‘Some bar, near Bastille.’ He pronounced the double L. ‘You know Paris?’ He lit his cigarette.

‘What was he doing in Paris?’ asked Dan.

‘Hey, we were both pretty drunk. Anyway, he told me about this place, and he said I should come visit. He said it was pretty lonely, living out here, so I was kind of surprised when a woman answered the phone. But that was you, right?’ He smiled at Bea, pleased to make the connection. ‘Yeah – he said his sister was coming to stay.’

‘Did he?’

‘Let you in on a secret,’ he said. ‘I only made the booking because I thought Alex would want me to.’

‘How do you mean?’ said Dan.

‘You know, to make it look good for Dad.’ He winked. There was a hint of country in his voice, a South-Western twang.

‘Did he say that?’

‘Sure,’ Russ laughed, showing his teeth in a wide grin. ‘Alex isn’t – I’m sorry – wasn’t exactly the secretive type.’ He stared into his drink. ‘Listen, it’s too bad.’

Bea and Dan exchanged a glance, but he looked up and caught them at it.

‘Are you both on duty or something? I hate to drink alone.’

Again, refusing him seemed too big a statement, and a risk. Bea fetched glasses from the sideboard in the dining room. Dan poured whisky for himself and for her.

‘There you go,’ said Russ approvingly. He raised his glass. ‘Cheers! Or whatever you guys say.’

Bea checked her phone. Everything about him seemed both natural and constructed, there was no trace of tension, no hint of anything but pleasantness. His unmixed friendliness was compelling, chivvying them, like cows into a pen, with only one direction to go.

‘So, what are you doing in France?’ asked Dan.

Russ talked and talked and said nothing. They were only sipping their whisky but drinking with him changed things. It turned them into his friends, credulous and weak.

‘Listen, sometimes I hate the States,’ he said, as if they’d asked. ‘And I’ve lived all over. I was born in Minnesota, went to college on the East Coast, worked my way over to the West, and lived pretty much everywhere in between. I like Europe.’ He said it generously. ‘I always like coming to Europe. And I know some people in London, and I spent a little time there, but I guess it got tired, so –’ he sighed the words out, a long-story-short – ‘anyway, I’ve been on the move since Christmas, just taking it easy, meeting different people, travelling around. And Alex was one of those, you know, a guy I met one night. I like meeting new people when I travel.’

They watched him talk, rolling his cigarettes without looking, the tiny filter in his lips, either oblivious to being watched, or loving it. It was tempting to believe there was something innocuous about a person who could talk like that.