded a little. It feels somehow symbolic of our whole relationship: that I’m always chasing a phantom.

I drag myself away. Choose the one of my two sweaters that doesn’t have any holes and brush my hair: I haven’t washed it since I arrived, but at least it’s less of a bird’s nest now. I chuck on my jacket. Thread another pair of cheap hoop earrings through my earlobes. I look in the mirror. Not exactly “smart,” but it’ll have to do.

I open the door to the apartment. The stairwell’s pitch-black. I fumble around for the light switch. There’s that whiff of cigarette smoke, but even stronger than usual. It smells almost like someone’s smoking one right now. Something makes me glance up to my left. A sound, perhaps, or just a movement of the air.

And then I catch sight of something out of place: a tiny glowing red dot hovering overhead in the blackness. It takes a moment before I understand what it is. I’m looking at the end of a cigarette butt, held by someone hidden in darkness just above me.

“Who’s there?” I say, or try to say, because it comes out as a strangled bleat. I fumble around for the light switch near the door and finally make contact with it, the lights stuttering on. There’s no one in sight.

My heart’s still beating double time as I walk across the courtyard. Just as I reach the gate to the street, I hear the sound of quick shuffling footsteps behind me. I turn.

It’s the concierge, emerging once more from the shadows. I try to take a step away and when my heel hits metal I realize I’m already backed right up against the gate. She only comes up to my chin—and I’m not exactly big—but there’s something threatening about her nearness.

“Yes?” I ask. “What is it?”

“I have something to say to you,” she hisses. She glances up at the encircling apartment building. She reminds me of a small animal sniffing the air for a predator. I follow her gaze upward. Most of the windows are dark blanks, reflecting the gleam of the streetlamps across the road. There’s only one light on upstairs, in the penthouse apartment. I can’t see anyone watching us—I’m sure this is what she’s checking for—but then I don’t think I’d necessarily be able to spot them if they were.

Suddenly she snatches out a hand toward me. It’s such a swift, violent action that for a moment I really think she’s going to hit me. I don’t have time to step away, it’s too fast. But instead she grabs a hold of my wrist in her claw-like hand. Her grip’s surprisingly strong; it stings.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“Just come,” she tells me—and with such authority I don’t dare disobey her. “Come with me, now.”

I’m going to be late for meeting Theo now but he can wait. This feels important. I follow her across the courtyard to her little cabin. She moves quickly, in that slightly stooped way of hers, like someone trying to duck out of a rainstorm. I feel like a child in a storybook being taken to the witch’s hut in the woods. She looks up at the apartment building several more times, as though scanning it for any onlookers. But she seems to decide that it’s worth the risk.

Then she opens the door and ushers me in. It’s even smaller inside than it looks on the outside, if that’s possible. Everything is crammed into one tiny space. There’s a bed attached to the wall by a system of pulleys and currently raised to allow us to stand; a washstand; a minuscule antique cooking stove. Just to my right is a curtain that I suppose must lead through to a bathroom of some sort—simply because there’s nowhere else for it to be.

It’s almost scarily neat, every surface scrubbed to a high shine. It smells of bleach and detergent—not a thing out of place. Somehow I would have expected nothing less from this woman. And yet the cleanness, the neatness, the little vase of flowers, somehow make it all the more depressing. A little mess might be a distraction from how cramped it is, or from the damp stains on the ceiling which I’m fairly sure no amount of cleaning could remove. I’ve lived in some dives in my time, but this takes the biscuit. And what must it feel like to live in this tiny hovel while surrounded by the luxury and space of the rest of the apartment building? What would it be like to live with the reminder of how little you have on your doorstep every day?

No wonder she hated me, swanning in here to take up residence on the third floor. If only she knew how out of place I am here too, how much more like her than them I really am. I know I can’t let her see my pity: that would be the worst insult possible. I get the impression she’s probably a very proud person.

Behind her head and the tiny dining table and chair I see several faded photographs pinned to the wall. A little girl, sitting on a woman’s lap. The sky behind them is bright blue, olive trees in the background. The woman has a glass in front of her of what looks like tea, a silver handle. The next is of a young woman. Slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. Not a new photograph: you can tell from the saturated colors, the fuzziness of it. But at the same time it’s definitely too recent to be of the old woman herself. It must be a loved one. Somehow it’s impossible to imagine this elderly woman having a family or a past away from this place. It’s impossible, even, to imagine her ever having been young. As though she has always been here. As though she is a part of the apartment building itself.

“She’s stunning,” I say. “That girl on the wall. Who is she?”

There’s a long silence, so long that I think maybe she didn’t understand me. And then finally, in that rasping voice, she says: “My daughter.”

“Wow.” I take another look at her in light of this, her daughter’s beauty. It’s hard to see past the lines, the swollen ankles, the clawed hands—but maybe I can see a shadow of it, after all.

She clears her throat. “Vous devez arrêter,” she barks, suddenly, cutting into my thoughts. You have to stop.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Stop what?” I lean forward. Perhaps she can tell me something.

“All your questions,” she says. “All of your . . . looking. You are only making trouble for yourself. You cannot help your brother now. You must understand that—”

“What do you mean?” I ask. A chill has gone right through me. “What do you mean, I cannot help my brother now?”

She just shakes her head. “There are things here that you cannot understand. But I have seen them, with my own eyes. I see everything.”

“What?” I ask her. “What have you seen?”

She doesn’t answer. She simply shakes her head. “I am trying to help you, girl. I have been trying since the beginning. Don’t you understand that? If you know what is good for you, you will stop. You will leave this place. And never look back.”

Sophie

There’s a knock on the door. I go to answer it and find Mimi standing there on the other side.

“Maman.” The way she says the word. Just like she did as a little girl.

“What is it, ma petite?” I ask, gently. I suppose to others I may seem cold. But the love I feel for my daughter; I’d challenge you to find anything close to it.

“Maman, I’m frightened.”

“Shh.” I step forward to embrace her. I draw her close to me, feeling the frail nubs of her shoulder blades beneath my hands. It seems so long since I have held her like this, since she has allowed me to hold her like this, like I did when she was a child. For a time I thought I might never do so again. And to be called “Maman.” It is still the same miracle it was when I first heard her say the word.

I have always felt she is more mine than Jacques’. Which I suppose makes a kind of sense: because in a way she was Jacques’ greatest gift to me, far more valuable than any diamond brooch, any emerald bracelet. Something—someone—I could love unreservedly.

One evening—roughly a week after the night I had knocked on Benjamin Daniels’ door—Jacques was briefly home for supper. I presented him with the quiche Lorraine I had bought from the boulangerie, piping hot from the oven.

Everything was as it should be. Everything following its usual pattern. Except for the fact that a few nights before I had slept with the man from the third-floor apartment. I was still reeling from it. I could not believe it had happened. A moment—or rather an evening—of madness.

I placed a slice of quiche on Jacques’ plate. Poured him a glass of wine. “I met our lodger on the stairs this evening,” he said as he ate, as I picked my way through my salad. “He thanked us for supper. Very gracious—gracious enough not to mention the disaster with the weather. He sends you his compliments.”

I took a sip of my wine before I answered. “Oh?”

He laughed, shook his head in amusement. “Your face—anyone would think this stuff was corked. You really don’t like him, do you?”

I couldn’t speak.

I was saved by the ringing of Jacques’ phone. He went into his study and took a call. When he returned his face was clouded with anger. “I have to go. Antoine made a stupid mistake. One of the clients isn’t happy.”

I gestured to the quiche. “I’ll keep this warm for you, for when you come back.”

“No. I’ll eat out.” He shrugged on his jacket. “Oh, and I forgot to say. Your daughter. I saw her on the street the other night. She was dressed like a whore.”

“My daughter?” I asked. Now that she had done something to displease him she was “my” daughter?

“All that money,” he said, “sending her to that Catholic school, to try and make her into a properly behaved young woman. And yet she disgraced herself there. And now she goes out dressed like a little slut. But then, perhaps it’s no surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

But I didn’t need to ask. I knew exactly what he meant.

And then he left. And I was all alone in the apartment, as usual.

For the second time in a week, I was filled with rage. White hot, powerful. I drank the rest of the bottle of wine. Then I stood up and walked down two flights of stairs.

I knocked on his door.

He opened it. Pulled me inside.

This time there was no preamble. No pretense of polite conversation. I don’t think we spoke one word. We weren’t respectful or gentle or cautious with one another now. My silk shirt was torn from me. I gasped against his mouth like someone drowning. Bit at him. Tore the skin of his back with my nails. Relinquished all control. I was possessed.

Afterward, as we lay tangled in his sheets, I finally managed to speak. “This cannot happen again. You understand that, don’t you?”

He just smiled.

Over the next few weeks we became reckless. Testing the boundaries, scaring ourselves a little. The adrenaline rush, the fear—so similar a feeling to the quickening of arousal. Each seemed to heighten the other, like the rush of some drug. I had behaved so well for so long.

The secret spaces of this building became our private playground. I took him in my mouth in the old servants’ staircase, my hands sliding into his trousers, expert, greedy. He had me in the laundry room in the cave, up against the washing machine as it thrummed out its cycle.

And every time I tried to end it. And every time I know we both heard the lie behind the words.

“Maman,” Mimi says now—and I am jolted, abruptly, guiltily, out of these memories. “Maman, I don’t know what to do.”

My wonderful miracle. My Merveille. My Mimi. She came to me when I had given up all hope of having a child. You see, she wasn’t always mine.

She was, quite simply, perfect. A baby: only a few weeks old. I did not know exactly where she had come from. I had my ideas, but I kept them to myself. I had learned it was important, sometimes, to look the other way. If you know that you aren’t going to like the reply, don’t ask the question. There was just one thing I needed to know and to that I got my answer: the mother was dead. “And illegal. So there’s no paper trail to worry about. I know someone at the mairie who will square the birth certificate.” A mere formality for the grand and powerful house of Meunier. It helps to have friends in high places.

And then she was mine. And that was the important thing. I could give her a better life.

“Shh,” I say. “I’m here. Everything will be OK. I’m sorry I was stern last night, with the wine. But you understand, don’t you? I didn’t want a scene. Leave it all with me, ma chérie.”

It was—is—so fierce, that feeling. Even though she didn’t come out of my body, I knew as soon as I saw her that I would do anything to protect her, to keep her safe. Other mothers might say that sort of thing casually. But perhaps it is clear by now that I don’t do or say anything casually. When I say something like that, I mean it.

Jess

I come up out of the Palais Royal Metro station. I almost don’t recognize the tall, smartly dressed guy waiting at the top of the steps until he starts walking toward me.

“You’re fifteen minutes late,” Theo says.

“You didn’t give me any time,” I say. “And I got caught up—”

“Come on,” Theo says. “We can still make it if we’re snappy about it.” I look him over, trying to work out why he looks so different from the last time I met him. Only a five o’clock shadow now, revealing a sharp jawline. Dark hair still in need of a cut but it’s had a brush and he’s swept it back from his face. A dark blazer over a white shirt and jeans. I even catch a waft of cologne. He’s definitely scrubbed up since the café. He still looks like a pirate, but now like one who’s had a wash and a shave and borrowed some civilian clothes.

“That’s not going to cut it,” he says, nodding at me. Clearly, he’s not having the same charitable thoughts about my outfit.

“It’s all I had to wear. I did try to say—”

“It’s fine, I thought that might be the case. I’ve brought you some stuff.”

He thrusts a Monoprix bag-for-life toward me. I look inside: I can see a tangle of clothes; a black dress and a pair of heels.

“You bought this?”

“Ex-girlfriend. You’re roughly the same size, I’d guess.”

“Ew. OK.” I remind myself that this might all somehow help me find out what’s happened to Ben, that beggars can’t be choosers about wearing the haunted clothes of girlfriends past. “Why do I have to wear this sort of stuff?”

He shrugs. “Them’s the rules.” And then, when he sees my expression: “No, they actually are. This place has a dress code. Women aren’t allowed to wear trousers, heels are mandatory.”

“That’s nice and sexist.” Echoes of The Pervert insisting I keep the top four buttons of my shirt undone “for the punters”: You want to look like you work in a kindergarten, sweetheart? Or a branch of fucking McDonald’s?

Theo shrugs. “Yeah, well, I agree. But that’s a certain part of Paris for you. Hyper-conservative, hypocritical, sexist. Anyway, don’t blame me. It’s not like I’m taking you to this place on a date.” He coughs. “Come on, we don’t have all night. We’re already running late.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see when we get there. Let’s just say you’re not going to find this place in your Lonely Planet guide.”

“How does this help us find Ben?”

“I’ll explain it when we get there. It’ll make more sense then.”

God, he’s infuriating. I’m also not completely sure I trust him, though I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s just that I still can’t work out what his angle is, why he’s so keen to help.

I hurry along next to him, trying to keep up. I didn’t see him standing up at the café the other day—I’d guessed he was tall, but now I realize he’s well over a foot taller than me and I have to take two steps for every one of his. After a few minutes of walking I’m actually panting.

To the left of us I catch sight of a huge glass pyramid, glowing with light, looking like something that’s just landed from outer space. “What is that thing?”

He gives me a look. It seems I’ve said something stupid. “That’s the Pyramide? In front of the Louvre? You know . . . the famous museum?”

I don’t like being made to feel like an idiot. “Oh. The Mona Lisa, right? Yeah, well, I’ve been a bit too busy trying to find my missing brother to take a nice tour of it yet.”

We push through crowds of tourists chattering in every language under the sun. As we walk, I tell him about what I’ve discovered: about them all being a family. One united front, acting together—and probably against me. I keep thinking about stumbling into Sophie Meunier’s apartment, all of them sitting together like that—an eerie family portrait. The words I’d heard, crouching outside. Elle est dangereuse. And Nick discovering that he wasn’t the ally I thought he was—that part still stings.

“And just before I left to come here the concierge gave me a kind of warning. She told me to ‘stop looking.’”

“Can I tell you something I’ve learned in my long and not especially illustrious career?” Theo asks.

“What?”

“When someone tells you to stop looking, it normally means you’re on the right track.”

I change quickly in the underground toilet of a chi-chi bar while Theo buys a demi beer upstairs so the staff don’t chuck us out. I shake out my hair, study my reflection in the foxed glass of the mirror. I don’t look like myself. I look like I’m playing a part. The dress is figure-hugging but classier than I’d expected. The label inside reads Isabel Marant, which I’m guessing might be a step up from my usual Primark. The shoes—Michel Vivien is the name printed on the footbed—are higher than anything I’d wear but surprisingly comfortable; I think I might actually be able to walk in them. So I guess I’m playing the part of Theo’s ex-girlfriend; not sure how I feel about that.

A girl comes out of the stall next to me: long shining dark hair, a silky dress falling off one shoulder underneath an oversized cardigan, wings of black eyeliner. She starts outlining her lips in lipstick. That’s what I need: the finishing touch.

“Hey.” I lean over to her, smile my most ingratiating smile. “Could I borrow some of that?”

She frowns at me, looks slightly disgusted, but hands it over. “Si tu veux.”

I put some on a finger, dab it onto my lips—it’s a dark vampiric red—and pass it back to her.

She puts up a hand. “Non, merci. Keep it. I have another.” She tosses her gleaming hair over one shoulder.

“Oh. Thanks.” I put the lid back on and it closes with a satisfying magnetized click. I notice it has little interlocking “C”s stencilled on the top.

Mum had a lipstick like this, even though she definitely didn’t have spare cash to spend on expensive makeup. But then that was Mum all over: blow it on a lipstick and be left with nothing for dinner. Me, sitting on a chair, legs dangling. Her pressing the waxy stub of it against my lips. Turning me to face the mirror. There you go, darling. Don’t you look pretty?

I look at myself in the mirror now. Pout just like she asked me to do all those years—a million years, a whole lifetime—ago. There; done. Costume complete.

I head back upstairs. “Ready,” I tell Theo. He downs the dregs of his stupidly tiny glass of beer. I can feel him running a quick eye over the outfit. His mouth opens and for a moment I think he might say something nice. I mean, part of me wouldn’t know what to do with a compliment right now, but at the same time it might be nice to hear. And then he points to my mouth.

