Chapter 16

He’d been using his room for three weeks when strange things started happening. The first time, he dismissed it as absent-mindedness, but the second, he almost panicked. Somebody had found him. They must have followed him and now they were spying on him. Somebody had come in while he was out and stolen his food.
He was livid. His sanctuary had been violated. He was going to find the bastards, no matter who they were. The first and obvious place to look was by the well. It was the only way in. He shone the torch on the floor, looking for tracks, but saw nothing. It was impossible.
Then he spotted them, and a glint of evil pleasure spread over his face. He took his catapult, crept backwards and hid in the shadows. Patience.
The ball bearing flashed across the room and buried into the soft body of a rat. Guy laughed at his paranoid stupidity for not realising immediately. He could breathe again. It even strengthened his conviction that no-one, no-one at all, knew about his room.
When he returned a week later, the rat was gone. His childhood experiments in suggested why, but he wanted proof. He came back a few days later with a chunk of meat on the bone, set it on the floor and waited. After a couple of hours, the first rat appeared, whiskers twitching. It climbed down from the heap of the rubble and approached the meat cautiously, stopping now and then to sniff. Another poked its head out, from lower down, and crept out. Then a third. Soon, the hunk of meat was smothered in a mass of writhing fur.
Next day, the bone was picked clean; not a single scrap of meat, not a drop of blood left on it. Perfect.
He knew he was near the métro, and that, in theory, meant an unlimited supply of little one-way-ticketers. A little training and he could become a regular Pied Piper.
Guy felt very pleased with himself. He decided to go and see a film.

He arrived five minutes late. As he came out, an unlikely reflection caught his eye: long blond hair! And alone... very unusual. Then again, single girl, late-night projection... Chances were against him. Didn’t even know what she looked like. Soon see about that.
“Great film that, one of my favourites!”
“Huh? Oh yes...” then a screeched “my bus!” and off she raced to catch the 21.
“Damn,” he thought, then “No.” He hailed a taxi and spoke the magic words: “Follow that bus!”
He hadn’t done this in ages, and started tapping the William Tell overture on his knees. Following people was a habit he’d kicked many moons ago. Parisian girls, sweet and lovely though they may be, are at home. They do not have the brake pads removed like holiday-makers do. They know people, make quick telephone calls, and can always suggest why not next week? Tourists don’t.
Originally, it was a spinoff from his woodland games. Then he found it could have a real purpose to it. The first time he put it to serious practice, surprise, surprise, was with a pretty girl he was too shy to approach. All he ended up with was a big brother threatening him with GBH. His techniques needed refining. Cities were not the same as forests.
He started working on dull, nondescript men. It made it harder, he had to stalk more, and better. Using men, sex kept its ugly head out of the way and allowed him to concentrate.
It also appealed to his hunting instincts: know your game.
At the beginning, he made a lot of mistakes, generally for being too careful. But he was soon amazed how inattentive most people are. Once, he held a door open for the same person three times on the same day. Not once did they notice. He remained close but discreet.
Following a girl saved lots of time. He found out where she lived and worked, the routes she took, discovered whether she had a boyfriend or not, topics of interest, and it gave him an idea of the best moment for meeting her.
The key factor was regularity, this determined a lot of his victim’s lives. Too irregular and he wasted too much time; too regular, then terminal boredom had set in and anything impromptu would be rejected. As usual, it needed the happy medium: regularity plus spontaneity. His favourite was the girl he watched standing outside the railings by the Tuileries fairground. It was so tempting... Would she go in?... Beautiful. Such childlike impetuosity!

He followed her home.
Lights went on on the fifth floor. Excellent. He found a place to watch from by the Square des Batignolles. Three quarters of an hour later, two windows darkened and two others lit up on the corner, then dimmed to what he assumed was a bedside-lamp. Nothing changed over the next ten minutes or so. He wandered around and checked out the area. There was even a café right next to her front door.
He was there at eight next morning with a book, patience and a clear view of anybody leaving of the building.
It was two in the afternoon before she came out. She got on the 53 and went into town. With Guy tailing close behind, she went into the Fnac.
She didn’t seem to know what she was looking for, flicking through books in the film section, then in the music and fine art department. Still hadn’t picked up anything or asked the assistants any questions. Vaguely carried along by the thick crowd, she arrived at the literature section, and stopped. A cover caught her eye and she picked it up, leafed through it and continued browsing. Guy took a copy too: The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abé. Read that tonight. When he looked up, she had a second volume under the first and he couldn’t see the title.
However, with a glance at her watch and a startled jerk, she was off. And so was he.
The Utopia in Rue Champollion was having a week of Kurosawa. Business with pleasure.
They started talking the next day while waiting for Throne of Blood. She recognised him.
“Yes, I only went to see it because it’s a remake of Yojimbo.”
“And, which is rare, an improvement on the original.”
“What! You must be joking. OK, it wasn’t bad, but it had nothing of Kurosawa’s subtlety at all.”
“Yeah, maybe, but...”
They paid and went in.
“We’ll continue afterwards.”

