PARIS‚ PRESENT DAY
It was an unremarkable grey Parisian morning. While Evie waited for Gilles to come in to work, she sat at her chestnut table drinking black coffee and dabbing at the leftover flakes of her croissant with her finger as she turned the pages of Le Monde.
This had been her morning ritual ever since she’d bought La Maison Rustique, fifteen years ago. She took comfort in the dappled light that fell through the shop windows, the lifetime of scratches and grooves etched into her antique table, and the warmth of the floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves grouped by subject: Horticulture, Conception de Jardin, Fruits, Légumes …
Evie was trying to focus on her newspaper, but she kept eyeing the small wooden archive box sitting at the far end of the table that held Joséphine’s book. After her meeting with Clément, she’d taken a week to search the villa for the missing manuscript, undertaking a bit of late spring-cleaning as she went. She’d returned to Paris by train last night to talk to Gilles about preserving the Leroux and separating the pages. The book had been delivered to her shop this morning in an archive box by Clément’s museum transport team. Gilles had agreed to come in and have a look, promising that if he couldn’t take care of it then he had a colleague at the Louvre who could.
Evie swallowed the last of her coffee and sat back in her chair, taking a moment to enjoy the shaft of light falling through the front window. Outside, Paris was starting her day. Pot plants and round tables were placed on the footpath, umbrellas popped up in front of cafes. Queues gathered outside tiny boulangeries. As the street filled with traffic and pedestrians, Evie cocooned herself in the wooden walls of her shop, as she had for nearly fifteen years.
A decade ago, when the business was still getting on its feet, Hugo would give her a goodbye kiss and a delighted squeeze as he donned his backpack and joined his rowdy classmates in the cobbled streets to kick a football and race off to elementary school. Raph would leave at the same time, adjusting the collar of his tailored sports jacket, grabbing his briefcase off the hook on the wall and pausing for a quick peck on the lips before he raced to catch the subway to his day-trading office at the Bourse. Evie sighed as she wondered how long she’d be able to recall Raph’s just-shaved cheek pressed against hers, the way the edge of his eyes turned up a little when he smiled, his wavy sandy hair brushing his collar.
Her next thought was of Clément Tazi. As they’d worked together in Joséphine’s library, he’d been methodical in the cataloguing, reverential and curious. Occasionally, among the rustle and crinkle of papers, he’d looked up to ask questions of Evie: about her Australian childhood, Hugo’s final-year subject choices, how she’d come to have her shop, and watercolourists and botanical illustrators she admired. They shared an easy banter as they knelt and shuffled across the thick carpet, stopping to chuckle at some of the more outlandish margin notes on Joséphine’s drafts. When Clément laughed he threw his head back, his eyes almost disappearing—and just to see him do this, Evie found herself telling light-hearted anecdotes about Hugo’s childhood, boorish clients and her shop.
She hadn’t felt a flicker of interest towards any man since Raph. Her well-meaning girlfriends, Camille and Nina, had tried to set her up: Nina’s fellow partner at her law firm (too boring—Evie nearly fell asleep during a monologue about the first-growth burgundy, or was it bordeaux?), the cute new head coach at Camille’s local football club (too foppish, like a prancing colt) and the lanky cellist in one of Paris’s finest touring quartets (wickedly funny but placed an insipid hand on Evie’s thigh halfway through their second glass of chardonnay).
Not to be put off, the same friends had decided casual sex might help, so they’d set her up on a dating app for over-forties.
‘It’s just sex—mon dieu, are all Australians so conservative?’ asked Camille as they shared a bottle of pinot gris at her chic new apartment overlooking the Luxembourg Gardens. She’d divorced for the second time last year and was currently seeing three men, one of whom was in his twenties. Mind you, with her cropped bob, balayage and impeccable skin, Camille could pass for a woman a decade younger. ‘Don’t worry, it’s just for Paris,’ she said as she downloaded the app onto Evie’s phone. ‘You won’t be connected with a lonely corn farmer in Minnesota, just locals.’ Evie was pretty sure they didn’t grow corn in Minnesota, but she let it pass. ‘See!’ Camille held the phone out. ‘All loaded.’