“Missed a bit,” he says. “But yeah, otherwise that should do.”

Oh fuck off. I rub at the edge of my lips. I hate myself for even having cared what he thought.

We leave the bar, turn onto a street thronged with very well-dressed shoppers. I could swear the air around here smells of expensive leather. We pass the glittering windows of rich people shops: Chanel, Celine, and aha!—Isabel Marant. He leads me away from the crowds into a much smaller side street. Gleaming cars flank the pavements. In contrast to the crowded shopping boulevard there’s no one in sight and it’s darker here, fewer streetlamps. A deep hush over everything.

Then Theo stops at a door. “Here we are.” He looks at his watch. “We’re definitely a little late. Hopefully they’ll let us in.”

I look at the door. No number, but there’s a plaque with a symbol I recognize: an exploding firework. Where are we?

Theo reaches past me—a trace of that citrus cologne again—and presses a doorbell I hadn’t noticed. The door swings open with a click. A man appears, dressed in a black suit and bow tie. I watch as Theo fishes a card from his pocket, the same one I found in Ben’s wallet.

The doorman glances at the card, nods his head toward us. “Entrez, s’il vous plaît. The evening is about to start.”

I try and peer past the doorman to get a glimpse of what lies beyond. At the end of the corridor I see a staircase leading downward, dimly lit by sconces with real candles burning in them.

Theo plants a hand in the small of my back and, with a little push, steers me forward. “Come on,” he says. “We don’t have all night.”

“Arrêtez,” the doorman says, barring our entry with a hand. He looks me over. “Votre mobile, s’il vous plaît. No phone allowed—or camera.”

“Er—why?” I glance back at Theo. It occurs to me again that I know absolutely nothing about this guy beyond what it says on his business card. He could be anyone. He could have brought me anywhere.

Theo gives a tiny nod, gestures: don’t make a fuss. Do what the guy says. “O—K.” I hand my phone over, reluctantly.

“Vos masques.” The man holds up two pieces of material. I take one. A black mask, made of silk.

“Wha—”

“Just put it on,” Theo murmurs, near my ear. And then louder: “Let me help, darling.” I try to act natural as he smooths down my hair, ties the mask behind my head.

The doorman beckons us through.

With Theo close behind me, I begin to descend the stairs.

Jess

An underground room. I see dark red walls, low lighting, a small crowd of dimly lit figures sitting in front of a stage veiled by a wine-colored velvet curtain. Masked faces turn to look as we descend the final few steps. We’re definitely the last to turn up at the party.

“What the hell is this place?” I whisper to Theo.

“Shh.”

An usher in black tie meets us at the bottom of the stairs, beckons us forward. We pass walls decorated with stylized gold dancing figurines, then weave among little booths with masked figures sitting behind tables, more faces turning in our direction. I feel uncomfortably exposed. Luckily the table we’re taken to is tucked into a corner—definitely the worst view of the stage.

We slide into the booth. There really isn’t very much room in here, not with Theo’s long legs, which he has to pull up against himself, his knees hard against the wooden surround. He looks so uncomfortable that in different circumstances it might give me a laugh. The tiny amount of seat left means I have to sit with my thigh pressed right up against his.

I look about. It’s hard to tell whether this place is actually old or just a clever imitation. The others around us are all very well-heeled; judging by their clothes they could be out for an evening at the theatre. But the atmosphere is wrong. I lean back in my chair, trying to look casual, like I fit in here among the tailored suits, the jewel-encrusted earlobes and necks, the rich person hair. A weird, hungry hum of energy is coming off them, coiling through the room—an intense note of excitement, of anticipation.

A waiter comes over to take our drinks order. I open the leather-bound menu. No prices. I glance at Theo.

“A glass of champagne for my wife,” he says, quickly. He turns to me wearing a smile of fake adoration—so convincing it gives me a chill. “Seeing as we’re celebrating, darling.” I really hope he’s paying. He looks down the menu. “And a glass of this red for me.”

The waiter is back in a minute, brandishing two bottles in white napkins. He pours a stream of champagne into a glass and passes it to me. I take a sip. It’s very cold, tiny bubbles electric on the tip of my tongue. I can’t think when I’ve ever had the real stuff. Mum used to say she was “a champagne girl” but I’m not sure she ever had it either: just cheap, sweet knock-offs.

As the waiter pours Theo’s red the napkin slips a little and I notice the label.

“It’s the same wine,” I whisper to Theo, once the waiter’s left us. “The Meuniers have that in their cellar.”

Theo turns to look at me. “What was that name you just used?” He sounds suddenly excited.

“The Meuniers. The family I was telling you about.”

Theo lowers his voice. “Yesterday I submitted a request to see the matrice cadastrale—that’s like the Land Registry—for this place. It’s owned by one Meunier Wines SARL.”

I sit up very straight, everything sharpening into focus. A feeling like a thousand tiny pin-pricks across the surface of my skin.

“That’s them. That’s the family Ben’s been living with.” I try to think. “But why was Ben interested in this place? Could he have been reviewing it? Something like that?”

“He wasn’t reviewing it for me. And I’m not sure, being so exclusive, that it’s the sort of place that exactly courts press coverage.”

The lights begin to dim. But just before they do a figure in the crowd catches my eye, oddly familiar despite the mask they’re wearing. I try to shift my gaze back to the same spot but the lights are dimming further, voices lowering and the room falling into darkness.

I can hear the smallest rustle of people’s clothing, the odd sniff, their intakes of breath. Someone coughs and it sounds deafening in the sudden hush.

Then the velvet curtain begins to roll back.

A figure stands on the stage against a black background. Skin lit up pale blue. Face in shadow. Completely naked. No—not naked, a trick of the light—two scraps of material covering her modesty. She begins to dance. The music is deep, throbbing—some sort of jazz, I think . . . no melody to it, but a kind of rhythm. And she’s so in sync with it that it feels almost as if the music is coming from her, like the movements she is making are creating it, rather than following it. The dance is strange, intense, almost menacing. I’m torn between staring and tearing my eyes away; something about it disturbs me.

More girls appear, dressed—or undressed—in the same way. The music gets louder and louder, beating until it’s so overpowering that the pulse of it is like the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears. With the blue light, the shifting, undulating bodies on stage, I feel as though I’m underwater, as though the outlines of everything are rippling and bleeding into one another. I think of last night. Could there be something in the champagne? Or is it just the effect of the lighting, the music, the darkness? I glance over at Theo. He shifts in his seat next to me; takes a sip of wine, his eyes locked on the stage. Is he turned on by what’s happening on stage? Am I? I’m suddenly aware of how close we are to each other, of how tightly my leg is pressed up against his.

The next act is just two women: one dressed in a close-fitting black suit and bow tie, the other in a tiny slip dress. Gradually they remove each other’s clothes until you can see that without them they’re almost identical. I can feel the audience sitting forward, drinking it in.

I lean toward Theo. Whisper: “What is this place?”

“A rather exclusive club,” he murmurs back. “Its nickname, apparently, is La Petite Mort. You can’t get in unless you have one of those cards. Like the one you found in Ben’s wallet.”

The lights dim again. Silence falls on the crowd. Another nearly naked girl—this one wearing a kind of feathered headdress rather than a mask—is lowered from the ceiling on a suspended silver hoop. Her act is all confined to the hoop: she does a somersault, a kind of backflip, lets herself fall and then catches herself with the flick of an ankle—the audience gasps.

Theo leans in close. “Careful now, but look behind you,” he whispers, breath tickling my ear. I start to swivel round. “No—Jesus, more subtly than that.”

God, he’s patronizing. But I do as he says. Several times I take small, sly glances behind me. And as I do I notice a series of booths hidden in the shadows at the back, their occupants shielded from the view of the regular punters by velvet curtains and attended by a constant flow of waiters carrying bottles of wine and trays of canapés. Every so often someone leaves or enters, and I notice that it always seems to be a man. All of a similar type and age: elegant, suited, masked, an air of wealth and importance about them.

Theo leans over, as though he’s whispering another sweet nothing. “Have you noticed?”

“How they’re all men?”

“Yes. And how every so often one of them goes through that door over there.”

I follow the direction of his gaze.

“But I’d stop looking now,” he murmurs. “Before we start to draw attention to ourselves.”

I turn back to the stage. The girl has stepped off the hoop. She smiles out at the audience, taking us all in in a sweeping glance. When she gets to me, she stops. I’m not imagining it: she freezes. She is staring at me in what looks like horror. I feel a thrill go through me. The sharp brown fringe, the height, even the little mole beneath her left eye which I can make out now under the spotlight. I know her.

Sophie

They file into the apartment. Nicolas, Antoine, Mimi. Take up the same positions on the sofas they occupied last night, when the girl interrupted us. Nick’s foot is tapping a frantic rhythm on the Ghom rug. As I watch I am certain I can make out a tiny black scorch mark just beneath his toe. One of several burned into the priceless silk. But you’d only spot them if you knew what you were looking for.

Suddenly I am assaulted by memories. It was my greatest transgression, inviting him up here. We stole a bottle from Jacques’ cellar: one of the finest vintages. Had each other there on the rug, Paris glittering nosily in at us through the vast windows. We lay tangled together afterward, warmed by the cashmere throw I had pulled around our naked bodies. If Jacques had come back unexpectedly . . . But wasn’t there some part of me that wanted to be caught? Look at me, who you have left here alone all these years. Wanted. Desired.

As we lay there I stroked his hair, enjoying the dense velvety softness of it between my fingers. He lit a cigarette that we passed back and forth like teenage lovers, hot ash scattering, sizzling into the silk of the rug. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that with him here the apartment suddenly seemed warm, full of life and sound and passion.

“My mum used to stroke my hair.”

I pulled my hand away, sharply.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, quickly. “I just meant I hadn’t realized how much I missed it.” And when he turned to look across at me I saw in his expression something undefended and frail, something that had hidden beneath all the charm. I thought I saw my own loneliness reflected there. But in the next moment he smiled and it had vanished.

A minute or so later he sat up, taking in the empty apartment around us. “Jacques is away a lot in the evenings, isn’t he?”

I nodded. Was he already planning our next encounter? “He’s very busy.”

His gaze seemed to sweep over the paintings on the walls, the furnishings, the richness of the place. “I suppose that must mean business is flourishing.”

I froze. He’d said it lightly. Too lightly? It brought me back to myself: the madness of what we were doing, all that was at stake. “You should go,” I told him, suddenly angry at him . . . at myself. “I can’t do this.” This time I really believed I meant it. “I have too much to lose.”

I close my eyes. Open them again and focus on my daughter’s face. She does not meet my eye. All the same, it has brought me back to myself. To what is important. I take a steadying sip of my wine. Force down the memories. “So,” I say to them all. “Let us begin.”

Nick

My stepmother has called us all to order. We’re sitting upstairs in the penthouse apartment. A dysfunctional little family conference. Like the one we’d been going to have last night before Jess turned up unannounced and set the cat among the pigeons. I was always a keen student of English idioms. We have a French one like it, actually: jeter un pavé dans la mare—throw a paving stone in the pond. And maybe that’s a more accurate description of what happened when she arrived here. She has displaced everything.

I look at the others. Antoine knocking back the wine—he might as well have picked up the whole bottle. Mimi white-faced and looking ready to bolt from the room. Sophie sitting rigid and expressionless. She’s not looking quite herself, my stepmother. I can’t work out what’s different about her at first. Her shining black bob doesn’t have a strand out of place, her silk scarf is knotted expertly at her throat. But there’s something off. Then it hits me: she’s not wearing lipstick. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen her without it. She looks diminished, somehow. Older, frailer, more human.

Antoine speaks first. “That stupid little cunt is at the club.” He turns to me. “Still suggest we do nothing, little bro?”

“I . . . I think the important thing is we all pull together,” I say. “A united front. As a family. That’s the most important thing. We can’t fall apart now.”

But I realize, looking at their faces, that they’re all unknown quantities to me. I don’t feel like I know these people. Not really. I was away for so long. And we’re all so estranged from one another that we don’t look and feel like the real thing. Even to one another.

“Yes, because you’ve been such a key player in this family up until now,” Antoine says, making me feel even more of an imposter, a fraud. He gestures toward Sophie. “And you’re not going to catch me playing the adoring stepson to that salope.”

“Hey,” I say. “Let’s just—”

“Watch your mouth,” Sophie says caustically, turning to Antoine. “You’re sitting in my apartment.”

“Oh it’s your apartment, is it?” He gives a mock bow. “I’m so sorry, I hadn’t realized. I thought you were just a parasite living off Papa’s money—I didn’t know you’d earned any of it yourself.”

I was only eight or nine when Papa married the mysterious new woman who had materialized in our lives but Antoine was older, a teenager. Maman had been an invalid for so long, languishing in her rooms on the third floor. This newcomer seemed so young, so glamorous. I was a little besotted. Antoine took it rather differently. He’s always had it in for her.

“Just stop it,” Mimi says suddenly, her hands over her ears. “All of you. I can’t take any more—”

Antoine turns to Mimi with a horrible smile on his face. “Ah,” he slurs at her now, “and as for you, well you’re not really part of this family, are you, ma petite soeur—”

“Stop that,” Sophie says to Antoine, her voice ice-cold: the lioness protecting her cub.

At her feet the whippet startles and gives a sharp bark.

“Oh, I think she can give as good as she gets,” Antoine says. “What about all that stuff at her school, with the teacher? Papa had to make a pretty hefty donation and agree to remove her to keep that one quiet. But perhaps it’s no surprise, huh?” He turns to Mimi. “When you consider where she comes from.”

“Don’t you dare speak to her like that,” Sophie says. Her tone is dangerous.

I glance over at Mimi. She’s just sitting there, staring at Antoine, her face even paler than usual.

“OK,” I say. “Come on, let’s all just—”

“And can I just say,” Antoine says, “that it’s just typical that our darling père has decided to fuck off for all of this. Isn’t it?”

All of us glance instinctively at the portrait of my father on the wall. I know it must be my imagination or a trick of the light, but it looks as though his painted frown has deepened slightly. I shiver. Even when he’s miles away you can still feel his presence in this apartment, somehow, his authority. The all-seeing, all-powerful Jacques Meunier.

“Your father,” Sophie says to Antoine now, sharply, “has his own business to be taking care of. As you well know. It would only complicate things further if he returns. We must all hold the fort for him in his absence.”

“What a surprise, he’s not here when the shit hits the fan.” Antoine gives a laugh, but there’s no humor in it.

“He trusts you to be able to handle the situation on your own,” Sophie says. “But perhaps that is simply too much to ask. Look at you. You’re a forty-year-old man still living under his roof, leeching off his money. He has given you everything. You’ve never had to grow up. You’ve had everything handed to you by your father on a silver platter. You’re both useless hothouse flowers, too weak for the outside world. Unable to fly the nest.” That stings. “For God’s sake,” she says. “Show your father some respect.”

“Oh yeah?” Antoine gives her a nasty smile. “Are you really going to talk to me about respect, putain?” The last word hissed under his breath.

“How dare you speak to me like that?” She rounds on him, a surge of real anger breaching the icy façade.

“Oh, how dare I?” Antoine gives her a sly-looking grin. “Vraiment? Really?” He turns to me. “You know what she is? You know what our very elegant stepmother really is? You know where she comes from?”

I’ve had my suspicions. As I grew older, they grew too. But I’ve barely even allowed myself to think them, let alone voice them aloud, for fear of my father’s wrath.

Antoine stands up and walks out of the room. A few moments later he comes back carrying something in a large frame. He turns it around so that all of us can see it. It’s a black and white photograph, a large nude: the one from my father’s study.

“Put that back,” says Sophie, her voice dangerous. Her hands are clenched into fists. She looks over at Mimi who is sitting stock still, her eyes wide and scared.

Antoine sits back in the chair looking pleased with himself, propping the photograph beside him like a child’s science project. “Look at her,” he says, gesturing to the image, then at Sophie. “Hasn’t she done well? The Hermès scarves, the trench coats. Une vraie bourgeoise. You’d never know it, would you? You’d never know that she was really a—”

A crack, loud as a pistol shot. It happens too quickly to understand what’s going on: she moved so fast. Then Antoine is sitting there holding his hand to his face and Sophie is standing over him.

