CHAPTER 3
THE TIMES OFFICE, PARIS
Charlie and Violet walked the few blocks to the newspaper office as Charlie considered the best way to convince her editor to let her leave her desk and investigate a missing person case.
The women took the rickety elevator to the top floor of a grand Haussmann building and strode into The Times office together.
Violet went straight to her station at the front desk.
As she pulled the chair out, Charlie said, ‘Your desk is a florist. How do you concentrate with so many vases?’ She counted at least three spilling over with an assortment of pastel roses, poppies and peonies.
A pearly orchid sat in a pot on the top of the counter.
But the flowers were the least of the distractions.
Concealed behind the reception bulkhead, the front desk was scattered with fabric swatches, to-do lists and sketches.
Her brilliant friend made no sign of hiding her second job as stylist for Aleksandr Ivanov’s fashion house because she ran a tight ship, keeping all the reporters in line.
The Paris editor, George Roberts, adored Violet (in addition to being Violet’s father’s Westminster classmate), and Violet spoke seven and a half languages, so could help translate almost any story from across the continent.
According to Violet, her Russian lagged behind her near-perfect French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin and Malay.
Violet was the most capable and organised and certainly the best-dressed person in the office. The Times would fall apart without her.
‘Violet, can you please get me all the photos we didn’t run of the Ritz soiree last week? I want to see if there’s any of Maisy Bell.’
‘You really think there’s legs to this Bell story? If my parents sent me to Paris with my aunt, I’d run away too. How’s a woman meant to properly enjoy Paris with a chaperone?’
‘I think that’s exactly why they sent the aunt!’ Charlie laughed. ‘I’m surprised your parents didn’t.’
‘They’ve given up. But I work for George, remember? So they have a spy.’
‘So can you get the photos?’
‘I’ll try. They’ll be negatives. The photographer wouldn’t have printed everything as it’s so expensive,’ she explained. ‘But I’ll look up who did the photographs and see what I can do.’
‘Merci.’
Violet sighed, shifted her weight and put her hands on her hips, which made her look like she was posing for the cover of Vogue.
Violet Carthage needed no studio or special lighting; her striking face—a blend of Malay and English—had cheekbones that could cut crystal and she wore couture mixed with pieces discovered at Les Puces flea markets with an innate nonchalance and flair.
Charlie eyed the mint suit with the blazer nipped in at the waist and mid-length pencil skirt.
Violet had augmented the outfit with a beige Hermès handbag, matching stilettos and a cute, gold bumble-bee brooch—a market find—on the lapel.
‘Aleksandr’s suit?’ asked Charlie, already knowing the answer.
Aleksandr Ivanov had recently stepped away from his role as a designer for one of the major fashion houses and started his own haute couture label with the support of some of the wealthiest and best-connected people in Paris (thanks to Lady Ashworth).
Aleksandr was certainly talented, but it was Violet who masterminded the flamboyant catwalk shows on a minuscule budget and created the buzz.
‘It is!’ beamed Violet, giving a little twirl in front of her desk. ‘He’s making some tweaks but it will be in our next show. Spring—it will look like a candy box strutting down the runway. If I can find the right venue.’ Violet bit her lip.
‘You’ll find the perfect spot. You always do!’
‘Thanks, but I’m so busy with work.’ She waved her hand dramatically across her desk. ‘It’s hard to do what I need for Aleksandr’s label.’
‘It’s your label too!’ said Charlie. ‘You tipped in the money with Lady Ashworth so he could start up on his own.’
‘Only a little. A teeny-tiny amount so my parents wouldn’t notice the withdrawal from my Paris spending account and ask questions.’
Charlie tilted her head and asked softly, ‘Why don’t you just tell your parents about Aleksandr?
Or better still, bring them here and show them your amazing work?
’ Violet was from an English aristocratic family and her tenure at The Times was an agreement struck with George.
With a deadline. In a little over twelve months, Violet would be obliged to leave her luxe apartment and the front-desk job she was overqualified for to go home and make a suitable match, then start the cycle all over again.
Charlie didn’t have time to go through all Violet’s strengths and all the reasons she should step away from her family ties and money and stand on her own two feet, but also she felt that was a conclusion Violet needed to come to on her own.
