Together Laure and May walked down to the canal before turning into Laure’s street. Laure asked about May’s assignments and May explained she would be doing pieces on the dressmaker who took her inspiration from Morocco and a new flea market that had opened nearby in Bastille. Excitement and professional hunger pulsed from her – and Laure heard an echo of her younger self talking, talking, as rapid and as intense as she had been.

‘Who sent you to Paris?’

May stopped to scrape clogged leaves from her pink and black trainers. ‘No one. Saved up and took a chance.’

‘That was brave.’

‘Or desperate.’

‘To get away from your mother?’

‘The parrot on my shoulder, yes.’ She was edgy. ‘I wanted a life. I wanted a career.’

For once, the street noises were at a minimum. The autumn sun was at its most glorious and Laure inhaled an odour of dry leaves, bakery, water and the faintest suggestion of spices.

‘You love Paris,’ observed May.

‘Yes.’

‘A little? A lot?’

‘Paris has become part of me.’

‘Was Prague the same? Or Berlin?’

Laure forced herself not to stop mid-stride. ‘Did I ever mention Prague or Berlin?’

‘Not in so many words.’ May skirted around a tent erected on the canal bank with a camping gas ring leaning drunkenly beside it. ‘I’ve done some homework. You had a boss who was a big commie chief? Right?’

‘No comment.’

May said: ‘I know you hate talking about yourself, Laure, but this isn’t big intrusive stuff. Just background. I hope… I know … the article will be useful if I get it right. For both of us.’ Her gaze darted from trees, to the canal, to bridges… taking it all in. ‘It could be good. Really good. I feel it.’

‘Hang on,’ said Laure. She retraced her steps to the tent, bent down and righted the gas ring. ‘They have so little,’ she explained on re-joining May.

May tried again. ‘Did the British know you worked for a communist?’

Laure swung round. ‘You’re stepping over the mark,’ she said. ‘That’s not your business.’

‘Except that history can’t be rewritten and it’s out there.’

May had a point. ‘You’re right,’ Laure conceded.

May looked only a trifle smug. ‘Thank you.’ She paused. ‘I hope we can be honest with each other.’

Did May mean it? In the apartment, a still weak Kočka was spread over the swimming towel on the sofa, much as Laure had left her. As Laure and May came into the room, she lifted her head and her pupils enlarged. Laure sat down beside her and stroked the swoop of fur between her eyes which, to her surprise, Kočka permitted.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she said, pity and protectiveness churning inside her. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

May extracted a recording machine from her things.

Kočka closed her eyes.

‘I can’t keep her.’

‘Why not?’