“She hit me,” Antoine says—but his voice is small and scared as a little boy’s. It isn’t the first time he’s been hit like this. Papa always was pretty free with his fists and Antoine, the eldest, seemed to get the worst of it. “She fucking hit me.” He takes his hand away and we all see the mark of her hand on his cheek, the imprint of it a livid pink.

Sophie continues to stand over him. “Think what your father would say if he heard you talking to me like that.”

Antoine looks up at Papa’s portrait again. Tears his eyes away with an effort. He’s a big guy but he seems almost to shrink into himself. We all know that he would never dare speak to Sophie like this in Papa’s presence. And we all know that when Papa gets back there’ll be hell to pay if he hears about it.

“Can we please just focus on what’s important?” I say, trying to gain some control. “We have a bigger problem to focus on here.”

Sophie gives Antoine another venomous stare, then turns to me and nods, tightly. “You’re right.” She sits back down and in a moment that chilly mask is back in place. “I think the most important thing is that we can’t let her find out any more. We have to be ready for her, when she returns. And if she goes too far? Nicolas?”

I nod. Swallow. “Yes. I know what to do. If it comes to it.”

“The concierge,” Mimi says suddenly, her voice small and hoarse.

We all turn to look at her.

“I saw that woman, Jess, going into the concierge’s cabin. She was on her way to the gate and the concierge ran out and grabbed her. They were in there for at least ten minutes.” She looks at all of us. “What . . . what could they have been talking about for all that time?”

Jess

I stare at the girl on the stage. It’s her, the girl who followed me two days ago, the one I chased onto the Metro train. She stares back. The moment seems to stretch. She looks as terrified as she did when that train pulled away from the platform. And then, as if she’s coming out of a trance, she swings her gaze back to the audience, smiles, climbs back onto the hoop as it starts to rise upward—and is gone.

Theo turns to me. “What was that?”

“You saw it too?”

“Yeah, I saw it. She was staring right at you.”

“I met her,” I say. “Just after I spoke to you for the first time at the café.” I explain it all: catching her following me, chasing her into the Metro. My heart is beating faster now. I think of Ben. The family. The mystery dancer. They all feel like parts of the same puzzle . . . I know they are. But how do they all fit?

After the show ends the audience members drain the remainders from their glasses and surge up the staircase, heading out into the night.

Theo gives me a nudge. “Come on then, let’s go. Follow me.”

I’m about to protest—surely we’re not just going to leave?—but I stop when I see that rather than continuing up the stairs with the rest of the paying customers, Theo has shoved open a door on our left. It’s the same one we noticed earlier, during the performance, the one through which those suited men kept disappearing.

“Let’s try and talk to your friend,” he murmurs.

He slips through the door. I follow close behind. Beneath us is a dark, velvet-lined staircase. We begin to descend. I can hear sounds coming from below, but they’re muted, like they’re coming from underwater. I hear music, I think, and the hum of voices and then a sudden, high-pitched cry that might be male or female.

We have almost reached the bottom of the stairs. I hesitate. I thought I heard something. Another set of footsteps beside our own.

“Stop,” I say. “Did you hear that?”

Theo looks at me questioningly.

“I’m sure I heard footsteps.”

We listen for a couple of moments in silence. Nothing. Then a girl appears at the bottom of the stairs. One of the dancers. Up close she’s so made-up it looks like she’s wearing a mask. She stares at us. For a moment I have the impression that there’s a scared little girl looking out at me behind the thick foundation, fake eyelashes, and glossy red lips.

“We’re looking for a friend,” I say, quickly. “The girl who did that act on the swing? It’s about my brother, Ben. Can you tell her we’re looking for her?”

“You cannot be here,” she hisses. She looks terrified.

“It’s OK,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “We’re not going to stay for long.”

She hurries past us, up the stairs, without a backward glance. We keep going. At the end of the corridor there’s a door. I put my shoulder against it but there’s no give. I suddenly have a sense of how far underground we are: at least two floors deep. The thought makes it harder to breathe. I try to swallow down my fear.

“I think it’s locked,” I say.

The sounds are louder now. Through the door I hear a kind of groan that sounds almost animal.

I try the handle again. “It’s definitely locked. You have a go—”

But Theo doesn’t answer me.

And I know, before I turn, that there’s someone behind us. Now I see him: the doorman who met us at the entrance, his huge frame filling the corridor, his face in shadow.

Shit.

“Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” he asks, dangerously, quietly, as he begins moving toward us. “What are you doing down here?”

“We got lost,” I say, my voice cracking. “I . . . was looking for the toilets.”

“Vous devez partir,” he says. And then he repeats it in English: “You need to leave. Both of you. Right now.” His voice is still quiet, all the more menacing than if he were shouting. It says, absolutely do not fuck with me.

He takes a hold of my upper arm in one of his huge hands. His grip burns. I try to pull away. He grips tighter. I get the impression he’s not even putting much effort in.

“Hey, hey—that’s not necessary,” Theo says. The doorman doesn’t answer, or let go. Instead he takes hold of Theo’s arm too, in his other hand. And Theo, who up until now I’d thought of as a large guy, looks suddenly like a child, like a puppet, held in his grip.

For a moment the doorman stands stock-still, his head cocked to one side. I look at Theo and he frowns, clearly as confused as I am. Then I hear a tinny murmur and realize that he is listening. Someone is feeding him instructions through an earpiece.

He straightens up. “Please, Madame, Monsieur.” Still that scarily polite tone, even as his hand tightens further around my bicep, burning the skin. “Do not make a scene. You must come with me, now.” And then he is steering us, with more than a little force, along the corridor, back up the first flight of stairs, back into the room with the tables, the stage. Most of the lights have been turned off and it’s completely empty now. No, not completely. Out of the corner of my eye I think I catch sight of a tall figure standing quite still, watching us from the shadowy recesses in one corner. But I don’t manage to get a proper look because now we’re being manhandled up the next flight of steps, up to ground level.

Then the front door is opened and we’re thrust out onto the street, the doorman giving me such a hard shove in the back that I trip and fall forward onto my knees.

The door slams behind us.

Theo, who has managed to keep his balance, puts out a hand and hauls me up. It takes a long time for my heartbeat to return to normal. But as I manage to gain some control over my breathing I realize that though my knees hurt and my arm feels badly bruised, it could have been so much worse. I feel lucky to be back out here gulping freezing lungfuls of air. What if the voice in the doorman’s ear had given different instructions? What might be happening to us now?

It’s this thought rather than the cold that makes me shiver. I pull my jacket tighter around me.

“Let’s get away from here,” Theo says. I wonder if he’s thinking along the same lines: let’s not give them a chance to change their minds.

The street is almost silent, completely deserted: just the blink of the security lights in shop windows and the echo of our feet on the cobblestones.

And then I hear a new sound: another pair of feet, behind us and moving quickly, quicker, growing louder as my heart starts beating faster. I turn to see. A tall figure, hood pulled up. And as the light catches her face just so, I see that it’s her. The girl who followed me two nights ago, the girl on the hoop, who stared at me in the audience this evening like she’d come face to face with a nightmare.

Concierge

I am dusting, up on the top floor. Normally I do the hallways and staircases at this time of day—Madame Meunier is very particular about that. But this evening I have trespassed onto the landing. It is the second risk I have taken; the first was speaking to the girl earlier. We might have been seen. But I was desperate. I tried to put a note under her door yesterday evening, but she caught me there, threatened me with a knife. I had to find another way. Because I saw who she was the first night she arrived, coming to that woman’s aid, helping her put the clothes back into her suitcase. I could not stand back and let another life be destroyed.

They are all in there, in the penthouse: all apart from him, the head of the family. I could have taken the back staircase—I use it sometimes to keep watch—but the acoustics are much better from here. I can’t hear everything they’re saying but every so often I catch hold of a word or a phrase.

One of them says his name: Benjamin Daniels. I press a little closer to the door. They are talking about the girl now, too. I think about that hungry, interested, bright way about her. Something in her manner. She reminds me of her brother, yes. But also of my daughter. Not in looks, of course: no one could match my daughter in looks.

One day, when the heat had begun to dissipate I invited Benjamin Daniels into my cabin for tea. I told myself it was because I had to show my gratitude for the fan. But really I wanted company. I had not realized how lonely I had been until he showed an interest. I had lost the shame I had felt at first about my meager way of living. I had begun to enjoy the companionship.

He glanced again at the photographs on the walls as he sat cradling his glass of tea. “Elira: have I got that right? Your daughter’s name?”

I stared at him. I could not believe he had remembered. It touched me. “That’s correct, Monsieur.”

“It’s a beautiful name,” he said.

“It means ‘the free one.’”

“Oh—in what language?”

I paused. “Albanian.” This was the first thing I trusted him with. From this detail he might have been able to guess my status here, in France. I watched him carefully.

He simply smiled and nodded. “I’ve been to Tirana. It’s a wonderful city—so vibrant.”

“I have heard that . . . but I don’t know it well. I’m from a small village, on the Adriatic coast.”

“Do you have any pictures?”

A hesitation. But what harm could it do? I went to my tiny bureau, took out my album. He sat down in the seat across from me. I noticed he took care not to disturb the photographs as he turned the pages, as though handling something very precious.

“I wish I had something like this,” he said, suddenly. “I don’t know what happened to the photos, from when I was small. But then again I don’t know if I could look—”

He stopped. I sensed some hidden reservoir of pain. Then, as though he had forgotten it—or wanted to forget it—he pointed at a photograph. “Look at this! The color of that sea!”

I followed his gaze. Looking at it I could smell the wild thyme, the salt in the air.

He glanced up. “I remember you said you followed your daughter to Paris. But she isn’t here any longer?”

I saw his gaze flicker around the cabin. I heard the unspoken question. It wasn’t as though I had left poverty at home for a life of riches here. Why would a person abandon their life for this?

“I did not intend to stay,” I said. “Not at first.”

I glanced up at the wall of photographs. Elira looked out at me—at five, at twelve, at seventeen—the beauty growing, changing, but the smile always the same. The eyes the same. I could remember her at the breast as an infant: dark eyes looking up at me with such brightness, an intelligence beyond her years. When I spoke it was not to him but to her image.

“I came here because I was worried about her.”

He leaned forward. “Why?”

I glanced at him. For a moment I had almost forgotten he was there. I hesitated. I had never spoken to anyone about this. But he seemed so interested, so concerned. And there was that pain I had sensed in him. Before, even when he had shown me the little kindnesses and attentions, I had seen him as one of them. A different species. Rich, entitled. But that his pain made him human.

“She forgot to call when she said she would. And when I eventually heard from her she didn’t sound the same.” I looked at the photographs. “I—” I tried to find a way to describe it. “She told me she was busy, she was working hard. I tried not to mind. I tried to be happy for her.”

But I knew. With a mother’s instinct, I knew something was wrong. She sounded bad. Hoarse, ill. But worse than that she sounded vague; not like herself. Every time we had spoken before I felt her close to me, despite the hundreds of miles between us. Now I could feel her slipping away. It frightened me.

I took a breath. “The next time she called was a few weeks later.”

All I could hear at first were gasps of air. Then finally I could make out the words: “I’m so ashamed, Mama. I’m so ashamed. The place—it’s a bad place. Terrible things happen there. They’re not good people. And . . .’ The next part was so muffled I could not make it out. And then I realized she was crying; crying so hard she could not speak. I gripped the phone tight enough that my hand hurt.

“I can’t hear you, my darling.”

“I said . . . I said I’m not a good person, either.”

“You are a good person,” I told her, fiercely. “I know you: and you’re mine and you’re good.”

“I’m not, Mama. I’ve done terrible things. And I can’t even work there any longer.”

“Why not?”

A long pause. So long that I began to wonder if we had been cut off. “I’m pregnant, Mama.”

I thought I hadn’t heard her properly at first.

“You’re . . . pregnant?” Not only was she unmarried; she hadn’t mentioned any partner to me; anyone special. I was so shocked I couldn’t speak for a moment. “How many months?”

“Five months, Mama. I can’t hide it any longer. I can’t work.”

After this, all I could hear was the sound of her crying. I knew I had to say something positive.

“But I’m—I’m so happy, my darling,” I told her. “I’m going to be a grandmother. What a wonderful thing. I’ll start getting some money together.” I tried not to let her hear my panic, about how I would do this quickly enough. I would have to take on extra work—I would have to ask favors, borrow. It would take time. But I would find a way. “I’ll come to Paris,” I told her. “I’ll help you look after the baby.”

I looked at Benjamin Daniels. “It took some time, Monsieur. It was not cheap. It took me six months. But finally I had the money to come here.” I had my visa, too, which would allow me to stay for a few weeks. “I knew that she would already have had the baby, though I hadn’t heard from her for several weeks.” I had tried not to panic about this. I had tried, instead, to imagine what it would be like to hold my grandchild for the first time. “But I would be there to help her with the care; and to care for her: that was the important thing.”

“Of course.” He nodded in understanding.

“I had no home address for her, when I arrived. So I went to her place of work. I knew the name; she had told me that much. It seemed such an elegant, refined place. In the rich part of town, as she had said.

“The doorman looked at me in my poor clothes. “The entrance for the cleaners is round the back,” he said.

“I was not offended, it was only to be expected. I found the entrance, slipped inside. And, because I looked the way I did, I was invisible. No one paid me any attention, no one said I should not be there. I found the women—the girls—who had worked with my daughter, who knew her. And that was when—”

For a moment I could not speak.

“When?” he prompted, gently.

“My daughter died, Monsieur. She died in childbirth nineteen years ago. I came to work here and I have stayed ever since.”

“And the baby? Your daughter’s baby?”

“But Monsieur. Clearly you have not understood.” I took the photograph album from him and shut it back in the bureau with my relics, my treasures. The things I have collected over the years: a first tooth, a child’s shoe, a school certificate. “My granddaughter is here. It’s why I came here. Why I have worked here for all these years, in this building. I wanted to be close to her. I wanted to watch her grow up.”

A word, from behind the penthouse door, and suddenly I am wrenched back into the present. I have just distinctly heard one of them say: “Concierge.” I step backward into the gloom, treading carefully to avoid the creaking floorboards. An instinct: I should not be here. I need to get back to my cabin. Now.

Mimi

I burst back into the apartment. I go straight to my room, straight to the window, stare out through the glass. It was hell, sitting up there with all of them. Talking, shouting at each other. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted so badly to be alone.

Mimi. Mimi. Mimi.

It takes a moment for me to work out where the sound is coming from. I turn around and see Camille standing there in my doorway, hands on her hips.

“Mimi?” She walks toward me, clicks her fingers in front of my face. “Hello? What are you doing?”

“Quoi?” What? I stare at her.

“You were just staring out of the window. Like some sort of zombie.” She does an impression: eyes wide, jaw hanging open. “What were you looking at?”

I shrug. I hadn’t even realized. But I must have been looking into his apartment. Old habits die hard.

“Putain, you’re scaring me, Mimi. You’ve been acting so . . . so weird.” She pauses. “Even weirder than normal.” Then she frowns, like she’s working something out. “Ever since the other night. When I came back late and you were still up. What is it?”

“Rien,” I say. It’s nothing. Why won’t she just leave me alone?

“I don’t believe you,” she says. “What happened here, before I got back that night? What’s going on with you?”

I shut my eyes, clench my fists. I can’t cope with all these questions. All this probing. I feel like I’m about to explode. With as much control as I can manage, I say: “I just . . . I need to be on my own right now, Camille. I need my own space.”

She doesn't take the hint. “Hey—was it something to do with that guy you were being so mysterious about? Did it not work out? If you’d just tell me, maybe I could help—”

I can’t take any more. The white noise is buzzing in my head. I stand up. I hate the way she’s looking at me: the concern and worry in her expression. Why can’t she just get it? I suddenly feel like I don’t want to see her face any more. Like it would be much better if she weren’t here at all.

