Page 84 of The Fall-Out

‘Look, I really don’t think this is a good idea, Ro.’ I grabbed her arm and pulled her back from the entrance.

‘What? Why not? We can’t have come all this way for nothing.’

‘She’s not here,’ I gabbled desperately. ‘Even if this Dan— Gabrielle still lives here, what are the chances of her knowing where Zara is? We shouldn’t have come.’

Rowan looked at me, her face softening. ‘Hey, Nome. I get it. It’s scary. I’m scared too. But what’s the worst that can happen?’

There were so many possible worsts, I couldn’t find the words to tell her which I was dreading the most. Dragging in a lungful of the fresh morning air, I looked up at the facade of the building, as if the clashing red and magenta flowers or the faint scent of basil would give me courage. And then I froze.

‘Ro. Shit. Look up there.’

Rowan looked. ‘What? The cat? Cute.’

Between the metal railings of the balcony above us, a pair of green eyes was looking curiously down at us. The cat’s fur was dark brown and glossy, mottled with spots like a miniature leopard’s. The sun glinted off its whiskers. Its long tail was tucked around its haunches.

‘That’s not just some random cat. That’s Zara’s cat.’

‘Are you sure?’

I realised Rowan was just as nervous as I was. ‘Positive.’

‘She must be here, then.’

‘We’ll have to ring and see if someone will let us in.’

But before we could, there was a click and the security gate swung open. A woman stepped out, very tall and rail-thin, wearing faded jeans with a white shirt half-tucked into them. Holding on to her hands were two little girls, one a bit older than Meredith and the other a bit younger, immaculately dressed in little velvet frocks, the older one’s navy blue and the younger one’s yellow.

The woman said something to her children, smiling down at them. Then her eyes settled on us and she stopped. ‘Puis-je vous aider?’

Rowan spoke to her in French, a short stream of words of which I could only recognise ‘Gabrielle’, ‘Zara’ and ‘Londres’.

The woman’s face broke into a tentative smile, which vanished almost as soon as it had appeared and was replaced by puzzlement. She replied, at more length than Rowan had, but I understood almost nothing apart from a gesture up to the balcony from which the cat was still watching us, and an annoyed click of her tongue.

Rowan looked mystified and spoke again – ‘Zara’, ‘Facebook’, ‘hôpital’.

The woman shook her head and launched into another stream of French, too rapid for me to make out any words. Rowan answered briefly, and a couple more short exchanges followed, the woman looking more and more confused and Rowan more embarrassed.

At last, Rowan fished in her bag for a notebook and pen, wrote her name and mine and our phone numbers on one of the pages, ripped it out and handed it to the woman.

‘Alors,’ she said. ‘Au revoir, Gabrielle. Désolée de vous déranger.’

‘De rien,’ said Gabrielle. Taking her daughters’ hands again, she walked away, giving us one last puzzled, slightly annoyed glance over her shoulder.

‘Come on,’ Rowan said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘What’s happened? What did she say? Is Zara…?’

‘Zara’s fine. Come on.’

Rowan almost ran back along the street the way we’d come, in the opposite direction to which Gabrielle had been headed. She didn’t stop until we reached the canal. She sat down on a wrought-iron bench and I flopped down next to her, dabbing beads of sweat from my forehead.

‘That,’ Rowan said, ‘was the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever had in my life.’

‘Tell me. I don’t understand.’

‘Zara’s not there.’ Rowan turned to face me, looking utterly perplexed. ‘She was staying with Gabrielle for a bit, but she’s not any more. She left her cat behind and Gabrielle’s not best pleased about it.’

‘So where is she now?’ I pressed. I was almost sure I knew which way this was going to go, but not quite sure enough.

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