She looked up at the skylight and saw stars in the blackness of the sky. She thought she heard Death on the stairs, saw its dark shadow lengthening on the steps. But there was no longer fear in her. It didn’t matter any more. She would have welcomed it. Escape, finally, from the prison of her mind.

She was not certain how she had got here. Her memory of the face caught in the light below her window was fading. Her flight from the house into the deserted road, the snow that fell through the street lights, the empty bus terminus. The fingers of her memory had numbed and were no longer able to hold such things in their grasp.

Suddenly the landing lamp blinded her. And the shock of it brought back the horror of that moment on the bus when she could not pay, when the conductor had begun to shout and she could not say what it was she wanted to say. The memory came like the sudden flare of a struck match and died as quickly, leaving only a slow flame to flicker hopelessly and make little impression in the vastness of her misery. That first night, though, remained vivid in her recollection. The brick bin shelter, the cold, the smell of decay, the sound of rats scurrying unseen.

She closed her eyes against the glare of the light and heard slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps this, at last, was Death.

*

Bannerman had asked the driver to slow down as they drove past the house in the Rue de Pavie where Gryffe and Slater had been murdered. It lay in darkness, empty and neglected, like the street itself. At the far end he got out and went into a general store on the corner. An old man sold him a loaf, some cheese and two litres of red wine. As an afterthought he also bought a carton of milk. The old man gave him a brown paper bag to carry his purchases back to the taxi, which whisked him off through the snowbound city as the stars came out hard and clear overhead.

In the Rue de Commerce, Slater’s car stood by the kerb where he had left it. Three inches of snow lay on the roof, its coat of frost glistening in the lamplight. He climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver and watched it slither cautiously away down the street. The weight of his fatigue and the burden of his pain were enormous. How could he even think about things or put them in their proper perspective until he’d had some sleep? He would have a hot bath, and then something to eat, washed down with wine. And more wine. And more. Until both his mind and body were numb. Then he would sleep for ever.