Families and family money were complicated beasts and it wasn’t Charlie’s place to tell her closest friend in Paris what to do.
Instead she said, ‘I can’t wait to see the new spring line,’ as she looked towards her own desk. She needed to get to work. She also needed George to give her the go-ahead to get out of the office and find Maisy Bell.
‘Of course. The new range. You should stop by the atelier and we’ll see if we can get you a sample.
Look at you, with your Schiaparelli scarf; I knew the cream would work with your milky skin tone and these Titian curls.
’ Violet stepped back and admired the cashmere scarf she’d gifted Charlie to keep her neck warm while she was in hospital and tapped her satchel.
‘We may well get you into Hermès yet. Baby steps. My work here is not done.’
Charlie curtsied. She was Violet’s fashion version of Pygmalion’s statue and she took the role with equal parts grace and scepticism.
There was no doubt Charlie’s tastes had evolved since she’d moved to Paris, but then, everything in her life had.
At first she’d worn the suits and ballgowns Violet had kindly lent her like an impostor, a fraud, but these days, Charlie wore them to match her mood.
As she got older, Charlie was far kinder to the woman in the mirror each morning. She liked what she saw. Even more, she liked how she felt since she’d upended her life and moved to Paris. Reinvention suited her.
‘I do my best with what you have given me.’ She stroked a fabric swatch. ‘Look, I know you’re worried about me chasing another story alone, but I need to know more about Maisy Bell. Who is she? Why is she missing?’
Charlie continued past a row of cluttered news desks to her own corner, which was as dismal as Violet’s was colourful.
The only hint of joy was a faded blue mug with remnants of Earl Grey sitting at the bottom.
Since Charlie had been released from hospital and back at work on the newspaper, she’d been confined to the unofficial ‘women’s pages’.
As the only woman working in the newsroom, those stories tended to fall to her.
So far she’d written a few jaunty paragraphs on a new brand of silk stockings, a society piece on whether the disgraced Windsors would relocate to the C?té-du-Sud permanently, a review of a pretty vin de Bourgogne and a discussion on the pressing issue of when was a respectable date to venture out in the Paris summer without gloves.
She’d also written a small piece on the party at the Ritz, which had raised funds for the burns unit the host, Lady Ashworth, had established during the war.
None of the accompanying published photos had had Maisy Bell in them, but she would look again if Violet could get hold of the unpublished set.
Charlie sighed. Now she was back, she needed to elbow her way to the features and the juicy homicides that were automatically handed to the male reporters more junior than her.
She needed this story of a missing American tourist to prove to her editor, George, that since her attack and hospitalisation, she was not afraid to work the major news stories.
Also, if she was honest, Charlie needed it to prove to herself that she wasn’t spooked, and that her last major front-page story wasn’t a fluke.
To prove that Charlie James was exactly the kind of investigative reporter she’d moved from Sydney to Paris to become.
Charlie sat down at her desk, opened her satchel and removed her notebook and the pictures of Maisy Bell that Lady Ashworth had given her.
‘Where are you, Maisy Bell?’ she whispered as she looked into the young woman’s warm eyes.
She hadn’t noticed in the cafe, but here, under the glaring lights, she could see the slightest happy crinkles at the edges of Maisy’s eyes when she smiled.
Maisy Bell smiled with her whole face, and this touched something inside Charlie.
A young woman on the cusp of an adventure in Paris.
At first glance, the American had looked innocent, full of hope and joy.
But now Charlie could sense a mischievous and curious nature too.
Eyes hoping for something new. Excitement.
Charlie knew the feeling. She and Maisy Bell had the desire for adventure in common and it made Charlie even more determined to find her. Charlie longed to reach back through the last decade and untangle all her own hurt and recapture that joyful innocence. That wasn’t possible.
In that instant, Charlie resolved to find Maisy Bell. To see that smile and reset that happy trajectory for a young woman with her whole life ahead of her.
Was Maisy Bell right now walking cobblestoned boulevards, browsing bookstores, cafes and dress shops, her arm linked with a secret companion’s?
Was she sick or hurt? Why would she just disappear?
If what Lady Ashworth said was true, then Maisy Bell had unlimited resources. Perhaps unlimited contacts too.