“Just shut up! Fous le camp!” Fuck off. “Just—just leave me alone.”

She takes a step back.

“And I’m sick of you bugging me,” I say. “I’m sick of all your mess around the place, everywhere I look. I’m sick of you bringing your, your . . . fuck-buddies back here. I might be a weirdo—yes, I know all of your friends think that—but you . . . you’re a disgusting little slut.”

I think I’ve done it now. Her eyes are wide as she steps farther away from me. Then she disappears from the room. I don’t feel good, but at least I can breathe again.

I hear sounds coming from her bedroom next door, drawers being pulled open, cupboard doors slamming. A few moments later she appears with a couple of canvas bags over each arm, stuff spilling out of them.

“You know what?” she says. “I might be a disgusting little slut, but you are one crazy bitch. I can’t be bothered with this any more, Mimi, I don’t need this. And Dominique’s got her own place now. No more sneaking around. I’m out of here.”

There’s only one person I know with that name. That doesn’t make any sense. “Dominique—”

“Yeah. Your brother’s ex. And all that time he thought she was flirting with Ben.” A little smile. “That was a good decoy, right? Anyway. This is different. This is the real deal. I love her. It’s one woman for me now. No more Camille the—what was it you called me?—disgusting little slut.” She hoists her bag higher on her shoulder. “Bof. Whatever. I’ll see you around, Mimi. Good luck with whatever the fuck is going on with you.”

A couple of minutes later she’s gone. I turn back to the window. I watch her striding across the courtyard, bags over her arm.

For a moment I actually feel better, calmer, freer. Like maybe I’ll be able to think more clearly with her gone. But now it’s too quiet. Because it’s still here; the storm in my head. And I don’t know whether I’m more frightened of it—or of what it’s drowning out.

I lift my gaze from the courtyard. I look back into his apartment. A few days ago, I let myself in there with the key I stole from the concierge’s cabin. I’ve been going into that cabin since I was a little girl, sneaking in while I was sure the old woman was on one of the top floors cleaning. It used to fascinate me: it was like the cabin in the woods from a fairytale. She has all these mysterious photographs on the walls, the proof she actually had another life before she came here, as hard as it is to believe. A beautiful young woman in so many of them: like a princess from the same fairytale.

Now I’m older, of course, I know that there’s nothing magical about the cabin. It’s just the tiny, lonely home of a poor old lady; it’s depressing. But I still remembered exactly where she kept the master set of keys. Of course, she’s not allowed to use them. They’re in case of emergencies, if there was a flood in one of the apartments, say, while we’re away on holiday somewhere. And she doesn’t have a set for my parents’ apartment: that’s off-limits.

It was early evening, dusk. I waited, watched him go out through the courtyard, like I watched Camille just now. He was only in a shirt and it was cold, so I didn’t think he was going far. Perhaps just a few streets over to buy some cigarettes from the tabac, which still gave me enough time to do what I needed.

I ran down the single flight of steps and let myself into the third-floor apartment.

Underneath my clothes I was wearing the new lingerie I had bought with Camille. I could feel the secret, rustling slipperiness of it against my skin. I felt like someone braver. Bolder.

I was going to wait for him until he came back. I wanted to surprise him. And this way I would be the one in control of the situation.

I’d watched him so many times from my bedroom. But to stand in his apartment was different, I could feel his presence there. Smell the scent of him beneath the strange, musty, old-lady odor of the place. I wandered around for a while, just breathing him in. The whole time his cat stalked after me, watching me. Like it knew I was up to no good.

I opened his fridge and I riffled through his cupboards. I looked through his records, his collection of books. I went into his bedroom and lay down on his bed, which still had the imprint of his body in it, and I inhaled the scent of him on the pillows. I looked through the toiletries in his bathroom, opened the caps. I sprayed his lemon-scented cologne down the front of my shirt and in my hair. I opened his closet and buried my face in his shirts, but better were the shirts in his laundry basket—the ones he’d worn, the ones that smelled like his skin and sweat. Better even than that were the short hairs I found around the sink where he’d shaved and hadn’t managed to wash them all away. I collected several on a finger. I swallowed them.

If I’d watched myself, I might have said I looked like someone in the grip of an amour fou: an obsessive, mad love. But an amour fou is usually unrequited. And I knew that he felt the same way: that was the important thing. I just wanted to become a part of it, this world, his world. I’d had thousands of conversations with him in my head. I’d told him about my brothers. How horrible Antoine has always been to me. How Nick is really just a big loser who lives off Papa’s money and I honestly didn’t get why Ben was friends with him. How the second I graduated, I’d be out of here. Off to travel the world. We could go together.

I found a glass in the kitchen and poured myself some of his wine, drank it down like it was a glass of grenadine. I needed to be drunk enough to do this. Then I took off my clothes. I lay down on his bed: waiting like a present left there on the pillow. But after a while I felt stupid. Maybe the wine was wearing off. I was a little too cold. This wasn’t how I’d planned it in my head. I’d thought he’d have come back sooner.

Half an hour ticked by. How long was he going to be?

I wandered over to his desk. I wanted to read what he was writing so late into the night—scribbling notes, typing on his laptop.

I found a notebook. A Moleskine, just like I use for my sketching. Another sign that we were meant to be: twinned souls, soulmates. The music, the writing. We were so similar. That was what he was telling me that night when we sat in the darkened park together. And before that, when he gave me the record. Outsiders, but outsiders together.

The book was full of notes for restaurant reviews. Little doodles in between the writing. Cards for restaurants tucked between the pages. It made me feel so close to him. His handwriting: beautiful, clever, a little spiky. Exactly as I would have imagined. Elegant like the fingers that had touched my arm that night in the park. I fell a little deeper in love, seeing that writing.

And then, on the last page, there was a note that had my name written there. A question mark after it, like this:

Mimi?

Oh my God. He’d been writing about me.

I had to know more, had to find out what this meant. I opened his laptop. It asked me for the password. Merde. I hadn’t a chance of getting in. It could be literally anything. I tried a couple of things. His surname. His favorite football team—I’d found a Manchester United shirt hanging in his closet. No luck. And then I had an idea. I thought of that necklace he always wore, the one he said came from his mum. I typed in: StChristopher.

No: it bounced back at me. It was just a blind guess, so I wasn’t surprised. But just because I could I tried again, with numbers substituted for some of the letters, a tighter encryption: 5tChr1st0ph3r.

And this time, when I pressed enter, the password box closed and his desktop opened up.

I stared at the screen. I couldn’t believe I had guessed it. That had to mean something too, didn’t it? It felt like a confirmation of how well I knew him. And I know writers are private about their work, in the same way that I’m private about my art, but it now felt almost like he wanted whatever was on here to be found and read by me.

I went to his documents; to “Recent.” And there it was at the top. All the others had the names of restaurants, they were obviously reviews. But this one was called: Meunier Wines SARL. According to the little time stamp this was what he had been working on an hour ago. I opened it.

Merde, my heart was beating so fast.

Excited, terrified, I began to read.

But as soon as I did I wanted to stop; I wished I had never seen any of it.

I didn’t know what I had expected, but this was not it.

It felt like my whole world was caving in around me.

I felt sick.

But I couldn’t stop.

Jess

The girl steps forward into the light of the streetlamp. She appears totally different from how she did in her act. She wears a cheap-looking fake-leather jacket and jeans with a hoodie underneath—but it’s also that she’s taken off all that thick makeup. She looks a lot less glamorous and at the same time much more beautiful. And younger. A lot younger. I didn’t get a proper look at her in the darkness near the cemetery that time—if you’d asked me I might have guessed late twenties. But now I’d say somewhere closer to eighteen or nineteen, the same sort of age as Mimi Meunier.

“Why did you come?” she hisses at us, in that thick accent. “To the club?”

I remember how she turned and sprinted away the first time we met. I know I have to tread very carefully here, not spook her.

“We’re still looking for Ben,” I say, gently. “And I feel like you might know something that could help us. Am I right?”

She mutters something under her breath, the word that sounds like “koorvah.” For a moment I think she might be about to turn and sprint away again, like she did the first time we met. But she stays put—even steps a little closer.

“Not here,” she whispers. She looks behind her, nervous as a cat. “We must go somewhere else. Away from this place.”

At her lead we walk away from the posh streets with the fancy cars and the glitzy shop windows. We walk through avenues with red-and-gold-fronted cafés with wicker seats outside, like the one I met Theo in, signs advertising Prix Fixe menus, groups of tourists still mooching about aimlessly. We leave them behind too. We walk through streets with bars and loud techno, past some sort of club with a long queue snaking around the corner. We enter a new neighborhood where the restaurants have names written in Arabic, in Chinese, other languages I don’t even recognize. We pass vape shops, phone shops that all look exactly the same, windows of mannequins wearing different style wigs, stores selling cheap furniture. This is not tourist Paris. We cross a traffic intersection with a bristle of flimsy-looking tents on the small patch of grass in the middle, a group of guys cooking stuff on a little makeshift stove, hands in their pockets, standing close to keep warm.

The girl leads us into an all-night kebab place with a flickering sign over the door and a couple of small metal tables at the back, rows of strip lights in the ceiling. We sit down at a greasy little Formica table in the corner. It’s hard to imagine anywhere more different from the low-lit glamor of the club we’ve just left. Maybe that’s exactly why she’s chosen it. Theo orders us each a carton of chips. The girl takes a huge handful of hers and dunks them, all together, into one of the pots of garlic sauce then somehow crams the whole lot hungrily into her mouth.

“Who’s he?” she mumbles through her mouthful, nodding at Theo.

“This is Theo,” I say. “He works with Ben. He’s helping me. I’m Jess. What’s your name?”

A brief pause. “Irina.”

Irina. The name is familiar. I remember what Ben had scribbled on that sheet of wine accounts I found in his dictionary. Ask Irina.

“Ben said he would come back,” she says suddenly, urgently. “He said he would come back for me.” There’s something in her expression I recognize. Aha. Someone else who has fallen in love with my brother. “He said he would get me away from that place. Help find a new job for me.”

“I’m sure he was working on it,” I say cautiously. It sounds quite like Ben, I think. Promising things he can’t necessarily deliver. “But like I said before, he’s disappeared.”

“What has happened?” she asks. “What do you think has happened to him?”

“We don’t know,” I tell her. “But I found a card for the club in his stuff. Irina, if there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all, it might help us find him.”

She sizes both of us up. She seems confused by being in this unfamiliar position of power. And frightened, too. Glancing over her shoulder every few seconds.

“We can pay you,” I say. I look across at Theo. He rolls his eyes, pulls out his wallet.

When we’ve agreed on an amount of cash Irina is happy with—depressingly small, actually—and after she’s finished the chips and used up both of our pots of garlic sauce, she draws one leg up against the table protectively, the skin of her knee pale and bruised in one spot through the ripped denim. For some reason this makes me think of playground scrapes, the child she was not so long ago.

“You have a cigarette?” she asks Theo. He passes her one and she lights up. Her knee is juddering against the table, so hard that the little salt and pepper shakers are leaping up and down.

“You were really good by the way,” I say, trying to think of something safe to begin with. “Your dancing.”

“I know,” she says, seriously, nodding her head. “I’m very good. The best at La Petite Mort. I trained as a dancer, before, where I come from. When I came for the job, they said it was for dancing.”

“It seemed like the audience really enjoyed it,” I say. “The show. I thought your performance was very . . .” I try and think of the right word. “Sophisticated.”

She raises her eyebrows, then makes a kind of ha sound without any humor in it.

“The show,” she mutters. “That’s what Ben wanted to know about. It seemed like he knew some things already. I think someone told him some of it, maybe.”

“Told him some of what?” I prompt.

She takes a long drag on her cigarette. I notice that her hand is shaking. “That the show, all of it: it’s just—” She seems to be searching for the right words. “Window . . . looking. No. Window shopping. Not what that place is really about. Because afterward they come downstairs. The special guests.”

“What do you mean?” Theo says, sitting forward. “Special guests?”

A nervous glance out through the windows at the street. Then suddenly she’s fumbling the roll of notes Theo gave her back out of her jacket pocket, thrusting it at him.

“I can’t do this—”

“Irina,” I say, quickly, carefully, “we’re not trying to get you in any trouble. Trust me. We won’t go blabbing to anyone. We’re just trying to find out what Ben knew, because I think that might help us find him. Anything you can tell us might be useful in some way. I’m . . . really scared for him.” As I say it my voice breaks: it’s no act. I lean forward, begging her. “Please. Please help us.”

She seems to be absorbing all this, deciding. I watch her take a long breath. Then, in a low voice, she begins to talk.

“The special guests pay for a different kind of ticket. Rich men. Important men. Married men.” She holds up her hand for emphasis, touches her ring finger. “We don’t know names. But we know they are important. With—” she rubs her thumb and forefinger together: money. “They come downstairs. To the other rooms, below. We make them feel good. We tell them how handsome they are, how sexy.”

“And do they,” Theo coughs, “buy . . . anything?”

Irina stares at him blankly.

I think his delicacy might have been lost in translation.

“Do they pay for sex?” I ask, lowering my voice to a murmur—wanting to show we have her back. “That’s what he means.”

Again she glances at the windows, out at the dark street. She’s practically hovering in her seat, looking like she’s ready to leg it at any moment.

“Do you want more money?” I prompt. I kind of want her to ask for more. I’m sure Theo can afford it.

She nods, quickly.

I nudge Theo. “Go on then.”

A little reluctantly he pulls another couple of notes out of his pocket, slides them across the table to her. Then, almost like she’s reading from some sort of script, she says: “No. It is illegal in this country. To pay.”

“Oh.” Theo and I look at each other. I think we must both be thinking the same thing. In that case, then what . . . ?

But she hasn’t finished. “They don’t buy that. It’s clever. They buy wine. They spend big money on wine.” She spreads her hands to demonstrate this. “There’s a code. If they ask for a ‘younger’ vintage that’s the kind of girl they want. If they ask for one of the ‘special’ vintages it means they’d like . . . extras. And we do everything they want us to. We do whatever they ask. We’re theirs for the night. They choose the girl—or girls—they want, and they go to special room with a lock on the door. Or we go somewhere with them. Hotel, apartment—”

“Ah,” Theo says, grimacing.

“The girls at the club. We don’t have family. We don’t have money. Some have run from home. Some—many—are illegal.” She sits forward. “They have our passports, too.”

“So you can’t leave the country,” I say, turning to Theo. “That’s fucking dark.”

“I can’t go back there anyway,” she says, suddenly, fiercely. “To Serbia. It wasn’t—it wasn’t a good situation back home.” She adds, defensively: “But I never thought—I never thought that would be where I’d end up, a place like that. They know we won’t go to the police. One of the clients, some girls say he is police. Important police. Other places get shut down all the time. But not that place.”

“Can you actually prove that?” Theo asks, sitting forward.

At this, she checks over her shoulder and lowers her voice. Then she nods. “I took some photos. Of the one they say is police.”

“You’ve got photos?” Theo leans forward, eagerly.

“They take our phones. But when I started speaking to Ben he gave me a camera. I was going to give this to your brother.” A hesitation. Her eyes dart between us and the window. “More money,” she says.

Both of us turn to Theo, wait as he finds some more cash and puts it on the table between us.

She fumbles her hand into the pocket of her jacket, then takes it back out, fist clenched, knuckles showing white. Very carefully, like she’s handling something explosive, she places a memory card on the table and pushes it toward me. “They’re not such good photos. I had to be so careful. But I think it’s enough.”

“Here,” Theo says, reaching out a hand.

“No,” Irina says, looking at me. “Not him. You.”

“Thank you.” I take it, slide it into my own jacket pocket. “I’m sorry,” I say, because it seems suddenly important to say it. “I’m sorry this has happened to you.”

She shrugs, hunches into herself. “Maybe it’s better than other things. You know? At least you’re not going to end up murdered at the end of an alley or in the Bois de Boulogne, or raped in some guy’s car. We have more control. And sometimes they buy us presents, to make us feel good. Some of the girls get nice clothes, jewelry. Some go on dates, become girlfriends. Everybody’s happy.”

