It contained two video clips. Nothing new there.

I took a sip of lukewarm coffee, slouched into my seat a little deeper and pressed play on the first, bracing myself for another walk around Saint-Germain-des-Prés or Montmartre.

But up came a computer with some sort of document on the screen. The camera moved in towards it and Sabine’s hand came into frame, pointing at a line of text. The camera lingered for a few more seconds and then it turned and Sabine’s face filled the screen. This was new. She hadn’t featured in any of her other videos, so why this one? Her mouth opened in a shock-horror gesture, her hand by her cheek like she was mimicking The Scream. There she was – still breathing, still hoping, looking exactly like she did in Noah’s paintings down to her nose ring and the red string around her wrist – but now she was gone. Forever. Something twisted inside me and I closed down the window, quickly clicking on the second video because I didn’t want to feel those feelings.

This one opened near the front desk of Le Voltage. The camera tracked towards the back room, the door opened and we moved inside. A small room with wooden crates the shape of canvases leaning up against the wall to the right and a sturdy metal set of shelves nestled into the left-hand corner. It was full of printing paper, boxes of pens, files and—

Of course that was the precise moment glum Wesley decided to return to the office. I felt him stomping across the floor before I saw him. I would have closed the video window if he posed any threat but his eyes were glued to his phone. Still, I kept my glance trained on him as he sat down at his desk and turned on his computer.

He saw me watching him and his mouth moved with what I am guessing was a begrudging: ‘Hi.’

So I said, ‘Hey,’ back, and it was right after that that I heard it.

‘Je sais ce que tu fais, Agnès.’

It was coming through the earbuds. It was Sabine’s voice.

My eyes snapped back to the screen just in time to see Sabine blow a kiss at the lens and then the screen go black.

Shit.

I’d missed something.

I reached for the mouse and rewound the clip.