The Woman in the Fifth

Twenty-one

THE SAME EVENING that she opened her eyes, Megan began to speak again. The next day she was able to be fed by spoon. Forty-eight hours later, she insisted on getting up out of bed to use the toilet. Despite having a cast on her left arm and leg she still managed to hobble there on crutches. The following morning, the police found the driver of the hit-and-run vehicle. It was a messy story — a recently divorced woman in her forties; a lawyer in a big-deal firm in Cleveland, with ‘alcohol issues’. On the morning of the accident, she had been drinking in her motel room during breakfast. She was blotto and smashed into Megan around five minutes after leaving the hotel. She panicked and kept on driving, eventually checking into a motel near the Kentucky border where the cops found her. She was heavily insured — and the lawyer now representing Megan threatened publicity if she and her law firm didn’t settle quickly.

‘The negotiation was very fast,’ Susan told me in our daily transatlantic phone call. ‘Our guy was a complete son of a bitch and very shrewd. Megan will be getting a check for half a million dollars. So that’s her college education sorted out — and it will give us a little cushion until I find a new job.’

I said, ‘The important thing is, she will have no lasting physical effects from the accident. The psychological scars, on the other hand—’

‘—will be added to the large amount of shit that her parents have already dumped into her lap … and the fact that her mother is a slut who slept her way back into a tenured position at the college by fucking a pedophile.’

‘I really think you should stop blaming yourself here—’

‘But I do. I do.’

‘Well, I blame myself too.’

‘You’re being magnanimous again … which is a way of making me feel bad.’

‘You think that, by being reconciliatory, I’m actually trying to get at you? I just feel very sorry for you …’

Silence. I could hear her weeping into the phone.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry …’ she whispered. ‘I’ve messed up so badly. I’ve …’

‘Our daughter is alive and well. That’s the only thing that matters right now. And I do want to speak with her again,’ I said.

‘I did tell her you rushed over to be by her side. She seemed happy about that, but couldn’t understand why you had to hurry back so fast to Paris.’

Because the dead woman who had put Megan in the path of that car demanded her twice-weekly ‘service’. If I had failed in this obligation, our daughter would have remained in her coma.

‘As I tried to explain to you in that phone call … I had a job interview …’

‘You could have told them your daughter was seriously injured,’ she said at the time.

‘I did tell them that — and they were very understanding, but also said that they had to fill the post immediately. I have no money. Nor do you. So I really couldn’t tell them to wait—’

‘That’s right — rub it in again that I lost my job. Heighten my massive guilt about—’

‘Susan … stop.’

‘But if I stop, you won’t have to listen to the truth. And the truth is—’

The truth is: these sorts of conversations are why I started hating this marriage …

‘The truth is …’ I said, interrupting her, ‘I cannot travel anywhere now for the next six months.’

‘What?‘ she said, sounding outraged. I explained about being caught in a fire at the place where I was a night watchman (she had a hard time accepting that bit of information), and that I was told by the specialist who treated me that I couldn’t risk air travel now.

‘So do you want me to congratulate you on risking your life by flying to your daughter’s bedside?’

‘Susan, I honestly do not give a shit what you think. What I do know is that, when I got back here I was coughing up blood. The pulmonary specialist has grounded me until after Christmas. This is completely maddening, as where I want to be right now is with Megan. But go ahead and think the worst of me. You always have. You always will.’

And I hung up.

Several hours later, as I lay next to Margit in her bed, she said, ‘I liked the way you handled things today with Susan. Far more assertive that you used to be.’

‘How do you know how I used to be with her?’

‘I know everything about you. Just as I also knew you would do the honorable thing and be here today.’

‘You call “coercion” honorable? I am only here because—’

‘If you want to carry on with the delusion that you have been trapped into this, be my guest. But you will spend the rest of your life enraged by my alleged ambush of you. Whereas if you are in any way canny, you will see all the benefits our arrangement can bring you. And since you are about to run out of money in two weeks, we need to get you that job.’

