Authors: Karen Swan
‘It’s quite all right,’ Flora said quickly, smoothing her hair primly and hoping she didn’t look as ruffled as she felt. ‘I . . . I should have looked where I was
going.’
‘That was my son Xavier and his girlfriend. They are always arguing.’ She tutted. ‘Too passionate, that is the problem.’
‘Oh.’ She wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. She had the opposite problem herself. ‘Well, goodbye. I’ll be in touch.’
Flora walked down the steps onto the pavement and looked up and down the street for a cab. She could see one with its light on, further up the road, but it was caught by roadworks and indicating
left.
No, no, no! She needed to get on.
She waved her arm in the air, trying to get the driver’s attention, but he didn’t appear to have seen her. She waved again, giving a little jump too, but her dress was just a bit too
short and full-skirted for that, she realized, when a man wolf-whistled as he drove past.
There was nothing else for it. Putting her thumb and forefinger in her mouth as Freddie had taught her to when she was eleven, she gave an almighty whistle that screamed up the street. The
driver heard, sticking his head out of the window, and she waved her arm at him again. This time, he saw her and gave her a wave back, turning off the indicator.
Flora breathed a sigh of relief, just as she heard someone laugh. She turned but there was no one there on the street. She looked back up at the Vermeils’ imposing town house. All of the
windows were open on the upper levels but this side of the street was in shadow and she couldn’t see into the tall, deep rooms. She bit her lip – had someone in there seen her whistle
like a barrow-boy? (Freddie had said if she couldn’t be a boy, she could at least behave like one.)
The cab pulled up alongside her and she gave the driver the address in Montparnasse before hurriedly jumping in the back. She looked up at the house again as they pulled away and for a second
she thought she saw a dark figure half-hidden at the window. But she couldn’t be sure and within a minute, the cab had rounded the corner and she was back in the Paris light.
Walking back into the apartment, now that it had been emptied of the artworks and decorative antiques, was a strange experience. Flora could tell that life had invaded the
space in the intervening days since she and Angus had first stepped in. It was as though the very molecules in the air had shifted position and resettled at a different density – it felt
easier to see, to breathe, and the floor looked like a patchwork rug now that the paintings had been removed, the boards chequered with the large, bright areas that had been protected from the dust
for so long.
She did a quick recce of the apartment. Nothing had been touched in the kitchen as there had been no art haul in there; the dining room looked strangely naked now that the table and chairs
– bare of their loot – were left standing at odd angles and isolated from one another in the middle of the room, as though a game of musical chairs had been interrupted, the children
scattered in hidden corners. To her relief, Gertie was still there and, after a quick check, it seemed she was undamaged from Natascha’s joyride.
Flora turned and stood beside the bird for a moment, one hand on its back, staring at the doorway, remembering Natasha’s almost violent defiance, her outrageous behaviour verging on the
manic; and by contrast, her brother’s brooding silence, his black look and contemptuous scorn.
She shook him from her thoughts and walked through to the library, stopping in the doorway, her eyes scanning the walls lined with books. Flora walked in, trying to read the titles on the spines
but they were faded from where the sun had hit. Most were French but some appeared to be in English and German too and she glossed over them quickly, not sure exactly what she was looking for. She
pulled a couple from the shelves, flicking open pages that were sticky with spider’s webs, the curled husks of long-dead beetles punctuating the wooden runs.
She turned her attention to the desk and sat carefully on the chair, checking it first for loose joints. The room looked different from her seated position and she could see how it might once
have felt to work from there – the street view from the window on her left; the dramatic, showy curtains that set a socially ambitious tone as guests entered the apartment, the insulation of
all the books making the space feel sequestered and private. Her hands rested on the smooth desk, swirls and knots in the wood grain as beautiful as if they’d been painted in—
She frowned suddenly. Hadn’t there been papers on here when she and Angus had first come in? Or was she imagining that?
