On the Prowl

It took ten minutes for Stan to answer my call. When he did, he was shirtless, likely naked.

'Sorry, Den, I was busy,' he said, smirking. He turned his Mirrorphone to the side. The bespectacled girl lying on the bed squealed, covered her breasts, and turned away. I only got the briefest of glimpse of her, but there was no doubt she was naked. As he turned the phone back to show the self-satisfied smirk on his face, the girl began to berate him; at least, from her tone I assumed that she was berating him. I couldn't be certain, because she was speaking what I assumed to be Japanese.

'Get dressed, and get into the office,' I told him. 'The moment you get here, we're going to Paris.'

'Paris!' he said. 'I'm going to Paris, Hoshi. I'll be there as soon as I can, Dennis.'

I'd moved into the Muggle Interface Team when Bobbie started her maternity leave. At first I'd been working with Lavender, a woman whose inane chatter would drive any manmost men demented (though not, it seemed, her husband) and Camelia, who (presumably because of centuries of practice dealing with annoying people) was able to ignore her. When Lavender took a month's holiday, and Camelia was sent to the USA with Polly, we'd got Stan as a replacement. I'd looked forward to working with him. Unfortunately, after two weeks of listening to sexually charged critiques of every girl he saw and graphic descriptions of his sex life, I found myself missing Lavender.

Stan was aware his blow-by-blow accounts of his every sexual encounter annoyed me. I wondered if that was why he did it, or if he thought I was jealous. I'd made the mistake of telling him that I'd had only five girlfriends, including my wife, and that I'd only slept with three of them. He seemed to think I was missing out, that I was envious, or that I thought sex was wrong.

I'd told him on many occasions that I wasn't jealous, and that the only time sex was wrong was when there was no consent from one of the people involved. I'd explained that I simply wasn't interested in his sex life, and I saw no reason for him to keep score. He didn't believe me. He didn't believe me when I told him that I was happy to be "tied to one woman", as he put it, either.

I tried to concentrate on the positives of my newest teammate. Stan was a good Auror. He had to be, Harry quickly weeded out the ones who weren't. He was a competent investigator who didn't miss much; on a few occasions he'd spotted things I'd missed. This was the first time his habit of chasing almost every girl he saw had interfered with his work, and I was interrupting his day off. I knew that he would get into the office as soon as he could, and he'd be ready to work when he arrived.

Picking up the case file and took the express lift to the Ministry car park. When I arrived, I thumbed the button on the car keys.

The car I'd allocated to myself was next to Bobbie's. Hers was a black Range Rover Sport. It was several years old but, because of the various Charms on it, it remained in pristine condition. There were several identical vehicles in the car park, including Harry's. I ignored them all. I'd chosen to take one of the two Range Rover Evoques we'd recently acquired. Unlike the rest of the Auror Service fleet, the Evoques were white.

I placed my Mirrorphone into the cradle on the dashboard and dropped the case file onto the passenger seat. From the position of the driver's seat, it seemed likely that Terry Boot—a man even taller than his wife—had been the last person to use the car. I could barely see over the steering wheel, and my feet were almost a foot away from the pedals.

'Driver, Dennis Creevey, Warrant zero-one-slash-double-zero-three-seven,' I told the car. It had only just finished adjusting the seat and mirrors when the passenger door opened.

'I'm seeing Hoshi again tomorrow, if we get back in time. She wants me to show her friends around Camden. And I've arranged to meet Tallulah the following day,' Stan told me smugly. 'I hope this mission isn't going to interfere with my sex life too much. I'm supposed to be on leave today, and for the next three days!'

I replied with a disinterested grunt, and concentrated on fastening my seatbelt.

'Why are we going to Paris?' Stan asked. 'Will we have time to visit the Folies Bergère or the Moulin Rouge?' He failed to pronounce the words correctly.