Except she looks anything but happy.

“There’s even a story—” She leans closer, lowers her voice.

“What?” Theo asks.

“That the owner’s wife came from there.”

I stare at her. “What, from the club?”

“Yes. That she was one of the girls. So I guess it worked out OK for some.”

I’m trying to process this. Sophie Meunier? The diamond earrings, the silk shirts, the icy stare, the penthouse apartment, the whole vibe of being better than everyone else . . . she was one of them? A sex worker?

“But it’s not rich husbands for everyone. Some guys—they refuse to wear anything. Or they take it off when you’re not looking. Some girls get, you know . . . sick.”

“You mean STIs?” I ask.

“Yes.” And then in a small voice: “I caught something.” She makes a face, a grimace of disgust and embarrassment. “After that, I knew I had to leave. And some girls get pregnant. It happens, you know? There’s a story too, about a girl a long, long time ago—maybe it’s just a rumor. But they say she got pregnant and wanted to keep it, or maybe it was too late to do something . . . anyway, when she went into—” She mimes doubling over with pain.

“Labor?”

“Yes. When that happened she came to the club; she had no other place to go. When you’re illegal, you’re scared to go to hospital. She had the baby in the club. But they said it was a bad birth. Too much blood. They took her body away, no one ever knows she existed. No problem. Because she wasn’t official.”

Jesus Christ. “And you told all this to Ben?” I ask her.

“Yes. He said he would make sure I was safe. Help me out. A new start. I speak English. I’m clever. I want a normal job. Waitressing, something like that. Because—” Her voice wavers. She puts up a hand to her eyes. I see the shine of tears. She swipes at them with the heel of her hand, almost angrily, like she doesn’t have time for crying. “It’s not what I came to this country for. I came for a new life.”

And even though I never cry I feel my own eyes pricking. I hear her. Every woman deserves that. The chance of a new life.

Mimi

I sit here on my bed, staring into the darkness of his apartment, remembering. On his laptop, three nights ago, I read about a place with a locked room. About what happened in that room. About the women. The men.

About how it was—is—connected to this place. To this family.

I felt sick to my stomach. It couldn’t be right, what he’d written. But there were names. There was detail. So much horrible detail. And Papa—

No. It couldn’t be true. I refused to believe it. It had to be lies—

And then I saw my own name, like I had in his notebook, when it had been so exciting. Only now it filled me with fear. Somehow I was connected to that place, too. There were horrible things my older stepbrother had said. I had always thought they were just random insults. Now I wasn’t sure. I didn’t think I could bring myself to read it, but I knew I had to.

What I saw next . . . I felt my whole life fall apart. If it was true, it would explain exactly why I had always felt like an outsider. Why Papa had always treated me the way he had. Because I wasn’t really theirs. And there was more: I glimpsed a line, something about my real mother, but I couldn’t read it because my eyes had blurred with tears—

I froze. Then I heard footsteps outside, approaching the door. Merde. I slammed the laptop closed. The key was turning in the lock. He was back.

Oh God. I couldn’t face him. Not now. Not like this. Everything was changed between us, broken. Everything I believed in had just been shattered. Everything I had ever known was a lie. I didn’t even know who I was any more.

I ran into the bedroom. There was no time . . . The closet. I yanked the doors open, slipped inside, crouched down in the darkness.

I heard him put a record on the player in the main room and the music streamed out, just like the music I had heard every hot summer night, floating to me across the courtyard. As though he had been playing it for me.

It felt like my heart was breaking.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be true.

Then, over the sound of my own breathing, I heard him entering the room. Through the keyhole I saw him moving around. He pulled off his sweater. I saw his stomach, that line of hair I had noticed on the first day. I thought about that girl I had been, the one who had watched him from the balcony. I hated her for being such a clueless little idiot. A spoiled brat. Thinking she had issues. She had no idea. But at the same time I was grieving for the loss of her. Knowing I could never go back to her.

He paced close to the closet—I cringed back into the shadows—and then moved away again, stepping into the bathroom. I heard him turn on the shower. All I wanted, now, was to get out of there. This was my moment. I pushed the door open. I could hear him moving around in the bathroom, the shower door opening. I began to tiptoe across the floor. Quiet as I could. Then there was a knock on the front door to the apartment. Putain.

Back I ran, back to the closet, crouching down in the darkness.

I heard the shower stop. I heard him go to answer it, greeting whoever it was at the door.

And then I heard the other voice. I knew it straightaway, of course I did. They talked for a while, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I opened the closet door a crack, trying to hear.

Then they were coming into the bedroom. Why? What were they doing in the bedroom? Why would those two come in here? I could just make them out through the keyhole. Even in those snatched glimpses I could see there was something strange about their body language—something I couldn’t quite work out. But I knew that something was wrong . . . something was not how it should be.

And then it happened. I saw them move together, the two of them. I saw their lips meet. It felt like it was happening in slow motion. I was digging my nails so hard into my palms I thought I might be about to draw blood. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. I sank down into the darkness, fist in my mouth, teeth biting into my knuckles to stop myself from screaming.

A few moments later I heard the shower start again. The two of them going into the bathroom, closing the door. Now was my chance. I didn’t care about the risk, that they might catch me. Now nothing mattered as much as getting out of there. I ran like I was running for my life.

Back in my room, back in the apartment, I fell to pieces. I was sobbing so hard I could hardly breathe. The pain was too much; I couldn’t bear it. I thought of all the plans I had made for the two of us. I knew he had felt it too, what had been between us in the park that night. And now he’d broken it. He’d ruined it all.

I took out the paintings I’d made of him and forced myself to look at them. Grief became rage. Fucking bastard. Fucking lying fils de pute. All those horrible, twisted, lying words on his computer. And then he and Maman, the two of them together like that—

I stopped, remembered what I’d seen on his computer. I had called her Maman, but after everything I had read I wasn’t even sure what she was to me now—

No. I couldn’t think about that. I wouldn’t, couldn’t believe it. It was all too painful. I could only focus on my anger: that was pure, uncomplicated. I took out my canvas-cutting knife, the blade so sharp you can cut yourself just by touching it to your thumb. I held it to the first canvas and I sliced through it. All the time I felt like he was watching me with those beautiful eyes, asking what I was doing, so I punched holes through them so I couldn’t see his eyes any longer. And then I ripped into all of them, stabbing through the canvas with the blade, enjoying hearing it tear. I pulled at the fabric with my hands, the canvas rasping as his face, his body, was torn to pieces.

Afterward I was trembling.

I looked at what I’d done, the mess, the violence of it. Knowing that it had come from me. I felt like I had an electric current running through me. A feeling that was kind of like fear, kind of like excitement. But it wasn’t enough.

I knew what I had to do.

Jess

“I have to go,” Irina says. A nervous glance out at the dark, empty street beyond the windows. “We’ve been too long, talking like this.”

I feel bad just letting her wander off into the city on her own. She’s so young, so vulnerable.

“Will you be OK?” I ask her. She gives me a look. It says: I’ve been looking after myself for a very long time, babe. I trust myself to do that better than anyone else. And there’s something proud about her as she walks away, a kind of dignity. The way she holds herself, so upright. A dancer’s posture, I suppose.

I think how Ben promised to take care of her. I could make promises, too. But I don’t know if I can keep them. I don’t want to lie to her. But I make a vow to myself, in this moment, that if I can find a way, I will.

As Theo and I walk toward the Metro I’m reeling, running through everything Irina told us. Do they all know? The whole family? Even “nice guy” Nick? The thought makes me feel nauseous. I think of how he told me that he was “between jobs,” how it clearly didn’t make much odds to him. I suppose it wouldn’t if you don’t need an income, if your lifestyle is being bankrolled by a load of girls selling themselves.

And if the Meunier family knew that Ben had found out the truth about La Petite Mort, what might they have done to prevent a secret like that from getting out?

I turn to Theo. “If Ben’s story had printed the police would have to act, wouldn’t they? It wouldn’t matter if the Meuniers have some high-up contacts. Surely there’d be public pressure to investigate.”

Theo nods, but I sense he’s not really listening. “So he really was onto something, after all,” he mutters quickly, almost to himself. He sounds very different from his usual sardonic, downbeat self. He sounds . . . I try to put my finger on it. Excited? I glance at him.

“It’s going to be a huge scoop,” he says. “It’s big. It’s really big. Especially if establishment figures are involved. It’s like the President’s Club but way, way darker. It’s the sort of thing that wins awards . . .”

I stop dead. “Are you taking the piss?” I can feel anger pulsing through me. “Do you even care about Ben at all?” I stare at him. “You don’t, do you?” Theo opens his mouth to say something but I don’t want to hear another word. “Ugh. You know what? Fuck you.”

I march away from him, as fast as I can in these ridiculous heels. I’m not completely sure where I’m going, and of course my stupid phone ran out of data, but I’ll work it out. Far better than having to spend literally another second in his company.

“Jess!” Theo calls.

I’m half jogging now. I turn left onto another street. I can’t hear him anymore, thank God. I think this is the way. But the problem is that all the crappy phone shops look exactly the same, especially with their lights off and grilles down, no one about. There’s an odd smell coming from somewhere, acrid, like burning plastic.

What a bastard. I seem to be crying. Why the hell am I crying? I always knew I couldn’t trust him, really; I suspected he’d had some angle the first time we met. So it’s not like it’s a big surprise. It must be everything, the stress of the last few days. Or Irina: the horror of everything she just told us. Or simply the fact that, even though I half saw it coming, I’d kind of hoped I was wrong, just this once.

And now here I am alone, again. Like always.

I turn onto a new street. Hesitate. I don’t think I recognize this. But there seem to be Metro stops everywhere in this city. If I walk for another couple of blocks I’m sure I’ll find one. Over the churn of angry thoughts in my head I’m vaguely aware of some sort of commotion nearby. Yelling and shouting: a street party? Maybe I should head in that direction. Because I’ve just realized there’s a lone guy walking in my direction from the other end of the street, hands in his pockets, and I’m sure he’s fine, but I don’t really want to test it.

I turn off, head toward the noise. And way, way too late I realize this is no street party. I see a mass of people surging in my direction, some of them wearing balaclavas and swim goggles and ski masks. Huge plumes of black smoke are mushrooming into the air. I can hear screaming, shouting, the sound of metal being struck.

Heat roars toward me in a powerful wave and I see the fire in the middle of the street: the flames as high as the second-floor windows of the buildings opposite. In the middle you can just make out the blackened skeleton of a police van that has been turned on its side and lit ablaze.

Now I can make out the police approaching the protestors in riot gear, helmets and plastic visors, waving batons in the air. I hear the whiplash crack of the batons as they make contact. And mixing with the black smoke is another kind of vapor: grayish, spilling in all directions—coming toward me. For a moment I stand, frozen, watching. People are running in this direction, slaloming around me. Pushing, yelling, desperate, holding scarves and T-shirts over their mouths. A guy next to me turns and lobs something—a bottle?—back in the direction of the police.

I turn and follow, trying to run. But there are too many bodies and the gray vapor is catching up with me, swirling all around. I start coughing and can’t stop; I feel like I’m choking. My eyes are stinging, watering so much I can hardly see. Then I collide—smack!—into another body, someone who’s just standing still in the middle of the stampede. I ricochet back, winded by the impact. Then look up, squinting through the tears.

“Theo!”

He grabs hold of the arm of my jacket and I cling onto him. Together we turn and half-run, half-stumble, coughing and wheezing. Somehow we find a side street, manage to break free from the torrent of people.

A few minutes later we shove through the door of a nearby bar. My eyes are still streaming: I look at Theo and see his are red-rimmed too.

“Tear gas,” he says, putting his forearm up to rub at them. “Fuck.”

People are turning on their bar stools to stare at us.

“We need to wash this stuff out of our eyes,” Theo says. “Straightaway.”

The barman points us wordlessly in the right direction.

It’s a single, largish bathroom. We get the tap running and splash water onto our faces, leaning together over the small sink. I can hear ragged breathing. I’m not sure if it’s mine or his.

I blink. The water has helped to ease the stinging a little. It’s now, as my pulse returns to normal, that I remember: I don’t want to be in this guy’s company at all. I grope for the door.

“Jess,” Theo says. “About before . . .”

“No. Nope. Fuck off.”

“Please, hear me out.” He does, at least, look a little ashamed. He puts up a hand, mops his eyes. The fact that the tear gas makes him look like he’s been crying is an odd addition. He starts speaking, quickly, like he’s trying to get it all out before I can cut him off: “Please let me explain. Look. This job is a total pain in the arse, it pays absolutely nothing, it broke up my last relationship—but every so often something like this comes along and you get to expose the bad guys and suddenly it all seems worthwhile. Yeah—I realize that’s no excuse. I got carried away. I’m sorry.”

I look down at the floor, my arms crossed.

“And if I’m truthful, no, I didn’t really care about your brother. One key skill as a journalist is being able to read people. And can I be really, brutally honest now? Ben always seemed totally self-interested. Always out for numero uno.”

I hate him for saying it, not least because there’s a part of me that suspects he may be right. “How dare—”

“No, no. Let me speak. When he initially told me about his big scoop, I was skeptical. He’s also a bit of a bullshit merchant, no? But when you played me that voicemail, I thought: yeah, actually there might be a story here. Maybe he did get tangled up in something nasty. It might be worth seeing where this all leads after all. So no, I didn’t care about your brother. But you know what, Jess? I want to help you.”

“Oh f—”

“No, listen. I want to help you because I think you deserve a break and I think you’re pretty bloody brave and I also think you don’t have a bad bone in your body.”

“Ha! Then you really don’t know me at all.”

“Christ, does anyone really know anyone? But I’m not a bad guy, Jess. To be fair, I’m not an entirely good one, either. But—” He coughs, looks down at the floor.

I glance at him. Is he bullshitting me? My eyes have started streaming again: I really don’t want him to think they’re tears.

“Ow. Jesus,” I wince as I rub at them.

He steps toward me. “Hey. Can I take a look?”

I shrug.

He reaches out a hand and tilts my chin upward. “Yeah—they’re still pretty red. But I think we only got a little of it, thank God. It should wear off soon.”

His face is very close to mine. And I’m not quite sure how it happens, but one moment he’s holding my jaw and peering at me, his touch surprisingly gentle; the next I appear to be kissing him and he tastes like cigarettes and the wine from the club, which is suddenly one of the better tastes I can imagine, and he’s a lot taller than me so my neck is cricked but actually I don’t care, in fact I kind of like it, because this is hot—it’s really fucking hot—and also wrong in so many different ways, not least because I’m wearing his ex-girlfriend’s clothes.

And even though he’s so much bigger than me I’m the one pushing him back against the sink and he’s letting me and one of his big hands is tangling in my hair and then I’m taking his other hand and pulling it under this stupid, tiny dress. And it’s only now that we remember we should probably lock the door.

Sophie

The others have left the penthouse. I sent Mimi to her apartment, to wait. I don’t want her to witness any of what’s to come. My daughter is so fragile. Our relationship, too. We have to find a new way of being with one another.

I walk into the bathroom, gaze at myself in the mirror, grip the sides of the sink. I look pale and drawn. I look every one of my fifty years. If Jacques were here right now he would be appalled. I smooth my hair. I spray scent behind my ears, on the pulse points of my wrists. Powder the shine off my forehead. Then I pick up my lipstick and apply it. My hand falters only once; otherwise I am as precise as ever.

Then I walk back to the main room of the apartment. The bottle of wine is still there on the table. Another glass, just to help me think—

I start as I realize I am not alone. Antoine stands by the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching me: a malignant presence. He must have stayed behind after the other two left.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him. I try to keep my voice controlled, even though my pulse is fluttering up somewhere near my throat.

He steps forward, under the spotlights. The mark of my hand is still pink on his cheek. I’m not proud of myself for that loss of restraint. It happens so rarely; I have become good at keeping my emotions in check over the years. But on those very rare occasions when the provocation is great enough, I seem to lose all sense of proportion. The rage takes over.

“It’s been fun,” he says, coming nearer still.

“What has been fun?”

