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    She explained that she was researching the history of an address at Absalom Court on Laburnum Crescent for someone who’d just bought a property there and was interested to discover what he could about its past. She was told that there was no problem with her trying to identify who from the school had been resident there, if anyone had. It wasn’t confidential or privileged information. But she’d have to do it herself, physically going through the archive, in person. She could do that by appointment after presenting the credentials to prove who she was. The rider was that there was no absolute guarantee she’d find what she was looking for. Records of that nature were sometimes incomplete. Rebecca made an appointment for the following afternoon.
    Tom called her that evening, just, he said, because he enjoyed listening to her voice. Rebecca had become used to guarding against real intimacy by using such obstacles as texting and Facebook and Twitter, the same way everyone did. The spontaneity of conversation over a phone in real time, one comprising pleasure rather than business, had become a novelty to her. She finished the call thinking that her earlier suspicion that she might have had a one-night stand was unfounded.
    He called just after 8 p.m. She was about to turn in for a rare early night, when her phone rang and it was him again.
    â€˜I’ve just been down to the basement.’
    â€˜More Miles Davis?’
    â€˜This was more personal than Miles.’ He was speaking quietly, as he hadn’t earlier, the way someone would if they were concerned about being overheard.
    â€˜Jesus, Tom. You’re scaring me.’
    â€˜You’re in the clear there. You’re about seven miles away.’
    â€˜Do you want to come over?’
    â€˜It’s late, Rebecca. And I’m not so freaked out that I’m going to scarper like a frightened child. Nothing’s actually gone bump in the night, so far.’
    Except that it has, she thought, but you were fast asleep when it did.
    â€˜What’s happened?’
    He was silent. Then he said, ‘I thought I could smell cigarette smoke. It wasn’t a strong smell, more like the memory of smoke than smoke itself, just a vague hint really, but it was coming from the basement. Up close to the basement door it got strong enough to smell like it might be French tobacco. I played for two seasons with a winger from Rheims. Some of the French and Italian lads smoke, just like the English boys drink. It was smoke from a Gauloise. I was sure of it.’
    Rebecca nodded to herself. She was familiar with that smell. When she’d smoked, for most of those years, she’d smoked Gauloises.
    â€˜Go on.’
    â€˜I unlocked the door and went down there. The smoke didn’t get any stronger. In fact it weakened a bit or got a bit diluted because it was mingling with something else, another smell altogether.’
    â€˜Which was?’
    â€˜It was perfume.’
    â€˜No sign of anyone?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜No more drawings?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Was there music?’
    â€˜No, there was just this empty silence and the mingled smells.’
    â€˜Nothing else?’
    â€˜Yeah, two things.’ He was almost whispering now. ‘When I signed the contract to promote that cologne, I was invited to meet a top perfumer, one of the guys with a nose insured for a million Euros who mixes the stuff. They had all the great scents there, in this reception room full of velvet and gold brocade, lined up in jewelled bottles for me to sniff at. I had to be polite, feign interest, only reasonable with what they were paying me. Anyway I smelled it there and recognized it just now in the basement. It’s by Guerlain and it’s called Shalimar. I’d bet my life on it.’
    â€˜I used to wear it,’ Rebecca said and her own voice sounded hollow in her ears. She’d worn Shalimar habitually, back when