'The Bureau des Aurors have contacted us,' I told him. 'They've found the other half of the body. We'll be in Paris for as long as it takes, and when we're finished, I will be going straight home to my wife and daughter.'

'Boring,' Stan muttered.

I placed my finger on my Mirrorphone, 'Portkey Office,' I said.

'Portkey Office,' a bored-sounding young man said. When his face appeared in the mirror, his eyes widened and his boredom vanished. He had seen my identification. 'Sir,' he added belatedly.

'Auror Dennis Creevey,' I said. 'We have an International Portkey Authorisation for Auror vehicle Alpha-Oscar-nine. You've been sent a destination for the Portkey. You've had confirmation from le Bureau de la Justice Magique and Director Potter.'

'I, er, one moment, sir,' the young man said, his face contorting in panic. His face vanished from the mirror, and I heard a muttered conversation in the background. Seconds later another face, this one grey-bearded and bespectacled, appeared.

'He's new! Can't get the staff these days,' the older man told me cheerfully. He turned his head to the side. 'Auror Service Portkeys are in the red tray marked "Priority—Auror Service", Ryan. It's not difficult!' He reached forwards and looked down at the message. 'You're going to a place called Mont-martry, Auror Creevey,' he told me. I winced. His pronunciation made Stan's attempts sound almost acceptable. Things didn't improve as he continued. 'Your final destination is the alley doo middy. I'm sending the directions to your Mirrorphone now. Your Portkey is authorised and is now active!' As he spoke, he reached forwards and activated the key.

Inside the car the steering wheel glowed, I grabbed it. We vanished from the London car park in a ball of blue light.

When we landed in Paris the car bounced heavily on its suspension. Stan only just got his arms in front of his face in time to stop his head from hitting the dashboard. He swore.

'You should've fastened your seatbelt, Stan. International Portkeys can be a little bumpy,' I told him. 'You'd better fasten it now. We're dealing with Paris traffic, and in my experience that can be bumpy, too.'

I looked at our surroundings, and then at my Mirrorphone. We were in a tiny parking space in a narrow alley. The route to the crime scene was shown as a green line on the map on my mirror. I turned on the car's engine noise and pulled out of the parking space. When I reached the Rue Caulaincourt, I turned right.

'Paris,' said Stan, peering excitedly through the car windows. 'Ever been, Den?'

'Not for many years,' I told him as we made our way up the wide main street.

'Cherchez la femme,' he said as we passed two young women walking down the hill.

'You, of all people, don't need to come to Paris to do that, Stan,' I told him. He looked at me blankly. 'You do know what "cherchez la femme" means, don't you?' I asked. In the distance I could see a police car blocking the alley my Mirrorphone was directing us towards.

He shook his head. 'I've heard people say it. It's French, and femme means female or something like that, as for the rest…' He shrugged. 'Do you know what it means?'

'Yes.' I nodded. 'Literally, it means looking for women,' I told him. 'Like I said, you don't need to come to Paris to do that.'

He chuckled.

I didn't try to explain the phrase further, to discuss the deeper meanings. It implies that if a man is behaving out of character, it's because he is either trying to cover up an affair with a woman or trying to impress a woman.

While Stan grinned to himself, I realised that the phrase had also applied to the nineteen-year-old me. Someone should have warned the young man who went on the first ever Anglo-French Auror Exchange Programme to be wary of "cherchez la femme."

'I hope the French Aurors can speak English,' Stan said. 'Do you know much French?'

'Un peu,' I told him as we approached the police car.

A rather rotund middle-aged man in a Police Municipale uniform strolled slowly towards us. I lowered my window. My action was redundant, because he headed for Stan's side of the vehicle, not mine. I lowered Stan's window and leaned forwards so that he could see that I, not Stan, was the driver.

'Je m'appelle Creevey, service de sécurité britannique. Quelqu'un m'attend.' I told the man.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out my Auror Identity Card, tapped it into the Security Service setting, and handed it to Stan, who showed it to the policeman.