‘But I made that job up.’

‘So you say.’

Three days later, while we were drinking our usual postcoital whisky, Margit said, ‘You need to go back to Lorraine L’Herbert’s salon this Sunday.’

‘There’s no chance of that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because as soon as Madame or her major-domo hears that it’s me asking for an invite, they’ll slam the door in my face.’

‘Poor Harry — always thinking that people actually care about him. You didn’t outrage Madame L’Herbert when you came bursting in on her, demanding to know if she knew me. Like all self-obsessives, she never muses for a great deal of time about other people, except in relation to herself. So your little scene in her apartment lasted about fifty-five seconds in her consciousness. Fear not — all she and her pimp are interested in is your twenty-euro admission fee. Call them tomorrow and be certain to be there on Sunday night. Then get yourself introduced to a gentleman named Laurence Coursen. He’s the head of the American Institute in Paris, and he’s been going to L’Herbert’s salon for years to pick up women, as he’s married to this very rich nightmare who weighs around one hundred and fifty kilos and spends much of her waking hours giving him a hard time. I know he’s in the market for someone to teach film at the Institute. Just put yourself in his path and be charming …’

‘Fat chance of that.’

‘But Harry, you are charming …’

It was the first time Margit had ever paid me a compliment.

I did as instructed. I called Henry Montgomery, ‘Madame L’Herbert’s assistant’. He didn’t verbally flinch when I said my name. He just gave me the door code and reminded me to arrive with twenty-five euros (‘The price has gone up a bit’) in an envelope on Sunday night. This time it was an easy twenty-minute stroll from my hotel on the rue du Dragon to her apartment down the street from the Pantheon.

When I arrived there at the appointed hour on Sunday night, the salon was in full swing. Henry Montgomery didn’t seem to recognize me. But he did relieve me of my envelope and glanced at my name (printed as instructed on the front) and then brought me over to Lorraine. As before, she was standing under one of her nude portraits, holding court. Montgomery whispered something in her ear. Immediately she was all effusive.

‘Harry, what a joy to see you again. It’s been … how long?’

‘Quite a few months.’

‘And still here. So Paris has taken hold of you.’

‘That it has,’ I said.

‘Now you paint, right?’

‘I teach. Film studies. And I was wondering if Larry Coursen might be around tonight?’

‘Cruising for a job, are we?’

‘Actually, I am.’

‘American directness. Nothing like it, pardner. Larry! Larry!’

She started yelling to a man in late middle age, dressed in an off-white suit that looked around twenty years old and was in need of a good pressing. He came over.

‘Larry, you must meet Harry. He’s a brilliant professor. Teaches … what was it again?’

‘Film studies.’

‘That a fact?’ Larry said. ‘Where do you teach?’

‘Well, I used to teach at …’

And the conversation was off and running. L’Herbert drifted off. Coursen and I must have talked for around half an hour — largely about the movies (he was a serious film nut), but also about the Institute of which he was the Director. As he asked me a bit about the sort of courses I used to teach and my ‘professorial style’, it was evident that he was conducting an impromptu interview on the spot.

‘What exactly have you been doing in Paris?’

‘Trying to write a novel.’

‘Have you published before?’

‘Plenty of academic papers and the like …’

‘Really? Whereabouts?’

I told him.

‘And do you have an apartment here?’

‘I did. I’m between them right now, staying at a hotel.’

‘Would you have the number on you?’

I wrote it down for him.

‘I might be in touch in the next few days.’

He started glancing around the room and then locked eyes with a woman around twenty. She gave him a small wave.

‘Nice to meet you, Harry,’ he said.

After Coursen had gone off with his very young friend, I drifted out on to the balcony. It had started to drizzle, so it was empty. I looked over at the spot where I first met Margit. Say I hadn’t come here that night? Say I hadn’t flirted with her and engaged in that mad embrace and taken her phone number and called her up? But I had done all that because I was lonely and sad and feeling unwanted and lost … and because I had so wanted to see her again.

