“Yes, yes, Mme Massot, at once,” she said, diving on her phone. “Monsieur, Mme Massot is here.” She listened, then hung up.

“I—he is on the tenth floor, Madame,” she said in halting English. “I am to take you to him.”

“Do the elevators go to the tenth floor?”

The girl nodded.

“I can find the way up there myself.”

“Oh, please, Madame,” the girl said, almost crying. “Do please excuse me and don’t mention it to M. Lazard. . . . I need the work, the job.”

“I’m not going to say a word,” Sophie said, appalled that she should be frightening anybody. This girl didn’t look much older than Tom. “I only want people to enjoy coming to House Massot, Mademoiselle. Please don’t concern yourself.”

The girl nodded and bit her lip.

“Everything will be fine!” Sophie said heartily, getting into the elevator. It was very small and dark, lined in red velvet, the old-fashioned sort with the metal grille you needed to pull closed yourself before the thing would start. She shivered and pressed the button for the tenth floor.

Sophie was slightly claustrophobic, and below her, as the elevator cranked and wheezed its way up the stairwell, she could hear the young girl snuffling. Of course, she had been abominably rude, but . . .

Dulouc, the gardener, would be out there already, with his flask of coffee, raking the moist, crumbly soil that turned over on his trowel like a pat of butter. Ugh, she hated all this. Damn Pierre for getting himself killed, she thought, crossly. She hadn’t been here five minutes and already she wanted to go home.

Blessedly, the tomblike lift juddered to a halt. She pulled open its inner door; an assistant, beautifully dressed in a little navy twinset, of which Sophie approved very much, opened the second door for her.

“I decided to come up by myself,” Sophie said hastily, seeing the older woman’s eyes look for the errant receptionist.

“Very good, Madame. Welcome to House Massot.” She offered her a brisk handshake. “My name is Cecile Lisbon; I am assistant to M. Lazard. It is a great honour to have you pay us a visit. I will take you to M. Lazard, if you will follow me.”

Sophie dutifully walked behind her through the offices, which were open-plan, with employees sitting behind their little screens staring at computers or on the telephone. Most of them looked bored, though a few stared at her with open curiosity. It didn’t seem to her like the headquarters of a great house of jewellery and fashion, more just another office building. When she was a girl, she had visited her father one day in his work at the local paper. The atmosphere reminded her of that. But perhaps all business was the same, and just as dull as Pierre had told her it was.