Petit Chou-chou Anglaise. Nicole’s nickname for Maisie. It meant Little English Cabbage. When Nicole had first told Maisie this, she thought it perhaps was supposed to be an insult, but Nicole assured her it was quite affectionate! Nicole Bonifait was half-British herself, as she’d pointed out to Maisie when they’d first met. And in a way, it was Nicole’s English ancestry that had created the art scholarship that had changed everything and set Maisie off on this whole unbelievable adventure. Six months ago Maisie had been an ordinary schoolkid, living on a council estate in Brixton, South London. Now, here she was, sitting outside Lucie’s, the most prestigious auction house in the whole of Paris, while the rich and the fabulous of the city tried to outbid each other over her art.

“Do you feel well enough to go back inside now?” Nicole asked her. “This is your moment of glory. Your work is going to fetch a record price, I think.”

Maisie shook her head. “I’m not going back in. I don’t care about the painting. I want to go back to Claude.”

Nicole gave her hand a squeeze. “I understand completely,” she said. “Who cares about a room full of bourgeoisie? Tonight, of all nights, you should be with him, no?”

“Yes,” Maisie replied. “I’m not being ungrateful Nicole … I know how much this means to you …”

“Don’t be silly, Chou-chou!” Nicole hugged Maisie tight. “Go to him now! We have done what we can, but if these are truly to be his final hours you should be at his side.”

Maisie found that her legs were surprisingly jelly-like when she rose from her chair, but she felt a steely determination that drove her on, made her put one foot in front of the other as she turned away from the auction house, heading down the boulevard Henri IV. Lucie’s was walking distance from the stables of the Célestins, home to the mounted French police known as the Republican Guard. But as Maisie regained her strength that walk soon became a run. And it was as she was running that the tears began to come. She sniffled and choked as she wiped them away and kept running onwards through the crossroads. Car horns honked as she ignored the lights, cyclists yelled at her as she sped in front of their bikes. Then, at last, lungs aching, she reached the front gates of the Couvent des Célestins.

It was amazing to think that nearly two hundred horses lived right here in these opulent stables in the heart of Paris. These were city horses, accustomed to the hum and buzz of urban life, cared for by their riders, the noble gendarmes, the policemen of the Republican Guard.