But just looking at the little blue icon made Evie uncomfortable. Not least because she wasn’t good at technology—she was frightened she’d conjure a serial killer into their lives with an accidental swipe right.
Nina and Camille were absolutely correct, though: she couldn’t sit at this table brooding and eating croissants forever. Her French girlfriends would be horrified at her daily pastry intake. She reached for her phone and texted them both: Lots to catch up on. Drinks tonight?
Oui. Olivier’s at 8, responded Camille.
There was nothing from Nina, but that wasn’t unusual; she was probably prepping for court.
Evie looked again at the wooden archive box. She was itching to peek inside, but she would need to wait until Gilles worked his magic. Instead, she’d make a start on some other work. She moved her plate and coffee cup to the shop counter and lifted a larger sealed archive box onto the centre table. There had been an online inquiry for one of her rare antique books, and she needed to check all was in order before the potential buyer came in for his appointment tomorrow. She slipped on her archivist’s gloves and was soothed by the feel of the cotton. Affixed to the front of the box was a typed A4 sheet:
Orchids of Australia: the complete edition drawn in natural colour / by W.H. Nicholls with descriptive text; edited by D.L. Jones and T.B. Muir.
His paintings of Australian orchids. 476 colour plates, 500 pages. Binding has been repaired, otherwise in excellent condition. (Many copies of this book have had the binding repaired because the book was too large and heavy for the binding the printer used.)
1000USD
She studied an exquisite illustration of a blue spider orchid. The collector would be pleased—the cerulean hadn’t faded with the decades. Certainly, the blue was so bright the pigment must have been made with lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.
Her heart did a little flip: piecing together the provenance of a botanical book was as much fun for her as analysing the composition. It was both an art and a science, with just the faintest stroke of magic.
She flipped through the remaining pages, then closed the book using both hands and carefully placed it back in the archive box. She gulped when she saw the sale price, perhaps a little too hefty. Gilles had gently chided her over the phone yesterday. It’s as if you don’t want to part with these rare books, Evie. Well, perhaps she didn’t want to part with this particular book because it reminded her of her Australian childhood.
The shop door opened, and Gilles shuffled in, smoothing his grey hair mussed up by the morning wind, booming, ‘Bonjour, Evie,’ before his eyes fell on the book and he started to smile. ‘So you are going to sell it, after all.’ He bent down, picked up the mail from the floor and dropped it on the end of the table.
‘I don’t really have a choice.’ She shrugged. ‘I have to pay those bills—you taught me that! The shop has to pay for itself.’
‘I admire your pragmatism. Is that for me?’ He pointed at the museum’s locked box and clapped with excitement. ‘I’ll work on it all morning, and I’ll know what needs to be done within a few hours. Then we can talk timeframes.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Come have lunch with me today. Olivier has a mullet entrée on at the moment with Puy lentils and confit garlic that you must try. He’s been asking after you.’
‘Your husband is kind. As are you. Thank you, dear Gilles. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Especially since … well.’
Gilles nodded, blue eyes filled with warmth and affection.
She kissed his cheek quickly and added, ‘I have to go upstairs and do some invoicing. I’ll leave the orchid book here in its container. Take the centre table for Joséphine’s book.’ Evie was desperate to stay and see what he found, but hovering over his shoulder would just annoy him. She took a step towards the old man and placed a hand on his forearm. ‘And Gilles, I really appreciate you coming in to help out. When I bought the shop, I didn’t realise you came with it.’
Gilles reddened and tugged at his waistband to lift up his perpetually sagging trousers. ‘Of course, I enjoy it. I love the books—’ he took in the shelves ‘—and you and young Hugo. How is the boy, by the way? I haven’t seen him in months. Still at the villa?’
‘He’s with Simon for the day,’ she replied in a voice that sounded much lighter than she felt. Simon was Nina’s eldest child—she had a chaotic household of six. ‘He doesn’t say much. And when he’s around, he’s glued to his phone.’
‘Sounds like a normal teenager. My nephews are the same.’
‘Perhaps.’ But it wasn’t normal for a boy to find his father’s dead body on the bathroom floor.