'M I fife,' the portly man said in broken English as he examined the card. 'You James Bond!'

'Non, je suis M I cinq, Bond est M I six,' I said. It wasn't the first time. No one outside the UK, and not many people within it, seemed to know the difference. I wondered if real MI5 agents had the same problem.

He dismissed my words with a shrug so Gallic that it seemed to begin in his boots. 'La belle blonde est déjà là,' he told me.

La belle blonde! I wondered if she'd asked for the assignment. But I realised that was ridiculous. We'd only told the French Ministry the name of the lead investigator, and that was Bobbie. Even if it was her, she wouldn't be expecting to see me.'

'Gabrielle Delacour?' I asked,. I was hoping he'd say no.

'Oui,' he told me. 'Vous la connaissez?'

'Oui, nous avons travaillé ensemble par le passé,' I replied. He stepped aside and waved me past his police car. His young companion practised his frown on us.

'What was that all about?' Stan asked me.

'Nothing, really,' I said. 'He was joking about us not being James Bond, and it seems that the French Auror on the scene speaks very good English.

'Do you know this Gabriel bloke, then?'

'Gabrielle isn't a bloke,' I said. 'Yes, I know her very well. At least I did, ten years ago.'

Stan's expression changed instantly. 'Did you know her intimately?' he asked.

Ignoring his question, I drove down the alley until the Police Nationale officers flagged us down.

Her white dress was patterned with black abstract symbols which somehow managed to give the impression of fleurs-de-lis, although they weren't. Her coat was a tan leather creation with a rather impractical looking high collar, but it was not as impractical as her matching shoes. They added at least four three inches to her height. Even in bare feet she was four inches taller than I was; in her heels she was almost as tall as Stan. She towered over me.

When we'd been together, she'd always worn flats. I suddenly realised that, although I ha'd tried to, I couldn't blame her for everything—she had made compromises for me, too. She'd always known that the height difference between us bothered me.

She called me her darling Denis, using the French pronunciation of my name, as she always had. I told her that she looked beautiful, because she did. She seemed to be happy to see me. I couldn't understand why. When we'd parted, ten years earlier—and it was almost exactly ten years, I realised with a start—we had both been in tears. The summer of 2004 was so long ago.

I'd learned to love the city she called home, but I didn't fit in. I would always be a foreigner, I knew that. I also knew that some of her friends called me "le petit rosbif," the little Englishman, and they laughed at us; not in front of her, of course. But they underestimated my understanding of French, and I let them.

'I care not! They are jealous of our love!' Gabi said when I told her.

Paris had been a great adventure; the highs were bright and stratospheric, the lows dark and subterranean. Despite everything, I remained the outsider, and not only in Gabi's circle of friends. The city, her beautiful city, could be stifling at times. Gabi didn't like my clothes or my tastes in Muggle music—"that terrible, depressing, din"—or my love of the hills and wild places of my home.

I'd always known that Paris could never be home to me, but it took me a long time to realise that, unlike her sister, Gabi could never leave France. She could not, it seemed to me, even leave Paris. She was born to be a Parisienne.

Gabi was still a city girl, stylish and sophisticated; she was happiest in company, at parties and in street cafes. She was happiest when she was elegantly dressed, looking her magnificent best. I, of course, had to dress the part, too. I had to play the part of the dapper little Englishman with his amusing accent.

I did my best. I played the part for her, but eventually realised that I couldn't sustain the act forever. She wanted me to change. I tried, but she didn't like the new me, and neither did I. I think that, before we cried, we both tried to change. Finally, however, realisation struck. I would never be a Parisien; I was a country boy trapped in a city, a tea drinker in a place powered by coffee. I don't like espresso, and that is a criminal offence in Paris.

I was happiest in the hills, the open spaces; she hated them. She took me to the Forêt d'Ermenonville, a place favoured by the magical French, but even that was too rural for her. The only holiday we took together was in the bustle of Nice.

