The door opened and a lean man in a baggy brown suit stepped briskly into the office carrying a slim, beige folder. The crown of his head was bald and shiny, but dark, wiry hair grew in bushy abundance round it, and he wore round-rimmed tortoiseshell spectacles over a long, thin nose with flaring nostrils. He would be in his fifties, Bannerman guessed, with a grey, deeply creased face from which peered two small, very dark eyes behind the spectacles. His suit was well worn and fitted only where it touched. His waistcoat was open, a thin brown tie hanging from an open-necked white shirt. He carried about him an air of age and defeat, like a schoolmaster nearing the end of his career, reeking of chalk dust and blackboards and thankless years.

He closed the door behind him and nodded solemnly at Bannerman. It would have been obvious to anyone that this was his office. He dropped his folder on the desk and rounded it to sit in a leather captain’s chair, resting his elbows on its arms and pressing the tips of opposing fingers together. Long, thin fingers on big-knuckled hands. He gazed through Bannerman and seemed lost in thought, and Bannerman noticed the tiny bushes of hair that grew out of each nostril.

Finally he seemed to focus and said, ‘Well, Monsieur, your story seems to check out.’ The phone on his desk rang and he lifted the receiver. ‘Oui?’ He spoke rapidly in French so that Bannerman could not follow him. Then he hung up and studied Bannerman again before rising and extending his hand. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘Inspector Georges du Maurier of the Judicial Police. Homicide division.’ His handshake was dry and firm. He sat down again and considered his next words carefully. ‘Shortly after ten o’clock this morning a passer-by in the Rue de Pavie heard a child screaming in the house at number twenty-four. He rang the bell several times and knocked repeatedly on the door, but no one came to open it and the child continued to scream. The gentleman concerned called the Gendarmerie from a telephone at the Residence Ambiorix at the end of the street.