Our room had been torn apart. The sheets had been pulled off the bed and the mattress slashed open, springs and enough hair to cover a horse tumbling out onto the floor. Every drawer had been opened, overturned, and smashed. The carpet had been pulled up and the curtains down. Tim’s jackets and pants had been scattered all over the room. And I mean scattered. We found one arm on a windowsill, one leg in the shower, a single pocket under what was left of the bed. Our suitcases had been cut open and turned inside out. We’d need another suitcase just to carry the old ones down to the trash.

Tim gazed at the destruction. “I can’t say I think too much of room service, Nick,” he said.

“This isn’t room service, Tim!” I exploded. “The room’s been searched!”

“What do you think they were looking for?”

“This!” I took out the packet of sugar. Once again I was tempted to open it—but this wasn’t the right time. “This is the only thing Chabrol gave us back at the station. It must be the object that Bastille was talking about.” I slid it back into my pocket, then thought again. It seemed that Bastille was determined to get his hands on the sugar. I wouldn’t be safe carrying it. It was better to leave it in the hotel room. After all, they’d already searched the place once. It was unlikely they’d think of coming back.

I looked around, then slid the sugar into the roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, inside the cardboard tube. Nobody would notice it there and the police could pick it up later. Because that was the next step.

“We’ve got to call the police,” I said.

“We’ve just come from the police,” Tim reminded me.

“I know. But if they see our room, they’ve got to believe us. And as soon as they’re here, I’ll show them the packet. Maybe they’ll be able to work the whole thing out.”

I looked for the telephone and eventually found it—or what was left of it. You’d have to be an expert at electronics or at least very good at jigsaws to use it again.

“Why don’t we talk to the man downstairs?” Tim asked.

I thought of the squinting receptionist. Only that morning he’d been talking to the man in the gray suit, the one who’d just taken our photograph.

“I don’t trust him,” I said. At that moment I wouldn’t have trusted my own mother.

Tim held up a short-sleeved shirt. It had been a long-sleeved shirt when he had packed it. He looked as if he was going to burst into tears. At least he could use the rest of the shirt as a handkerchief if he did.