“Oh.” The grin he gives me now makes him look quite deranged. “But surely you have guessed by now? After that whole thing with the photograph in Papa’s study? You know. Leaving those little notes for you in your postbox, under your door. Waiting to collect my cash. I really do like how you package it up like that for me. Those nice cream envelopes. Very discreet.”

I stare at him. I feel as though everything has just been turned on its head. “You? It’s been you all along?”

He gives a little mock-curtsy. “Are you surprised? That I got it together enough? A ‘useless hothouse flower’ like me? I even managed to keep it all to myself . . . up till now. Didn’t want my darling brother to try and get in on the action too. Because, as you well know, he is just as much of a—what was the word you used again?—leech as I am. He’s just more hypocritical about it. Hides it better.”

“You don’t need money,” I tell him. “Your father—”

“That’s what you think. But you see, I had an inkling a few weeks ago that Dominique might be about to try and leave. Just as I suspected, she’s trying to fleece me for everything I’ve got. She’s always been a greedy little bitch. And darling Papa is so fucking tight-fisted. So I’ve wanted a little extra cash, you know? To squirrel away.”

“Did Jacques tell you?”

“No, no. I worked it all out on my own. I found the records. Papa keeps very precise notes, did you know that? Of the clients, but also of the girls. I always had my suspicions about you, but I wanted proof. So I went deep into the archives. I found the details of one Sofiya Volkova, who used to “work”—he puts the word in air quotes—“at the club nearly thirty years ago.”

That name. But Sofiya Volkova no longer exists. I left her back there, shut up in that place with the staircase leading deep underground, the velvet walls, the locked room.

“Anyway,” Antoine says. “I’m more switched on than people realize. I see a great deal more than everyone thinks.” That manic grin again. “But then you knew that part already, didn’t you?”

Jess

Theo and I walk to the Metro together. Funny, how after you’ve slept with someone (not that you’d call what we just did up against the sink “sleeping”) you can suddenly feel so shy, so unsure of what to say to each other. I feel stupid, thinking about the time we might have just wasted. Even if, admittedly, neither of us took that much time. It also feels almost like it just happened to someone else. Especially now I’ve changed back into my normal clothes.

Theo turns to face me, his expression solemn. “Jess. You obviously can’t go back to that place. Back into the belly of the beast? You’d be bloody mad.” His tone no longer has that drawling, sardonic edge to it: there’s a softness there. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But you strike me as the kind of person who could be a little . . . reckless. I know you probably think it’s the only way you can help Ben. And it’s really . . . commendable—”

I stare at him. “Commendable? I’m not trying to win some kind of bloody school prize. He’s my brother. He’s literally the only family I have in the entire world.”

“OK,” Theo says, putting his hands up. “That was clearly the wrong word. But it’s way, way too dangerous. Why don’t you come to mine? I have a couch. You’d still be in Paris. You’ll be able to keep looking for Ben. You could speak to the police.”

“What, the same police who supposedly know about that place and haven’t done anything about it? The same police who might well actually be in on it? Yeah, fat lot of good that would do.”

We head down the steps to the Metro together, down onto the platform. It’s almost totally empty, just some drunk guy singing to himself on the opposite side. I hear the deep rumble of a train approaching, feel it behind my breastbone.

Then I have a sudden, definite feeling that something is wrong, though I can’t work out what. A kind of sixth sense, I suppose. Then I hear something else: the sound of running feet. Several pairs of running feet.

“Theo,” I say, “look, I think—”

But before I’ve even got the words out it’s happening. Four big guys are tackling Theo to the ground. I realize that they’re in uniform—police uniforms—and one of them is triumphantly holding a baggie full of something white in the air.

“That’s not mine!” Theo shouts. “You’ve planted that on me—fuck’s s—”

But his next words are muffled, then replaced by a groan of pain as one policeman slams his face into the wall, while another clips cuffs on him. The train is pulling into the platform: I see the people in the nearest carriage staring from the windows.

Then I see that another man is approaching us from the stairs onto the platform: older, wearing a smart suit beneath an equally smart gray coat. That cropped steel-gray hair, that pitbull face. I know him. It’s the guy Nick took me into the police station to meet. Commissaire Blanchot.

Now, thinking wildly back, I make another connection. The figure I thought I recognized in the audience at the club, just before the lights went down. It was him. He must have been following us all night.

The two policemen who aren’t so preoccupied with holding Theo start toward me now: it’s my turn. I know I only have a few seconds to act. The train doors are opening. Suddenly a whole crowd of protestors are pouring from the carriage, carrying signs and makeshift weapons.

Theo manages to turn his head toward me. “Jess,” he calls through a split lip, his voice slurred. “Get on the bloody train.” The guy behind him knees him in the back; he crumples onto the platform.

I hesitate. I can’t just leave him here . . .

“Get on the fucking train, Jess. I’ll be fine. And don’t you dare go back there.”

The nearest policeman lunges for me. I step quickly out of his way, then turn and shove my way through the oncoming crowd. I leap up into the carriage just before the doors close.

Sophie

“Well,” Antoine says. “Much as I have enjoyed our little chit-chat, I’d like my cash now, please.” He puts out his hand. “I thought I’d come and collect it in person. Because I’ve been waiting for three days now. You’ve always been so prompt in the past. So diligent. And I’ve let a day go by for extenuating circumstances, you know . . . but I can’t wait forever. My patience does have limits.”

“I don’t have it,” I say. “It is not as easy as you think—”

“I think it’s pretty fucking easy.” Antoine gestures about at the apartment. “Look at this place.”

I unclasp my watch and hand it to him. “Fine. Take this. It’s a Cartier Panthère. I’ll—I’ll tell your father it has gone for mending.”

“Oh, mais non.” He puts up a hand, mock-affectedly. “I’m not getting my hands dirty. I’m Papa’s son, after all, you must know that about me, surely? I would like another pretty cream-colored envelope of cash, please. It’s so very like you, isn’t it? The elegant exterior, the cheap grubby reality inside.”

“What have I done to make you hate me so much?” I ask him. “I’ve done nothing to you.” Antoine laughs. “You’re telling me that you really don’t know?” He leans in a little closer and I can smell the stink of the alcohol on his breath. “You are nothing, nothing, compared to Maman. She was from one of the best families in France. A truly great French line: proud, noble. You know the family thinks he killed her? Paris’ best physicians and they couldn’t work out what was making her so sick. And when she died he replaced her with what—with you? To be honest I didn’t need to see those records. I knew what you were from the moment I met you. I could smell it on you.”

My hand itches to slap him again. But I won’t allow another loss of control. Instead I say: “Your father will be so disappointed in you.”

“Oh, don’t try with the ‘disappointment’ card. It doesn’t work for me any longer. He’s been disappointed in me ever since I came out of my poor mother’s chatte. And he’s given me fucking nothing. Nothing, anyway, that hasn’t been tied up with guilt and recrimination. All he’s given me is his love of money and a fucking Oedipal complex.”

“If he hears about this—you threatening me, he’ll . . . he’ll cut you off.”

“Except he won’t hear about it, will he? You can’t tell him because that’s the whole point. You can’t let him find out. Because there’s so much I could tell. Other things that have gone on inside these apartment walls.” He pulls a thoughtful expression. “How does that saying go, again? Quand le chat n’est pas là, les souris dansent . . .” While the cat’s away, the mice dance. He takes out his phone, waves it back and forth in front of my face. Jacques’ number, right there on the screen.

“You wouldn’t do it,” I say. “Because then you wouldn’t get your money.”

“Well isn’t that exactly the point? Chicken and egg, ma chère belle-mère. You pay, I don’t tell. And you really don’t want me to tell Papa, do you? About what else I know?”

He leers at me. Just as he did when I left the third-floor apartment one evening, and he emerged out of the shadows on the landing. Looked me up and down in a way that no stepson should look at their stepmother. “Your lipstick, ma chère belle-mère,” he said, with a nasty smile. “It’s smudged. Just there.”

“No,” I tell Antoine, now. “I’m not going to give you any more.”

“Excuse me?” He cups a hand behind his ear. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“No, you’re not getting your money. I’m not going to give it to you.”

He frowns. “But I’ll tell my father. I’ll tell him the other thing.”

“Oh no, you won’t.” I know that I am in dangerous territory. But I can’t resist saying it. Calling his bluff.

He nods at me, slowly, like I’m too stupid to understand him. “I assure you, I absolutely will.”

“Fine. Message him now.”

I see a spasm of confusion cross his face. “You stupid bitch,” he spits. “What’s wrong with you?” But suddenly he seems uncertain. Even afraid.

I told Benjamin Daniels about Sofiya Volkova. That was my most reckless act. More than anything else I did with him. We had showered together that afternoon. He had washed my hair for me. Perhaps it was this simple act—far more intimate than the sex, in its way—that released something in me. That encouraged me to tell him about the woman I thought I had left behind in a locked room beneath one of the city’s better-heeled streets. In doing so I felt suddenly as though I was the one in control. Whoever my blackmailer was, they would no longer hold all of the cards. I would be the one telling the story.

“Jacques chose me,” I said. “He could have had his pick of the girls, but he chose me.”

“But of course he chose you,” Ben said, as he traced a pattern on my naked shoulder.

He was flattering me, perhaps. But over the years I had also come to see what the attraction must have been for my husband. Far better to have a second wife who could never make him feel inferior, who came from somewhere so far beneath him that she would always be grateful. Someone he could mold as he chose. And I was so happy to be molded. To become Madame Sophie Meunier with her silk scarves and diamond earrings. I could leave that place far behind. I wouldn’t end up like some of the others. Like the poor wretch who had given birth to my daughter.

Or so I thought. Until that first note showed me that my past hung over my life like a blade, ready at any moment to pierce the illusion I had created.

“And tell me about Mimi,” Ben murmured, into the nape of my neck. “She’s not yours . . . is she? How does she fit into all this?”

I went very still. This was his big mistake. The thing that finally shocked me out of my trance. Now I knew I wasn’t the only one he was speaking to. Now I realized how stupid I had been. Stupid and lonely and weak. I had revealed myself to this man, this stranger—someone I still didn’t really know, in spite of all our snatched time together. In hindsight, perhaps even as he had told me about his childhood he had been selecting, editing—part of him slipping away from me, ever unknowable. Giving me choice morsels, just enough that I would unburden myself to him in return. He was a journalist, for God’s sake. How could I have been so foolish? In talking I had handed him the power. I hadn’t just risked everything I had built for myself, my own way of life. I had risked everything I wanted for my daughter, too.

I knew what I had to do.

Just as I know what I have to do now. I steel myself, give Antoine my most withering stare. He may be taller than me but I feel him cringing beneath it. I think he has just understood that I am beyond bullying.

“Message your father or not,” I say. “I don’t care. But either way, you aren’t getting another euro from me. And at this moment I think we all have more important matters to focus on. Don’t you? You know Jacques’ position on this. The family comes first.”

Jess

I’m back here. Back in this quiet street with its beautiful buildings. That familiar feeling settles over me: the rest of the city, the world, seems so far away.

I think of Theo’s words: “You strike me as the kind of person who could be a little . . . reckless.” It made me angry, when he said it, but he was right. I know there is a part of me that is drawn to danger, even seeks it out.

Maybe it’s madness. Maybe if Theo hadn’t just been arrested, I’d have gone back to his place like he said I should. Crashed on his sofa. Maybe not. But as it stands I don’t have anywhere else to go. I know I can’t go to the police. I also know that if I want to find out what happened to Ben, this place is the only option. The building holds the key, I’m sure of it. I won’t find any answers running away.

I had a gut feeling that day with Mum, too. She was acting weirdly that morning. Wistful. Not herself. Her smile dreamy, like she was already somewhere else. Something told me I shouldn’t go to school. Fake a sick note, like I had before. But she wasn’t sad or frightened. Just a little checked out. And it was sports day and once upon a time I was good at sports and it was summer and I didn’t want to be around Mum when she was like that. So I went to school and completely forgot Mum even existed for a few hours, that anything existed except my friends and the three-legged race and the sack race and all that stupid stuff.

When I got home at ten to four I knew. Before I even got to the bedroom. Before I even unpicked that lock and opened that door. I think maybe she’d changed her mind, remembered she had kids who needed her more than she needed to leave. Because she wasn’t lying peacefully on the bed. She was lying like a snapshot of someone doing a front crawl, frozen in the act of swimming toward the door.

I’ll never ignore a gut feeling again.

If they’ve done something to Ben, I know I’ve got the best chance of finding it out. Not the police in their pay. No one but me. I’ve got nothing to lose, really. If anything, I feel a kind of pull toward this place now. To crawl, as Theo put it, back into the belly of the beast. I’d thought it sounded melodramatic when he said it but, when I stand at the gate and look up at it, it feels right. Like this place, this building, is some huge creature ready to swallow me whole.

There’s no sign of anyone about when I enter the apartment building, not even the concierge. All the lights are off in the apartments up above. It seems as deathly quiet as it did the night I arrived. It’s late, I suppose. I tell myself it must just be my imagination that lends the silence a heavy quality, like the building has been waiting for me.

I move toward the stairwell. Strange. Something draws my eye in the dim light. A large, untidy pile of clothes at the bottom of the stairs, strewn across the carpet. What on earth is that doing there?

I reach for the light switch. The lights stutter on.

I look back at the pile of old clothes. My stomach clenches. I still can’t see what it is but in an instant I know, I just know. Whatever is there at the bottom of the stairs is something bad. Something I don’t want to see. I move toward it as though I’m pushing through water, resisting, and yet knowing I have to go and look. As I get closer I can make it out more clearly. There’s a solid shape visible inside the softness of the material.

Oh my God. I’m not sure if I whisper this out loud or if it’s only in my head. I can see now with horrible clarity that the shape is a person. Lying face down, spread-eagled on the flagstones. Not moving. Definitely not moving.

Not again. I’ve been here before. The body in front of me, so horribly still. Oh my God oh my God. I can see little spots dancing in front of my eyes. Breathe, Jess. Just breathe. Every part of me wants to scream, to run in the opposite direction. I force myself to crouch down. There’s a chance she could still be alive . . . I bend down, put out a hand—touch the shoulder.

I can feel bile rising in my throat, gagging me. I swallow, hard. I roll the concierge over. Her body moves as though it really is just a loose collection of old clothes, too fluid, too senseless. A couple of hours ago she was warning me to be careful. She was frightened. Now she’s—

I put a couple of fingers to her neck, sure there’ll be nothing . . .

But I think I feel something. Is that?—yes, beneath my fingertips: a stuttering, a pulse. Faint, but definite. She is still alive, but only just.

I look up at the dark stairwell, toward the apartments. I know this wasn’t an accident. I know one of them did this.

Jess

“Can you hear me?” Christ, I realize I don’t even know the woman’s name. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

It seems so pointless. I’m sure she can’t hear me. But as I watch her lips begin to part, as though she’s trying to say something.

I reach into my pocket for my phone.

But there’s nothing there. My jacket pocket is empty. What the hell—

I scrabble in my jeans pockets. Not in there either. Back up to my jacket. But it’s definitely not here. No phone.

And then I remember. I handed it over to that doorman in the club, because he wouldn’t let us in otherwise. We got thrown out before I had a chance to collect it—and I’m certain he wouldn’t have handed it over anyway.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath. OK, Jess: think. Think. It’s fine. It’s fine. You don’t need your phone. You can just go onto the street and ask someone else to call an ambulance.

I shove open the door, run through the courtyard to the gate. Pull at the handle. But nothing happens. I pull harder: still nothing. It doesn’t move a millimeter. The gate is locked; it’s the only explanation. I suppose the same mechanism that allows it to be opened with the key code can also be used to lock it shut. I’m trying to think rationally. But it’s difficult because panic is taking over. The gate is the only way out of this place. And if it’s locked, then I’m trapped inside. There is no way out.

Could I climb it? I look up, hopefully. But it’s just a sheet of steel, nothing to get a toehold on. Then there are the anti-climb spikes along the top and the shards of glass along the wall either side that would shred me to pieces if I tried to climb over.

I run back into the building, into the stairwell.

