From the carriage window, the street lamp seems to trundle backwards, with its attendant prostitute.

‘I’ve had a tip-off from the police. It’s Yulia.’

‘Yulia who?’

‘Yulia. Lizaveta Gelfman. The one you called Bessie. Your contact for the Geneva job.’

‘What about her?’

‘We’re going to her house. There’s been some bad news.’

‘How bad?’

‘As bad as it can be.’

Nicolas unthinkingly exhales, like a man who’s taken a punch to the breadbasket.

‘Shocking, I know. I need you to go in there. The police haven’t cordoned it off yet. I want you to get in and see if there’s a note.’

‘A note?’

‘It was a suicide.’

Nicolas, reduced to a melancholy echo of everything Rachkovsky says, simply repeats his words.

‘Yes. She had an idiot child. It was born with hydrocephalus.’ Rachkovsky holds the carriage curtains apart with his index and middle finger to check their progress. ‘Apparently, that’s Greek for an absolutely massive head. All her money went on medical treatment. She’d saved a fortune for surgery. Some Kraut doctor called Wernicke, I think, was supposed to put in a shunt to drain off whatever was causing it. Turns out he made a total bish. The poor thing contracted meningitis and died last week. Yulia took it very badly. That’s the apartment there. Fourth floor. The door should be open. I can’t be seen here. You’ll have to take a cab back.’

‘What’s that?’

Rachkovsky has reached into his overcoat and pulled out a sheaf of documents. It’s too dark for Nicolas to make out what they are.

‘You find the note, if there is one,’ Rachkovsky says. ‘Then you swap it for this.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something Mulhouse and I have been putting together. This is our chance to give it a trial run.’

Nicolas’s reluctance to take the papers draws a rare flash of anger from Rachkovsky. ‘Look, you’ve got to do it. I don’t know if there’s a note, but if there is I don’t want to be in it. You understand? I haven’t got time to redact our business from whatever she’s left. This’ – Rachkovsky brandishes the papers – ‘is simple and will allow us to come out of this mess with something positive. Now take it and go. What’s wrong with you, Nicolas? For goodness’ sake, I can’t do it.’

*

NICOLAS IS OUT OF BREATH by the time he reaches the fourth-floor landing. The door, as promised, is ajar. The apartment feels unlived-in; there’s a pair of suitcases unopened in the living room.

Bessie’s lying on the bed in her travelling clothes, still wearing her shoes, her pretty oval face as white and cold as moonlight. The counterpane seems to be made of red velvet. Whatever she was is gone. Nicolas is alone in the room, and that’s the thing: this is their final, most intimate adventure, and she’s not here for it. The sense of loneliness is mortifying.