‘It’ll happen slowly,’ I said.
Joe shook his head. ‘It’ll happen faster than you think.’ We’ll always have enemies,’ I said.
‘No question,’ he said. ‘But they’ll be different kinds of
enemies. They won’t have ten thousand tanks lined up across
the plains of Germany.’
I said nothing.
‘You should find out why you’re at Bird,’ Joe said. ‘Either
nothing much is happening there, and therefore you’re on the
way down, or something is happening there, and they want you
around to deal with it, in which case you’re on the way up.’
I said nothing.
‘You need to know either way,’ he said. ‘Force reduction
is coming, and you need to know if you’re up or down right
now.’
‘They’ll always need cops,’ I said. ‘They bring it down to a
two-man army, one of them better be an MP.’
‘You should make a plan,’ he said.
‘I never make plans.’
‘You need to.’
I traced my fingertips across the ribbons on my chest.
‘They got me a seat in the front of the plane,’ I said. ‘Maybe
they’ll keep me in a job.’
‘Maybe they will,’ Joe said. ‘But even if they do, will it be a job
you want? Everything’s going to get horribly second-rate.’
I noticed his shirt cuffs. They were clean and crisp and
secured by discreet cufflinks made from silver and black onyx.
His tie was a plain sombre item made from silk. He had shaved
84
carefully. The bottom of his sideburn was cut exactly square.
He was a man horrified by anything less than the best.
‘A job’s a job,’ I said. ‘I’m not choosy.’
We slept the rest of the way. We were woken by the pilot on the
PA telling us we were about to start our descent into RoissyCharles
de Gaulle. Local time was already eight o’clock in the
evening. Nearly the whole of the second day of the new decade
had disappeared like a mirage, as we slid through one Atlantic
time zone after another.
We changed some money and hiked over to the taxi line. It
was a mile long, full of people and luggage. It was hardly
moving. So we found a navette instead, which is what
the French call an airport shuttle bus. We had to stand all the
way through the dreary northern suburbs and into the centre
of Paris. We got out at the Place de l’Opra at nine in the
evening. Paris was dark and damp and cold and quiet. Cafes
and restaurants had warm lights burning behind closed doors
and fogged windows. The streets were wet and lined with small
parked cars. The cars were all misted over with night-time dew.
We walked together south and west and crossed the Seine at
the Pont de la Concorde. Turned west again along the Quai
d’Orsay. The river was dark and sluggish. Nothing was moving
on it. The streets were empty. Nobody was out and about.
‘Should we get flowers?’ I said.
‘Too late,’ Joe said. ‘Everything’s closed.’
We turned left at the Place de la Rsistance and walked into
the Avenue Rapp, side by side. We saw the Eiffel Tower on our
right as we crossed the Rue de l’Universit. It was lit up in
gold. Our heels sounded like rifle shots on the silent sidewalk.
Then we arrived at my mother’s building. It was a modest six
storey stone apartment house trapped between two gaudier
Belle Epoque facades. Joe took his hand out of his pocket and
unlocked the street door.
‘You have a key?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I’ve always had a key.’
Inside the street door was a cobbled alley that led through to
the centre courtyard. The concierge’s room was on the left.
Beyond it was a small alcove with a small slow elevator. We
rode it up to the fifth floor. Stepped out into a high wide
hallway. It was dimly lit. It had dark decorative tiles on the
floor. The right-hand apartment had tall oak double doors with a
discreet brass plaque engraved: M. & Mme Girard. The left
hand doors were painted off-white and labelled: Mme Reacher.
We knocked and waited.
86
SIX
W
E HEARD SLOW SHUFFIJNG STEPS INSIDE THE APARTMENT AND a long moment later my mother opened the door. ‘Bonsoir, maman,’ Joe said.