‘I came into your life because you needed me, Harry.’

Yes. I did. And now … we are together. In perpetuity.

I turned and headed back into the salon. Lorraine was standing near the food table, talking to a Japanese woman dressed head to toe in tight black leather. Lorraine turned away from her as I approached.

‘I wanted to thank you for your hospitality,’ I said.

‘Going so soon, hon?’

I nodded.

‘Good conversation with Larry Coursen?’

‘Yes … and I appreciate the introduction. We’ll see if anything comes of it.’

‘And I saw you out on the balcony. Still looking for your Hungarian?’

‘No. But I didn’t think you remembered me …’

‘Hon, you barging in — asking about a woman who came here once in 1980 — was hard to forget. But want to hear something rather droll? After you left I did ask Henry about — what was her name? — Kadar? He actually remembered her rather well — because her husband Zoltan got talking with another woman the night they were here, and there was a scene out on the balcony with the Hungarian threatening to toss the other woman into rue Soufflot. Henry said he’d never seen such a jealous rage — and one that came out in whispers … a sure sign of insanity in my book. Hell, give me a proper screaming match any day. So consider yourself lucky you really didn’t meet her. That kind of crazy — when they get their claws into you—’

‘I really have to go now,’ I said, cutting her off.

‘Hey, fear not. I won’t say a word to Larry Coursen about any of this. Don’t want to cost you a job or anything. And y’all come back here again, you hear?’

L’Herbert was true to her word about not telling Coursen about my ‘girlfriend’. There was a message the next day at my hotel from his secretary. Could I present myself at his office at 3 p.m. tomorrow for an interview?

The American Institute was out in Neuilly. A sprawling hotel particulier refurbished with classrooms and offices and a large public lecture theater. Coursen was pleasant and businesslike. He had dug out all my professional details. He had Googled some of my academic papers and journalistic pieces. As expected, he had read all about the scandal that had cost me my job.

‘I’d appreciate hearing the story from you,’ he said.

I took him through it, trying to be very honest about my errors in judgment and saying that, although Robson went public with the affair, I still felt great guilt about what happened to Shelley.

After I finished, Coursen said, ‘I appreciate your directness. It’s damn unusual these days — and rather refreshing. I also did make a call to one of your former colleagues in your department: Douglas Stanley. He gave you a fantastic recommendation and also said that the entire business with the student wouldn’t have turned into the drama and tragedy that it became if Robson hadn’t fanned the flames. And hey, that’s one hell of a story about what happened to Robson, isn’t it? Kind of makes you believe there is some cosmic force out there that punishes bastards.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

‘Anyway, the thing is, this is France, thank God, not the US … so I can’t see too many people objecting if I offer you a post here. Between ourselves … I completely sympathize. My second marriage ended when my wife caught me in bed with one of my students back at the University of Connecticut. Best thing that ever happened to me, as it got me to France. We’re fellow refugees, Harry.’

The post was initially for one thirteen-week term. I would teach two courses: ‘Introduction to Film’ and ‘Great American Directors’. The entire total of class time would come to twelve hours a week and I’d be paid eight thousand euros for the term. He’d also arrange the necessary carte de sejour with the French authorities. If everything worked out, we could discuss an extension of my contract toward the end of this probationary period.

I accepted on the spot — but with one proviso: none of the courses could run between 5 and 8 p.m.

‘No problem,’ Coursen said. ‘We’ll set them up for the mornings and afternoons. But hey, who’s the dame? And if you’re seeing her from five to eight she must be married.’

‘It’s … uh … complicated.’

‘It always is. And that’s what makes it fun.’

