I grabbed hold of him and pulled him down behind a parked car as Bastille and Lavache appeared, coming out of the front door and walking across the courtyard. Each of them had a heavy box. Another shipment on its way out! It made me angry that anyone should be dumb enough to want to buy drugs and angrier still that these two grim reapers would be getting richer by selling them.

“What do we do now?” Tim whispered.

“Now we call Moire,” I said.

“Right!” Tim straightened up. “Let’s ask in there!”

Before I could stop him he had walked across the sidewalk and into the cake shop. There was the sign in the window that I had seen from the van. THE FRENCH CONFECTION. Why did the name bother me? Why did I feel it was connected with something or someone I had seen? It was too late to worry about it now. Tim was already inside. I followed him in.

I found myself in a long, narrow shop with a counter running down one wall. Everywhere I looked there were cakes and croissants, bowls of colored almonds and tiny pots of jam. The very air smelled of sugar and flour. On the counter stood one of the tallest wedding cakes I had ever seen: six platforms of swirly white icing with a marzipan bride and groom looking airsick up on the top. There was a bead curtain at the back and now it rattled as the owner of the shop passed through, coming out to serve us. And of course I knew her. I’d met her on the train.

Erica Nice.

She stopped behind the counter, obviously as surprised to see us as we were to see her.

“You . . . !” she began.

“Mrs. Nice!” Tim gurgled. I wondered how he had managed to remember her name. “We need to use your telephone. To call the police.”

“I don’t think so, Tim,” I said.

Even as I spoke I was heading back toward the door. But I was already too late. Erica’s hand came up and this time it wasn’t holding an almond slice. It was the biggest gun I’d ever seen. Bigger than the wrinkled hand that held it. Its muzzle was as ugly as the smile on the old woman’s face.

“But . . . but . . . but . . .” Tim stared.

“Erica Nice,” I said. “I suppose I should have guessed. Madame Erica Nice. Say it fast and what do you get?”

“Madamericanice?” Tim suggested.

“Mad American,” I said. “She’s the one behind the drug racket, Tim. When we met her, she must have been checking the route. That’s why she was on the train. And that’s how Bastille and Lavache knew we were in Paris.”