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even his mother might have wished. No. Then, too, death was not always a form of disentanglement, as he, himself, knew too well.
    He hurried to the far end of the boat. A young, blonde woman emerged from the shadows at the corner like a hallucination . She was sitting on a bench and nursing a baby, crooning to it.
    He averted his gaze, but her voice stopped him. ‘
Vous êtes
aussi du Commissariat?’
    No, no, he wasn’t from the police. James shook his head and cast his eyes to the ground. The woman’s boots protruded from the flounce of her skirt. They were black and shiny.
    He reached for his pipe, then thought better of it and turned to retrace his steps. He should go back to that room to see how Raf was doing. Yet he couldn’t quite face the sight of that body lying there so still amidst the onlookers. Maisie had had that stillness about her. Her cheeks, too, had a puffiness, but she had lain on sheets of the softest white. Yes. Maisie.
    He realised that his nails were biting into his palms. His stomach churned. He leaned against the boat’s rail and gazed into the waters, willing the turmoil of those old emotions away. He wished for a habitual task to escape to, some responsibility which would whisk him away from the clotted hold of that past ordeal.
    The man who now approached him and offered cigarettes from a silver case had the glow of a saviour despite his appearance. He was of middle height, bearded, slightly built. His shirt protruded from his open jacket as if he had forgotten to tuck it in. His tie was askew. Lank hair fell over his brow. There was an unsavoury air about him as he took a long puff of his cigarette.
    ‘The second Mr Norton,
je crois
. I am Gilles Touquet. Journalist, Anglophile, and a friend, a
collègue
of the first Mr Norton.’ His laugh was hollow as he tipped his bowler. ‘Bad business, this. Very bad business.
La Tristesse d’Olympe.
You know, Olympe Fabre once did a dance to which she gave that name.’
    ‘What happened to her?’ James asked.
    Touquet shrugged. ‘Who knows! But I found her. Well not
exactement
found. I do the crime,’ he pronounced the word in the French way, ‘for my paper.
Le Journal
. You know it?’
    James encouraged him with a nod.
    ‘I heard from one of my contacts at the Préfecture that abody had been fished out of the Seine. I rushed over. Recognised Olympe Fabre immediately, but I pretended not to. I wanted to get your brother here. I knew he was looking for her.’ He threw James a swift sidelong glance.
    ‘And he came quickly, made a big brouhaha. Insisted that the police get Durand on the scene.’
    ‘Durand?’
    ‘Yes, Chief Inspector Emile Durand, you saw him perhaps. The stout little dapper man with the heavy brows and the big broom of a moustache.’
    He gestured down the deck and moulded his body into a perfect parody of the man James had noted. ‘Durand is high up in the
Judiciaire
and a reputable detective. One of the force’s all too rare upholders of justice and scientific investigation . If you had come a few moments earlier, you would have heard him chastising the boatman for dragging Olympe’s body along the deck, perhaps breaking her arm, obliterating useful clues. He was fierce.’
    Touquet chuckled, then stopped himself abruptly. He puffed at his cigarette. ‘It’s a good thing, too, that Rafael brought Madame de Landois here. Her association with the case will mean that our police take the matter seriously. Otherwise you know, they can be a little lazy. Another lovelorn grisette in the Seine. Another suicide. What difference can it make, eh?’ He shrugged in exaggerated fashion.
    A half-empty
bateau mouche
passed them. One of the passengers waved. Touquet beckoned back in hearty fashion. Waves rocked the boat. James clung to the rail. His stomach was churning.
    ‘And is it suicide?’
    Touquet peered at him from his bulging eyes. ‘Your brother does not think so.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘No. And now that Madame de Landois is