‘What shall we do?’ Alice whispered. ‘I’m Alice, by the way.’

‘Julia,’ the girl replied, and she stuck out her hand as though they were concluding a game of lacrosse. Alice didn’t know why but she suspected Julia would be very good at lacrosse; as well as her height, she was lean, and had an officious, confident air. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, looking around quickly as though the baroque bathroom might provide an answer.

Behind the door, the sobbing had resumed. ‘A big, big mistake,’ the girl repeated.

‘Who are you here with?’ Julia asked, in a clipped, demanding tone.

‘My… dad,’ said the voice uncertainly. A soft London accent that Alice was unable to place.

‘You’re going to have to find him and get a key,’ Julia said, forthright, as though it were simple, but Alice was conscious that if it were, this girl wouldn’t be hiding in the restrooms of Le Crillon.

‘Unless it’s him she’s trying to avoid?’ Alice mouthed.

‘I can’t,’ the voice sobbed. ‘I don’t know where he is. It’s been like this all week. He dragged me to Paris and then—’

Julia gasped.

‘He dragged you?’ Alice exclaimed.

‘No, not literally. But he made it sound like it would be fun. And it’s not. It’s not fun at all.’

Julia exhaled quickly and Alice was torn between being secretly pleased she had a genuine reason to leave and disappointed she couldn’t stay.

‘I’ve got to go…’ she said quietly, peering at Julia’s watch and frowning. For the first time, she noticed Julia’s shoes: electric blue with a large satin bow, entirely at odds with the rest of her conservative look.

‘Don’t go!’ Julia whispered, her tone almost aggressive.

‘I have to!’ Alice said, gesturing at her dress, and Julia gave a reluctant nod of understanding.

‘Won’t they recognise you at the front desk?’ Julia asked, turning back to the door and wishing she’d never intervened. The scene was too highly charged, her ability to be of any use too limited. ‘So you can get a key?’

‘I guess so, but I can’t go out there. I can’t leave this room.’

‘Why ever not?’ asked Alice, astonished, halfway to the door but desperate to stay.

*

Inside the toilet stall, Nina pressed more toilet paper beneath her eyes and took three deep steadying breaths. ‘Dammit,’ she muttered, her voice muffled in the confined space. She had her hands on her hips, a small silver purse her grandmother had lent her dangling from her wrist.

‘Because I’m dressed like this…’ she said. She opened the door, wobbling on her high silver sandals, not the floral Dr. Martens she usually stomped around in, and gestured at her canary-yellow dress. With its tight structured bodice, flared feathered skirt and a fluffy feather trim lining the top of the corset and adorning her wrists, it combined Big Bird with Abba.

‘Wow,’ Alice and Julia said in unison as she stepped out of the cubicle.

‘That’s quite the look.’ Alice felt suddenly grateful for her own dress. ‘I saw you earlier, in the lobby. You were wearing dungarees? You had a guitar?’ She didn’t add, I noticed you because I thought, no one should look that good in dungarees. And no one should look that good in that dress. ‘You’re a deb?’ Her face betrayed what she was thinking: Who is she? Why don’t I know her? It was practically impossible to be a deb in Paris – that’s why Lulu was so annoyed she’d got in – and there were no other British debs on the list. It was, she suspected, the first time her parents had invoked her title, in their supplications (discreet of course) to Madame Chapelle, and it had given her a weird little jolt to see it on her invitation: Lady Alice Digby.