She shook her head, unable to remember, and began opening the drawers instead, finding yet more evidence of lost worlds – ink pots and a silver fountain pen; pencils that had been
sharpened to a point by a knife; a pamphlet for a carol service in the Sacré-Coeur, December 1939; a single cufflink; a silver cigar cutter; a lighter fashioned from horn. A small gold
travel clock had stopped at 11.23. But on which day, she wondered, and which year? When had the life in this place ground to a halt even as a war raged outside the windows?
She moved to the first drawer further down, surprised to find it almost entirely empty. But it hadn’t been. She squinted, noticing the telltale rim of dust in the corner of the drawer
which indicated that something had been sitting in it until recently. Very recently.
She checked the other drawers but it was a repeated pattern – dusty outlines where files or papers had sat untouched for so many years, now conspicuous by their new absence. Flora sat back
in the chair, bothered by the discovery, knowing her hunch was right about the papers on top of the desk, as well as those in it. Had it been something in
here
that the initial intruders had
been searching for all along? Had she and Angus been so anxious to protect and safeguard the artworks that they’d missed the real target for the break-in?
After all, something had been off with that story from the start – it had rankled with her even if it hadn’t with Angus or the Vermeils, but she didn’t believe that people
would go to the trouble of breaking in to an abandoned apartment and then, without touching a thing, simply
notify
the family of its existence. It was especially difficult to believe that
they had somehow overlooked the intrinsic fortune tied up in the haul of artworks scattered around the place. No, it only made sense if it wasn’t the artworks they were after, but something
in these drawers . . .
But what? And who? And most of all – why?
Either the desk was exceptionally large or Monsieur Travers was far smaller than she had recalled; regardless, there was no mistaking the distance or difference of perspectives
between them. The notary’s demeanour throughout this meeting had been cool, to say the least, and Flora was beginning to feel it would be easier to gain access to the legal documentation for
his
house than the Montparnasse apartment.
‘Madame Vermeil assured me she would arrange this with you,
monsieur
.’
Monsieur Travers merely cocked his head to the side slightly, as though he couldn’t quite understand what she was saying.
‘All I require is access to the instructions that were left to you by her husband’s father regarding the apartment.’
He cocked his head to the other side.
‘It would also be helpful,’ she continued, ‘to see if there were any letters or correspondence in which Monsieur Vermeil’s father revealed or detailed any purchases he
might have made, before he closed up the apartment and left the city.’
There was a long silence but when he spoke, it was with the air of his patience having been stretched very thin. ‘There are no letters between Monsieur Vermeil’s father and my own,
mam’selle
. My father was a notary, not a penpal. He had only the deeds to the apartment and the codicil which specified the apartment should not be touched or opened before the death
of his wife. That is all.’
‘Apartment
s
,’ she said, correcting him. But his error piqued her interest. ‘Which reminds me – why wasn’t it mentioned in the initial meeting that there were
two apartments?’
‘I did not think it necessary. The purpose of that meeting was to authorize you to enter the property and conduct an evaluation of the contents inside. There is nothing in the second
apartment, therefore we did not need to discuss it.’
‘Except there was something in there – a painting.’
Monsieur Travers looked at her, unblinking, before pushing his glasses up his nose and looking away again, moving a few papers around on his desk, keeping his hands busy. ‘Well, I did not
know that, but I’m sure it is of no consequence. What is one more painting, given the hundreds found upstairs?’
‘But why were there two apartments? Why have two properties in the same building? It’s very odd.’
‘Not at all. The Vermeils are a wealthy family. They own many properties.’
‘Not back then they weren’t – at least, not to the degree they are now. And the
quatorzième
wasn’t a prosperous neighbourhood back then. It seems unlikely
that if you could afford to buy multiple properties, you would buy another in the same building. You’d upgrade surely? Buy somewhere bigger, somewhere more fashionable?’
‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply,
mam’selle
.’
