The air is icy so I reach for my jumper and pull it on then take my phone through to the kitchen and flick on the kettle. Mr Oiseau is sitting on the terracotta pots outside, like nothing bad has happened and I knock on the window as the hum of the kettle gets louder and louder. My eyes move beyond him and out onto the street: I search the crowd for a tall silhouette. Nothing.

Noah has been arrested.

What if he’s charged?

I bite down on my lower lip.

My phone starts to sing from the countertop and I reach for it. Camilla is calling.

‘Hey,’ I say, spooning coffee into the cafetière with my free hand and spilling it on the counter.

‘So which one?’ Camilla asks.

‘What?’

‘Which outfit? For my interview on Monday?’

‘Sorry, Mills, I just woke up,’ I say.

‘Oh, okay, I texted you some options. Fuck, I’m nervous. This is everything I’ve ever wanted.’

‘You’re made for this job,’ I say, pouring the boiling water as the drilling from upstairs starts up again. Caffeine. I need caffeine. The air smells like coffee now and I reach for a cup from the drying rack by the sink. I’m aware of Camilla speaking but I can’t focus, all I can think about is Noah behind big, steel bars and Agnès out there somewhere and the fact that I can’t break into the gallery alone because he never gave me the stupid alarm codes. So I can’t help him.

‘It’s the worst, right?’ she says and I click to attention.

‘What is?’

Silence rings down the line.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asks. ‘You aren’t listening to me.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I am, but I’m just making coffee.’ Camilla is the only person in the world I hate lying to. But I have to. Because in my eyeline right now is the sofa where she sat in the dark scrolling through articles, tears streaming down her cheeks. And she needs to focus on preparing for Monday.

‘Hmmm,’ she says.

Shit, her bloody intuition is perking up.

‘What time is your interview?’ I say, moving the focus and taking a sip of coffee.

‘Eight o’clock,’ she says and then she lets out a little shriek.

‘Okay, I’ll be thinking of you,’ I say.

‘Let me know which outfit.’

And then we hang up, I take another sip of coffee, and move through to my messages to help Camilla pick an outfit as promised.

But wait.

There.

Just below Camilla’s messages is one from Noah. It came in early this morning.

We were married on the third of November.

And all I can think is, I guess I need duct tape.

Chapitre Trente-deux

Chapitre trente-deux