The Paris Time Capsule (19 page)

Cat reached into her bag, pulled out her phone. Treacherous thing. Did Christian know where she was right at this moment? The thought was scary. And yet, he had
apologized so much on the phone today, had seemed so genuinely sorry, and it was not hard to believe that Elise could be more than persuasive. Look at how she had distracted Cat this afternoon.

Should she ring
Loic? Share this piece of information with him? If only he hadn’t been silly last night. He had become carried away, that was all. She was sure of it.

Cat looked at the envelope. She owed it to his family. They should know what was going on.

Loic picked up the phone when she dialed his number.

“
I found something,” she said.

He was silent down the phone.

“There was an envelope, in the house, addressed to me.”

“
You’re joking, Cat.”

“
No.”

“
What’s in it?”

“
God knows. The woman who owned the house had … just died. She was very old.”

“
Read it.”

Cat used the sharp tip of a pen, tried as best as she could not to damage the envelope.
She read aloud.

“Dear Catherine,”

“
You will have received, by now, Isabelle de Florian’s will. I am a friend of hers, a close and trusted friend. Isabelle instructed me to send this letter to you at the time of her death. She asks that you contact the same lawyer again, the one with whom you have been dealing with regards to the will. There is another letter there, information that you will find valuable. The letter is filed with the lawyer under my name, Delfont. You just need to ask for it and show this letter with my signature on it.

Madame L. Delfont.

Cat read it twice.

“Do you want me to meet you in Paris, Cat?” Loic sounded gruff.

Cat closed
her eyes. “Of course you should come.”

“
Where, then?”

“
The apartment. I’m taking the early train up in the morning. Can you be there by eleven?”

“
Yes.” Loic hung up the phone.

Paris felt like a different country. Cat strode along the Right Bank, knowing that she was attempting to appear as if she were full of purpose, knowing that she was fooling herself.

Elise had gone shopping for the day. Their flight to Ne
w York left at six that evening so Elise had left their suitcases at a friend’s apartment.

It was impossible not to feel a sense of nervousness now. Cat marched up the Right Bank
of the Seine, trying to concentrate on the normality of the bookstalls that lined the pavement. One of the owners smiled at her, she nodded back. And yet, the river looked dark this morning. Perhaps the sun would come out later, perhaps not. But now, the water seemed to move slowly, towards something inevitable. It seemed as if it held secrets that Cat would never know.

She turned away from the river
into the crowded streets on the Right Bank, moved almost as if by instinct towards Rue Blanche. She knew the area by heart.

It was almost a surprise to discover that Isabelle’s building looked the same. Had she been expecting something different?

It wasn’t until Cat opened the door to the apartment that she gasped.

The entire place had been catalogued. Plates, hundred
s of them, porcelain jugs and cups and exquisite glass vases were stacked in neat rows on the dining table. Every pile of objects was topped with a small yellow label as if they were exhibits in some obscure museum. The dining chairs were arranged in one corner, pushed aside as if to make room for a ball. There weren’t going to be any balls here.

It was the person standing with Loic who surprised Cat the most.

“
Bonjour,” Cat said. It seemed the best place to start.

Loic
and Josephine both looked at Cat, seeming so alike that for a moment Cat felt intimidated. She had to stop herself from taking a step backwards.

“
Anouk let us in,” Josephine’s voice rang through the neat, echoing space.

“
Of course.” Cat wandered past them, taking in the neatness of it all. The apartment had been vacuumed; all the dust had gone from the furniture, from the window ledges, everything. That faint smell of ancient perfume, the trace of Marthe and Isabelle that Cat had sworn was here last time had disappeared forever.

The curtains were swept up i
nto enormous silk knots; wallpaper still hung askew in places, in others it remained fully intact as if in hope, perhaps, that nothing too radical would be done. Today, there was no sun shining in.

“
It had to be done, Cat,” Loic said.

“
I know.”

Josephine was silent
, but Cat sensed the other girl watching her.

“
Josephine, I’m so glad you’ve seen it,” Cat smiled.

