Why? she had wanted to know. Why should I be so lucky? Simon replied that there were many things on earth and in heaven that could not be explained and this was one of them. He also told her to take the money and run.

One of those rare people who managed to be both discreet and a gossip at the same time, Simon never divulged even a hint of the process by which the decision was arrived at. ‘I’m a professional,’ he said, with the uneven smile which she had grown to love. ‘Anyway, it keeps you interested in me.’ Simon was faithfully married to Valerie with three children but liked to pretend that he wasn’t.

‘Simon, I love you very much. Please kiss Valerie for me and my goddaughter.’

The Rue de la Grange aux Belles was busy. Night softened the city’s harsher outlines as daytime city smells segued into evening ones of roasted garlic, turmeric, perfume of all kinds, cigarette smoke.

She walked slowly, eyes searching through the litter of papers and takeaway boxes for a sign of life. She passed the manhole halfway down the street and was hit by a smell of old, confined water and rotting things.

She was increasingly anxious about Kočka.

By the time Laure reached the triangle of earth where she usually encountered her, she was experiencing something akin to dread. If Kočka had moved on, dragging her difficult, painful life behind her, then did she have a future? A living thing that was so unloved and untended went against nature and she castigated herself for not doing anything about it sooner.

But Kočka was there, in her usual place, stretched out over the lumpy, concrete-infested earth. At Laure’s approach, she raised her head. The large eyes were clouded and she was panting. Beside her lay three new-born kittens, two still inside the caul. None of them moved and Laure knew they had not made it.

Laure reached for the bottle of water in her bag and squirted a little into Kočka’s mouth. She seemed grateful and licked it feebly. Laure got hold of her mobile and dialled the vet with whom she had earlier made the appointment. An answerphone kicked in and she was instructed that if it was an emergency she must go to the nearest animal hospital.

Laure took off her cardigan, laid Kočka on it and wrapped her up in it. Wincing, she took up the still damp kittens, placed them carefully in her bag and summoned a taxi.

The animal hospital was full with a record number of injured and abandoned animals. ‘One of humanity’s periodic fits of inhumanity,’ commented the vet when Laure lifted Kočka onto the examination table and unwrapped her kittens.