She nodded to the attendant in reception, whose head did not lift from Paris Match, and climbed into the ancient elevator, the twin of the creaky Victorian beauty in the office. It stopped at the top floor, and Judy got out. She had a two-bedroom penthouse and her own roof terrace; she had cherished her glass of wine there in the evenings, watching the sun sink over Paris’s lovely roofscape, dreaming of Pierre, dreaming of a great future. . . .

She slung her overnight bag over her shoulder and turned the key in the lock. She braced herself for the stink of decomposition and pushed the door open, dropping her bag in the lobby.

Judy’s eyes flickered to the living room couch.

And she screamed. And screamed, and screamed.

Pierre Massot was sitting there.

He looked at her. And he smiled.

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

“This is perfect,” Natasha said. She looked around the tiny, cramped apartment. It was the basement of an apartment building in the fourteenth arrondissement. Almost windowless, it had one tiny slit, three feet by six inches, that rose above the pavement; you could watch the heels of people walking past. But it was central and dry; there was a tiny shower cubicle, with hot water, and a lavatory that worked, a steel frame double bed, a refrigerator, and a heat lamp.

And most of all, it was cheap. Pyotr had hired it for a few hundred dollars, no questions asked, for a year. He had given his full name to the landlord. Natasha, of course, was listed as Aud Vladekovich, citizen of France. She had thrilled to hear him call her “my wife.”

“It’s a dump. We’re not staying here.”

She knew better than to argue.

Pyotr tossed her a few francs. “Go to the market and buy something to eat. Make sure you talk to the stall owners.Tell them you have just moved to the neighbourhood, from Finland. Tell them the building we are living in. Complain about the apartment.”

“But why?”

Natasha twined her manicured fingers nervously through the hair at the nape of her neck. Pyotr had been strange, lately. Going places in the middle of the night. Away for hours, every day. Not speaking to her. Yet then he would come back, push her down on the bed, and make intense, dizzying love to her. Pyotr scared her, thrilled her, and confused her; he was like a drug, and she was hooked.

“Don’t ask questions,” he said. “Just do it.”

And then he walked out.

It was a warm, pleasant spring day. The breeze was attractively cool, the city sparkling in the sun; the long, formal facades of the university in the Latin Quarter pleased his sense of beauty. Pyotr strode along the streets, his eyes taking it all in. It belonged to him, he thought; it was his destiny.