“
Cat, we may as well go now,” Loic cut in.

Cat nodded.

“Wait.” Josephine spoke suddenly. “There is something. One moment, please?”

“
Sure,” Cat smiled again.

“
Oui.” Josephine took a turn around the sitting room. “Perhaps we sit down?” They were in Marthe’s bedroom. This didn’t seem to bother Josephine. She perched herself on the edge of the chaise longue. It was spider web free now, no puff of dust pooled into the air when Josephine sat down.

Cat moved over to sit on its other end.

“I have been here three times,” Josephine said in her crystalline voice. “I have talked with Anouk and the team, looked through the items here. I needed to do this for myself. I hope you understand, Cat … Maman hasn’t been here. I am not going to push her.”

Loic
was watching Josephine. “What is it?”

Josephine seemed agitated now, she stood up, moved over to stand by the bed,
and then she came back and sat down again. “Loic, perhaps, we should talk in private.”

“
Not now.”

Josephine shifted in her chair.
“Oui. Well. I don’t know if even I can say this. It is not simple.”

“
You can trust Cat.”

Josephine turned to Cat, her dark almond eyes seeming as if they were assessing now.

Cat couldn’t help but gaze back at her.

“Loic is in love with you.”

Cat stood up.

“He has been honest, Catherine.”

“
Josephine.” Loic’s voice was quiet.

But she held up a hand.
“Let me continue, Loic. Cat, you have something to say?”

Cat leaned a hand against the back of her chair.

“I apologize for my older sister. She was born like this. The fact that she trained as a psychologist was incidental.”

But Josephine
still watched Cat. “It’s you who I need to talk to.”

“
You don’t have to listen to this, Cat.”

Josephine frowned.
“You are engaged. You want to marry this man in New York. But you have been … how you say it, stringing my brother along?”

“
No.”

“
But I am right, no? You will go back. You will do your best to forget my brother, even though you love him body and soul. You will still go ahead with your marriage.”

Cat felt her breath coming in short little bursts.
“Excuse me?”

“
Loic deserves honesty. This is all I am saying.” Josephine seemed as calm as a summer lake.

“
Look …” Cat felt her voice rising. “I am engaged to Christian, because I choose to be. I’m perfectly happy. I’m going back to New York tonight and that is that. I can’t see how Loic could have possibly thought any different. But I’m sorry if he did. I’m sorry if you think I encouraged him.”

“
I am not judging you,” Josephine went on.

Loic
moved towards the door. “I’ve heard enough.”

“
You’ve come all this way to see the file,” Cat said.

“
I didn’t come to see the file.”

Cat closed her eyes.
“You need to find out the truth.”

“
Look, Cat.” Loic came over to stand in front of her. “If your Christian was different, if I thought he’d make you happy, I wouldn’t say anything. But he doesn’t love you. Not really. He wants you to fit in with his mold, he wants you to suit him and his world. Society pages, wedding planners. He’s not thinking about you. If you were with me, I’d want you to make your own decisions, not pander to mine. I wouldn’t stand by when I know that you’re miserable with that job. I know you’re unhappy. I can see.”

Josephine went over and stood by the window.

Cat shook her head. “Stop it!” she said, surprised by the resonance of her own voice. “Stop it! I can’t listen to any more of this. Please,” she said. “Either come with me to the lawyer’s office, or just go.”

The force of her convictions, or of what she thought were her convictions, or what had to be her convictions, hit her like a steel plank. She felt drained all of a sudden and moved to slump down in on Marthe’s chaise longue.

Loic stood, framed in the doorway, she could sense him but she didn’t look at him.

“
Loic?” Josephine was still over by the window.

“
It’s no good,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. “There’s no point.”

And he turned.

Cat closed her eyes until she heard the front door close.

Her hand shook as she brought it to cover her mouth.

“I will leave,” Josephine said. “I am sorry, Cat. My brother has never loved like this before.”

