‘Will you be all right?’ she asked. He shrugged, and she added, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What use is that?’ said Odile, breaking free from her husband and making for the street. ‘You can say sorry till your tongue drops out, it doesn’t change things. It doesn’t bring the dead back.’

Yves cast an apologetic glance at Laure and went after his wife.

Laure turned to go back in.

‘You’re Laure Carlyle, the curator, right?’

Laure was accosted by a tall, Nordically fair girl in dark glasses but her accent suggested she was an American from the South. Tennessee? Georgia?

Normally, the museum staff shielded her from the madder and more extreme petitioners. But the girl looked sane. And energetic. She also looked as though she wasn’t acquainted with fear.

Buttonholing obviously came naturally to whoever this was for she continued, ‘I’m a freelance journalist over in Paris working on stories. I heard about your museum and I would love to talk to you about it.’ She searched in a black neoprene rucksack and thrust a card at Laure. ‘I’ve just spent time here. It’s special. It needs to be written about. You need to be written about.’ She added, ‘I do all the grunt work, so you needn’t worry. You just have to talk.’

This was not unusual. The museum had gained footfall and traction in the guidebooks and the press. Journalists were intrigued by the concept and the location – oh, it’s in Paris! There was a hum about it on social media. Even Newsweek had made an overture in an email: ‘We will put you on the map’.

‘I rarely give interviews.’ Laure pocketed the card without looking at it.

‘I googled you,’ the girl said, and Laure bristled. As she always did. ‘You gave an interview to an Italian magazine a few months ago. Might it be time for another?’

‘No.’

‘I have a big contact at Vanity Fair,’ says the girl. ‘It would be red meat for them.’

Carrot. Dangled.

This girl was on the make. Working her way into a career. She’ll take risks, lie a little. Or, bend the truth. Laure had clashed with the type often. ‘Please don’t think this is unkind, but no.’

‘Not unkind, but protective perhaps?’ Far from taking the flat refusal, the girl remained polite, charming and persistent. ‘This place needs to be known. It helps people?’

This was true. ‘It does.’

‘If I had set up this place, it would be because I have something in my past to exorcise. What do you reckon?’

The question was clumsily put, transparently ambitious, but smart.

‘You’d be wrong.’ Laure gave no hint of her dismay and made for the entrance. ‘I have to get back to work.’

At the door, she looked back over her shoulder.