When I saw Margit the next day, she said, ‘You handled the interview very well. And you were absolutely right to explain the affair the way you did. No excuses. No attempting to apportion blame elsewhere. Very smart. So congratulations … though I do think your new patron is tres louche. And by the way, don’t listen to that old queen Henry Montgomery about my deranged jealousy. What Madame L’Herbert failed to mention to you was that I caught that woman giving Zoltan a blow job on the balcony.

Now as you well know, I am very open-minded about such things. But to shame me in public like that? So yes, I did hiss a lot at her and I did half-tip her over the balcony. But I was holding her very tightly. A little salope like that wasn’t worth a lengthy spell in jail.

‘But I digress. I am delighted for you, Harry. And don’t worry about the one-term probation business. Coursen will extend your contract.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so.’

‘I need you to do something else for me. I need you to get Susan her job back.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile, she’s had some more good financial news come her way. Most of Robson’s estate went to his children, but he rewrote his will recently, making your ex-wife the beneficiary of his pension from the college in case he died before retirement. It isn’t vast — but she will have an income of around fifteen hundred dollars per month. And with your daughter’s tuition now taken care of, she’ll get by.’

Susan gave me this news herself when I called her that night.

‘It’s about the only thing that bastard Robson did right,’ she said. ‘And it couldn’t come at a more critical moment.’

‘I’m pleased for you.’

‘Benefiting from the pension of a child pornographer — and having to accept it because I am in such financial hot water — now there’s dramatic irony for you. And it shows just how low I’ve sunk.’

‘You’re right to take the money.’

‘Well, at least the FBI have decided I wasn’t the bookkeeper for his little Internet business. They cleared me today.’

‘More good news. And I have some to add to that.’

I told her about the job at the American Institute.

‘Lucky you. I so miss teaching.’

‘And I so miss my daughter.’

‘She managed to sit up in a chair by the hospital bed for most of the morning. The doctors all say they cannot figure out how she came out of the coma without significant brain damage.’

‘Miracles can happen, I suppose. We’re very lucky. And I’m desperate to speak to her.’

‘I broached it with her yesterday. She’s still very angry at you. I do take some of the blame for that. After everything blew up for you, I really turned her against you. It was pure rage and revenge. A terrible thing to have done. I see that now. And I will try to put it right.’

At our next liaison, Margit said, ‘What an Act of Contrition on her part. Guilt is such a fantastic leveler.’

‘Did you organize the pension business?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘And the Feds?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You really like to keep me guessing, don’t you?’

‘But look at what you get in return. Emotional tidiness. Wrongs righted. Jobs offered. Admissions of guilt from those who hurt you. Even my services as a real-estate agent. There’s a studio apartment for let in a haussmannien building on the rue des Ecoles. Twenty-six square metres, nicely renovated, and only six hundred euros a month. Very reasonable for this quartier and you’ll be in walking distance of so many cinemas …’

‘Not to mention you.’

‘Well, five minutes away on foot is far more convenient than all that travel you used to do from the Tenth.’

‘And you’ll have me almost on your doorstep.’

‘Harry, you’re always on my doorstep. You know that. Just as you know I’m with you even when you don’t want me to be with you. But again I digress. You need to get to the estate agent first thing tomorrow morning. Tell them you’re a prof at the American Institute — they’ll like that. If they make worried noises about your lack of a bank account, tell them you’ve just arrived from the States and are about to open one. Coursen will supply you with a reference and a two-thousand-euro advance on your contract. That should get you set up. After that—’

‘I think I can take it from there.’

‘Am I sounding like your mother?’

‘No comment.’

‘I just want to get your life full back on track. And this apartment, it’s perfect. You won’t find anything like it for—’

‘OK, Margit. Point taken. I will be at the agence immobiliere by nine.’

By ten the next day I had rented the apartment. Margit was right: it was a terrific little place. Simple, but stylishly done. Coursen was very good about getting the Institute to front me two grand in advance. Within three days I had moved into the studio. After the squalor and dinginess of rue de Paradis, my new apartment seemed pristine and splendidly private. With the balance of money left over from the salary advance, I bought sheets and towels and a stereo and began the process of settling in.