The soun
d of her footsteps died away. Cat gazed around, helpless, at the packed up apartment. The entire reason that she had gone to all this trouble to find out the truth had disappeared out of the apartment and out of her life. And yet she had to go on. She stood up, moved past the neat accumulation that was all that was left of the apartment in Rue Blanche.

A life, Isabelle’s life reduced, Marthe’s too
in the end, to things. Things that would be shunted about who knew where, split up, sold.

“
Oh, my God,” Cat whispered, into the empty apartment, to herself. “Oh, my God.”

Cat wasn’t sure how she did the things that she did in the next few hours. If anyone had asked her she would probably say that she didn’t remember any of it at all. It was as if she had a checklist and if she did not tick things off it, then she might possibly fall right apart.

First, she ran
through the contents of the apartment. Anouk had left an inventory. The insurance was arranged and the Boldini was safely stored at the Musee d’Orsay.  Cat checked that every window in the apartment was locked and she closed the shutters.

All she had to do was to collect the file from Monsieur Lapointe, read it, go home and sort the rest out from there. Presumably this letter would tell her that the apartment did belong to Sylvie after all. It would contain the missing second will. It was exactly what she and
Loic had been looking for the entire time and now she had found it.

It was the end of everything.

She could move back to her old life.

Cat handed Madame Delfont’s letter to the receptionist at Monsieur Lapointe’s office. The receptionist did not open it. Instead, she stood up and took it straight out to the offices behind the waiting area.

F
our red velvet chairs were arranged around a dark wooden coffee table. Cat hovered for a while then sat down on the chair closest to the reception desk. She reached out for one of the dated magazines in front of her, flipped through its pages, hardly noticing that the words were French.

Several minutes later, she pulled out her phone. Elise
had texted. Was Cat in the taxi? Nearly, Cat replied. She was nearly in the taxi. She sat back in her seat, looked up at the ceiling. There was no doubt she would have to harden herself against whatever was in the letter, take action and resolve the situation as best she could.

“
Madame Jordan?” The receptionist appeared back at her desk. “Monsieur Lapointe will see you.”

Monsieur Lapointe didn’t stand up when Cat entered his office. He was sitting at his desk, his hands resting in a temple shape on the antique wood.

“Entrez,” he said. “Sit down.”

Cat sat opposite him.

“There are several formalities, Madame Jordan …”

“
My flight to New York leaves in a few hours. I should be on my way to the airport. I hope you understand.”

Monsieur
Lapointe stayed quite still.

“
I should have called ahead, Monsieur.” But what good would that have done? The decision to arrive here in person had been quick, but her mind had hardly been calm at the time.

He
looked thoughtful for a moment. “Alors.”

Cat waited.

“In this case, I make an exception.”

Cat took in a breath. It was impossible to know what to say.

“Please sign here.” Monsieur Lapointe handed her a legal document.

Cat leaned forward, hardly noticing her own signatures, initials on the tops of scores of pages.

Monsieur Lapointe swiveled his chair in a full circle. There was another table behind his desk, antique, of course. There were several files on this table. Monsieur Lapointe’s hand hovered over one of them. He pulled out a document, put this aside, and reached inside the file again. This time, he pulled out an envelope. It was small. He handed it to Cat.

“
Merci.” What else was there to say?

Monsieur looked at her almost as if he seemed to be considering whether she understood the importance of what she had in her hands.

Her phone buzzed with another text.

“
I should be at the airport. My … assistant is waiting there with my luggage.” Her assistant? Wedding planner hardly sounded sensible.

“
Of course, Madame. You will be in touch.” He looked at the letter over his spectacles. “We have some time to sort out the tax. But not so long.”

“
I know.” Cat turned to him. Impulsively, she leaned down, kissed him on the cheek. “The apartment will have to be sold. There’s nothing I can do unless Loic and Sylvie decide to take the estate.”

“
I will hear from you soon.”

“
Thank you, Monsieur Lapointe, for everything.” Cat took her letter, and she walked out of the office.

