‘Hi! Going there, or coming from?’

‘From.’

‘Want a ride?’

They drove to Avenue de Verdun in silence; she put her hand on his knee. ‘Want a drink? I do.’

‘Yes. Great.’

‘If you know somewhere, tell the driver.’

The terrace of ‘La Civette’ was packed, but they found a small table crushed up at the back, ordered two beers and two pastis.

‘It saves time,’ said Minerva and lit a cigarette.

They didn’t speak until the drinks arrived, sat looking beyond the chattering crowd to the thin strip of sunlit sea far beyond. There was no breeze; the air was heavy with tobacco smoke, coffee, Ambre Solaire, and the despair of Jacques Brel.

‘I have just the vaguest feeling that you are not going to give the movies a whirl; am I right?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Marcus and, after a long swig of his beer, he told her.

She sat in silence, looking ahead, not once interrupting, registering nothing save for an occasional arching of thinly pencilled eyebrows. When he finished, she stubbed out the cigarette, unclipped her earrings, and laid them on the table.

‘Either these baubles are too heavy, or I’m getting terribly, terribly old. I think old. A day like today slays me. So my hunch was right?’

‘Yah. Right. He as good as said so. Broken bloody pot. Imperfect! I really saw red. He didn’t even seem to realize what he’d said. Mind you, I was leading him on.’

‘So it would seem. Well, Wolf says he can’t be sure of anything. Which is dandy. He says he was fine in the morning when he woke, had coffee and fruit juice in Grottorosso’s cabin – you might mark that incident – and then they went to the gym. And just after they started whatever they were doing he began to feel dizzy, giddy. He remembers nothing more but fright, pain and that bastard’s face. Now what do we make of that? Did he dope him too! That’s too much.’

‘I wouldn’t put anything past him.’

She cupped her face in her hands, turned towards him with a thin smile. ‘Leading him on? The photographs, the porn stuff. True?’

‘Almost true. I tarted it up, gave him the impression it was centrefold stuff, you know, being very butch with a full erection in a tartan armchair. I made it even worse really; hinted at whips and chains and bondage. That really gave him the big heave. The bit about being a star of the porn mags was all rubbish.’

‘What’s the true part? You rather not say?’

‘No. I don’t care., I do pose, not that sort of stuff, it’s just, oh, I don’t know, it’s sort of “teasing” stuff, harmless really. Honest.’

‘Would you call it Discreet Stimulation?’

‘I might. Or Geriatrics Delight more like. Are you shocked?’