Then the teaching began. I liked my students. They seemed to like me — and I quickly remembered what a pleasure it could be to stand up at a lectern and spout on about movies. The first term passed by with great speed. I got a phone installed in the apartment. I called Susan every day. Megan was back at school within four weeks of her accident. But she was still refusing to speak to her father. ‘She doesn’t talk much to me either,’ Susan said. ‘She really mopes a lot. The doctors say it’s a natural side effect after coming out of a coma. She’s depressed. But at least she’s talking to a psychotherapist at school. So … be patient. She will come around.’

Everything began to fall into place. My contract at the American Institute was extended for two years. I met a guy at a reception at the Institute who edited a weekly magazine for expatriates and was looking for a film critic. The pay wasn’t much — one-fifty a column — but it got me writing about movies again and brought in a little more money. I was able to buy a few better clothes. I invested in a television and a DVD. I purchased a new laptop. I bought a cellphone. I gave my lectures, I wrote my column, I worked out in the Institute’s gym, I continued to haunt the Cinematheque and the little movie houses that crammed my quartier. I had my daily call to Susan about Megan. We were polite with each other on the phone — the edgy anger now abating into a respectful distance. We were no longer enemies; rather, weary combatants who had decided it was now easier to be civil with each other and only had one agreed subject of conversation: their daughter.

Time continued to accelerate. I taught all summer. I loved the vacant streets of Paris in August, and managed a two-and-a-half-day holiday on the beach in Collioure. Outside of my work I found something to ‘do’ every day — a movie, an exhibition, a concert, books to read, magazines to peruse — anything to fill the hours.

One afternoon, I spent the better part of a half-hour in the permanent collection of the Pompidou, staring at one of Yves Klein’s blue monochrome paintings. I’d seen this one in art books before. But approaching it — in the flesh, so to speak — was revelatory. At first sight, it was just a canvas painted a deep blue — its tint somewhat akin to a late-afternoon sky on a clear winter’s day. Darkness was visible within its confines. But the longer I stared at it, the more I began to see the subtle gradients in Klein’s shading of the canvas: a complex array of textures and tonal variations, all lurking behind what, at first, simply seemed like a large blue square. But it wasn’t just its intricate blueness that held my attention. After a few minutes of direct eye contact, the painting proved hypnotic. The textures disappeared and I found myself staring into a place of spatial emptiness: a void without limits, from which there was no return. Until someone bumped into me, jolting me back to terra firma. I felt a little befuddled. But much later that night, as I climbed into bed and turned off the light, Klein’s infinite blueness came back to me. And I couldn’t help but think, That’s the void I live in now.

The floppy disk that Margit had returned to me was put away in a drawer in my new apartment. One evening, toward the beginning of September, I pulled it out and loaded it into my laptop. I spent a long Saturday reading all six hundred pages of my still unfinished novel. When I reached the end, I removed the disk from the computer. I put it back in my desk drawer and resolved never to look at it again.

You’re right, you’re right, I heard myself telling her. Overcooked, self-important posturings with no real storyline, no motor to keep you turning the pages.

I knew she could hear me say that. Just as I knew she was always there, always watching.

‘So you finally gave up on the novel,’ Margit said when I saw her the following day.

‘Why ask a question to which you already know the answer?’

‘Just making conversation.’

‘No, you’re just doing what you always do: reminding me of your omnipresence.’

‘I would have thought that, by now, you would have adjusted to—’

‘I’ll never adjust. Never. How can I, knowing you’re hovering over me, making certain—?’

‘—that no harm comes to you—’

‘But that I also stay within the rules.’

‘There’s only one rule, Harry. Here twice a week from five until eight.’

‘And in the future, if I want to visit my daughter for four days?’

‘Make it three days. Or — when she’s ready — fly her over here.’

‘Can’t we negotiate?’

