‘What the fuck do you know about this case? About any case?’ he snipes at me. ‘And I don’t mean what sort of cocktails they were serving. I mean what do you really know?’ He’s seething and my face is flushing pink and I hate him right now for making me feel so small.

Hyacinth continues, ‘Harper will write it. And you’ll tell her what you know.’ Then she turns to me. ‘Harper, we can feature it on the landing page tomorrow. I’ll need it by 11 am at the latest.’

‘Of course,’ I say, a little stunned. I have no idea if I can do that but I’ll figure out a way.

Stan is sneering at me. ‘That’s horseshit,’ he blurts out.

‘Stan,’ she says, her voice a warning.

And he shuts up.

‘Now, for the love of god would someone pitch me something that isn’t about pretty dead girls?’

Chapitre Dix-sept

Chapitre dix-sept

Stan glares at me, like he’s a horrible little schoolboy and I’m an insect, and the table between us is an enormous magnifying glass. If he holds it at just the right angle, maybe I’ll burst into flames and he’ll no longer have a problem on his hands. Well, bad luck, Stan, I’m here to stay.

All around us people gather up their things and head for the door. Claudia is telling Nathalie about some dress or other she just has to get and Wesley is stomping around even louder than normal because Hyacinth said he wasn’t allowed to write about yet another opera and needed to choose something more accessible.

Wesley gives one last huff and closes the door – click – and now it’s just me and Stan in here.

Stan shuffles the papers in front of him: a signal that he’s more important than me and so isn’t going to speak first.

‘So,’ I say, my voice perfectly congenial as I pick up my pen and reach for my notepad. ‘What have you got?’

His jaw tightens. ‘Nothing.’

I sigh and swallow my irritation. ‘Well, what does your source at the police say? Do they have any evidence?’

‘Nope.’

I try to control my expression.

‘Well, they questioned me this morning so they must have questioned other people too. Someone must have said something?’

‘I can’t help you there, I’m afraid,’ he says.

I give him an are-you-fucking-joking look and drop my pen to the desk as a punctuation point. Ching. ‘Stan, you just sat there maybe twenty minutes ago saying you knew a lot more than I did about this story so you should be writing it,’ I snap. ‘So you must know something.’

He leans forward across the table. ‘I know that Sabine Roux was murdered,’ he says, batting his eyes. He’s taunting me. Mimicking me. And he’s not going to help. Not one bit.