Omega

She still looked troubled, though it surprised him. It was a common enough sight.

“We can always leave,” he said.

She shook her head. “What difference would it make?”

They ordered a fish soup. Marisa said something in French to the waiter that Owain didn’t catch. She handed over a hundred euromark note and told him she didn’t want change.

“Very generous,” Owain remarked.

She tucked her purse away. “Carl gives me plenty. I always have more than I can spend.”

“So where is he at the moment?”

She sighed. “Another meeting. We leave tomorrow morning.”

She’d rung to tell him that today would be their last chance to meet.

“Any idea where he’s taking you?” Owain asked.

“Carl would not go anywhere without importance, even for leisure. He said it would be somewhere warm, though I think it will turn out to be another working holiday. I’ll have to fence for myself.”

“Fend.”

“Fence. Nowhere is safe when you are a woman on your own.”

She said this without self-pity.

“Perhaps he’ll lend you his Radom.”

Legister’s Polish handgun: a twenty-centimetre combat pistol that he had used to shoot a feral mastiff when he and Marisa were walking around Versailles. Owain was one of the first to reach them and see the corpse. A single 9mm shot, just below one eye, the dog lying in the snow with its head in a comma of blood. According to Marisa the creature had loped out from behind a tree as they were passing. Legister pulled the pistol from his overcoat and despatched it with a single shot.

A big tureen arrived, brimming with dumplings and flakes of greyish fish. Wedges of coarse brown bread accompanied it, still warm from the oven. It was far more than the two of them could eat. They filled their bowls and ate in silence, Marisa sipping rose from a half bottle, Owain with an untouched glass of Vichy water.

The stew was heavily spiced, the fish indeterminate but tasty enough. An odd air of solemnity had descended over the table, in marked contrast to their earlier frivolity. There was a sense that they had somehow reached a climax to their gaiety too early. Both of them stared out the window. The skaters were all gone but the people under the bridge remained, now huddled around the guttering fire.

Marisa didn’t finish her bowl, and Owain had no appetite for a refill. She asked him if he had had enough. When he nodded, she took a napkin and lifted the tureen off the table. It was still three-quarters full.

“Marisa—” he began, knowing what she intended.

She shook her head, shutting off any objection, and began to manoeuvre the tureen towards the fire escape. Owain had no alternative but to take one of the handles and help her carry it down. They set it down on one of the bridge’s fallen stones.

Marisa began calling to the people across the river in French, telling them that there was a portion of free stew for anyone who could find a container for it.

Within no time a crowd had formed, thrusting plastic bowls, broken cups and tobacco tins at her. Their eyes looked large and white and infinitely needy. They stank of sewage, smoke and pulverised masonry. Their filthy condition blurred all distinctions of nationality, though pleading voices were raised in a variety of languages. Some were obviously diseased but Marisa showed no qualms in serving them. They ranged in age from the elderly who could barely stand upright to children too young to walk who clung to the necks of adults—adults who disregarded their very presence as they jostled forward and begged for their portions.

And more of them were coming. Figures were appearing from the ruins on the far bank, surmounting crests of rubble, scrambling down the embankment, slithering across the ice in their haste to join the throng. Marisa was heroically doling out portions, one ladleful per person, but she couldn’t keep up. The growing crowd pressed in more strongly, more vehemently, squabbles breaking out as the etiquette of the queue fragmented in the face of inishing reserves.

Despite their desperation, not a single person in the crowd attempted to manhandle Marisa; they were afraid to touch her, afraid to risk rejection. Nevertheless, it was obvious to Owain that the situation was swiftly becoming unmanageable. In French, he shouted to the crowd to get back, form an orderly line. But it was far too late for this and no one would budge.

The tureen was almost empty. Owain drew his Walther and shouted that there was no more food, that they should disperse. But while nervous faces turned towards the sound of his anger, still no one was prepared to withdraw.

I was trying to stop him firing over their heads when I heard a deep-throated barking. The restaurant proprietor came down the steps, followed by two younger men. One was carrying a rifle, the other restraining a black Labrador on a chain leash that was already barking fiercely.

The noise and sight of the dog finally galvanised the crowd. As swiftly as they had come, they began to melt away, leaving only a few die-hards at the very front of the queue.