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and their milk, I earn my crust. Lie down, Berlaud! So you’re the owner of the bookshop? I thought you’d come about the reward. I can’t tell you any more than I told your assistant.’
    â€˜There’s just one thing I wanted to clarify. Did your dog find the shoe in the Botanical Gardens?’
    Grégoire Mercier frowned, his honest brow creasing into furrows.
    â€˜I don’t like to admit it, as dogs aren’t allowed,’ he murmured, stroking Berlaud’s head roughly.
    â€˜Don’t worry, I shan’t tell a soul.’
    â€˜Well, all right. My rounds take me there. It’s my cousin Basile from back home, Basile Popêche; he’s got kidney stones. I give him Pulchérie’s milk. She’s that one over there, second from the right, the white one with a black goatee. She’s all blown up like a balloon because she’s expecting. I mix the sapwood of a lime tree with her hay to make her milk into a diuretic.’
    â€˜Oh! So your animals are a sort of walking pharmacy. Are these remedies effective?’ Victor enquired sceptically.
    â€˜Ask around and you’ll find out. In any case no one must know about Basile being poorly or he’ll lose his job, which only pays a pittance anyway. He looks after the wild animals. People don’t appreciate what hard work it is, Monsieur. My goats are a piece of cake in comparison. Poor Popêche and his partner have to muck out sixty-five pens containing a hundred carnivores, plus the three bear pits. Holy Virgin, the racket is deafening! It’s back-breaking work to scrub down those floors every day. And it breaks my heart to see those poor animals caged up like that until the end of their days. At least my nanny goats go into town, and when the cold weather comes I wrap a blanket around…’
    â€˜What time were you at the Botanical Gardens?’
    â€˜That was yesterday, on my way from Quai de la Tournelle, so it must have been about ten or eleven o’clock. Oh, I work all hours, Monsieur! It beats being in the army, but I’ve got to keep moving if I’m to keep my customers happy. Money doesn’t grow on trees, does it? Berlaud must have found the shoe near the Botanical Gardens. That dog’s so good with my goats I put up with his fancies. When he has a yearning to run off, he won’t come to heel, no matter how much I yawl.’
    â€˜Yawl?’
    â€˜You know, whistle. Ah, you fickle beast, you give me the run around, but I’ll miss you when you’re gone!’ he muttered, scratching the backs of Berlaud’s ears as the dog closed its eyes with contentment.
    After he had left, it occurred to Victor that he should have given the goatherd a coin, but he did not have the energy to climb back up all those stairs. On a piece of paper he jotted down the words:
    Basile Popêche, lion house at Botanical Gardens, Grègoire Mercier’s cousin.
    He could question the man later if necessary.
    The rain had stopped. As he walked back through Rue Croulebarbe he searched in vain for little Gustin. All he could see were groups of apprentices busy plunging hides into vats of alum or scraping skins stretched over trestle tables. If he was serious about his project of documenting child labour, he would have to come back one morning when the light was good.
    The River Bièvre disappeared under Boulevard Arago. Victor walked up Avenue des Gobelins and turned off into Rue Monge. A sign caught his eye: ‘Impasse de la Photographie’. Was this an omen? And if so was it a good or a bad one? He chose to smile at it, and yet he felt a lingering anxiety about the young woman found strangled at the crossroads, and about little Élisa. He jotted something else down on the piece of paper where he’d noted Basile Popêche’s name:
    L’Eldorado: Madame Fourchon sings there, under a flowery name that catches the eye.

Chapter 4
    Saturday 14