Calling for some soup before the absinthe overwhelmed his brain cells and he fell off the bar stool, Laurent pondered for the thousandth time whether he should send the letter he’d written in his head every hour since she’d left. But of course, he knew that if he did, it might fall into the wrong hands and compromise her.

He tortured himself constantly about whether she was already married and all was lost. He wanted to ask Margarida, but she was no longer at the atelier, her two-month internship there now at an end. He’d heard on the Montparnasse grapevine that she and her mother had gone to Saint-Paul de Vence for the warmer weather.

‘Brouilly.’

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned his bloodshot eyes towards the voice.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m well, Marius,’ he replied. ‘You?’

‘The same as always: poor, drunk and in need of a woman. But instead, you will have to do. Drink?’

Laurent watched as Marius pulled up a bar stool next to him. Just another unknown artist in Montparnasse getting through his life on cheap alcohol, sex and the dream of a glittering future. He thought of the body in his bed in the filthy attic and decided in favour of rolling out of the bar at dawn and sleeping where he fell in the street.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Another absinthe.’

That night was the start of a weekend during which Laurent drowned his sorrows. And of which, as he staggered bleary-eyed into Landowski’s atelier, he had little recollection.

‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ remarked Landowski to the young boy, who sat on a stool, avidly watching the professor working.

‘Mon Dieu, professor, you’ve done so much already!’ Laurent stared at the enormous hand of Christ and could only believe Landowski had spent the past forty-eight hours working continuously on the structure.

‘Well, you have been away from us for five days, so someone had to continue the work. The boy and I were about to send out a search party to trawl the gutters of Montparnasse to find you,’ he added.

‘Are you saying it’s Wednesday?’ queried Laurent in shock.

‘Correct,’ said Landowski, turning his attention back to the vast white shape and taking a scalpel to the still wet plaster of Paris. ‘Now, I will shape the fingernails of Our Lord,’ he said, addressing the boy and pointedly ignoring Laurent.

When Laurent returned from the kitchen, having splashed his face with water and gulped down two glasses of it in an attempt to relieve his aching head, Landowski glanced at him.

‘As you can see, I’ve found myself a new assistant.’ He winked at the boy. ‘At least he doesn’t disappear for five days and arrive back still drunk from the night before.’

‘My apologies, professor, I—’

‘Enough! Understand I won’t tolerate any further behaviour such as this, Brouilly. I needed you to help me with this and you weren’t here. Now, before you dare to touch my Christ’s hands, you will go to my wife in the house and tell her I have ordered you to sleep off your hangover.’