Chapter 2

Before they’d left Morey-Fontaine, Fen had written to an old family friend of hers, Rose Coillard, to ask if she and James could stay with her in her apartment near the école des Beaux-Arts. Fen had bunked down with her for one night last month as she’d changed trains in Paris on her way to Burgundy and they’d barely scratched the surface of what they wanted to catch up on. Madame Coillard – as she had first been introduced to Fen all those years ago – had been a colleague of Fen’s father, Professor John Churche, but more than that, she had been – and still was – her parents’ very good friend.

Fen would most likely lose count if she tried to remember all the times her family and Rose had dined together, or spent afternoons in the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens or paddling on the sandy shore of the Seine at ?le de la Jatte to the north of the city. Rose had tried, on those occasions, to teach the two unruly English children the wonders of the Impressionists, showing them with her own easel and brushes how those turn-of-the-century artists had marvelled at the dappled light and swiftness of moving time. More often than not, she’d come second in the race for their attention, narrowly pipped by the ice cream cart, but as Fen had matured from a young girl to an insightful and diligent teenager, she had grown closer to the mildly eccentric art teacher and even attended a few of her classes at the école, despite being by far the youngest in the studio. So, it was no surprise that Rose’s apartment was the first place that Fen thought of when she realised they would be passing through Paris again.

Sadly, the postal system being not quite as efficient as it once was meant that Fen hadn’t received a reply from Rose before they’d left Burgundy after bearing witness at the murderer’s trial. With Arthur gone and his disappearance solved there had been no point in staying on at the vineyard, and James had offered to chaperone her to Paris. So here they were, walking together towards Madame C’s apartment on the Rue des Beaux-Arts, with Fen hoping their early-morning arrival wouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

The apartment was on one of the upper floors of a six-storey building. The road itself was an elegant, if not particularly long, one. At one end stood the famous college of fine art itself, its imposing stone gateposts topped with oversized busts of artists Nicolas Poussin and Pierre Puget. Fen had been through those gates a hundred times or more in her youth, going to see her father in his study and listening in to lectures on every aspect of art, from Byzantine icons to modern topics, such as the Fauves and Cubism.

The ground floors of most of the street’s buildings were given over to shops and, due to the artistic nature of the neighbourhood, art galleries too. The war had taken its toll and some were now boarded up and others empty, while the lucky few still traded and displayed one or two decent-looking paintings in ornate gold frames in their windows.

There was a dressmaker on the street, too, with two lively-looking mannequins in the window wearing what must have been the latest in post-war fashions – cinch-waisted skirts and delicate swoop-necked blouses. Gold lettering above the door announced the services of a Dufrais et Filles – Dufrais and Daughters – and Fen wondered if the dressmaker and his or her daughters were there now, needles in hand, discussing trends for the autumn and winter season and planning spring fashions for 1946. She had a little money with her, and Fen knew the temptation to spend it all on something fabulous, rather than the more practical option of an overcoat, may well bring her back to that delightful-looking tailor as soon as she had a spare hour or so.

Each building on the street had a slightly different character, some with more ornate Juliet balconies, others with shutters at their windows or fancy classical-style podiums to their doors. They were all in what you’d call the French Imperial style, similar to many buildings built in the time of the great reformer Haussman, and, although suffering from a few years of neglect, elegant to the last.

Fen walked down the street a few steps ahead of James, clutching the handle of her suitcase in one hand, and the other she let trail along the rough, rusticated stone walls of the buildings. It was her way of connecting with her surroundings, ‘seeing’ something with her fingertips, almost as if she was reading the buildings as Braille. Stone would give way to glass, which would in turn change to wood…and even though she could see the street had shopfronts and doorways, she could feel it this way, too. Arthur hadn’t laughed at her when he’d caught her doing this one afternoon down Midhurst’s High Street (although Mrs Simpson from the bakers had given her a very strange look), as he said it all tied in with her love of cryptic crossword clues. ‘Seeing’ something in a different way, that was how puzzles were solved.

She pulled her hand back as they approached two large grey-painted doors, each eight or nine feet tall and easily three feet across. Together they made up one massive doorway. To either side of the building, there were private art galleries, the one to the left was already open for business, but sadly the one to the right was boarded up and closed. The name painted in beautiful gold curling script above the window was Jacob Berenson…a Jewish name, if Fen wasn’t mistaken. Was that why this gallery, and not the one next door, was empty? Fen said a silent prayer for the absent owner, hoping that he hadn’t been driven too far from his premises by the Nazis, or for too long.

