At the bar in Rue des Tonneliers she drank steadily, accepting shots from strangers, buying drinks for dark-eyed students. Arkell nursed a single beer, watching her disintegration with feelings that he acknowledged went well beyond professional concern. When the music was ramped up and an impromptu dance floor established in a cramped corner of the bar, she turned to him with a brittle smile and said, ‘So let’s dance!’ Her full lips were glistening; beneath those two confident front teeth her rounded chin trembled a little; one eye, heavy with shadow, was drawn a little wider, further accentuating the off-centre gaze. He put down the beer. ‘It’s late. We should get back.’ ‘It’s not even dark out there!’ She swivelled away and seized the wrist of one of the dark-eyed students, a boy in a paisley waistcoat and grubby houndstooth trousers. He followed her willingly. The music was trashy German pop, made worse by a substandard sound system. Klara’s movements were a little ragged from the booze, but in tight white jeans, sequinned T-shirt and tilted fedora she made an undeniably appealing figure on the dance floor.