‘No. This is the set-up. It has its minor limitations. It has its liberties. As I said before, you are free to do what you like outside our time together.’

‘Even though you’re watching over me at all times?’

‘And what is wrong with that?’

I said nothing. But a few nights later, I started writing this book. I wanted to get it all down on paper; a record of what happened — just in case something did happen to me — and to try and convince myself that I was not living in a state of permanent delusion. But why should you accept this story as given? It’s just a story — my story. And like all stories, it isn’t, in the pure sense of the word, true. It’s just my version of the truth. Which means it is — and isn’t — true at all.

How do you step out of one world and into another? I’ve no damn idea — but I keep doing it twice a week.

‘What happens to you when you grow older?’ I asked her recently. ‘Do you die again?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘And when I die, do I join you in spectral perpetuity?’

‘I have no idea … but I like the turn of phrase. Are you putting it in your book?’

I met her gaze.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘It’s interesting reading,’ she said. ‘Not that anyone will believe you.’

‘I’m not writing it to be read.’

‘Rubbish. All writers write to be read … to have their story “out there”. But trust me: this will never get published.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘Just a statement of fact … as I see it, of course.’

‘So you’re going to make certain it never gets published?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘You implied that.’

‘Hardly. Your life outside our hours together …’

… is my own?

But how can it be when she’s constantly there ? How can you make a decision when you know there is a third party present, guarding you from the wrong choice? Recently I dashed out into the rue des Ecoles, trying to hail a taxi, and unaware that I had stepped right into the path of a motorcyclist. Though less than two seconds away from hitting me, the cyclist flipped over, as if shoved out of my path by some hidden force. He got up, unhurt. But when a cop showed up moments later and asked him if he had swerved to avoid me, he said he was certain someone pushed him.

‘Did you see anyone push him?’ the cop asked me. I shook my head.

The next afternoon, chez Margit, I said, ‘Thank you for saving me yesterday.’

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you to look both ways before stepping out into the street?’

‘If he had hit me, it might have taught me a lesson.’

‘If he had hit you, you would have been dead. The fact that he didn’t also taught you a lesson.’

‘How wonderful to have a Fairy Godmother,’ I said.

‘How wonderful to be appreciated. Still writing the book?’

‘Aren’t you reading it as I write it?’

‘You have no proof. But I do worry about the way you work so late into the night, and are then up a few hours later.’

‘I don’t need much sleep.’

‘Correction: you don’t get much sleep, but you still need it.’

How can anyone sleep when they know there’s someone monitoring them all the time?

‘I’m fine.’

‘You should start taking those pills again.’

They won’t help. Because I will never rest easy with you in my life.

‘They didn’t do much good.’

‘Go see a doctor and get something stronger.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You hate this. Us.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You will adjust. Because you’ll have to. You have no choice.’

But I still clung to the belief that, outside of our hours together, I did have choice. A few nights after this conversation, I went to a jazz joint on the rue des Lombards and got talking at the bar with a fellow American named Rachel: a woman in her forties, single, something in Mutual Funds in Boston, attractive, alone in Paris for a long weekend (‘The job’s so pressured, I only can squeeze a few days off, here and there’), chatty and happy to match me drink-for-drink over the course of three hours. Around two in the morning, as the place was closing down, she covered my hand with hers and said her hotel was a five-minute stagger from here.

It was all very pleasant and rather romantic. I had to get up early to teach. Rachel wrapped her arms around me in bed and said, ‘What a nice bit of luck meeting you. And if you’re free tonight …’

‘I’m free tonight.’

She smiled and kissed me.

‘You’ve just made my day.’

And she’d made mine. I spent much of it in a state of delighted exhaustion, thinking just how smart and lovely Rachel was, and how nice it was to want and feel wanted again.

I arrived back at her hotel, as arranged, at seven that night, a bottle of champagne in hand. But when I asked the desk clerk to call Rachel in her room, he asked, ‘Are you Monsieur Ricks?’