When I return I see the concierge has managed to sit up, her back against the wall near the bottom of the staircase. Even in the gloom I can make out the cut at her hairline where she must have hit her head on the stone floor.

“No ambulance,” she whispers, shaking her head at me. “No ambulance. No police.”

“Are you mad? I have to call—”

I break off, because she has just looked up at the staircase behind me. I follow her gaze. Nick is standing there, at the top of the first flight of stairs.

“Hello Jess,” he says. “We need to talk.”

Nick

“You animal,” she says. “You did this to her? Who the fuck are you?”

I put up my hands. “It—it wasn’t me. I just found her.”

It was Antoine, of course. Going too far, as usual. An old woman, for God’s sake: to shove her like that.

“It must have been a . . . a terrible accident. Look. There are some things I have to explain. Can we talk?”

“No,” she says. “No, I don’t want to do that, Nick.”

“Please, Jess. Please. You have to trust me.” I need her to stay calm. Not do anything rash. Not force me to do something I’ll regret. I’m also still unsure whether or not she has a phone on her.

“Trust you? Like I trusted you before? When you took me to meet that shady cop? When you hid from me that you were a family?”

“Look, Jess,” I say, “I can explain everything. Just—come with me. I don’t want you to get hurt. I really don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

“What,” she gestures to the concierge. “Like her? And Ben? What have you done to Ben? He’s your friend, Nick.”

“No!” I shout it. I’ve been trying to be so calm, so controlled. “He was not my friend. He was never my friend.” And I don’t even try to keep the bitterness at bay.

Three nights ago my little sister Mimi came and told me what she had found on his computer.

“It said . . . it said our money doesn’t come from wine. It says . . . it says it’s girls. Men buying girls, not wine . . . this horrible place, this club—ce n’est pas vrai . . . it can’t be true, Nick . . . tell me it’s not true.” She was sobbing as she tried to speak. “And it says . . .” she fought for breath, “it says I’m not really theirs . . .”

I suppose we always knew about Mimi, Antoine and I. I suppose all families have these kind of secrets, these commonly agreed deceptions that are never spoken of aloud. Frankly, we were too afraid. I remember how, when we were little more than kids, Antoine made some comment that our father overheard—some insinuation. Papa backhanded him across the room. It has never properly been mentioned again. Just another skeleton thrown to the back of the closet.

Ben had clearly been very, very busy. It sounded as though he had discovered more about Papa and his business than I even knew myself. But then I haven’t wanted to know all the deplorable particulars. I’ve kept as much distance, as much ignorance, as possible over the years. Still, it was all tied up with the thing I had told him in strictest confidence ten years before in a weed café in Amsterdam. The confession he had promised me, hand on heart, never to share with another soul. The secret at the very heart of my family. My main, terrible, source of shame.

I can still remember my father’s words when I was sixteen, outside that locked door at the bottom of the velvet staircase. Taunting: “Oh, you think this is something you can just turn your nose up at, do you? You think you’re above this? What do you think really paid for that expensive school? What do you think paid for the house you live in, the clothes you wear? Some dusty old bottles? Your sainted mother’s precious inheritance? No, my boy. This is where it comes from. Think you’re immune now? Think you’re too good for all of it?”

I knew all too well what Mimi had felt, reading about it on Ben’s computer. Learning about the roots of our wealth, our identity. Discovering it was sullied money that had paid for everything. It’s like a disease, a cancer, spreading outward and making all of us sick.

But at the same time you can’t choose your blood. They are still the only family I have.

When Mimi told me what she had read, all of it—Ben’s casual text message months ago, our meeting in the bar, the move into this building—suddenly revealed itself to be not the workings of happy coincidence, but something far more calculated. Targeted. He had used me to fulfil his own ambitions. And now he would destroy my family. And in the process, he apparently didn’t care that he would also destroy me.

I thought again of that old French saying about family. La voix du sang est la plus forte: the voice of blood is the strongest. I didn’t have a choice.

I knew what I had to do.

Just as I know what I have to do now.

Jess

“Please Jess,” Nick says in a reasonable tone. “Just hear me out. I’ll come down there and we can chat.”

For a moment I think: just because they’re a family, it doesn’t mean they’re all responsible for what’s happened here. I remember how Nick briefly referred to his father as “a bit of a cunt”: clearly they don’t all see eye to eye. Maybe I’ve jumped to conclusions—maybe she really did fall. An old woman, frail, slipping on the stairs late at night . . . no one to hear her because it’s late. And maybe the front gate is locked because it’s late, too—

No. I’m not going to take my chances. I turn to look back at the concierge, slumped on the floor and grimacing in pain. And as I do, I see the door to the first-floor apartment opening. I watch as Antoine steps out onto the landing to stand next to his brother—the two of them so much more alike than I had realized. He smiles down at me, a horrible grin.

“Hello, little girl,” he says.

Where to run? The front gate is locked. I refuse to be the girl in the horror film who flees into the basement. Both brothers are advancing toward me down the stairs now. I don’t have any time to think. Instinctively I step into the lift. I press the button for the third floor.

The lift clanks upward, the mechanism grinding. I can hear Nick running up the stairs below: through the metal grille I can see the top of his head. He’s chasing me. The gloves are off now.

Finally I reach the third floor. The lift clanks into place agonizingly slowly. I open the metal gate and dash across the landing, shove the keys into the door to Ben’s apartment and fling it open, slam it shut behind me, lock the door, my chest heaving.

I try to think, panic making me stupid, just when I need my thoughts to be as clear as possible. The back staircase: I could try and use that. But the sofa’s in the way. I run to it, start trying to tug it away from the door.

Then I hear the unmistakable sound of a key beginning to turn in the lock. I back away. He has a key. Of course he has a key. Could I pull something in front of the door? No: there’s no time.

Nick starts advancing toward me across the room. The cat, seeing him, streaks past and jumps up onto the kitchen counter to his right, mewing at him—perhaps hoping to be fed. Traitor.

“Come on, Jess,” Nick says, coaxingly, still that chillingly reasonable tone. “Just, just stay where you are—”

This new menace in Nick is so much more frightening than if he hadn’t worn that nice-guy mask before. I mean, his brother’s violence has always seemed to simmer just beneath the surface. But Nick—this new Nick—he’s an unknown quantity.

“So what?” I ask him. “So you can do the same thing to me that you’ve done to Ben?”

“I didn’t do anything—”

There’s a strange emphasis on the way he says this. A stress on the “I”: “I didn’t.”

“Are you saying someone else did? One of the others?” He doesn’t answer. Keep him talking, I tell myself, play for time. “I thought you wanted to help me, Nick,” I say.

He looks pained now. “I did want to, Jess. And it’s all my fault. I set this whole thing in motion. I invited him here . . . I should have known. He went digging into stuff he shouldn’t have . . . fuck—” He rubs at his face with his hands and when he takes them away I see that his eyes are rimmed with red. “It’s my fault . . . and I’m sorry—”

I feel a coldness creeping through me. “What have you done to Ben, Nick?” I meant it to sound tough, authoritative. But my voice comes out with a tremor.

“I haven’t . . . I didn’t . . . I haven’t done anything.” Again that emphasis: “I didn’t, I haven’t.”

The only way out is past Nick, through that front door. Just by the door is the kitchen area. The utensil pot’s right there; inside it is that razor-sharp Japanese knife. If I can just keep him talking, somehow grab the knife—

“Come on, Jess.” He takes another step toward me.

And suddenly there’s a streak of movement, a flash of black and white. The cat has leapt from the kitchen counter onto Nick’s shoulders—the same way it greeted me the very first time I entered this apartment. Nick swears, puts his hands up to tear the animal away. I sprint forward, yank the knife out of the pot. Then I lunge past him for the door, wrench it open, and slam it behind me.

“Hello little girl.”

I turn: fuck—Antoine stands there, he must have been waiting in the shadows. I lunge the knife toward him, slashing so violently at the air with the blade that he staggers backward and falls down the flight of stairs, collapsing in a heap on the next landing. I peer at him through the gloom, my chest burning. I think I hear a groan but he’s not moving.

Nick will be out any moment. There’s only one way to go.

Up.

I’m clearly outnumbered here, one of me: four of them. But perhaps there’s somewhere I can hide, to try and buy some time.

Come on, Jess. Think. You’ve always been good at thinking yourself out of a tight spot.

Mimi

“What’s going on out there? Maman?” After everything I have learned the word still feels strange, painful.

“Shh,” she says, stroking my hair. “Shh, ma petite.”

I’m crouched on the bed, trembling. She came down to check on me. I’ve allowed her to sit beside me, to put an arm around my shoulders.

“Look,” she says. “Just stay in here, yes? I’m going to go out there and see what’s going on.”

I grab hold of her wrist. “No—please don’t leave me.” I hate the neediness in my voice, my need for her, but I can’t help it. “Please,” I say. “Maman.”

“Just for a couple of minutes,” she says. “I just have to make sure—”

“No. Please—don’t leave me here.”

“Mimi,” she says, sharply. “Let go of my arm, please.”

But I keep hanging onto her. In spite of everything I don’t want her to leave me. Because then I’d be left alone with my thoughts—like a little girl afraid of the monsters under the bed.

Jess

I sprint up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Fear makes me run faster than I’ve ever done in my life.

Finally I’m on the top floor, opposite the door to the penthouse apartment, the wooden ladder up to the old maids’ quarters in front of me. I begin to climb, ascending into the darkness. Maybe I can hide out here long enough to gather my thoughts, work out what the hell I’m going to do next. I’m already pulling the hoop earrings from my ears, bending them into the right shape, making my rake and my pick. I grab for the padlock, get to work. Normally I’m so quick at this but my hands are shaking—I can feel that one of the pins inside the lock is seized and I just can’t get the pressure right to reset it.

Finally, finally, the lock pops open and I wrench it off and push open the door. I close it again quickly behind me. The open padlock is the only thing to give me away; I’ll just have to pray they won’t immediately guess I’ve come in here.

My eyes start to adjust in the gloom. I’m looking into a cramped attic space, long and thin. The ceiling slopes down sharply above me. I have to crouch so I don’t knock my head on one of the big wooden beams.

It’s dark but there’s a dim glow which I realize is the full moon, filtering in through the small, smeared attic windows. It smells of old wood and trapped air up here and something animal: sweat or something worse, something decaying. Something that stops me from breathing in too deeply. The air feels thick, full of dust motes which float in front of me in the bars of moonlight. It feels as though I have just pushed open a door into another world, where time has been suspended for a hundred years.

I move forward, looking around for somewhere to hide.

Over in the dim far corner of the space I see what looks like an old mattress. There appears to be something on top of it.

I have that feeling again, like I did downstairs when I found the concierge. I don’t want to step any closer. I don’t want to look.

But I do, because I have to know. Now I can see what it is. Who it is. I see the blood. I understand.

He’s been up here all along. And I forget that I am meant to be hiding from them. I forget everything apart from the horror of what I’m looking at. I scream and scream and scream.

Mimi

A scream tears through the apartment.

“He’s dead. He’s dead—you’ve fucking killed him.”

I let go of my mother’s arm.

The storm in my head is growing louder, louder. It’s a swarm of bees . . . then like being crashed underwater by the waves, now like standing in the middle of a hurricane. But it still isn’t loud enough to shut out the thoughts that are beginning to seep in. The memories.

I remember blood. So much blood.

You know how when you’re a kid you can’t sleep because you’re afraid of the monsters under the bed? What happens if you start to suspect that the monster might be you? Where do you hide?

It’s like the memories have been kept behind a locked door in my mind. I have been able to see the door. I have known it’s there, and I have known that there is something terrible behind it. Something I don’t want to see—ever. But now the door is opening, the memories flooding out.

The iron stink of the blood. The wooden floor slippery with it. And in my hand, my canvas-cutting knife.

I remember them pushing me into the shower. Maman . . . someone else, too, maybe. Washing me down. The blood running dilute and pink into the drain, swirling around my toes. I was shivering all over; I couldn’t stop. But not because the shower was cold; it was hot, scalding. There was a deep coldness inside me.

I remember Maman holding me like she did when I was a little girl. And even though I was so angry with her, so confused, all I wanted, suddenly, was to cling to her. To be that little girl again.

“Maman,” I said. “I’m frightened. What happened?”

“Shh.” She stroked my hair. “It’s OK,” she told me. “I’m not going to let anything happen. I’ll protect you. Just let me take care of all of this. You aren’t going to get into any trouble. It was his fault. You did what had to be done. What I wasn’t brave enough to do myself. We had to get rid of him.”

“What do you mean?” I searched her face, trying to understand. “Maman, what do you mean?”

She looked closely at me then. Stared hard into my eyes. Then she nodded, tightly. “You don’t remember. Yes, yes, it’s best like that.”

Later, there was something crusted under my fingernails, a reddish-brown rust color. I scrubbed at it with a toothbrush in the bathroom until my nail beds started bleeding. I didn’t care about the pain; I just wanted to be rid of whatever it was. But that was the only thing that seemed real. The rest of it was like a dream.

And then she arrived here. And the next morning she came to the door. She knocked and knocked until I had to open it. Then she said those terrible words:

“My brother—Ben . . . he’s . . . well, he’s kind of disappeared.”

That was when I realized it could have been real, after all.

I think it might have been me. I think I might have killed him.

Sophie

“He’s dead. He’s dead—you’ve fucking killed him.”

“I have to go, chérie,” I tell Mimi. “I have to go and deal with this.” I step onto the landing, leaving her in the apartment.

I look upward. It has happened. The girl is in the chambres de bonne. She’s found him.

I remember pushing open the door to his apartment that terrible night. My daughter, covered in blood. She opened her mouth as though to speak, or scream, but nothing came out.

The concierge was there, too, somehow. But then of course she was: she sees, knows, everything—moving around this apartment building like a specter. I stood looking at the scene before me in a state of utter shock. Then a strange sense of practicality took over.

“We need to wash her,” I said. “Get rid of all this blood.” The concierge nodded. She took Mimi by the shoulders and led her toward the shower. Mimi was muttering a stream of words now: about Ben, about betrayal, about the club. She knew. And for some reason she had not come to me.

When she was clean the concierge took her away, back to her apartment. I could see my daughter was in a state of shock. I wanted to go with her, comfort her. But first I had to deal with the consequences of what she had done. The thing, in all honesty, that I had considered doing myself.

I found and used every tea towel in the apartment. Every towel from the bathroom. All of them, soaked through crimson. I wrenched the curtains down from the windows and wrapped the body in them, tied it carefully with the curtain cords. I hid the weapon in the dumbwaiter, in its secret cavity inside the wall, and wound the handle so it traveled up to a space between the floors.

The concierge brought bleach; I used it to clean up after I’d washed the blood away. Breathing through my mouth so as not to smell it. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. I couldn’t vomit, I had to stay in control.

The bleach stained the floor, leached the varnish out of the wood. It left a huge mark, even larger than the pooling blood. But it was the best I could do, better than the alternative.

And then—I don’t know how much later—the door opened. It wasn’t even locked, I had forgotten that in the face of the task ahead of me.

They stood there. The two Meunier boys. My stepsons. Nicolas and Antoine. Staring at me in horror. The bleach stain in front of me, blood up to my elbows. Nick’s face drained of all color.

“There’s been a terrible accident,” I said.

“Jesus Christ,” Nicolas said, swallowing hard. “Is this because—”

There was a long pause, while I tried to think of what to say. I would not speak Mimi’s name. I decided that Jacques could take the blame, as a father should. This was, after all, really his mess. I settled on: “Your father found out what Ben had been working on—”

“Oh Jesus.” Nick put his face in his hands. And then he howled, like a small child. A sound of terrible pain. His eyes were wet, his mouth gaping. “This is all my fault. I told Papa. I told him what Mimi had found, what Ben had been writing. I had no idea. If I’d known, oh Jesus—”

For a moment, he seemed to sway where he stood. Then he rushed from the room. I heard him vomiting, in the bathroom.

Antoine stood there, arms folded. He looked equally sickened, but I could see he was determined to tough it out.

“Serves him right, the putain de bâtard,” he said, finally. “I’d have done it myself.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

A few minutes later, Nick returned, looking pale but determined.