‘I’m not trying to imply anything, I’m trying to understand. Why was the apartment upstairs bursting at the seams with artworks and the one downstairs empty, save for
one?’
Monsieur Travers gave a Gallic shrug. ‘That I cannot answer. I am only the notary.’
More like the gatekeeper, Flora thought, watching him closely. What had she learned from him today? Precisely nothing. She took a moment to consider. ‘Do you have the deeds for Apartment
six?’
‘Apartment six?’ he repeated.
‘The apartment downstairs,’ she replied briskly. He was just playing games, wasting her time. ‘The one we’ve just been talking about.’
He inhaled and held the breath. ‘Oh. Yes, of course,’ he replied finally. ‘Would you like to see them? I would have to ask for them to be retrieved from storage, if you can
wait. It should only take an hour or two.’
Flora blinked, knowing exactly what he was doing, wanting to call his bluff and have them search, but in truth she didn’t see how property deeds were going to be helpful in her search for
provenance. It wasn’t the ownership of the apartment that was in question but that of the paintings. She shook her head. ‘But I’d like to see the codicil, please.’
Monsieur Travers flicked through the thin file of papers before him and handed it to her.
‘
This
is the codicil?’ she asked in surprise, flapping the torn piece of paper in the air. It had been ripped from a larger sheaf, the writing written on a slope and very
hurried. Even the two signatures at the bottom were illegible.
Monsieur Travers nodded patiently.
‘It doesn’t look like a legal and binding document to me.’
‘It was written in difficult circumstances, during the war, you recall. I agree, it would not necessarily stand up if contested in court but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘It never has
been contested, so it stands. Monsieur Vermeil and my father had worked together for many years. It was my father’s true belief that the instructions written therein were Monsieur
Vermeil’s most deeply held wishes, and he acted according to that belief.’
‘And what were his wishes exactly?’ She frowned, trying to read the elaborate script. ‘Apart from no one entering the apartment before his and Magda’s deaths, I
mean?’
‘Just that.’
She frowned deeper. ‘Is this in
German
?’ She looked up.
‘It is.’
‘But I don’t read German.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Do
you
speak German?’
‘No.’
Flora glowered at him. The man was maddening. ‘Then I’d like a copy of this, please, so that I can get it translated.’
Monsieur Travers looked apologetic. ‘For that, I would require Monsieur Vermeil’s express written permission.’
‘But Madame Vermeil has already authorized you to give me full disclosure.’
‘It would need to be Monsieur Vermeil. I am sorry.’
He was not, and they both knew it.
She stared at the unintelligible directive in her hand, knowing this was another dead end. She didn’t need to be able to read German to know it said no one was to enter the property before
François’ and Magda’s deaths. Lilian Vermeil had already told her that.
She pushed the scrap of paper back towards him with a sigh. ‘Well, can you tell me how the family came to know about the existence of the apartments, if not from you?’
‘A note was sent to our offices by the intruders – I was on vacation at the time and it was forwarded on by a junior associate. He felt obliged to act promptly and notify the clients
that this new asset had come to light as he felt there was a suggestion of a threat in its tone.’
She leaned forward. ‘What kind of a threat?’
Travers pulled out a photocopy of a letter from the pile of papers. The writing was neat, small, as though care had been taken with it.
She translated it from the French:
Be careful what you leave lying around. Finders can be keepers.
Attached to it was a photograph of the apartment taken at night, shot from the street,
the road sign visible in the corner.
‘Squatters?’
‘That is what my associate assumed. He was unaware of the codicil or else he never would have forwarded it without checking with me first.’
She turned the paper over. ‘Which apartment are they referring to – six or eight? They could have been in either. Or both, surely?’
‘It was Apartment Eight.’
‘Because . . . ?’
Monsieur Travers suppressed a sigh. Just. ‘Because the envelope the letter came in was addressed, “To the owners of Apartment Eight”, care of this company.’
‘That’s a very specific thing for you to know, given that you said you didn’t see the letter yourself.’