met them on walkabout during a boundary ride and had been invited to join them. The men had begun by talking but had ended up almost killing one another over a woman they both wanted. They had fought with a ferocity that Daniel had never witnessed between two white men, in the boxing ring or out of it. There had been no sense of display or competition. They had fought almost silently and for nothing, since the woman had chosen another man.
A derelict tapped at his arm, startling him into the present, and he gave the old man the coins in his pocket. His feet were burning and he was thinking he would have to find another illuminated map when he saw a metal sign that read Rue de Gris.
As he entered the street, he noticed two men standing on the corner watching him. Both wore their hair cut so short he could see their scalps shining pinkly through the black stubble and one had HATE tattooed on his upper arm. He nodded to Daniel, a half smile curving thin, soft-looking lips, as if they shared a secret. Daniel’s neck prickled as he passed the pair, and he had the sudden absurd notion that they were watching to see where he went.
It was the sun and lack of food that were making him imagine things, he told himself. A headache drilled into the top of his skull like a hot needle.
He came to the end of the street and realised he must have walked right past the café. Only when he retraced his steps did he understand there had been nothing to miss. The street was short and the only thing in it, aside from residences and apartments, was a smart boutique with a hat draped in a swathe of emerald cloth. Standing outside the shop he noticed a small tobacconist on the other side of the road. He was about to turn away when his eyes fell on the sign above the door.
The Smoking Dog.
He crossed the road and went inside. The man behind the counter spoke and when Daniel did not answer, he looked up. He had thinning salt-and-pepper hair combed straight back from a slight widow’s peak, but his brows were so thick and black they looked false. He raised them enquiringly as he asked in accented but very good English what Daniel wanted.
‘The name of this shop. The Smoking Dog,’ Daniel told him. ‘I came from Australia to find a restaurant by that name. In this street.’
The owner’s eyes slitted, but perhaps it was only that the coiling, heavy-looking smoke from his cheroot had got in his eyes. ‘There was a restaurant here before the war,’ he said. ‘It was burnt out. It was still a mess when I moved here from Estonia and took it over.’
‘Burned?’ Daniel prompted.
‘It was a Resistance stronghold. They were betrayed and the Boche took away everyone they found here, then burned it.’ Daniel thought of the policewoman who suggested the dead man had probably been a political refugee. Was it possible that he and the woman had been in the Resistance and had been taken by the Germans for interrogation? If the man had been the informant, and the woman had realised the truth, it would explain why she had issued her strange invitation, talking of truth and lies instead of love. But when could they have had that conversation? At the club when they had been rounded up, or later wherever they had been taken to be interrogated? Or even after they had been freed? The woman might have realised the man had been the traitor and confronted him with it, concluding with her invitation. Which in turn might have caused the man to flee to the other side of the world, fearing vengeance by the Resistance. But why make a date so far in the future? And what was it she had intended to give him at that meeting? Proof of betrayal?
Realising he had been standing there like a fool, his head full of wild speculations, Daniel gathered his wits and said, ‘I was supposed to meet a woman in the restaurant this evening.’
‘You want a woman?’ There was a mocking note in the man’s voice.
‘I am to meet a specific woman. She made the arrangement,’ Daniel said, hoping the man would not ask her name.
‘Have you heard the saying about sleeping dogs?’ asked the man. ‘Forget about a woman who makes an appointment in a place that