In a café, they sat and exchanged views on Japan. Both were Kurosawa fans and had seen nearly all his films. Guy settled back in his chair and emptied his pockets to dig out his cigarettes.
“You reading that?!”
“What? Abé? Yes, why?” A flat plop on the table “I can’t believe it! That’s really amazing! How far have you got?”
“Just started it, and you?”
“Nearly finished, excellent stuff, magnificently written. Actually, I’d never heard of him before last week, it’s a friend of mine, Japanese guy, who recommended it... What about you?”
Oh me, I just really like Japan. No idea why, but the place fascinates me, everything: the films, the books, nô theatre, art... Here, watch!” And in seven quick folds, she turned the bill into a tiny duck.
Guy laughed. The waiter squinted suspiciously.
“Learnt that in Japanese art classes.”
“You ought to meet my friend.”
“Who’s that?”
“Tokumei, Japanese guy, he’s a painter. Actually, he’s also a trifle weird, sixty-eight years old and paints exactly the same picture time and again.”
“Oh yes... the quest for ultimate perfection?”
“Mmm, remember the scene in Redbeard where the young doctor is getting married?... He’s doing the flower. That’s all. Done it with brushes, bamboo quills, pens and God knows what else. Says he’s trying to capture what he wasn’t able to do in the film.”
“What do you mean?”
“He worked on it, he was the person who arranged the flower. Known Kurosawa for years.”
“Really?”
“Could take you round to meet him if you like, but you’re not going to believe it...”
“What?”
“He paints in a cellar in the dark.”
“What do you mean: in the dark?”
“Exactly that: in the dark, pitch black. It’s all part of his discipline, total sensory awareness of the body through the body, no looking. Bit like Japanese archery when there’s a sheet of paper hanging between you and the target, you can only aim when you’ve walked round, touched it and incorporated your movements into your spatial awareness. Not easy, I can tell you.”
“Why, have you done it then?”
“Kyudo? A bit, yes. Best result was missing my foot!” he grinned.
She laughed, “you’re pulling my leg!”
“Not at all, I promise. Tokumei is a kyudo expert, and I’ve been with him a couple of times. He didn’t even want me to shoot the damn thing, just hold it! Called me... what was it?... can’t remember now, something to do with immature bulrushes.”
“Crikey, sounds a bit heavy to me.”
“Yeah but he’s not. His painting and archery he takes very very seriously but outside that, couple of sakés down his neck and he’s great company. Knows everything about Kurosawa’s films, worked on twelve of them at least: archery advisor in Ran, and God knows what else.”
“How did you get to know him, then?”
“Well... it’s rather embarrassing really...” He smiled broadly, expelling short bursts of air through his nostrils, then paused for a second or two. “Tell you what, like to come and meet him? He could tell you better than I, it’s quite funny, in fact.”
“Love to, when?”
He looked at his watch. “No time like the present, why not now?”
“Now? Isn’t it a bit late?”
“Told you: discipline: in a cellar, in the dark, and at night.”
“Yes but if he’s working, won’t we disturb him?”
“No, ’course not, he’ll grumble a bit, always does, but I think he actually likes being disturbed... And anyway, I think he’ll like you.”

Two things went wrong: somebody had parked over his manhole cover so he had to drive to the next one, and that meant an extra quarter of an hour’s walk underground. But that was trivial. Guy had forgotten the obvious: no matter how spontaneous or adventurous, what girl in her right mind would climb through a hole in a total stranger’s car to go down a manhole cover?
“What on earth is all this?” she exclaimed as he started lifting the second one up.
“Told you already, he works in a cellar, it’s down here. Says the one in his block of flats is too noisy, can hear the traffic rumbling. Down there, twenty-seven metres below the cars, lorries and drunken Carusos: perfect silence. It all fits.”
“You’re joking.” Then she caught a look in his eye she didn’t like at all. “No, I think we’ll make it another time…”
His hand moved towards the glove compartment. She saw that too.
She was very lucky. An interest in Japan does not mean ikebana only. She was almost a brown-belt at karate, but it was enough. Her right hand bent into a ridge of knuckles and “ha!” piled into his wind-pipe.
She was out and running. Guy doubled up in pain, hit his head on the steering-wheel and choked. Even so, coughing and gagging, he threw the car in to gear and drove off.

Three in the morning.
The door opened and a man came out with a dog. Guy sat up. They walked round the block, the dog did, then they went back in again. Guy placed a book at the bottom of the door to stop it closing. In ten minutes he could go up.
He slid the thin tube beneath the door and slowly poured a litre of petrol through a funnel. There was a window in the stairwell and another one opposite. Probably the kitchen. He lobbed the damp piece of knotted rag and saw a burst of red. There was a whump, then quiet again, and the soft sound of crackling. Quietly too, he went downstairs.
He watched from the Square des Batignolles until the ambulance arrived. By then, there was a minor crowd. She was dead.

He still had a nasty bruise. ¶ 1:55 AM