"You ought to have taken that lucky heather you know"

A sharp faced girl, owner of the basilisk glare which Javert had admired only moments before, turns and sees the moon face of a middle aged man, much the worse for drink, looking down at her with hazy benignity

"You think? Why don't you just take a look at her, buster? Really take a look at her, and tell me if she looks lucky to you!"

The drunk looks confused and rocks back on his heels, letting the girl return to her thoughts. She glances round the chaos in the police post, narrowing her eyes and clenching her jaw in frustration. She should not be here. Really, she should go home.

She doesn't particularly want to go home, but nor does she especially wish to remain in this malodorous, bewildering crush of whores and drunks and policemen. She is not afraid – indeed this girl scarcely knows what it is to be afraid – but she does not want to be stuck in a police post for the whole of Mardi Gras. If her father is to beat her for not coming home, she wants to have at least had some fun before the time comes. She'd only agreed to run the errand she was here for on the understanding that she could be in and out then off to Montparnasse to dance the galop or the chahut until she was wet with perspiration and set to faint.

"Some chance of that now, Marie my girl!" she muses sourly, "This rate you'll still be sitting here on Easter Sunday, like as not!"

Still, she had been paid to run the errand – and Babet was a hard man to say no to.

Marie's eye is caught by the blond sergeant, Jolivet. He, at least in all this uproar, is pleasing to look at, and so she does. Truth be told, Marie spends more than a little time looking at this young sergeant de ville as he patrols her neighbourhood. She knows his Christian name – Etienne – and that he comes from Brittany. She likes his blond curls and his fresh complexion – as if he had just come up from the country yesterday – and most of all his laughing grace of manner which is not at all like that of a policeman. Were he in any other profession Marie would have spoken to him long ago, but her family are frequently the cause of trouble in the district and Etienne Jolivet had visited them more than once in a professional capacity. This makes Marie too embarrassed to speak.

Young Jolivet is somewhat embarrassed himself. He has been charged by Javert with the task of separating all the whores and hookers from the rest of the crowd, and is failing dismally. Whoever invented the expression 'like herding cats' as a measure of difficulty had clearly never tried herding prostitutes! He is as shamefaced as a sheepdog outwitted by a ewe, but henone-the-less perseveres, remonstrating with a seasoned old working girl who he has asked to 'remain in the far corner' three times now.

"When I say 'remain where you are' I do not mean 'walk off whenever you feel like it' – move again and I'll put you in cells"

The old whore sucks her teeth and looks shifty.

"Do you understand me, La Mère?" he adds, just to piss the old witch off.

"La Mère!" she shrieks, "You cheeky fucking filthy brat!" And the then spits in his face, a good healthy, phlegm gobbet the consistency of crème Anglaise.

"Excuse me?" mutters Jolivet impotently, "Really?"

The old whore smirks and purses her lips as if preparing a second volley.

"That's enough of that you dirty slut!" snaps a dark figure looming up behind the prostitute like the Devil. Well, like the Devil would if he were a middle aged man sporting whiskers and a top hat, with a small child cradled in one arm and a leaking fountain pen clutched gingerly in his other hand.

The figure is, of course, that of inspector Javert.

The whore has just time to shiver as if someone had walked over her grave before Javert shrugs the child more securely against his shoulder, sticks the still leaking pen between his teeth, and grabs her wrist in a vicelike grip which nearly lifts her from the ground.

Dragging the whore behind, him Javert walks off in the direction of the cells, making a savage nod at Jolivet over his shoulder which sprays ink like a blood splatter and translates as "You! Come along with me!"

Jolivet follows, noticing that the child is no longer crying, only snuffling a little. She has one arm wrapped tight around Javert's neck, like a baby monkey, and looks over his shoulder with saucer eyes as if to say "Well this is certainly an unexpected position to be it!"

Jolivet realises, with a queasily ashamed jolt, that much thought the lost child's wailing had been doing his head in, neither he nor anyone else had thought to pick her up.

Marie too watches their retreating backs (which from behind look rather like an unhappy family - her family! – after an abortive attempt at a day out). Marie also has an idea, and follows after them.