James set his kitbag down and looked to Fen for confirmation before pressing his shoulder to one of the large grey doors, while turning the sturdy-looking cast-iron ring.

She nodded and the massive door shuddered open, scratching its well-worn arc across the encaustic tiles, and revealed the communal hallway behind. The daylight helped show the intricate patterns of the floor tiles, and as Fen’s eyes adjusted to the darkness of the vestibule, she noted the set of tidy mailboxes, all named and numbered for the apartments and their occupants. A door the other side of the hallway led to a courtyard, which she remembered from her youth and attempts Rose had made to get her to ‘draw from nature’ by studying a bit of bark of one of the old lime trees. Now, though, Fen pointed James towards the cantilevered stone staircase, with its ornate cast-iron handrail that swirled and seemed to grow organically from the tiled floor.

‘Ready for the climb?’

She picked up her suitcase and led the way, James following on behind as she swiftly made it up the first few storeys. By the fourth floor, she had started to slow down, and she was gratified to hear James’s breathing deepen and quicken too as they climbed.

‘A few more to go, I’m afraid,’ Fen pointed up to where a ceiling lantern illuminated the landings of the uppermost floors.

By the time they reached apartment five, they were both a little out of breath. Fen paused before pressing the white button next to the door, wondering how old Madame C managed this climb every day. A moment later though they both heard the flat buzz of the electric doorbell sound in the apartment, followed by a rapid barking that was, in its turn, followed by a shushing and a voice calling out in a melodious tone, ‘It’s open!’

Fen pushed the door open and had barely got her foot over the threshold when the scampering sound of claws over wood parquet floor greeted them. She looked at James. ‘Ah, yes, I forgot. I hope you’re at home with dogs?’

‘Dogs I’m fine with,’ James muttered as the miniature poodle-like thing jumped up and clawed his knees, ‘rats less so.’

‘Bonjour, Tipper,’ Fen leaned down and picked up the squirming little ball of fluffy energy. ‘You’re not a rat, are you, little one? Don’t listen to the frightful man.’ She was rewarded by a swift few licks to her nose, which made her laugh and James recoil in disgust. ‘Tipper here is some sort of poodle crossed with…well, with whatever fancied his mother in the back alley. Maybe a Cavalier King Charles? He’s a sweetie, though, you’ll get used to him.’

‘I’ll probably end up sitting on him…’ James was interrupted by the sight and sound of Rose, who appeared in the hallway to greet her guests.

‘Fenella!’ She approached, and Fen caught the familiar aroma in the air that she so associated with the older woman, that of floral ylang-ylang perfume teamed with turpentine and oil paint, and just a hint of some aromatic tobacco. ‘Welcome, welcome.’

‘Rose, it’s so lovely to see you again. I’m so sorry we’re so terribly delayed.’ Fen met her hostess with a kiss on each cheek and then turned to introduce James. ‘This is my friend Captain Lancaster.’

‘James, please.’ He stuck out his hand and was slightly nonplussed when Rose cocked her head on one side and proffered her hand as if to allow James to kiss it.

Fen noted how quickly James adapted to Rose’s left-field greeting, bringing her hand close to his lips, but not too close, before gently letting her go. He has been brought up the right way, Fen thought to herself, as Rose arched her neck and brushed some unseen speck of dust off the front of her housecoat. She also couldn’t help but observe how masculine and large James appeared in comparison to the supremely feminine apartment. The hallway was narrow and his frame seemed to take up most of its width. Just next to him was a spindly console table, painted white with delicate gold ring handles on its drawers, its puny legs like matchsticks compared to his bulk. The walls were painted a soft shade of pink and a delicately patterned Persian carpet covered a short length of the geometric parquet flooring.

‘Do come through to the studio, my dears,’ Rose beckoned them as she wafted off down the corridor, her voluminous velvet housecoat in the most jewel-like shade of amethyst purple, flowing out behind her.

Fen looked back at James and gestured for him to leave his kitbag with her suitcase where the hall widened.

‘Quite the welcome,’ James whispered to her, his eyes twinkling.

Fen raised a brow. ‘Oh, James, you just wait.’ She winked at him as they followed Rose into the light-filled room at the front of the apartment.