I nodded.

‘I’m afraid Madame has checked out. A death in the family. She left you this.’

He handed me an envelope. Inside, on a piece of hotel stationery, was a hastily scribbled note.

Dearest Harry:

Have just found out my mother passed away this morning. All very sudden and shocking. I so loved our night together. If you’re ever in Boston …

And she gave me her number.

I crumpled up the note and handed the desk clerk the bottle of champagne and told him I had no use for it anymore.

If you’re ever in Boston …

Rachel, I’d come like a shot to see you in Boston — but only for forty-eight hours. Because that’s all the time allotted to me.

‘Did you kill her mother?’ I asked Margit the next afternoon.

‘She was an eighty-year-old woman. At that age, a sudden heart attack …’

‘So if I see another woman again … ?’

‘Hopefully she won’t lose her mother so suddenly.’

‘Or walk under a bus. You like traffic accidents, don’t you? They’re your preferred way of settling the score.’

‘You have no proof.’

‘You’re always saying that.’

‘See you in three days, Harry. And who knows, you might get a pleasant surprise before then.’

The surprise arrived just before midnight that night. I was at home, working on this book, when the phone rang. I answered it.

‘Dad?’

The receiver shook in my hand.

‘Megan?’

‘Thought I’d call and say hello.’

We talked for around twenty minutes. I didn’t raise the subject of the last ten months. Nor did she. Her conversation was tentative, guarded. She talked about the accident, about school, how her mother was still out of work, how she wasn’t sleeping well, and still felt ‘spooked by stuff ‘.

‘This counselor I’ve been talking to at school — well, he’s more of a shrink — he says, “We’re all spooked by stuff.”’

‘He’s right,’ I said. ‘We all are.’

She said she had to go. ‘But maybe I can call you next week.’

‘That would be great,’ I said.

‘Cool. Catch you then, Dad.’

After Megan hung up I sat at my desk for a long time, swallowing hard, choking back tears. Only sometime later did I find myself wondering, Did ‘she’ set that up? Was this the ‘pleasant surprise’ she talked about?

‘You have no proof. ‘

But I did have evidence.

Inspector Coutard also had evidence. My laptop. Still impounded in the commissariat de police of the Tenth arrondissement. A week before Christmas, he rang me at the American Institute to say that I could come by and collect it now.

I showed up later that afternoon. He was wearing the same grubby jacket he had sported when he first interviewed me. His desk was awash with paperwork, his office ashtray clogged up with butts, and he had a cigarette screwed into a corner of his mouth.

‘How did you find out I was teaching at the American Institute?’ I asked.

‘I’m a detective. And I also see that you now have a carte de sejour and a new address in the Fifth. I’m pleased that you have moved up in our world; that things are better.’

‘Yes … I suppose they are.’

‘Well, we no longer have any use for this,’ he said, pointing to the laptop positioned on the edge of his desk. ‘Sezer and his associates are still under lock and key. They’ll go to trial for Omar’s murder and everything else in February. It’s a fait accompli that they will be convicted. The evidence is so conclusive …’

Because she knows how to plant conclusive evidence.

‘Anyway,’ he said, tapping the laptop, ‘now you can return to your novel.’

‘I’ve given up on it.’

‘But why?’

‘You know why. It was no damn good.’

‘I never said that.’

‘I’m not saying that you did.’

‘But surely you haven’t given up on writing altogether?’

‘No, I’m working on something.’

‘A new novel?’ he asked.

‘Non-fiction … though everyone will think otherwise.’

I could see him taking that in.

‘And your “friend” — the woman in the Fifth — do you still see her?’

‘Every three days without fail.’

Coutard raised his eyebrows. He shook his head. He put out his cigarette and lit another, puffing away on it for a good minute while studying me with detached professional interest. Finally he said, ‘You are truly haunted, monsieur.’

Guilty as charged.