The French Confection by Anthony Horowitz

was a map showing the area. It only had a couple of dozen roads. “It doesn’t look too big,” I said. “And at least we know what we’re looking for. The French Confection.”
    “But what
is
The French Confection, Nick?”
    “I think it must be a shop. Maybe it sells cakes or sweets or something. But once we’ve found it, we’ll know we’re right next to the factory. Find the sign and we’ll have found the Mad American.”
    “And then?”
    “Then we call Moire.”
    We slipped out of Le Chat Gris down the fire escape, dodging past Moire’s men who were waiting for us at the front of the hotel. Then we dived into the nearest Metro station and headed north.
    It was a short walk from the station to the start of Le Marais – the Place Vendôme, one of those Paris squares where even the trees manage to look expensive. From there we headed down towards a big, elegant building that turned out to be the Picasso museum. I’d studied Picasso at school. He’s the guy who painted women with eyes in the sides of their necks and tables with legs going the wrong way. It’s called surrealism. Maybe I should have taken Tim in, as he’s pretty surreal himself. But we didn’t have time.
    We backtracked and found ourselves in a series of long, narrow streets with buildings rising five storeys on both sides. But I knew we were on the right track. There was no singing, but here and there I saw blue stars – the same stars I had glimpsed as I was bundled into the van. I knew what it was now: the six-pointed Star of David. There was one in every kosher food store and restaurant in the area.
    We’d been following the Rue des Rosiers – the one I’d read about in the guidebook – but with no sign of the building where we’d been held. So now we started snaking up and down, taking the first on the right and the next on the left and so on. It was a pretty enough part of Paris, I’ll say that for it. Tim had even forgotten our mission and stopped once or twice to take photographs. We’d been chased and threatened at knife-point. We’d been kidnapped, drugged and threatened again – this time by the French police. And he
still
thought we were on holiday!
    And then, suddenly, we were there.
    It was on one of the main streets of the area – the Rue de Sevigny. I recognized it at once: the burnt face of the building, the broken windows, the ugly chimney stacks… And there was the archway that we had driven through. There was a courtyard on the other side which was where the white van had been parked. I stood there in the sunlight, with people strolling past on the pavements, some carrying shopping bags, others pushing prams. And none of them knew. The biggest drug factory in Paris was right in front of them, just sitting there between a café and a cake shop, right in the middle of the Marais. I couldn’t believe I had found it so easily. It was hard to believe it was there at all.
    “Nick…!” Tim whispered.
    I grabbed hold of him and pulled him down behind a parked car as Bastille and Lavache appeared, coming out of the front door and walking across the courtyard. Each of them had a heavy box in their hands. Another shipment on its way out! It made me angry that anyone should be dumb enough to want to buy drugs and angrier still that these two grim reapers would be getting richer by selling them.
    “What do we do now?” Tim whispered.
    “Now we call Moire,” I said.
    “Right!” Tim straightened up. “Let’s ask in there!”
    Before I could stop him he had walked across the pavement and into the cake shop. There was the sign in the window that I had seen from the van. T HE F RENCH C ONFECTION . Why did the name bother me? Why did I feel it was connected with something or someone I had seen? It was too late to worry about it now. Tim was already inside. I followed him in.
    I found myself in a long, narrow shop with a counter running down one wall. Everywhere I looked there were cakes and croissants, bowls of