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Dussault kissed her on both cheeks and looked at her gravely, then turned to the others.

“These are our children, Daniel and Annie,” Armand said. “Claude is the Prefect of Police here in Paris.”

“This is a terrible thing to happen,” said Monsieur Dussault. He shook their hands, then turned to Armand, noting the bloodstains and exhaustion. “How is he?”

“No word,” said Armand.

“Let me try.”

Dussault went over to reception and a few moments later returned to them. “They’ll let us in. But only one of you.”

“We’ll stay here,” said Reine-Marie.

“Go home,” said Armand.

“We’re staying,” she said. It was the end of any discussion.

As he went through the swinging doors, Armand felt himself light-headed for a moment. Swept back into memory. As bloodstained sheets were drawn over the faces of officers. Young men and women he’d recruited. Trained. Led.

Whose birthdays and weddings he’d danced at. He was godfather to several of their children.

And now they lay dead on gurneys. Killed in an action he’d led them into.

He’d had doors to knock on then. Eyes to meet and lives to shatter.

He took a ragged breath and kept walking, through those memories and into this new nightmare. His friend and colleague by his side.

“He’s in one of the operating theaters,” said Claude after speaking with a nurse. “We should make ourselves comfortable.”

They sat, side by side, on hard chairs in the corridor.

“Terrible place,” whispered Dussault, clearly struggling with his own memories. Of his own young gendarmes. “But they do good work. If someone can be saved …”

Armand gave a curt nod.

“On the way over I looked up the preliminary notes of the flic who responded to the call.”

The Préfet had used the Parisian slang for “cop.” Les flics. Learned on the streets before he’d joined the force. Though it was not, strictly speaking, a compliment, most cops, between themselves, had adopted the word. Originally from Yiddish slang, “flic” had become a sort of term of endearment. Or, at least, of camaraderie.

Armand remained silent, his focus on the door leading to the operating rooms.

“He wrote that you said it was deliberate. Do you believe that?”

Now Armand turned to him. His eyes bloodshot with exhaustion. And emotion.

“It was. The vehicle was stopped. Then it sped up. It meant to hit Stephen.”

Dussault nodded, looked down at his hands briefly, then back up. “The other witnesses agree that the van left the scene. One of them, your son-in-law, I believe, got a very bad photo of it.”

“Reine-Marie also saw it speed up to hit Stephen.”

“Did she? After you left, she described what happened. She said you were both looking at the Tour Eiffel that had just lit up.”

“That’s true. I began to speak to Stephen—”

Armand stopped, and blanched. Suddenly feeling he might be sick.

“What is it?” asked Claude.