For several minutes he remained there before pulling himself up so that he could see beyond the wall, across the terrace to the house itself. A number of cars, including the one he had been following all day, stood in its shadow, the light of the lamp above the main door streaming out across the terrace towards him. More lights shone in windows on all floors, casting reflections in the snow. He crouched down again and made his way below the wall to where it cut away at the end of the terrace. From here he had an oblique view across the front of the house beyond where the light fell in long yellow slabs. He eased himself in against a short flight of broken stone steps to watch and wait, silent and unseen, with an infinite and chilling patience.

He could not tell how much time had passed before the man and the girl came out. They came down the steps and crossed to their car, damp snow creaking beneath their feet. Their voices drifted with the snow and he registered only a little surprise to hear them speaking English.

‘Would you like to go somewhere?’

‘You can take me home. I’m very tired . . .’

When the car had gone the silence returned and Kale stretched his stiffening legs. He glanced up and saw a small face pressed against one of the lit windows on the first floor, watching through bars as the lights of the vehicle travelled back down the hill towards the housing estate below.

Suddenly he felt the cold, the pain in his legs and the numbness of his fingers. He no longer stood apart from himself. The face at the window was just a shadow, a small head silhouetted against the light behind it. A tiny hand came up and pressed against the pane before sliding slowly, hopelessly, down to the sill. Kale knew with a frightening certainty that this was the child who had seen him in the house at the Rue de Pavie.

Still he did not move. Another figure appeared in the room. A nurse who came to the window. The child turned and they both moved out of vision. Several more minutes passed before the nurse reappeared at the window and drew the blind so that the light behind it showed only around its edges. Then the light went out.

*

It was after midnight when the last lights went out around the house and its grounds lay in darkness. For the last hour Kale’s attention had been focused on the child’s window. He had been surprised, sometime after the light was extinguished, to see the blind slowly rise and reveal the paleness of her face in the light reflected by the snow. And there she remained, staring into the dark, head pressed against the glass.