“Sweetie!” Elise was sitting on a black plastic chair just inside the airport. She waved at Cat and seemed more than relieved. Elise’s long blonde hair was tied in a ponytail, and she wore a black woolen trouser suit for the flight.

“
That was cutting it a little fine,” she said, nudging Cat as if they were schoolgirls.

Cat kissed Elise on the cheek, pushing aside the thought that all of this kissing was perhaps more for herself than for Monsieur Lapointe and Elise. It seemed necessary, a sort of balm after the appalling scene with
Loic and Josephine.

There was no queue in the business class section. Elise spoke to the woman behind the desk while Cat hovered behind her, clinging onto the envelope that she daren’t put in either of her bags. The taxi driver had carried on an extraordinary conversation the whole way to the airport
giving Cat no chance to read. He had offered boiled sweets wrapped in clear cellophane to Cat several times during the journey. At any rate, his ramblings, half in a language Cat had no hope of recognizing, half in English, had been something of a distraction.

The thought that the letter may contain some answers was both exhilarating and terrifying. They had an hour to spare now. Cat would have to make excuses to Elise. She would have to find somewhere quiet.

But it was clear that Elise was also determined to conduct a one sided conversation as soon as they entered the business class lounge.

Cat excused herself after several polite minutes and went to the restroom. It was the only escape.

There was a seating area just inside the entrance. Cat almost ran to a white ottoman at the far end. She pulled at the envelope, trying not to destroy it, her fingers working fast. There was a letter. Cat read it through twice.

She put it in her lap, looked at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were hectic, flushed.

She read the letter again.

It was dated 2003.

Ma Chere Catherine,

I am saddened to be informed by my lawyer of the death of your mother Bonnie Jordan. I know
that what you are taking on is a considerable burden. I understand that you need an explanation. That way, you will know what to do. My dear, I know that you will do the right thing if you are anything like your grandmother Madame Virginia Brooke. But, I have two problems, you see. One, is that I am old and with my health the way it unfortunately is now, I do not feel that I can go through everything all over again. Second, I do not think it would be a good idea to do so. Madame Delfont, from whom you received the letter directing you to this one will help you. Things are so convoluted. I need to be careful. You will see that. You can trust her. Please contact her in Sarlat at 15 Rue Charpentier.

Yours faithfully my dear,

Isabelle de Florian.

“But Madame Delfont is dead,” Cat whispered. She closed the letter, put it back in her handbag, and went back out to the business class lounge to chat and smile with Elise as if all she had to think about was a wedding and as if there was nothing else to worry about at all.

Elise had established herself on the largest leather sofa in the business lounge. She had a swathe of bridal magazines set up on the coffee table in front of her.

“
Sweetie, I thought we’d make the most of the flight. Make it into a meeting! I have some preliminary ideas here. We can start now! I can never sleep on planes, can you?”

“
I really haven’t travelled enough to say,” Cat said. Then, “Sorry.”

Elise’s face fell
when Cat spoke.

After several minutes of gasp
ing at cream gowns, endless silk gloves and sparkling tiaras, Cat stood up.

“
I need to make a call.”

“
We only have a few minutes until boarding, sweetie.”

Cat moved away to a far corner of the lounge. She pulled out her phone, looked at it. Should she contact
Loic again? Would he want to know that the letter was a dead end or not? The latter was more likely. What about Sylvie? Was it a good idea to tell her that it seemed hopeless? Or should she think first about what to do and wait until she returned home to New York? There was nothing Cat could say to either Sylvie or Loic right now that would lead her anywhere close to finding a reason to give them back their apartment and their painting.

Cat put her phone back into her bag. Perhaps she could instruct Monsieur Lapointe to make a new will of her own leaving everything to Sylvie’s family on her own death. Leave the entire estate untouched for
Loic’s family. But that would not give Sylvie any benefit from her own mother’s estate. There had to be a better idea.

Cat returned to Elise, hooked her bag on her shoulder, and smiled.
“Right,” she said. “We have a flight to catch.”

“
Oh, this is so exciting. I have a feeling about it,” Elise said.

“
Yes. So do I.”