Page 42 of The Last Library of Paris

‘Right,’ he said. ‘She’s gone.’

‘I see that.’

He made to walk past me and I stuck my hand out. ‘I’m Cassandra Watkins, by the way,’ I said. ‘I’m a translator.’

He shook my hand, quite limply. ‘Steven Parrish,’ he said.

Once more he started walking and I followed. ‘Have you been here in Lisbon for long?’ I asked, scurrying along beside him.

‘Since ’38,’ he said.

‘Like it?’

‘It’s fine.’

Goodness, he wasn’t very chatty.

‘I love it,’ I said. ‘Though it’s strange now, isn’t it, with Brits and Germans all rubbing along together.’

He glanced at me as we started down the stairs, but he didn’t reply. I wondered if I could somehow ask where he lived, but I thought better of it.

We carried on down the stairs. I watched his feet on the tiled steps, noticing his shoes were shiny. Shiny and expensive looking. And the watch on his wrist glinted. Interesting.

As we approached the first-floor landing, having had enough of the awkward conversation, I said: ‘Well, this is me. Nice to meet you, Steven.’

‘Likewise,’ he said, sounding as though it had been anything but. I peeled off as though I was going back to our office, but then I paused and leaned over the railings to see him go. Downstairs, in the foyer was Valentine. He was with Helen from the clerical department. She was standing with her back against the wall, and he was talking to her, leaning slightly forwards, with his hand on the wall next to her head. It seemed intimate, and flirty. But I couldn’t help noticing that though Helen’s full attention was on Valentine, he was watching Parrish go by. And I wondered why.

Parrish pushed open the embassy door and headed off outside. On a whim, I bounded down to the ground floor, dropping my bag on the floor as I darted past Valentine and Helen, who were standing much further apart now, and talking quite earnestly.

I bolted past them and out of the door, then I stood on the gravelled entrance to the embassy, trying to see which way Parrish had gone.

For a moment, I couldn’t see him, but then I saw his shadow through the railings of the grounds, ahead of me to my right.

I leaned against the brick pillar at the side of the doorway. Parrish was going in the opposite direction to the bookshop. If he was going home, he definitely didn’t live in the part of town where I’d seen him twice, and Lara had spotted him too.

‘Everything all right?’ Valentine appeared next to me and made me jump.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘You hurtled past me like the hounds of hell were after you.’

‘Just, erm, checking something.’

‘Something?’ The words ‘or someone’ hung in the air between us. The idea that he had also been watching Parrish crept into my mind. I dismissed it immediately. Surely that was my imagination working overtime?

‘Where’s Helen gone?’ I asked.

‘Home,’ he said. ‘It’s late.’

His eyes flickered from me, to where Parrish had vanished into the distance, and then back to me.

‘You should get off too,’ he said. ‘It’s late.’

‘Yes.’

I turned to go, then turned back. ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Are you going home?’

‘Not quite yet. I have some more work to do.’