This time, the bonus had gone into her account on Thursday: £70,000. In the days leading up to it, she promised herself she’d put it towards her credit card debt. Close some of her accounts. But the temptation to use it as capital, to invest it and earn enough to pay off all her debt, was too much. After all, that’s what she did for her day job. It was the same, wasn’t it? The money was gone in a couple of hours.

Beyond the shutters of her bedroom, she could hear Paris yawning awake below; the white lorries arriving with deliveries at Le Bon Marché, shutters clattering at the local shops. A city readying itself for a new day. She buried her head in her hands, rubbing her fingers up and down her smooth forehead. It was the last time. She just needed to recoup her losses and that was it. She’d quit for good this time. She needed £150,000 by the time she returned home tomorrow and it was totally doable. That’s what she kept telling herself. You’ve got this, Jules. She’d once made £500,000 in a day for the Mantel fund, famously holding her ground shorting Santosa Banking Corp stock before the market knew that it would tumble. She could easily make £150,000 over the weekend to save her own skin.

*

‘Hey, remember Valentin? I wonder whatever happened to him?’ Alice asked a few hours later, as they walked towards the boat terminal by Îl de la Cité. At Alice’s insistence they’d strolled up through the Latin Quarter, stopping for coffee at Café Mabillon – a favoured haunt of theirs historically, as it was always open super late – and along boulevard Saint-Germain, the scene of many a shopping spree, and had a brief browse at the bookshop they all loved, Shakespeare and Company.

Jules shrugged disinterestedly. Alice was in a strange mood, regaling them with reminders of previous nights out and things they’d got up to when they were younger, and Jules was trying to concentrate. It was busy around the boat terminal, with flocks of tourists figuring out where to go. A few knocked into Jules as she steadfastly stared at her phone.

‘… Remember when you bumped into that guy you were seeing from your course, Neen, on your way home, and you were wearing the same clothes from the night before?’ Alice laughed, as they settled on the boat’s orange-red plastic chairs.

Jules felt her eyelids flicker, weighted by the rocking of the boat. The adrenaline that had kept her up all night was abating, the waves lulling her towards sleep. The light was almost blindingly bright so close to the water, sun streaks obscuring her vision as she squinted. She was finding it really hard to keep her eyes open. She had some study drugs one of the interns had given her in her desk at work. She wished now she’d had the foresight to bring them. Actually… didn’t she plan to bring them home to dispose of them? She rooted around in her bag and found a pack in the secret pocket. It was like an epiphany. Yes! she thought to herself. Yes! She knocked two back with some water.