The three of us stood there, staring at one another. Never before had we been anything like a family. Now we were oddly united. No words passed between us, just a silent nod of solidarity. Then we got to work.

Jess

Even in my darkest moments over the last couple of days, even learning what Ben had got himself into, I haven’t allowed myself to imagine it. Not finding my brother like this, how I found Mum.

I sink to my knees.

It doesn’t look like my brother, the body on the mattress. It isn’t just the pale, waxy color of the skin, the sunken eye-sockets. It’s that I’ve never seen him so still. I can’t think of my brother without thinking of his quick grin, his energy.

I take in the dark, rusted crimson color of his T-shirt. I can see that elsewhere the fabric is pale. It’s a stain. It covers his entire front.

He must have been up here all along, all this time, while I’ve been scurrying around following clues, tying myself in knots. Thinking I was helping him somehow. And to think I’d seen that locked attic door on my first morning here.

Crouched here beside him, I rock back and forth as the tears begin to fall.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m so bloody sorry.”

I reach down to take a hold of his hand. When was the last time we held hands, my brother and I? That day in the police station, maybe. After Mum. Before we went our separate ways. I squeeze his fingers tight.

Then I almost drop his hand in shock.

I could have sworn I felt his fingers twitch against mine. I know it’s my imagination, of course. But for a moment, I really thought—

I glance up. His eyes are open. They weren’t open before . . . were they?

I get to my feet, stand over him. Heart thundering.

“Ben?”

I’m sure I just saw him blink.

“Ben?”

Another blink. I didn’t imagine it. I can see his eyes attempting to focus on mine. And now he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. Then—“Jess.” It’s little more than an exhalation, but I definitely heard him say it. He closes his eyes again, as though he’s very, very tired.

“Ben!” I say. “Come on. Hey. Sit up.” It suddenly seems very important to get him upright. I put my arms under his armpits. He’s almost a dead weight. But somehow I manage to haul him into a sitting position. He half slumps forward and his eyes are cloudy with confusion, but they are open.

“Oh, Ben.” I take hold of his shoulders—I don’t dare hug him in case he’s too badly hurt. Tears are streaming down my face now; I let them fall. “Oh my God, Ben: you’re alive . . . you’re alive.” I hear a door slam behind me. It’s the door to the attic. For a moment I had genuinely forgotten about anything and anyone else.

I turn around, slowly.

Sophie Meunier stands there. Behind her: Nick. And even though I’m reeling from everything that’s just happened, I’m still able to make out that there’s a big difference in their expressions. Sophie’s face is an intense, terrifying mask. But Nick’s, as he looks at Ben, shows surprise, horror, confusion. In fact, Nick looks—and this is the only way I can think to describe it—as though he has seen a ghost.

Nick

I feel dread creeping through me as I take in the scene in the attic. I ran up here when I heard the screaming, after dragging Antoine, semi-conscious, to the sofa in my apartment.

He’s here. Ben is here. He doesn’t look well, but he is sitting up. And he is alive.

This can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible.

Ben is dead. He’s been dead since Friday night. My one-time friend, my old university mate, the guy I fell for on that warm summer night in Amsterdam over a decade ago and have been thinking about ever since.

He died and it was my fault and in the days since I have been trying to live with the guilt and the grief of it: walking around feeling only barely alive myself.

I look to my stepmother, expecting to see my own shock reflected in her expression. It isn’t there. This doesn’t seem to have come as a surprise to her. She knows. It’s the only explanation. Why else would she be so calm?

Finally I manage to speak. “What is this?” I ask, voice hoarse. “What is this? What the fuck is happening?” I point to Ben. “This isn’t possible. He’s dead.”

You see, I know it for a fact. I had plenty of time to take it all in: the unspeakable horror of that lifeless shape in its makeshift shroud. The undeniable fact of it. Of the blood, too, spilled across the floorboards and soaked into the towels: far more blood than anyone could lose and live. But it’s more than that. Three nights ago, Antoine and I carried his body down the stairs and dug a shallow trench and buried him in the courtyard garden.

Mimi

It has all gone so quiet now, after the scream up above. What is going on? What has she found?

This is the part I remember. After this there is nothing, until the blood.

It was late and I was tired from all the thoughts whirring around my brain, but couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had read. What I saw. Ben—and my mother. I’d destroyed my paintings of him. But it didn’t feel like enough. I could see him over there in his apartment, working away at his computer. But it was all different now. I knew what he was writing about and the thought of it made me feel sick, all over again. I could never un-know it. Even if I tried not to believe it. But I think I do. I think I do believe it. The hushed tones everyone uses when they talk about Papa’s business. Things I’ve heard Antoine say. It was all beginning to make a horrible kind of sense.

Ben came to the window and looked out. I ducked out of sight, so he wouldn’t spot me. Then I went back to watching.

He moved back to his desk, looking at his phone, holding it to his ear. But then he looked up. Turned his head. He began to stand. The door was opening. Someone was stepping into the room.

Oh—merde.

Putain de merde.

What was he doing there?

It was Papa.

He wasn’t meant to be home.

When did he get back? And what was he doing in Ben’s apartment?

Papa had something in his hands. I recognized it: it was the magnum of wine he had given Ben as a present only a few weeks earlier.

He was going to—

I couldn’t bear to keep looking. But at the same time I couldn’t look away. I watched as Ben crumpled to his knees. As Papa raised the bottle again and again. I watched as Ben staggered backward, as he collapsed onto the floor, as blood began to soak into the front of his pale T-shirt, turning the whole thing red. And I knew it was all my fault.

Ben crawled toward the window. I watched as he raised his hand, hit his palm against the glass. And then he mouthed a word: Help.

I saw my father raise the bottle again. And I knew what was going to happen. He was going to kill him.

I had to do something. I loved him. Ben had betrayed me. He had destroyed my whole world. But I loved him.

I reached for the nearest thing at hand. And then I ran down the stairs so quickly it felt as though my feet weren’t even touching the ground. The door to Ben’s apartment was open and Papa was standing over him and I just had to make him stop—I had to make him stop and at the same time maybe there was a little voice inside me saying: he’s not really your papa, this man. And he’s not a good man. He’s done some terrible things. And now he’s about to become a killer too.

Ben was on the ground and his eyes were closed. And then I was behind Papa—he hadn’t seen me, hadn’t heard me creep into the room—and I had my canvas cutting knife in my hand and it’s small but the blade is sharp, so very sharp, and I raised it above my head . . .

And then nothing.

And then the blood.

Later, I thought I heard the sound of voices in the courtyard. I heard the scrape of shovels. It didn’t make any sense. Maman likes to garden, but it was dark, nighttime. Why was she doing it now? It couldn’t be real: it had to be a dream. Or some kind of nightmare.

Nick

I remember leaving Papa’s study after I had told him what Ben had been up to, what he was writing about. I had called him home, told him there was something he needed to hear. As I descended the staircase I thought about the look on his face. The barely controlled rage. A charge of fear that returned me to childhood; when he wore that expression it was time to make yourself scarce. But at the same time I felt a frisson of perverse pleasure, too. At bursting the Benjamin Daniels bubble. At showing Papa that his famous judgment wasn’t always as sound as he thought, tarnishing the golden boy he had briefly seemed to hold closer than his own sons. I had betrayed Ben, yes, but in a much smaller way than he had betrayed me and my family’s hospitality. He had it coming.

Any feeling of triumph soured quickly. Suddenly I wanted to be numb. I went and took four of the little blue pills and lay in my apartment in an oxycodone haze.

Maybe I was aware of some kind of commotion upstairs, I don’t know—it was like it was happening in another universe. But after a while, as the pills began to wear off, I thought perhaps I should go and see what was going on.

I met Antoine on the stairs. Could smell the booze on him: he must have been passed out in yet another drunken stupor.

“What the fuck’s happening?” he asked. His tone was gruff, but there was something fearful in his expression.

“I have no idea,” I said. This wasn’t quite true. Already, an unnameable suspicion was forming in my mind. We climbed to the third floor together.

The blood. That was the first thing I saw. So much of it. Sophie in the middle of it all.

“There’s been a terrible accident.” That was what she told us.

I knew in an instant that this was my fault. I had set all of this in motion. I knew what kind of man my father was. I should have known what he might be driven to do. But I had been so blinded by my own anger, my sense of betrayal. I had told myself I was protecting my family. But I also wanted to lash out. To hurt Ben somehow. But this . . . the blood, that terrible, inert form wrapped in the curtain shroud. I could not look at it.

In the bathroom I vomited as though I could expel the horror like something I had eaten. But of course it did not leave me. It was part of me now.

Somehow I pulled myself together. Ben was beyond help. I knew I had to do this, now, for the survival of the family.

The terrible weight of the body in my arms. But none of it felt real. Part of me thought that if I looked at Ben’s face it would make it real. Perhaps that was important, for some sort of closure. But in the end I couldn’t bring myself to do it. To undo all that tight binding, to confront what lay beneath.

So you see, this is what happened. Three nights ago Ben died—and we buried him.

Didn’t we?

Sophie

From the moment I saw her, covered in blood—my husband’s blood—I acted so quickly, almost without thought. Everything I did was to protect my daughter. It is possible that I was in shock too but my mind seemed very clear. I have always been single-minded, focused. Able to make the best out of a bad situation. It’s how I ended up with this life, after all.

I knew that if I were to have the cooperation of his sons, their help in this, Jacques would have to be alive. I knew that it had to be Benjamin who had died. Before I wrapped the body I had held Jacques’ phone up to his face, unlocked it, changed the passcode. I have kept it on me ever since, messaging Antoine and Nicolas as their papa. The longer I could keep Jacques “alive,” the more I could get out of his sons.

After I had done what I could for Benjamin—stemming the blood with a towel, cleaning the wounds—the concierge and I brought him up here to the chambres de bonne. He was too concussed to struggle; too badly injured to try and free himself. Here I’ve been keeping him alive—just. I’ve been giving him water, scraps of food: the other day a quiche from the boulangerie. All until I could decide what to do with him. He was so badly wounded that it might have been easier to let nature take its course. But we had been lovers. There was still that reminder of what we had briefly been to each other. I am many things: a whore, a mother, a liar. But I am not a killer. Unlike my beloved daughter.

“Jacques has gone away for a while,” I told my stepsons, when they arrived. “It is best that no one knows he was here in Paris tonight. So as far as you know, should anyone ask, he has been away the entire time on one of his trips. Yes?”

They nodded at me. They have never liked me, never approved of me. But in their father’s absence they were hanging on my every word. Wanting to be told what to do, how to act. They have never really grown up, either of them. Jacques never allowed them to.

I think of the gratitude that I’d felt to Jacques in the beginning, for “rescuing” me from my previous life. I didn’t realize at the time how cheaply I had been bought. I didn’t free myself when I married my husband, as I’d thought. I didn’t elevate myself. I did the exact opposite. I married my pimp: I chained myself to him for life.

Perhaps my daughter did the very thing I hadn’t had the courage to do.

Jess

I grip the knife, ready to defend Ben—and myself—should either of them come closer. Strangely, they don’t seem so threatening right now. The air feels less charged with tension. Nick is looking from Sophie to Ben and back; his eyes wild. Something else is going on here, something I can’t understand. And yet still I grip the knife. I can’t let my guard down.

“My husband is dead,” Sophie Meunier says. “That is what happened.” At these words I watch Nick stagger backward. He didn’t know?

“Qui?” he says, hoarsely. “Qui?” I think he must be asking who.

“My daughter,” Sophie Meunier says, “she was trying to protect Ben. I have been keeping your brother here,” she gestures in our direction, “I have kept him alive.” She says it like she thinks she deserves some sort of credit. I can’t find the words to answer.

I look from one to the other, trying to work out how to play this. Nick is a shrunken figure: crouched down, head in his hands. Sophie Meunier is the threat here, I’m sure. I’m the one with the knife but I wouldn’t put anything past her. She steps toward me. I raise the knife but she barely seems fazed.

“You are going to let us go,” I say: trying to sound a lot more assertive than I feel. I might have a knife, but she has us trapped here: the outside gate is locked. I’m quickly realizing there’s no way we’re getting out of this place unless she agrees to it. I doubt Ben can stand without a lot of help and there’s the whole building between us and the outside world. She’s probably thinking the same thing.

She shakes her head. “I cannot do that.”

“Yes. You have to. I need to take him to a hospital.”

“No—”

“I won’t tell them,” I say, quickly. “Look . . . I won’t say how he got the injuries. I’ll . . . I’ll tell them he fell off his moped, or something. I’ll say he must have come back to his apartment—that I found him.”

“They won’t believe you,” she says.

“I’ll find a way to convince them. I won’t tell.” I can hear desperation in my voice now. I’m begging. “Please. You can take my word for it.”

“And how can I be sure of that?”

“What other choice do you have?” I ask. “What else can you do?” I take a risk here. “Because you can’t keep us here forever. People know I’m here. They’ll come looking.” Not exactly true. There’s Theo, but he’s presumably banged up in a cell right now and I never told him the address: it would take him some time to find out. But she doesn’t need to know this. I just need to sell it. “And I know you aren’t a killer, Sophie. As you say, you kept him alive. You wouldn’t have done that if you were.”

She watches me levelly. I have no idea if any of this is working. I sense I need something more.

I think of how she said, “My daughter,” the intensity of feeling in it. I need to appeal to that part of her.

“Mimi is safe,” I say. “I promise you that much. If what you’re saying is true, she saved Ben’s life. That means a lot—that means everything. I will never tell anyone what she did. I swear to you. That secret is safe with me.”

Sophie

Can I trust her? Do I have any other choice?

“I will never tell anyone what she did.” Somehow she has managed to guess my greatest fear.

She is right: if I wanted to kill them, I would have done so already. I know that I cannot trap the two of them here indefinitely. Nor do I want to. And I don’t think my stepsons will cooperate with me now. Nicolas appears to be falling apart at the realization of his father’s death; Antoine has helped so far only because he thought he was doing his father’s bidding. I dread to think what his reaction will be when he learns the truth. I will have to work out what to do with him, but that’s not my main problem now.

“You will not tell the police,” I say. It isn’t a question.

She shakes her head. “The police and I don’t get along.” She points to Nicolas. “He’ll back me up on that.” But Nicolas barely seems to hear her. So she keeps talking, her voice low and urgent. “Look. I’ll tell you something, if it helps. My dad was a copper, actually. A real fucking hero to everyone else. Except he made my mum’s life hell. But no one would believe me when I told them about it: how he treated her, how he hit her. Because he was a ‘good guy,’ because he put bad guys in jail. And then . . .” she clears her throat, “and then one day it got too much for my mum. She decided it would just be easier to stop trying. So . . . no. I don’t trust the police. Not here, not anywhere. Even before I met your guy—Blanchot. You have my word that I am not going to go and tell them about this.”

So she knows about Blanchot. I had wondered about calling him for help here. But he has always been Jacques’ man, I do not know if his loyalties would extend to me. I cannot risk him learning the truth.

I size the girl up. I realize that, almost in spite of myself, I believe her. Partly because of what she’s just told me, about her father. Partly because I can see it in her face, the truth of it. And finally, because I’m not sure I have any other choice but to trust her. I have to protect my daughter at all costs: that is all that matters now.

Nick

I am numb. I know that feeling will return at some point, and that no doubt when it does the pain will be terrible. But for now there is only this numbness. There is a kind of relief in it. Perhaps I do not yet know what to feel. My father is dead. I spent a childhood terrorized by him, my whole adult life trying to escape him. And yet, God help me, I loved him, too.

I am acting on pure instinct, like an automaton, as I help to lift Ben, to carry him down the stairs. And though I am numb I am still aware of the strange and terrible echo of three nights ago, when I carried another body, so stiff and still, out into the courtyard garden.

For a moment, our eyes meet. He seems barely conscious, so perhaps I am imagining it . . . but I think I see something in his expression. An apology? A farewell? But just as quickly it is gone, and his eyes are closing again. And I know I wouldn’t trust it anyway. Because I never knew the real Benjamin Daniels at all.