‘No,’ she says firmly. ‘I no see. You go xandarmerie?’
It takes Robin a moment. A word familiar and yet not. ‘No, I haven’t. I’ll do that next. Can you tell me where it is?’
‘Sure. You go back harbour, is there.’
‘Thank you,’ she says again, and feels, suddenly, indescribably weary.
Left alone, she sits on the bed. Its headboard is gold, and carved in the shape of a giant swan. But it is dressed with two thin pillows, a white cotton sheet that’s been darned at some point and an orange candlewick bedspread, and the mattress is hard, unforgiving.
Just what I deserve, she thinks.
She gives herself a few minutes to rest, then she goes to the bathroom to wash and brush her teeth and make herself look respectable. The pipes are naked all up the plaster walls, but a gold-plated dolphin vomits water into the sink beneath a mirror in a Lewie Kanz gold frame. Appearances clearly matter a lot here.