She didn’t know if she’d ever be able to right this wrong. The counselling was definitely helping, but he needed time to find his own path through the heavy fog that sometimes seeped in and threatened to smother his days. She’d spent the past two years stepping beside him on some of those days and calling him through on others. But mostly, he preferred to navigate his sadness on his own.
‘Thanks again, Gilles. I’ll leave you here for the morning. Just give me a yell if you need any help.’ She winked. They both knew he would be lucky if anyone walked in the front door. Though it was a Saint-Germain institution, the shop was appointment only. Collectors from Singapore to Boston and Dublin sought out her catalogue and thought nothing of making a trip specifically to view a rare manuscript.
Gilles had opened La Maison Rustique four decades ago, and it now sat tucked between the pastel and gilded tearooms of Ladurée and an achingly cool start-up menswear label that had electronic music on rotation from 10 a.m. She glanced at her watch and estimated she had thirty minutes before the beats shook their shared walls. Pinching the top of her nose at the anticipated headache, she wondered when she had become such a tired old witch. She liked music. Liked dancing, even. It was just that nightclub music was distracting when she was trying to work. Maybe she’d pop in and have a chat to the boys later today about keeping it down a bit. Actually, no, she wouldn’t—she’d just come across as tired and grumpy.
What was it Hugo had hissed at her the night before they’d left for Villa Sanary, when she had simply queried why his chemistry assignment was late again? Why are you always on my case? You’re ruining my life. I can’t wait to— He’d stopped himself, then stomped into his bedroom and slammed the door.
His words had stung, but she was the adult in the room and had to stand strong, like a mast remaining upright while their ship bobbed around in a storm. Even when the insults flew, and the teenage rage became almost too much to bear, she held firm. Then—when the door was slammed—she’d creep into her room and cry into a pillow, so Hugo would never know how much watching him struggle hurt her. She needed to find a way to help her beautiful boy reach calmer waters; she just wasn’t sure how.
Gilles furrowed his bushy brows. ‘Are you okay, Evie? Can I—?’
‘I’m fine.’ She nodded at him, swiping the mail off the table and tucking it under an arm as she trudged upstairs.
When she opened the door to her apartment, a cool breeze struck her face. She looked to where she’d left a sash window open, the linen curtains flapping about in a tangle with the breeze. She hurried over to pull the window shut but lingered to take in the scent of warm bread from the boulangerie next door, chiding herself for eating a croissant when it had barely touched the sides of her appetite.
She moved to the old chestnut desk in the corner of the living room and sat down, allowing the mail to spill across the surface. As she leaned back in the chair, a knot pressed into her lower back, and she tugged out one of Raph’s old scarves that had been wedged in the leather seat. How long had it been hidden there?
Most of his stuff had been donated to the nearest thrift shop last year—Evie’s therapist had insisted she needed to let go. The rest of it, mostly property titles and yellowing piles of family paperwork, was in archive boxes on top of her wardrobe that hadn’t been touched since they’d moved to this apartment from the studio apartment when Hugo was born.
Evie grabbed Raph’s scarf and yanked it from the crease in the chair. Without thinking, she lifted it to her nose and inhaled. Raphaël. She closed her eyes and was picking through the Clignancourt markets looking for blue-and-white dinner plates, oak dining chairs and antique white linen to cover their duvet. Stopping for champagne and oysters with a vinegar and wasabi dressing at a tiny hole-in-the-wall, and devouring steaming piles of moules frites with a sharp pinot gris when their Saturday market-hopping was done.
She wrapped the scarf around her neck, picked up the letter opener and started sorting the bills into piles. Then she opened her laptop and began the mind-numbing task of plugging in account numbers, wiring funds and settling debts. She sent a text to the manager of her Montmartre apartment to see when she could get in for a look. Though she doubted the manuscript was there, she’d promised Clément she would try. This morning she’d go through Raph’s paperwork—she seriously doubted anything would be there either, but one last look couldn’t hurt.
Sometimes she wondered what Raph would think of her newfound life-admin superpower. When he was alive, her desk was scattered with paint samples, glasses of water, botanical manuscripts, and some of her own doodles and sketches. A few winters ago, their gas had been turned off! Not because they couldn’t afford to pay—Raph’s stockbroking gig ensured they were more than comfortable, and La Maison Rustique proudly held its own—but because Evie had used the bill as a bookmark, then reshelved the novel.
