Free Paris Requiem by Lisa Appignanesi Page A

pair, don’t you think? These whiteones, for summer.’ He met the woman’s face again, his smile seductive. ‘Would any of your other girls perhaps have an address for Louise?’
    Avidity vied with disapproval in the woman’s face and triumphed . ‘Do have a look around. I’ll ask for you.’
    A puff of steam together with the sound of chattering voices came from the door as she disappeared behind it. Raf winked at James.
    She was back a moment later with a young woman who curtsied prettily, all the while examining them with a shy sauciness in her look. A lemon scent rose from her skin. Her cheeks were slightly moist.
    James shivered and forced his attention to the older woman, who was now eager for a sale. He took his time, finally choosing a pair of cream-coloured gloves. He asked for them to be wrapped. To his side, he could hear Raf eliciting the necessary information. He didn’t dare look back at the girl. She was so like the other one. He hadn’t realised he remembered so well.
    As the door of the shop closed behind them, he let out a sigh of relief.
    ‘It’s quite a trek, Jim. And probably not pretty. Are you sure you’re up to this?’ Raf quizzed him while they walked briskly towards Montparnasse. ‘You’re looking a little the worse for wear.’
    James shrugged. ‘In for a penny …’
    ‘The girl offered to take us there after she’d finished. But I thought that would prove too much of a delay.’ He studied the piece of paper on which he had noted an address and hailed a cab.
    ‘It’s not a neck of the woods I know. Apparently, after she lost her job Louise moved in with her sister.’
    ‘Why did she lose it?’
    ‘She didn’t say. I imagine some story that involves a man – from the look of Madame, in any event. These milliners areonly a step away from prosititution. It’s a big enough step, mind, but a shifting one.’
    They rode in troubled silence. The wide boulevard, glittering in its newness, gradually gave way to a maze of smaller, older streets and then fields of detritus. Shacks, their roofs covered in card and rag, dilapidated coaches converted into hovels, sprawled across the wasteland. Children, with the thin limbs and vast urchin eyes of poverty, watched their passage . To their left behind a derelict wall stretched a crumbling two-storey edifice, its stucco long forgotten, its façade a series of rickety doors and peeling shutters.
    The driver pulled up and waved vaguely towards a lane. Raf asked him to wait, insisted despite his protests.
    They walked, Raf counting houses, and knocked at a ramshackle door. From within came the sound of crying, but no other response. James tried the door next to it and a wrinkled , white-haired woman poked her head from the window. ‘I’m looking for Louise Boussel,’ James said in his best French.
    The woman screwed up her eyes and stared at him. Suddenly she started to shriek and rattle her shutters. ‘
Laure. C’est la police. La police.’
    Neither James’s attempt to deny her statement nor pacify her served any purpose. The screaming continued even after the door at which they had first knocked creaked open. A painfully thin woman with dark, ragged hair emerged from it and shut it swiftly behind her.
    ‘
Arrêtez
. Stop,’ she screeched back at the old woman and only then looked up at Raf and James. She wiped her hands on her apron, smoothed it a little and shot them a regal glance. Behind them, three men had gathered, their stance exuding menace. Two small children threw stones desultorily against a wall.
    ‘May we come in?’ Raf asked softly. ‘We’re friends of Louise.’
    The woman pushed back a strand of hair and stood her ground. ‘Louise isn’t here,’ she said firmly.
    ‘Are you sure? We really are friends. Friends of Olympe … of Rachel Arnhem, too. That was why we wanted to speak to Louise.’
    The woman stared at them. ‘You’re not French?’ she asked.
    ‘Americans.’
    Her gaze softened. ‘You’re