‘Men,’ offered up May.

Adeline LeDuc understood and shook her head. ‘Too easy.’ May coloured up. ‘It could have been the other way around. If Pierre had been the one to become a grandmaster, I might well have been bitterly jealous. Having married people competing on the same turf is not good.’ The expression in the eyes was bleak. ‘He failed to honour the promise.’

Laure nodded. ‘I understand.’

Adeline took up the Macbeth piece – the black king – and used it to square up to the white king, Henry V. ‘I would like it to be in a place where people could see how special it is. I can’t play with it ever again and my ex-husband refuses to touch it.’ She tapped Macbeth. ‘That’s checkmate.’

‘Neat,’ said May.

‘Madame,’ Laure stood up, ‘it has been a pleasure to meet you and to discuss the chess pieces. My colleagues and I will consider the space available…’

Perhaps because Laure had signalled the end of the interview, Adeline LeDuc’s benignity slid from her. ‘My husband should learn.’ She gathered up the chess pieces and shut the board with a snap. ‘I see that I don’t impress you,’ she said to Laure, demonstrating what kind of adversary she might be across the chessboard.

Having handed Adeline over to Nic, Laure returned to the interview room. May was staring out of the window, her laptop open. ‘How about this?’ She read out from her notes. ‘“So many things have been offered up in the museum, apart from the objects. Fragments from lives that have not gone according to plan which are presented in anger, in resignation, in despair but, sometimes, with relief and a lightening of spirit.”’ She looked up and what she read in Laure’s expression obviously puzzled her. ‘You’re not going to take the chess pieces, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Darned if I know why not.’

Laure crossed over to the window and May joined her. Together they looked out over the Parisian roofscape, gloriously fretted in the sunlight. ‘If you enter competitions you’re in them to win. That’s the nature of the beast, yes?’

May did her hand-in-hair gesture. ‘Haven’t got you.’

‘As competitors, they have a duty to try and win and, if they were competing in the same competitions, one of them was always going to be in the ascendant. The promise they made to each other wasn’t realizable from the start. It wasn’t really a promise. It was a way of allowing the marriage to happen. They must have known that.’ Reluctantly, Laure turned away from the view. ‘With such limited space, I have to make difficult decisions. The chess set has to be one of them.’

On the way downstairs, May stopped and asked, ‘Henry V conquered the French, right?’

‘Best not to mention it while you’re in France,’ replied Laure. ‘But, yes, he did, temporarily.’