The offices of 36 Bastion des Orfevres look the same in real life as they did on Google: a big modern building with hundreds of windows reflecting the sky, on the edge of the 17th arrondissement. The same but bigger. And more menacing. Those were my first impressions as I pushed my way through the glass door and went inside. I gave the man at the desk my name, and he rode with me up an elevator, led me down a few hallways, and opened the door to a small room.

That’s where I’m sitting now. Waiting. Trying to keep my eyelids open. Because I’m that wired kind of tired; where your brain knows the threat is gone but your body refuses to let down its guard, to sleep. Just in case.

It’s Thursday now, forty-eight hours after that big boom. I spent the first twelve hours in a hospital, having all sorts of people come in and ask me questions and then all sorts of other people tell them that they really should wait. But from that hospital bed, with the smell of antiseptic in my nostrils, the sound of sirens still ringing in my ears and still in a mild delirium, I told them everything. I gave them Thomas’s name, his address, told them what he’d done, showed them my wrist and the marks from the handcuff. I told them all about that video of Thomas and Matilde on the bridge; about Sabine and the numberplate. From the looks on their faces, ‘everything’ did not make much sense to them, but notes were made in notepads all the same.

A policeman drove me home when it was time to leave the hospital. I’m pretty sure he thought I’d suffered some sort of concussion when I asked him to come upstairs and make sure there was nobody tall and ominous waiting for me.

But he came. And he looked. And there was nobody, of course.

Hyacinth hadn’t, and still hasn’t, published my article. When I checked my emails, there was a message from her saying, ‘Great, let me run with this, I’ll do some digging.’ Nothing since then but I didn’t care. I was too busy scouring the streets outside every time I boiled the kettle and spoke to Mr Oiseau. Too busy lying on the sofa beneath a blanket, my eyes trained on the door just in case someone broke in.

I didn’t leave for food. For anything. I just ate and drank what was in the house until I got the call this morning.

And then I ordered an Uber and came here.

The door swings open and Luneau walks in. He’s carrying an iPad and some papers. And Brigadier Moor is trailing behind him.

‘Harper,’ Luneau says, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite me.

‘Hi,’ I reply as Moor sits down too.