As the instant ended Ben opened his eyes and was brought back to the present. The man in the black coat was still looking up at the apartment window, frowning as though similar thoughts were going through his mind, too. Then a silver Mercedes Benz saloon pulled sharply up at the kerbside next to him with a screech of tyres. Its tinted driver’s window slid down and another olive-skinned, swarthy-looking guy inside started gesticulating and beckoning. Ben couldn’t make out the words, but it was obvious the driver was urging the man in the black coat to get in the car.

The man hesitated for a second, as though he was thinking about turning back and returning inside the building. Ben wished he would. But then the man changed his mind and hurried around to the car’s passenger side, yanked open the door and flung himself into the seat, and the door slammed and the driver hit the gas and the Mercedes took off with another squeal of tyres, accelerating hard away down the street.

By then, Ben was already racing from the apartment. He jumped over the body of Romy Juneau, sprinted through the hallway and hammered down the stairs and slid down the spiral banister rail to descend the last two floors more quickly. Reaching the entrance foyer he burst out of the inset door into the street.

But the silver Mercedes was already long gone, and the man in the black coat with it. All that remained in his wake was the memory of his name, who he was and the things he had done.

And the fact that he was supposed to have been dead years ago.

Chapter 5

Ben didn’t return upstairs to Romy Juneau’s apartment. There was nothing more he could do. He had left no trace of his visit; it was as though he’d never been there at all.

He was burning up inside with anger and confusion and frustration. But he kept his pace slow and measured as he walked up to the end of Rue Joséphine Beaugiron and went inside the bar-restaurant called Chez Bogart. The interior was all decked out with framed posters and stills from old movies. Whoever owned the joint was obviously a big Bogie fan. And doing good business, too. Most of the punters were the late breakfast crowd, noisily enjoying their brioche French toast and buttered baguettes sprinkled with grated chocolate and bowls of café au lait while defenceless women got battered to death just down the street.