“And Americans are somehow different? You have a pressing need to learn French because Canada’s on your doorstep?”

“Touché,” he said, that hard-to-provoke smile reappearing. “What I meant to say is, why do you speak French so well?”

“My mother is French. And your mother is…?” she guessed, knowing that to speak the language so well, he must have learned as a child too.

“French Canadian.”

“Aha.” She reached for more bread. “So tell me about the bullpen. How did you get from there to here?”

“Preventing corporations from being sued for obscene amounts of money, while guaranteed to give you a short-term, fist-pumping high, is pretty soulless,” he said flatly. “I did a degree in law and art history—the bizarrest combination, but that’s what I wanted to do. When an artists’ agency was looking for agents with legal and contractual expertise, I applied, not really expecting to get it. But I did. Then, because I could speak French, I was asked to run the French office for the agency after a year or so.”

“Which means you mustn’t be too bad at being an agent. But shouldn’t you be in Paris, rather than here?”

“I come here at least once a week. The photographer was my first and most important client. And when the photographer’s work is traveling across the oceans, it’s doubly important that I’m around to make sure it goes safely.”

A short silence followed, into which a chasm of questions opened. Who is the photographer? Do you speak to her in person? What is she like?

The work D’Arcy was crating bore no name. The artist was known only as The Photographer and, while D’Arcy suspected she was female, nobody really knew for sure. It was a circumstance in which the mystery of anonymity added to the creative genius of the photographs, and created a media storm that hadn’t abated for years. Every now and again it flared up, as somebody pushed a new theory about the identity of the photographer, an interest that had been stirred again as the photographs prepared to leave Europe for the first time ever, touring to Australia and then on to America. And D’Arcy, who’d been working as an art handler and sometimes curator for years, had been the one lucky enough to be chosen to go to France and escort the photographs. Of course, the prospect of getting close to brilliance had been a huge incentive, as had the intimation that she’d been specifically requested.

Célie came in with a platter of tarte tatin that filled the air with the vigorous scent of apples and the decadent sweetness of caramel. D’Arcy reached for a slice, before saying to Josh, “You’re not going to tell me anything about the photographer, are you?”

“I’m not,” he agreed.

“You could at least pretend you might drop me a hint to draw out the anticipation.” D’Arcy forked the tarte tatin into her mouth. “Oh, it’s so good.”

“I don’t play games,” Josh said simply.