Monsieur Valentin was quite old—at least fifty—and French. He always wore green corduroy pants for which he was a bit too tall, and walked with enormous strides even in a small place like the bookshop. He had a short, unkempt beard and smelled strongly of onions and kittens. If you think that kittens do not smell of anything, you have clearly never owned a pet shop. Monsieur Valentin did not exactly own the pet shop, however; he just lived in it. The Exotic Pet Emporium belonged to his wife. He did the accounts and worked, when he could, as a theatrical director, a profession in decreasing demand these days in the Old Town.

“And you are habsolutely sure you are ’ees nephew?” Monsieur Valentin was saying to Wolf. “And you say you are looking after ’ees shop until ’ee comes back from Hantarctica? Mmm. I am beginning to hunderstand. But surely ’ee would ’av told you of our harrangement?”

Monsieur Valentin had a habit of leaving Hs off the start of words that required them, and then adding the spare ones freely to words that did not.

“No, he didn’t say anything,” said Wolf. “He . . .” Wolf did not find it easy to lie; he never had. But of course he couldn’t tell Monsieur Valentin what had really happened to Leonard Levar, or how Wolf had ended up with the keys to his bookshop, as well as all his other property and money.

“ ’Ee lets me borrow any of ’ees books I like,” said Monsieur Valentin. “For my program of self-himprovement. ’Ee sometimes borrows hanimals from my wife’s shop in return. You are of course welcome to do the same, as long as you return them hun’armed. . . .”

“No,” said Wolf quickly. “I won’t need any animals.”

“Well, I need my books,” said Monsieur Valentin. “When did you say your huncle would be returning?”

“I don’t know,” said Wolf. “Not for a long time.”

“And you are sleeping on this camp bed, I see.”

Monsieur Valentin started walking around the shop, the slightly flared bottoms of his green corduroy pants flapping around his long legs as he did so. He only needed to take three steps to cover the whole area; then he came back. Wolf hoped he’d stop, but he didn’t. He started again, this time looking at things.

At some point Wolf would also need to tell Effie what had happened to her grandfather’s old apartment. He wished he hadn’t had to leave. Until two weeks ago, Wolf had been secretly living in it, and had held what he’d thought were the only set of keys (and, indeed, the deeds to the whole building, which he’d found in a filing cabinet in Leonard Levar’s bookshop). But then a tall American woman had turned up while Wolf had been at school, and moved in. Just like that.