Every time Raph had asked her about bills and budgets—pleaded to take over the household payments—she’d batted him away with a kiss even though she hated all forms of life admin. She intended to be that woman who got the school forms in and paid her taxes in a timely manner. She intended to get more organised and then lead the glossy life expected of a stockbroker’s wife and 6th arrondissement maman.
Evie had wanted this life, chased it. She’d had a shiny road laid out in front of her, paved with privilege straight from the door of her private girls’ school. All she had to do was work hard, tick the boxes and stay the course.
Growing up, she’d adored the freedom of riding her pony in broad paddocks fringed with eucalyptus and wattle trees. The yellow acacia buds glowed in the sunshine as she galloped across the cracked earth, leaving whirlwinds of dust in her wake. She’d tether her horse to a log and eat her vegemite sandwich, lying on the prickly brown grass and looking up at the wide blue sky, dreaming about all the places she would go when she was old enough.
At university, Evie discovered delicious subjects that had always been sold to her as ‘soft’ by her reptilian school careers adviser: philosophy, metaphysics, fine arts, life drawing, botanical illustration, history of biology. Her law degree became a rambling arts degree with no fixed major. Three years later, she emerged with short shaggy hair, a decent pair of walking boots and no idea where they would take her.
So, she had decided to put her stilted schoolgirl French to use and got a job at the most darling botanical bookshop in Paris: La Maison Rustique. Under Gilles’s careful tutelage she learned more about botanical art, and soon she was taking night classes. She learned to study a manuscript—as quirky and individual as any child, he’d quipped as he patiently showed her how to study a print, the shape of the outlines, the watercolours.
She came to see orchids and roses through the eyes of the illustrator, the dip of a petal, the dab of light. With time, Gilles showed her she was not just studying the plant but also the way the illustration unfolded. The heavy strokes, the delicate etches—each revealed a nervousness, a passion, a doubt, a love. ‘It’s never about the vellum or the ink, or the scarcity of the flower. It’s about eyes that see not just beauty, but the shadows and the rot too. It’s a commitment to sit down and craft a manuscript like this. To place the flowers in the right order so they create a rhythm to the book: the pitter-patter of tiny orchids, spiky stamen and pointed petals up the front, slowing to a more languorous stretch of roses with their soft, fur-like petals.’
A knock at her apartment door.
‘Come in,’ she called.
‘A word, if I may?’ said Gilles, as he opened the door. ‘Your book is going to take some work.’
Her face fell. It had been silly to expect results immediately: she knew better. But she’d hoped to have something to tell Clément.
‘I’m not going to prise any pages apart, not today. I’ll secure the spine and put it in a holder, then go page by page. Now, are you going to join me for lunch?’
She stared at the mess on her desk. How had three hours passed? ‘I’m going to keep looking through Raph’s boxes for anything that might help with the exhibition.’
‘Well, okay. If you insist. But make sure you eat.’
‘I will. And I’m going out with Camille and Nina tonight for a drink after dinner, so I’ll see Olivier then.’
Gilles laughed. ‘Well, in that case you really need to make sure you have a proper meal. Line your stomach before you meet those two!’
As Gilles headed down the stairs, she shot a text to Clément. Going to apartment tomorrow, will keep you posted.
Her phone pinged in response. Thanks for letting me know. Cataloguing the manuscripts here—your Joséphine had a fiery way with a margin note. He attached a pic of a page with French swear words scrawled down the margin, and angry lines zigzagging through chunks of text that were obviously not going through to the next draft.
It was incredible to Evie how an inanimate page of typeset letters could zing to life with handwritten annotations. Joséphine’s scrawl was more legible than some of the blurred words of the inky Leroux, even though her handwriting had been much neater when she was in Fresnes, before her hands were scarred. Evie forwarded the page to Gilles, thinking it might help him decipher some of the text, when it came to that. First, they needed to separate the pages.
She turned back to Raph’s boxes sitting on her desk and continued her search for anything that might be of interest to Clément.
