“How can you know that for sure? Maybe he lied to you. As I understand it, that wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Knock it off,” Heloise said, looking up.

“Knock what off?”

“Don’t talk to me about my dad. I know I should have involved you in what was going on. I should have told you about him when you called last night. But what happened between him and me—our personal relationship—that’s my business. It’s none of your business, not yours or anyone else’s. So, you can just drop it. I’m not going back out there.”

They stared into each other’s eyes for a long time. Neither of them blinked.

“He doesn’t know where she is,” Heloise repeated. “Besides, you must be able to track her down. There must be cameras outside the prison along the route we took. You must be able to follow her from the restaurant with the surveillance cameras. Don’t they have them all over the place here in France?”

“They’re already looking into that.”

“Who’s they?”

“My contacts here, the French police,” Schäfer said, and then sat down in the armchair facing Heloise.

Through the window behind him, she could see the blue flashing lights from the police cars on the street outside, lighting up all the glass around the hotel entrance. They had been there when she returned to the hotel—the local police, Interpol, and Schäfer. They had been waiting for Heloise, and when she finally turned up, they had descended on her like a flock of gypsy children, aggressive, clamoring, hungry for information.

Out in the lobby, people were gathering to peer curiously into the lounge area, where she and Schäfer were sitting. The open double doors that led into the lounge were being blocked by two uniformed officers, and the hotel manager was shuffling around nervously next to them. It wasn’t good advertising for the place to have such a visible police presence here. In a city that had been dramatically affected by terrorist attacks, the blue lights felt particularly alarming.

Schäfer leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Okay,” he said, and then gestured with one hand. “Tell me what happened. What did she say to you?”

“Are you done chewing me out?” Heloise placed a hand on Anna Kiel’s backpack next to her.

Schäfer raised an eyebrow and shrugged ever so slightly in consent.

“Good, because I think your mood will improve once you hear what she had to say.”

“What did she say?” he asked, straightening up.

Heloise pulled her iPhone out of her pocket. She found the sound file and set the phone on the dark-green marble tabletop in front of Schäfer.

For the next forty-seven minutes they listened to Anna Kiel’s hoarse voice.