Devil May Care

and lifted the bag. The weight felt good, heavier than he had known before, but not so heavy as to make him suspect it was bulked out with sand. He shook it up and down once and felt the contents move soundlessly, with the satisfying heft of packed dry powder. The business was concluded, and he waited for the other man to move off. That was the routine: it was safer if the supplier didn’t see which way the receiver even started his onward journey, because in ignorance was security.
    Reluctant to move first, Hashim faced the other man. He suddenly became aware of the noise around them – the roar of the traffic, the sound of rain dripping from the walkway on to the ground.
    Something wasn’t right. Hashim began to move along the wall, furtive, like a lizard, edging towards the freedom of the night. In two strides the man was on him, his arm across Hashim’s throat. Then the unpainted wall smashed into his face, flattening the curved nose into a formless pulp. Hashim felt himself thrown face down on the concrete floor, and heard the click of a safety catch being released as a gun barrel pressed behind his ear. With his free hand, and with practised dexterity, the man pulled Hashim’s arms behind his back and handcuffed them together. Police, thought Hashim. But how could they …
    Next, he was on his back, and the man dragged him to the foot of the stairwell, where he propped him up. From his coat pocket, he drew out a wooden wedge, about four inches at its deepest. He smacked it into Hashim’s mouth with the heel of his hand, then hammered it home with the stock of his gun, to the sound of breaking teeth. From his coat pocket, he took out a large pair of pliers.
    He leaned over Hashim, and his yellowish face became momentarily visible. ‘This,’ he said, in his bad French, ‘is what we do to people who talk.’
    He thrust the pliers into Hashim’s mouth, and clamped them on his tongue.
    René Mathis was having dinner with his mistress in a small restaurant near the place des Vosges. The net curtains on their brass rail obscured the lower half of the view from the window, but through the upper light Mathis could see acorner of the square with its red brick above the colonnades, and the rain still running from the eaves.
    It was Friday, and he was following a much-loved routine. After leaving work at the Deuxième, he took the Métro to St Paul and made for his mistress’s small apartment in the Marais. He walked past the kosher butchers and the bookshops with their scriptures and seven-branched candelabra, till he came to a battered blue porte-cochère where, after instinctively checking that he had not been followed, he tugged the ancient bell-pull.
    How easy it was for a secret agent to be a successful adulterer, he reflected happily, as he glanced up and down the street. He heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Madame Bouin, the stocky concierge, opened up and let him in. Behind her thick glasses, her eyes gave their usual mixed signal of conspiracy and distaste. It was time he gave her another box of those violet-scented chocolates, thought Mathis, as he crossed the courtyard and climbed to Sylvie’s door.
    Sylvie took his wet coat and shook it out. She had prepared, as usual, a bottle of Ricard, two glasses, a carafe of water and a plate of small toasts from a packet, spread with tinned foie gras. First, they made love in her bedroom, a hot bower of floral curtains, floral cushion-covers and flower prints on the walls. Sylvie was a good-looking widow in her forties, with dyed blonde hair, who had kept her figure well. In the bedroom, she was skilful and accommodating, a real poule de luxe, as Mathis sometimes affectionately called her. Next – following the bathroom, a change of clothes for her and the apéritif for him – it was out to dinner.
    It always amused Mathis that so soon after the abandon of the bedroom, Sylvie liked a proper conversation,about her family in Clermont-Ferrand, her sons and daughter, or about President de Gaulle, whom she idolized. Dinner was almost over, and Sylvie was finishing a fruity clafoutis, when Pierre, the slim head waiter, came regretfully to the table.
    ‘Monsieur, I’m sorry to disturb you. The telephone.’
    Mathis always left numbers at his office, but people knew that Friday nights were, if possible, sacrosanct. He wiped his mouth and apologized to Sylvie, then crossed the crowded restaurant to the wooden bar and the little lobby beyond, next to