At the far end of the salon lay a small dining room with a table big enough for six, a table that appeared vast and out of place as there were only two chairs. A glass-fronted cabinet filled with fine dishes and some tarnished silver. Two portraits in oil on the wall, darkly shaded.

I went back through the salon and vestibule, and down the corridor to the small kitchen. Copper pots, also tarnished, hung from hooks on the wall. There was a dark-grey cast-iron stove and oven, with four burners in various sizes to hold saucepans and casseroles. I opened the oven door and saw that it was fuelled by gas rather than wood – a novelty for me. A porcelain sink and lead tap with running water. The tap needed a polish. On the counter, a set of pewter canisters lined up by size. I lifted the hinged lid from the largest one: coffee beans. Others held hunks of sugar, salt, pepper, nutmeg, dried thyme and mace. The spices were old and ashy and only faintly aromatic.

The kitchen window overlooked the courtyard, and I glanced out and saw two men standing in the corner smoking pipes. One of the men looked up at me and I ducked. Under the window, the garde manger, breezy with the air that flowed through its open slats, where Madame had stored a jug of milk, some raw meat wrapped in waxed paper that looked a little suspect, a tomato and half an onion.

On the wall under the cupboards, a dark bruise of damp in the plaster. I pressed my finger to it, and it gave way softly and there was the fusty smell of mould. I located the coffee pot and searched the cupboards for something sugary, and found, to my delight, a tin of bergamot sweets. I stuck one amber crystal under my tongue and wandered back down the corridor, opened the door to the WC. A simple porcelain toilet decorated with fine blue flowers. I balled my fists, happy and a little giddy at the thought of having a flush toilet just down the hall from where I slept. In the bathroom, a sink adorned with the same blue flowers, an enamelled bathtub and gas water heater, which consisted of a copper chimney with a tap running into the bathtub. A water heater! I couldn’t believe my luck.

I went back to the salon and sat in an armchair and waited. From the apartment across the road, the hard rainfall of a piano being played mezzo-forte. There was wealth here, more than I had ever known, but neglect, too. Only a few weeks would have passed since Madame’s other girl had left the position, but the apartment was muted by a layer of dust that looked much older than that.

I knew almost nothing about Madame Debord, had only vague memories of my grandmother travelling to see her in Paris when I was very young. I remembered that there had once been a visit planned, when Madame Debord was going to come and stay with us, and that it had to be cancelled due to her poor health.