The smell of the water was familiar and inescapable as she emerged out of the street and onto the canal bank. Flattish. Brackish and, since it was early autumn, carrying a hint of decay. (She had first noticed how water could smell that hot summer in Prague when she and Tomas had idled along the river.) An empty bateau mouche slid through the water eastwards, leaving a backwash of flotsam of orange peel, a plastic bottle and the remains of a hamburger.

In the Rue de la Grange aux Belles, Madame Becque was folding back the shutters of her grocery shop. Recently, she and her husband had painted the woodwork a bright blue and dyed their poodles’ coats a lighter blue to harmonize, which added immeasurably to the gaiety of nations. The favoured bar on the corner that served late-night brandies was putting up the shutters for a few hours’ rest. A homeless man sat cross-legged outside it. As she went past, Laure dropped a euro into his cup.

Further up the street, a scruffy, litter-strewn patch of earth was sandwiched between two buildings. Laure stopped. ‘Kočka,’ she called. Czech for ‘cat’, it was not an imaginative choice, but it was the one that had come into her head when she first spotted the little stray a couple of weeks ago.

Tail dragging behind her, a tabby emerged from the shadow cast by the wall. Tiny-boned. Almost emaciated. Exhausted from the business of staying alive and beyond frail. Laure touched the small triangular face and ran a finger down her backbone, gently rubbing the spinal bumps and flat bone before the tail. It was a moment of communion. Of comfort. Of a small trusting exchange between animal and human.

Should she be worried that she was not doing Kočka any favours by feeding her? An argument ran that said that a homeless stray would be better off dead. Death was not the worst thing to happen. Death could be welcomed.

It was then she noticed that under the starved belly poked pink, swollen nipples.

Her throat tightened. Kittens.

Kočka was waiting unsentimentally (unlike Laure) for her benefactor to service her hunger. Laure emptied the expensive cat food stuffed with vitamins into the fruit punnet she had brought along and watched the cat fall on it.

Bending down, Laure caught the faintest of purrs but, otherwise, she was ignored. Pleased about the purr, she told Kočka, ‘No promises.’

She continued north up the Rue de la Grange aux Belles.

When she had first set foot in the street, she was a woman whose decree absolute had just slid onto the lawyer’s desk. It had been a hard-frosted winter’s day. Her shoes were flimsy, and her frozen feet had refused to cooperate. As they grew damper, they made a flapping sound on the pavement.