Evie had known very little about the great Joséphine Murant when she married Raph. Only the statements embossed in gold letters across each of her novels:
When Evie and Raph were newlyweds, she’d read some of Joséphine’s novels: The Forgotten, Little Lost Child and Hide and Seek. If she was honest, they terrified her: kidnappings, murders, broken families and broken dreams, all described in horrific detail. She would never understand how people got their kicks from gorging on fictional misfortunes. But they did—fifteen million people, according to Joséphine’s royalty statements.
Evie took no joy in death, fictional or otherwise, and had found herself wincing as she sat up in bed reading late one night. ‘Your great-aunt is a fully fledged psychopath,’ she’d said, nudging her bare-chested husband.
‘Hmm, you think?’ said Raph absent-mindedly as he continued to read the stock report on his laptop.
‘Of course! I mean, three people have been slaughtered in as many pages. I’m going to need to see a shrink at the end of this novel just so I don’t get PTSD.’
‘So, stop reading it then. Nobody’s forcing you!’ He grinned at her.
‘That’s the thing, I can’t stop. It’s like The Silence of the Lambs meets The Great Gatsby.’
He shut his laptop and kissed her on the lips. ‘You wait until you meet Joséphine next weekend. Now …’ He lifted the book from her fingertips, whipped off his glasses and placed both on his bedside table, along with his computer. As he rolled over, Evie clambered on top of him and buried her nose in his chest, rubbing a cheek against his muscles and taking his sandalwood aftershave deep into her lungs.
As Evie focused back on the here and now, she rubbed her eyes. The goosh-goosh of the electronic beats next door poured in her window and pounded her brain. She could feel the beginnings of a headache and jumped up to close the window, but not before a gust of wind blasted into her apartment. The original letter from the museum fluttered on her desk. She slammed the window shut, picked up the paper and again reflected on her meeting with Clément Tazi. She was surprised at how much she was looking forward to the next one.
Over dinner with Hugo, Evie showed him a photo of the first page of the Leroux diary.
‘Cool! It talks about that murderer, Margot.’ He flicked through pics they’d taken in Villa Sanary’s library. ‘Does Joséphine spill any details?’
‘You’ve been watching too much Netflix.’ Evie sighed and took a sip of her burgundy. ‘Well, we’ve only seen one page—who knows, maybe there will be some revelations about the murder.’
‘Yeah, look what Joséphine did for a living! So, any sign of that missing manuscript?’
‘Nothing.’ Evie noticed there was no offer to help her go through boxes. Typical teenager. ‘I looked everywhere here today. Even the manhole. Nothing. I’m going to the old apartment tomorrow—though we took everything when we left. Still, it’s a good excuse to check the place is still in good nick.’
‘Zip. There was her medal, but I’ve already loaned that to Clément.’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘At least we’ve got the old Leroux, and it does look like a diary of her time in prison during the war. I’m in two minds about it. Should we use it?’
‘Definitely,’ Hugo said between mouthfuls of spaghetti. ‘Everyone reads Anne Frank’s diary in elementary school. And there are so many new books coming out about World War II. For school we’re reading about a tattooist in a concentration camp. Auschwitz. I had no idea … All of them are brutal, and the authors are brave. Aunt Joséphine was in the Resistance, right?’
‘Allegedly. She denied it in court. Said nothing.’
‘That’s so cool. I’d believe it—she didn’t give anything much away.’ Another mouthful. Bolognese sauce dripped onto his football jersey, and he wiped it up with his finger, then licked it.
‘Manners! You don’t think it’s too …’ Evie tried to gather her thoughts.
‘Too what?’ He lifted a finger, obviously planning to run it along the rim of the bowl and collect the last of the sauce.
‘Don’t even think about it, kiddo! So, you don’t think it’s too intrusive? I mean, she rarely spoke to me or your papa about the war. She didn’t discuss it in interviews. She was a storyteller—if she’d wanted this part of her story told, surely she would have done it herself?’
Hugo wiped his mouth with a serviette and pushed his bowl away as he leaned back in his chair. ‘I think you should help this museum dude. Is it that Joséphine didn’t want her story told, or that nobody ever asked the right questions? I mean, there’s not much history written by women, is there? Not that I’ve seen, anyway. The page you’ve shown me—that’s her own words. I felt like I was right there in her prison hellhole. And that’s just the first page! Then there’s the murderer, Margot.’
