I am Doris Tu, traffic enforcement officer.

I have an an iffy right shoulder and am in urgent need of glasses, but the odds of finding another traffic warden any time soon seemed remote, even on Parisian streets, so I stuck with what I could get.

Squinting against my own questionable eyesight, I half-fumbled my way back to the restaurant where Janus was on to the crème brûlée, one hand up the skirt of his nearest companion.

I crossed to the blue van opposite, its windows tinted, its lights off, and rapped on the glass.

A moment in which I fancied I heard half-mumbled exclamations of obscenity. The window wound down. A face peered at me from the shadows, hair ruffled from having just pulled off the balaclava that otherwise would have completely covered his features. Long-fingered gloves, the sleeves tucked in, trousers tucked into socks, and the gun left, for lack of a better choice, in his jacket pocket, he was Aquarius through and through. Whatever his martial prowess, his parking skills left a lot to be desired.

“You can’t park here,” I snapped in my sharpest, fastest French. “No stopping Monday to Friday 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.!”

“We’re on a delivery,” he mumbled as the floor creaked in the cabin behind him and the assembled assassins tried not to breathe.

“No stopping!” I snapped. “I’m going to have to give you a ticket. Licence, please!”

His mouth dropped.

I am Doris Tu, a woman determined to do her job.

I tried not to laugh.

“Driving licence!” I repeated, snapping my fingers beneath his nose.

And at the end of the day what is a covert agent to do?

Shoot the traffic warden?

He handed over his driving licence.

I pulled out a biro from my pocket and wrote the entirely fraudulent details down in Doris Tu’s notebook, angling the docket away from the van so he couldn’t see the glaring difference between my handwriting and the writing already in the book. “Hundred and twenty euros,” I barked, passing him the ticket through the open window. “Eighty if you pay within fourteen days.”

“Can I just pay now?”

I am bureaucracy on the move, serving the good people of Paris.

“No! And you have to move!”

“But you’ve already given me the ticket.”

“Move!” I nearly shrieked the word. “Or I’ll call the police!”

I am traffic warden. Fear my wrath.

He moved.

As the van pulled away from the kerb I walked away at a stately leg-swinging swagger.

Around the corner I darted into the nearest open shop, caught the arm of the first person I passed,

was irritated to discover that I had acne, a particularly hot spot burning above my left eyebrow, but so be it, no time to fuss,

and headed back the way I’d come.

I walked straight into the restaurant where a few minutes ago a dignified lady with a penchant for diamonds had eaten mussels in cream, up to the table where Janus sat and exclaimed, “Monsieur Petrain! Morgan is dead!”

Janus, a woman’s thigh pressed to his own, looked up, confusion battling with irritation, before the professionalism of a ghost kicked in. “Morgan? How terrible!”

Ghosts lie. It’s how we keep our friends.

“They sent me to find you at once!”

“Well yes,” he murmured, thumb flicking against the edge of a fifty-euro bill. “I can see that they would.”

“Morgan?” asked the woman draped across his left leg. “Who is Morgan?”

“My good friend Morgan,” he replied quickly, easily. “How did it happen?” he added, eyes flicking to me as his thumb snapped back and forth against the note.

“His lungs,” I replied. “The doctors always said that Michael Morgan would never live past fifty. Can you come?”

And finally, in not his finest hour of deductive reasoning, Janus understood.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course. Let me settle up and I’ll be right with you.”

Three minutes later we walked beneath the red awnings and flaking shutters of the tight Paris streets and Janus said, “Who are you?”

“How many ghosts did you introduce to Morgan?”

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“We need to get somewhere crowded. Need to jump away.”

“Why? I’ve only just moved to—”

“You’re being followed. An organisation called Aquarius is right behind you. They tracked you from Madame Osako through the cleaner to Petrain, and so did I. I bought us a few minutes, that’s all.”

A curl at the corner of his mouth. “Why would you do this?”

“They killed Hecuba, Kuanyin, others. They call me Kepler. Their file on you is thick; their file on me is a lie, and their file on Galileo is a fake.”

“Who’s Galileo?”

“Miami. Galileo killed us. Come on, we need a crowd.”

Chapter 63

Remember Miami.

November 2001.

At this time the Galileo file had her down as a beautiful woman with auburn hair who didn’t need to wear heels to strut, lipstick to pout. Who she was, where she was, I do not know, but she was entirely herself, some other where.

It was unseasonably cold for the time of year. I had gone so far as to start carrying a light linen jacket to wear outside, and on the beach the sunbathers were almost cool enough to talk to each other, instead of the usual silent all-consuming sweat that defined the Florida sands.

I was Carla Hermandez, district attorney, and I had become myself for the sake of my flat. On the fourteenth floor of a Miami tower block, I had panoramic views of the entire city, the green explosion of Oleta to my right, the beach not fifteen minutes’ walk away, and in my black marble bathroom a jacuzzi. All paid for by the criminal cartels I was meant to prosecute.

My sudden donation of a large percentage of my life savings to victim-support charities had therefore earned me the incredulity of my (dubious and sacked) accountant, and simultaneously a range of dinner invitations from people hoping to profit by my newfound philanthropy. Money buys friendship in even the most well-intentioned circles.

I eased into my body and lifestyle a little piece at a time: a friend dropped here, a phone disconnected there, a drink with a stranger in a bar, a jog along the beach, a gift to the concierge downstairs.

I was beginning to settle in when a voice said:

“I just love who you’re wearing.”

It was a fund-raiser for an anti-corruption charity. I had attended for the nibbles, the jazz and the irony. But there, resplendent in a blue taffeta dress, was Janus.

She had to be Janus.

No one else would have polished their teeth to such whiteness.

No one else would dare wear such long lacquered nails, such a low-cut dress, such high heels for such dainty legs.

No one else could have recognised that I, Carla Hermandez, was not myself.

“Darling,” she exclaimed, looping one arm through mine, “I’ve been in Miami for nine months, and Carla Hermandez is a double-crossing bitch. A queen among bitches, a bitch that laughs the laugh and barks the bark, but still a bitch. And you–” she tapped my shoulder with her glass “–are clearly not Carla Hermandez. How are you, darling? How are you keeping?”

“Well,” I replied, “Miss…?”

“I am Ambrosia Jane. And if I ever meet them, I shall chide my parents for the name.”

“What happened to Michael? Michael Morgan?”

A flicker passed across Janus’ face, and softer than I’d ever heard her speak before she murmured, “Time to move on.” Then her face flashed a smile again, too bright to be real. “I hear you’ve quit the business?”

“You mean district attorney?”

“I mean estate agenting. Such a shame; you were so good at it.”

“Time to move on.”

She laughed, brittle and false as cut glass. “I hope you’re keeping busy in your retirement.”