JANE SAT WITH HIM in the open-air café on High Street, reading the newspaper. It was a bright, cheerful day; the girls were out in their short skirts, walking, talking, being chatted up by the boys.
“Stop staring,” Jane said, without looking up from her newspaper.
“Wasn’t.”
“You were.”
“Wasn’t.”
She turned the page of the paper. “It’s all here,” she said, “all the grisly details.”
“The English love a good murder,” Raynaud said.
“Or two,” she said, “Or three.”
She set the paper aside and looked at him. “Charles,” she said, “were you telling me the truth about all this?”
“Yes.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Why were you here, at all? Why did you come in the first place?”
“Money,” he said.
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to me.”
In a quiet voice she said, “I have plenty of money.”
“Yes, but it’s yours. Not mine.”
“It’s legal.”
“So what?” he said, watching a girl with long legs and a Marimekko.
“You mean you really don’t care?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well,” she said, “did you make a lot of money this time?”
“A reasonable amount.”
He hadn’t totaled all the checks yet. But it would probably come to about fifty thousand dollars. Not what it might have been, but still…
“You could be in jail now,” she said, “or dead.”
“But for the grace of God.”
“Charles.” She touched his hand and looked at him seriously. “I wish you wouldn’t be like this.”
“It’s the only way I can be,” he said. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
She accepted it coolly. “I was going to reform you,” she said.
“And I was going to enjoy your attempt.”
“But it won’t work, will it?”
“No,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “It won’t.”
“You’ll never change?”
“Oh, probably I will. When I’m older, and tired.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
A few minutes later, when she got up to leave, she folded her newspaper very carefully and set it down on the table.
“If you ever want to try your hand at catching snakes…” he said.
“Maybe I will,” she said. “Some day.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding.
“Okay,” she said, and walked away, down the street. After a moment she was lost in the crowd of bright young girls in bright cotton dresses. There seemed to be hundreds of girls out that day, all over London. Hundreds of girls.
He felt sad for a moment, and then amused.
And then he laughed.