He told his driver to take the long route home.
Then, at a junction three streets from Senter, he said: "Stop here for a moment."
The driver stopped. Said nothing. He had been Lucien's driver for four years and had learned the particular geography of *stop here for a moment*.
Lucien sat in the back of the car and looked at the street, which was not Senter Street but was close enough that he could see, if he looked left, the entrance to the block.
He was not going to go in. He was clear about that.
He was sitting in a car three streets from her building at nine fifteen p.m. on a Tuesday, which was already more than he could adequately explain to himself.
He had seen her tonight for the first time since she'd walked out of the estate. Five weeks. He had read surveillance reports and watched a thirty-second video clip and looked at her test shots and she had been, in all of these things, present as an image, as a set of data points, as a person-shaped information source.
