He let three seconds go by and added gently: 'Possibly that's why they're going to phone.'

It was twenty-five past six and at ten past seven the little bastard got up and wandered about looking at the costume jewellery in the display window and the brass plates at the bottom of the picture frames and then came wandering back. I'd counted twenty-three calls to the desk out there, 'M'sieur Steadman?'

'What? Oh, yes.'

They never got used to their cover names.

'A telephone call for you.'

'Thanks.'

The waiter took him to the foyer and came back to get our trays.

'Vous avez termini, m'sieur?'

'Bien sur. Dites moi, il y a des nouvelles de ce pilote, Hans Strobel, a Monte Carle?'

His waxed eyebrows lifted slightly in a gesture of desolation.

'Il est mort. Dans l'ambulance, vous savez. Eh, oui.' The delicate porcelain tinkled as he stacked the cups, gilt and rosebuds and tea-leaves. 'Je crois que c'est le destin qu'ils cherchent, hein, ces types-la?'

'C'est possible.'

A fireball rolling along the guard rail. Death or glory, make up your mind because you can't have both.

I got up and went over to the line of windows, Cartier, Chanel, and then some Hermes scarves like the one Marianne was wearing, reminding me of the bars of sunlight and shadow thrown by those peeling Venetian blinds across the white carpet, across her gold body. But already she seemed a long time ago and in a distant place, because the moment you know they've sent for you it's like dropping over a brink and into a void, and the memory tends to blank off.

His reflection came against the window glass.

'What about a little stroll along the promenade?'

'All right.'

When we left the hotel I checked and got negative and checked again after we'd crossed the two roads to the sea front and got negative again and felt totally satisfied because anyone trying to tag us across that hellish traffic would never make it alive.