‘That’s your Netflix projection.’ Evie shook her head. ‘I swear, what you kids watch these days.’
‘Is nothing compared to what Joséphine lived through, I’ll bet. She would have seen some shit—’
‘Language!’ Evie smiled to herself as she swallowed some pasta. Hugo’s history teacher had said in their last parent–teacher interview that Hugo had written a brilliant piece on the gender wage gap.
‘Besides,’ his voice softened, ‘I’m not sure that covering things up … It’s not always for the best. Adults always tell us to mind our own business, but if you—’ He paused and closed his eyes.
Evie sat perfectly still, scared that any sudden move, even a blink, would cause him to clam up. She waited for her son to finish. Held her breath.
But Hugo just picked up his fork and started tracing a pattern on the bowl, while one leg knocked against the table. The conversation was over.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’ll keep looking for this manuscript. We’ll go back for the rest of the summer—if that’s okay with you? Can you miss one football camp? Will Simon cope without you?’ There were so many children in Nina’s house that they never minded Hugo bunking in for a night or a week, so he stayed there whenever she went to conferences.
‘Sure. Guess so.’ She was probably imagining it, but was there just the faintest twitch of a smile in the corner of his mouth?
As she looked at the young man trying to use his knife to scrape up the last of the sauce, she got butterflies. Lately, dinnertime talk had often been about college pathways and gap years. The Joséphine Murant exhibition was scheduled for fourteen months—it could be one last project for them to work on together before Hugo went out into the world. And their summer at Villa Sanary was just the circuit-breaker they needed.
Hugo was now clearing the table, clattering the cutlery and plates on top of one another exactly as she asked him not to do every night. When he stacked the last plate, he looked up at her under his long eyelashes and said, ‘It’s the right thing to do. Papa—he’d be all for it.’
Evie met Nina and Camille for a martini at Olivier’s chic new Left Bank bistro overlooking the Seine. Outside, lovers walked along the paths arm in arm, stopping to pick through tables of antique books, admire watercolours set on easels and watch the local graffiti artist re-create a da Vinci in coloured chalk. Across the black velvet strip of water, the Eiffel Tower twinkled like a Christmas tree.
The women sat up at the marble bar eating whatever plates Olivier sent out from the kitchen. Over tuna ceviche, oysters with a miso dressing, and fresh squeaky burrata, they swapped news, traded tales of their teenage sons—who’d met on the first day of nursery—and joked they couldn’t wait until the boys slammed their bedroom doors once and for all as they left at the end of the year.
They ordered a second round of cocktails, and Camille told them about the model who’d snorted so much coke in her hotel room she hadn’t turned up to the YSL shoot Camille was supposed to be styling that day.
Nina sighed and said, ‘Who does coke anymore? I thought these girls were into wellness.’
‘Maybe she imbibed it with her green juice.’ Camille rolled her eyes and flicked her perfect hair off her face.
‘And her probiotics,’ scoffed Nina, taking a gulp of her martini. ‘I have news. I think we’re going to move to a bigger apartment. I said to Dan it’s either that, or I’m getting my own!’
‘Good for you,’ said Camille, as they clinked glasses. She turned to study Evie. ‘You’ve got a bit of a tan this past week—the Riviera suits you. Come shopping with me! I’ll get you some pretty things to go with your glowy vibe.’
‘I—’ Evie started to protest. She hadn’t been shopping for ages.
‘C’mon. It’ll be fun.’ Camille picked up the ends of Evie’s hair. ‘And I’ll take you to Marco and get this mane sorted. I love these curls—don’t you dare try to tame them—but let’s … enhance. Because you, my friend, are perfect. So, tell!’
Evie enjoyed the sharp tang of her martini as she updated her friends on the exhibition, the missing manuscript and the diary entry. ‘It’s a puzzle. Joséphine the Resistance fighter and prisoner of war on one hand, Margot Bisset the murderer and former maid on the other. We have no idea how they fit together, just that they do, somehow.’
‘So will you publish whatever you find?’ said Nina quickly, always alert to legal issues. ‘That’s a minefield.’
