“So you know how much I get paid,” she said, annoyed.

“Didn’t seem too bad an amount for the privilege of traveling to France and handling photographs you’ve obviously been dying to see.” He was stiff, almost adversarial; the artist’s agent concerned only about his client.

She couldn’t resist the riposte. “But did they include danger money for dealing with you for a fortnight?”

She saw the corners of his lips twitch up for just a moment and she childishly congratulated herself for the small victory before he handed her a printed page. It was a confirmation from the Art Gallery of New South Wales for her to stay in France for as long as it took to pack the photographs she’d simply thought it was her job to courier. As an art handler, she was used to hiccups and problems and she was also used to managing them to everyone’s satisfaction; one only had to spend as much time in transit as she did to know that when planes and trucks and warehouses and customs brokers and art were all thrown together, moments of chaos were to be expected. But adding an extra week or two on to the trip was somewhat unusual. She was beginning to understand why the gallery had asked her to go so early.

“It will be easier if you stay here in the chateau,” Josh said.

“I guess I could handle that.” D’Arcy looked around once more at the magnificent surrounds. “Is the photographer in residence?”

He nodded.

“Do you ever see her?”

“We don’t converse via telepathy.”

She smiled, although she had no idea if he was being sarcastic or joking. “Will I see her?”

“You’re assuming the photographer is female.”

“I know she’s female. Her body of work has a degree of compassion for the subject that I’ve never witnessed in that of a male photographer.”

“Cartier-Bresson. Penn. Mapplethorpe. They’re not compassionate enough for you?” He folded his arms across his chest.

“No.” D’Arcy was emphatic. “They were technically masterful but empathically absent. Like Ansel Adams said, a great photograph gives expression to precisely how the photographer feels about their subject and thus illustrates how one feels about all of life.”

He raised an eyebrow in response and she supposed that throwing Adams into the conversation probably made her sound like either a show-off or a know-it-all. Or both.

But he only asked, “What about Capa?”

Ordinarily she might concede to Capa. Not today. “Shouldn’t you be defending your client rather than listing the photographic canon, a group of men who need no more recognition?” she replied.

“You didn’t just come to babysit photographs on a plane, did you?”

Yes, because that’s all an art handler does, she almost snapped back. Instead she said, “I’ve been flying for more than a day—Sydney is on the other side of the world, after all—then on a train and a car for another few hours. What I really need to do right now is sleep and then tomorrow I’ll get started. If you could show me where my room is? Given you’ve had notice of my forthcoming stay, I assume you have that organized.”