Питер Мэй - I'll Keep You Safe

She nodded, unable to find her voice, and became aware that she was shivering.

‘You’re cold,’ he said. ‘It’s not too far to the Rue Coquillière. The bars there are open all night. The walk will warm us up.’ He crooked an arm through hers, and she drew in against him as they set off north across the Île de la Cité to the Pont Neuf. She was grateful for the comfort of his warmth, and the closeness of another human being. Grief was such a solitary affliction.

It took them fifteen minutes, walking briskly and in silence, to get there. Self-consciousness had caused her finally to slip her arm from his. After all, he was a man she barely knew. But she was still cold, wearing only a thin white T-shirt beneath her jacket, white sneakers without socks below her jeans.

Amazingly, the Rue Coquillière was alight with restaurants, bars and tables filled with all-night revellers. The Au Pied de Cochon was crowded. The only seats available were on the cold of the terrasse among the smokers. So they continued, past a domed and floodlit building away to their left, to the Taverne Kalisbrau on the corner. Inside, stained-glass ceilings threw coloured light on to tiled oak tables, and a hand-painted bar pumped Alsatian beers on draft. Voices raised in laughter seemed obscenely inappropriate, people whose lives had not been touched by death that night.

They found a quiet corner and Dimitri ordered two beers. But Niamh shook her head. ‘Coffee. Black.’ At least it was warm in here, and although a beer fizzing cold around her lips might have offered the possibility of escape she was not ready to lose her pain. He watched her as she sipped on her espresso. Then without preamble said, ‘They told you that you were a suspect?’

She replaced her cup in its saucer and nodded.

‘Why?’

‘Because I knew that Ruairidh and Irina were having an affair.’

‘He told you?’

Niamh shook her head. ‘I received an anonymous email.’

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘You confronted him with it?’

‘Yes. Just before he left the hotel.’

‘And?’

‘He denied it.’

‘You believed him?’

She shrugged, unwilling still to fully accept that it was true. ‘He told me he had a meeting at Yves Saint Laurent. But actually he was meeting Irina.’

Dimitri appeared to digest this. Then, ‘They told me that the bomb was almost certainly triggered by someone using a remote control. Probably a phone. Someone who was in the square and who picked his, or her, moment.’

Niamh remembered how they had made her empty her pockets when she first arrived at police headquarters, and searched her bag. And then later taken her phone away for several hours. Was that why they’d let her go? Because she was carrying nothing that could have remotely detonated the bomb? Even had she wanted to, how could she ever have contrived such a thing?

As if he were able to read her thoughts, Dimitri said, ‘Georgy spent five years in the Russian army. He fought in Chechnya. I guess he would know how to do something like that.’

Niamh looked at him, pricked by curiosity for the first time. ‘What brought you here? To Paris, I mean. You and Irina.’

He shrugged listlessly. ‘We’ve been here for years. Irina was ten, I think. I was thirteen. Our parents were dissidents in the old Soviet Union. It became too dangerous for them to stay. How were they to know that the USSR would collapse just a few years later? Irina wanted to go back after they died. It was me who persuaded her to stay. The future was here in the West, I told her.’ A tiny puff of self-contempt exploded around his lips. ‘What future? If she had gone back when she wanted to she would still be alive today.’ She saw him bite on his lip, hard enough to draw blood. He lowered his head to gaze at his hands cradling his beer glass in front of him. Niamh saw him blinking furiously and knew he was fighting back tears he did not want to shed in front of her.

She said, ‘If you could go back and change one thing in your life, it might change everything else in your future, but not necessarily the thing you would want to change. All you can ever regret are the decisions you make in the full awareness of their consequences. And, God knows, there are enough of them.’

He raised his eyes to look at her thoughtfully. ‘I wish...’ He smiled wanly. ‘I wish I could have met you in other circumstances.’

She examined his dark liquid eyes for a moment then drained her cup. ‘I should go.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Dimitri.’ She glanced through the window towards the world outside. ‘Will there be taxis at this hour?’

He nodded. ‘Of course.’ He took out his phone. ‘I can call you one.’

‘No. I’d rather walk, at least part of the way. I need some air. And some time.’

He shrugged. ‘Just keep heading north. You’re bound to find a rank on one of the boulevards when you want one.’

The combination of the grief, her fatigue and the cold night air made her feel a little heady when she stepped outside. Through the glass she saw Dimitri catch a waiter’s eye to indicate that he wanted another beer. She wondered how long he would be sitting there, and how many beers it would take to wash away his guilt.

The Rue du Louvre was dark and deserted, a slight breeze rustling already brittle leaves in trees that would, in a week or two, succumb to the onset of autumn. She walked for a long time, breathing deeply, trying not to cry. An urge that came in waves, with a moment recalled, or an unexpected memory. Things she seemed unable to prevent from seeping into conscious recollection. All she wanted was Ruairidh back. She would, right now, have forgiven him anything, if only she could feel his arms around her. It was still impossible to believe that he was gone. From childhood you know that life will end in death. But nothing prepares you for its finality. The irrevocable, irreversible nature of it.

From somewhere not far behind, she heard what sounded like a cough. She turned to look. But the street was empty. Not a soul, not a vehicle in sight. She glanced up. Above the shops, apartments lined the street. A window left open, perhaps. Someone coughing in their sleep. But it made her feel suddenly vulnerable, and she hurried to cross the road, quickening her pace. Now she imagined she heard footsteps, and turned quickly to catch sight of whoever might be following her, but again there was no one. Nothing. She strained to see in the dark and wondered if she saw a movement in the shadows of a doorway some way further back.

She decided not to hang around to find out, turning into the narrow Rue d’Argout, and regretting it at once, as tall buildings closed in around her. Shops and restaurants shuttered and simmering in silent obscurity. Too late to go back. She started to run. Past a clothes shop, a furniture store, a crêperie, the gaudily painted frontage of an African bar. The lights of the Rue Montmartre ahead were still frustratingly far off.

She glanced over her shoulder and fear stabbed her chest like a tiny, well-honed blade. There was a figure silhouetted against the lights of the street she had just left behind. She turned and sprinted now to the end of the street, and out into the Rue Montmartre. Up ahead lights shone along the Rue d’Aboukir, cars and the occasional bus drifting by. She forced herself to stop running and walked quickly towards them. To her relief a line of taxis stood on the corner, green lights on roofs. She slipped into the car at the head of the line and woke up a startled driver.

‘Crowne Plaza,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Place de la République.’ And she turned to look out of the rear windscreen, back along the street from which she had just come. It was quite empty. She could see the darker junction with the Rue d’Argout, but there was no one there, no movement among the shadows. She turned to breathe a sigh of relief, sinking into the seat as the taxi pulled away, and cursed her overactive imagination.