‘Yes. No. Maybe.’ Evie shrugged. ‘Hard to know before we see the full diary. Clément’s doing some research into Margot’s backstory.’
‘I’ll help you,’ said Nina graciously. ‘I’m already doing the stuff for the Foundation.’
‘Clément!’ Camille interrupted with a raised eyebrow. ‘First-name basis with the museum curator, are we? Do tell.’
Evie’s cheeks grew hot, and she looked across to where a DJ was spinning Sultan & Shepard in the far corner, then back at her friends. ‘I like him,’ she said, not wanting to give much away. ‘We have a lot in common. He’s kind, very professional. Quirky.’
‘Oh my God! Stop, woman! You sound as if you’re in a retirement home commercial. What’s next—bridge?’
‘Camille! She likes him. Look at that grin.’ Nina elbowed Camille and turned to Evie. ‘You deserve someone great,’ she said softly.
‘It’s nothing, it’s work. Then there’s Hugo …’
‘Who is doing much better, by the way. Even Simon commented on it over his coffee this morning. It’s great to see. Besides, they’re off travelling soon. What’re you going to do with all that spare time?’
Evie laughed. ‘Great. So you guys think I’m officially boring. Um, I’m going to put on an exhibition. Ramp up the botanical illustrations. Maybe fly home to Oz and see some friends and family.’
‘Can I move into your apartment while you’re gone? I’ll tidy it—and permit Dan over for conjugal visits twice a week.’
‘Only twice!’ Camille said with a chuckle. ‘I don’t believe that. You guys are rabbits. Look at how many kids you have. That’s just boasting.’
As Nina spluttered an objection, Camille and Evie exchanged a look over the top of their martini glasses. Mothers of only children, they were awed by how their clever friend juggled working at one of Paris’s top commercial law firms, keeping a steady marriage to Dan, mothering four children, and heading school committees for anyone who asked. But it wasn’t just Nina’s to-do list that was impressive: it was her attitude. She made time for everyone.
Evie smiled, grateful for her friends. ‘Yes, you can stay in my apartment, Nina. Yes, you can take me shopping, Camille.’ She was probably going to regret the latter, but a freshen-up couldn’t hurt. Camille had introduced her to skin serums a year ago, and now she had one for every feeling: vitamin C for perky, hyaluronic acid for calm concentration, and a blend of herbs and oils for when she couldn’t sleep.
‘Cheers, ladies,’ said Nina, beaming. ‘And I agree with Camille—you look great, Evie. Relaxed. It’s lovely to see.’
‘Thanks, I feel good.’ The trip to the Côte d’Azur had done her wonders. She wasn’t sure when she would see Clément again, and she was no closer to finding the manuscript, but she realised she was going to lean in to all of the possibilities and see what happened. She hadn’t felt this free since her backpacking days.
Her phone vibrated, and she pulled it from her purse. ‘Sorry, better check. Hugo!’ She knew they’d understand.
But it wasn’t Hugo—it was Clément.
‘Judging by that coy look,’ said Camille, ‘it’s definitely not your son!’
‘No,’ Evie said with a grin as she read the message.
Thanks for the update today. Been doing some digging on Margot Bisset. Article attached. Looking forward to seeing you again when you get back down to CDA. C.
THE MARSEILLE TIMES, DECEMBER 1940
Murdering Maid to be Executed
Margot Bisset, assistant housekeeper to British citizens Madame Mathilda and Monsieur Edward Munro of Mayfair, London, at their Côte d’Azur estate, Villa Sanary, has unanimously been found guilty by the jury today in Marseille Courthouse and sentenced to be executed for first-degree murder. She will be transferred to Fresnes Prison immediately and will remain there until her execution date is set by the court.
Due to current European political circumstances, the defendant’s former employers provided written testimony for the trial. Their solicitor, Monsieur Jacques Caron, spoke on their behalf outside the court. ‘It is over. Mademoiselle Schramsburg’s family will be relieved and have sent a telegram to thank the courts for upholding justice. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schramsburg family at this difficult time.
‘As for the guilty party, Margot Bisset, may God have mercy on her soul when she is executed.’
Lawyers for Bisset have stated that there will be no appeal.