I squint down at the app to see where he is, reading the names of the roads. Shit. My pick-up address has been set to the lower part of Rue Chappe. Just past Rue André Barsacq at the bottom of the stairs, not the top. I’m in the wrong place.

I’ll have to walk past where Noah and Sabine are fighting.

Fuck.

But I have no choice. And so I brace myself and stumble down the stairs, but I can’t see them now, they’re gone. The breeze is chilly and it’s starting to rain properly so I rush down towards where the pin has been set; halfway down that lower segment of the road.

I’m almost there when a white car ahead of me pulls out and speeds away. Shit. What if that was him? Khalid. I try to catch the number plate but I can only manage the last part of it: AA.

I stare down at my app, trying to focus on the car type and plate number.

Khalid is: WW 398 SG.

That wasn’t him.

My phone lights up with a notification: Khalid has arrived. He will wait for two minutes before charges begin.

I turn around, searching the street for his car. Left. Right. Looking up towards the stairs and Noah’s apartment. Did I walk right past him?

And then I see the glow of approaching headlights as Khalid drives around the corner.

Chapitre neuf

The sky outside is a bruised purple smudge and big fat raindrops catch the light as they splatter on the skylight. My cheek is still raw from Noah’s stubble, the world is stained blue, the way it always is for me the morning after sex and a small piña-colada-shaped hammer is banging on the space behind my right eye. I’m sitting on the sofa, nestled beneath a beige blanket I found in the cupboard, staring down at my iPhone, just daring it not to recognise me hungover.

And all I can think as my phone unlocks is: I need to fix this.

I move quickly through to Noah’s Instagram profile, tap on his followers and type in: S-a-b…

A flash of white and then there she is.

Right at the top: Sabine Roux.

But as I stare down at her profile picture – flaming red hair, statue-white skin, bare shoulders – I remember her phone lens catching the yellow light of the lanterns and then her voice saying, ‘C’est pour ta femme.’

I want to believe I won’t be recognisable in the footage, that the light was too low or she wasn’t close enough. But the light wasn’t that low, and she wasn’t that far away from us, and I have an iPhone too, so I know how good the low light camera is. That’s why I bought it.

But still. There she is. It’ll be fine.

All I need is an email address, a phone number, some means by which I can contact her and ask her to destroy it. Reason with her.