“Where was she from?”

“Dakota, I believe. Or perhaps it was Minnesota. Somewhere to the north, at least.”

“I’m from Galveston,” Floyd said. “That puts us a world apart.”

“None the less, you will take on the case?”

“We have an appointment, monsieur. We can discuss things then.”

“Very well, then. I shall expect you on the hour?”

Floyd shook the second letter from its envelope, which was postmarked from Nice. A single sheet of grey paper, folded in two, tipped out on to the desk. He flicked the paper open to reveal a handwritten message in watery ink that was only a shade darker than the paper on which it was written. He recognised the handwriting immediately. It was from Greta.

“Monsieur Floyd?”

Floyd dropped the letter as if it was stamped from hot metal. His fingers seemed to tingle. He hadn’t expected to hear from Greta again—not in this life. It took him a few moments to adjust to her sudden intrusion back into his world. What could she possibly have to say to him?

“Monsieur Floyd? Are you still there?”

He tapped the mouthpiece. “Just lost you for a moment there, monsieur. It’s the rats in the basement, always at the telephone lines.”

“Evidently. Upon the hour, then? Are we agreed?”

“I’ll be there,” Floyd said.

TWO

Verity Auger surveyed the underground scene from the safety of her environment suit, standing a dozen metres from the crippled wreckage of the crawler. The tarantula-like machine lay tilted to one side, two of its legs broken and another three jammed uselessly against the low ceiling of carved ice. The crawler was going nowhere—it couldn’t even be dragged back to the surface; but at least its life-support bubble was still intact. Cassandra, the girl student, was still sitting inside the cabin, arms folded, watching the proceedings with a kind of haughty detachment. Sebastian, the boy, was lying about five metres from the crawler, his suit damaged but still capable of keeping him alive until the rescue squad arrived.