‘True,’ he agreed. ‘But if so, why did your father give you that soapstone tile as a clue to your history? It would have been far simpler to have included a photograph of Izabela and her husband.’

‘I don’t know,’ I sighed. ‘And maybe I never will. I mean, I have no more letters after October 1928, when she left Paris and returned to Rio. So, I have to presume that she married Gustavo and settled down with him here.’

‘Actually, I don’t think that was the whole story,’ Floriano said, producing another photocopied picture and passing it across to me. ‘That was taken in January 1929. It shows the plaster mould of the Cristo’s head just after it had been taken off the ship that had brought it across from France. That strange-looking object next to it is actually a giant-sized palm of a hand. There are two men in this picture. One of them I recognise as Heitor Levy, the project manager for the construction of the Cristo. Now look closely at the other man.’ Floriano indicated the figure with his finger.

I stared at the features of the man leaning against the Cristo’s hand. I double checked it against the image Floriano had handed me only minutes earlier.

‘My God, it’s Laurent Brouilly!’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘So he was here in Rio?’

‘So it seems. I suppose it doesn’t take a genius to surmise that he was over here from France because of the Cristo project.’

‘And perhaps to see Izabela?’ I queried.

‘As an historian, one should never make such assumptions, especially as you’ve only read about Izabela’s feelings towards Laurent. We can’t be sure of how he felt about her,’ Floriano reminded me.

‘True. But in her letters, she talks about sitting in Paul Landowski’s studio for the sculpture that now stands in the gardens of A Casa das Orquídeas. She also tells Loen, her maid, that Laurent begged her to stay in France and not to return to Brazil. I wonder if he followed her here . . . But how do we discover whether they did meet again after he arrived in Rio?’

‘We ask your friend Yara, the maid,’ shrugged Floriano. ‘If she gave you those letters, I think it’s safe to say that, for whatever reason, she wants you to know the truth.’

‘But she’s terrified of her mistress. Giving me the letters is one thing, but speaking to me about what else she knows about my own heritage is another.’

‘Maia,’ Floriano said firmly, ‘stop being so defeatist. She’s already trusted you enough to hand over the letters. Now, how about we walk back to your hotel and I read them?’

‘Okay,’ I agreed.

While Floriano sat in my suite and began to read Bel’s letters, I crossed back over the road to Ipanema Beach and went for an exhilarating swim in the fierce waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Drying myself in the sun, I decided that Floriano was right and I mustn’t be frightened of pursuing the story I had travelled halfway across the world to discover.