I could appreciate the beauty of "la Basilique du Sacré Cœur", the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, but for someone used to a long, lonely windswept and sandy coastline, the sun-kissed beaches of Nice were an improvement only in weather. The beaches were rocky and crowded. On her part, Gabi could not appreciate the bleak beauty of the hills I loved. On her one brief visit to my parent's house I took her to visit High Force. It was raining, of course. "Rocks and water," she said dismissively. "Just like Nice, but colder, and less crowded," I told her. She disagreed, and that was when I first worried that our relationshipI was doomed. "Stay in Paris, stay with me," she had said. "Come to England, come with me," I replied'd begged.

For almost two years she'd been my mademoiselle, but when I returned to the UK, it ended. We exchanged a few letters, each begging the other to move. She was given the opportunity to do as I had. She had the chance to carry out some of her Auror training in the UK. Her last letter to me was the one where she told me that she had turned that opportunity down. I didn't reply, what could I say?

Stan was positively drooling over her. I wanted to warn her, to let her know what he was like. It was none of my business, I reminded myself. It was ten years. I was married, I was a father. She was a free agent and she could make whatever choices she desired.

Pulling myself back to the present, I turned to the business at hand. I asked the question, and got the answer I didn't want.

'We were right,' I told her sadly. 'I really hoped that we weren't. The victim had been receiving fan mail from a France, from a girl named Éloïse. From all the evidence we have...'

'It's death by Splinching, isn't it?' Stan announced. 'It's not a murder. It's an accident, something for the Sheriff's Office, and Magical Transportation, or whatever their French equivalent is. Case closed! We can go straight back home, unless this lovely lady would like to show me the sights of Paris.' He gave Gabi one of his best smiles.

Gabi turned to me and spoke in rapid French. I was a little rusty and had difficulty in keeping up.

'Your colleague, does he speak French?' she asked.

'No, at least he says he doesn't,' I told her.

'His face is happy, Denis, but inside he is not happy at all. He is so unlike you. Your happiness shines like a beacon. You are happier even than when we were together, though something troubles you.' She paused and stared at me. 'Is it me?'

'You don't trouble me,' I assured her, smiling ruefully. It seemed that her ability to read people had improved, but it was not perfect. 'Seeing you has reminded me of the good times and the bad, Gabi. I'm not worried, I'm simply lost in might-have-beens.'

'Your wife is a lucky woman,' Gabi told me. 'I remember those times too, Denis, but I regret nothing. We are older, wiser. Perhaps. now, we can be friends, not lovers.'

The smile which accompanied that simple statement lifted the burden of our shared past from me.

'We can,' I told her.

Turning to Stan and reverting to English she continued. 'You are right, Stan, and you are wrong. The Auror case is closed. Éloïse is guilty only of causing death by Splinching, of carrying out a dangerous International Side-along Apparition. But she thought that she was in love with this man, and she has killed him.' Her eyes widened and she stared into Stan's face. 'You know how much it hurts to lose someone you love, I see that.'

Stan bristled, and for a moment I glimpsed the darkness Gabi had seen behind his smile. He said nothing.

'So does Denis,' Gabi continued with barely a pause. 'He has come to terms with his loss. But even after all these years he still carries his brother in his heart. Don't you, Denis?'

'Yes,' I admitted. 'I always will.'

'Your companion, he has lost someone, too, but he has closed his heart to that loss, and by doing so, he has closed his heart to everyone,' Gabi returned to French. 'Do you know who?'

'Son père,' I said.

'Père is father, isn't it? Whose father?' Stan demanded. 'Will you both please stop talking French! Are you talking about me?'

I didn't reply, because I couldn't deny it, and didn't want to admit it.

He glared. 'We should leave! There's nothing more for us here.'

