“So what did Debruyne say exactly?”

“He asked me to come and see him urgently, because he had a few questions for me. I told him I’d drop by this afternoon.”

“Well, go as soon as you can—that way we’ll know what the situation is.”

“I’m scared shitless.”

I put a hand on his shoulder and summoned all my powers of persuasion in an attempt to reassure him. “You haven’t been issued an official summons. Maybe Debruyne’s been brainwashed. He’s probably fishing for information. If he had any concrete evidence, he would have acted on it by now.”

Panic oozed from every pore in Maxime’s body. He opened the top button of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “I can’t go on living like this. Maybe if we tell them the whole story—”

“No, Max! Try to hang in there, at least until after the weekend. I know it’s tough, but someone out there is trying to scare us, to throw us off balance. Let’s not walk into the trap.”

He took a deep breath, and with considerable effort seemed to regain his composure.

“Let me do a little digging of my own,” I said. “Everything’s up in the air right now. Let me try and find out what happened to Vinca.”

“All right.” He nodded. “I’ll go to the precinct and I’ll let you know how it goes.”

I watched as Maxime walked down the rocky steps and along the path that wound its way between tall thickets of lavender, his slim figure growing smaller and hazier until it finally disappeared, engulfed by the mantle of purple.

3.

Before leaving campus, I stopped in front of the Agora, the curved glass-and-steel building that encircled the historic library.

The midday bell had just rung, and students were beginning to stream out. Although an ID card was now required to access the lecture halls, I avoided the problem by hopping over the turnstile, a trick I had seen performed in the Paris Métro by vagrants, cash-strapped students, and presidents of the French Republic.

When I came to the checkout desk, I recognized the librarian. Her name was Eline Bookmans, though everyone on campus called her Zélie. Originally from the Netherlands, she was a rather self-important bluestocking with a well-rehearsed opinion about practically everything. The last time I’d seen her, she had been a flamboyant forty-something who made the most of her lithe figure. Age had transformed her into a sort of hippie grandmother—square face, double chin, gray hair pulled into a chignon, round glasses, baggy sweater with a Peter Pan collar.

“Hello, Zélie.”

In addition to running the library, Eline Bookmans managed the campus cinema, the school radio station, and the Sophia Shakespeare Company, a pretentious name for the school drama club that my mother used to run when she had been a head teacher.