'This case is closed, and yet it is not, Stan,' Gabi said. 'The girl is missing. She has not returned home, and her parents are worried. I, too, am worried. Her world has ended. I fear a second death. I have spoken to the witness. However, I have not, yet, been upstairs to see the body. We must look.'

She led us up a narrow staircase to the top floor. The place stank of death. There was blood everywhere. The upper half of Tommy Harris lay on a cheap rug at the foot of the bed. His arms had been carefully folded across his chest, and his eyes had been closed. Gabi and I crouched down to look at the body while Stan walked around the room, examining everything.

'Is that...' I began, pointing at Harris' forehead.

'Lipstick,' Gabi confirmed. 'And tears.' She pointed to a faint mark on his temple. 'She did this. She laid him out, and cried, and kissed him. She is... She is désolée.'

'That's strange,' said Stan. He lifted a bundle of letters tied up in a ribbon. Pulling the topmost letter from the envelope, he rapidly scanned it. It's signed by Tommy Harris…' He glanced across at Harris' body and quickly read through the letter. 'It looks like he'd agreed to meet her! But nothing in London indicated that…' He stared at the letters. It was obvious that Stan sensed something was wrong, but he was unable to determine what. I stood and joined him.

He handed me the letter. A closer look was enough for me. The parchment was plain, but when I held it up to the light I could clearly see the watermark. 'Plume et Encre, Paris,' I said. 'What are the chances that a British Muggle singer wrote back to a French witch on parchment bought from a shop in magical Paris?' I squinted at the text. 'Using what looks to be an auto-dictation quill,' I added.

'None,' said Gabi as she joined us. Grabbing my hand in hers, she turned it to get a better view of the letter. I watched her eyes flick down the page. 'No Englishman wrote these words of love, not even a singer. I would stake my life on this! She thought he loved her. For her, it was a tryst! It is no wonder that her heart is broken.'

While Gabi and I examined the letters, Stan had resumed his search of the room.

'Damn!' he exclaimed. 'I think she's made poison.' He lifted several vials from a dressing table that was covered in even more bottles than Gabi's had ever been.

'We have to find her,' I said.

'He was killed late last night.' Stan indicated the corpse and shrugged helplessly. 'She's had hours, Den. She's probably dead already. We're Aurors, not social workers; a suicidal French witch isn't our problem.'

Gabi stepped up to him and slapped him, hard. 'Va te faire foutre! You should care more, you should have hope. She is not dead until we find a body!'

'Harry willould want us to find her,' I told a stunned and silent Stan. 'And you know he willould!' I added firmly. He managed to rein in his annoyance and even attempted to look contrite.

'But she could be anywhere,' said Gabi helplessly.

'In her letters, she talked about the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and the beautiful view of Paris from it,' Stan reminded me. 'She went on and on about the romance of the place and how much she wanted him to see it.'

'Stan's right, Gabi,' I confirmed. 'In every letter she wrote to him she said that she wanted to take him to le Sacré-Cœur. If she mentioned the place to him, could she have gone there?'

'Oui certainement!' Gabi exclaimed excitedly. 'Even this appartement tells us so!'

With a flamboyant gesture she pointed through the window. Following her gaze, I saw a fraction of a white dome—the Basilica.

'She rented this room, and it is within sight, within walking distance of the Basilique. She will be there, she must be there! We must go, now!' said Gabi. She ran for the stairs. Stan and I followed.

Ignoring the startled police at the door, she led us along the narrow street. Within minutes we'd arrived at the steps that ran alongside the funiculaire.

'We must separate, use our Mirrorphones to contact each other,' she began.

'These are better,' I said. Opening my Auror wallet, I pulled out three liquorice-coloured plugs. 'Hear-ears, made exclusively for the Auror Service by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Stick one of these in your ear, and we'll be able to talk to each other.'

'Merci,' she said. 'Stan, you will go to the bottom of the steps and work your way up through the park. Denis, come with me. You can start at the top and work down. I will look within the Basilica itself.'