CHAPTER 2
THE DIPLOMAT
‘Boss, I’m on the train, just an hour out from Montpellier. I’ve got a quiet cabin,’ I say over the phone, settling into a seat by the window.
‘About time you got in touch. What do you know so far?’ Mr Lewis asks from the other end.
‘I’m checking out a few leads, and the circles these curators like to float around in.’
‘A few leads? I don’t want you playing detective, Sal, and I don’t have time for your poetry and pleasantries.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘You find that curator, and sort it – quick and clean. Don’t make me regret letting you handle this. Even if you buggered off without my approval.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it, boss.’
‘Good. Call me back when you have something worth sharing.’
As soon as the call ends, I instantly regret deciding to find the girl myself.
I know he won’t like me disobeying him. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have known anything about her.
If it were up to Mr Lewis, he’d dive head first, relentless and fearless.
That way, he’d ensure the job was swift and seamless, so we could all move forward without a second thought.
And if I hadn’t seen her face - a photograph paired with her client profile at the Wilderness Warfare Games - she’d probably be dead already.
Back then, I saw her eyes held an untold story, and in that instant, the world paused.
The thought of her life ending by his hands became unbearably suffocating.
I lean back, gazing out of the window, the warm leather seat pressing into my back as I cradle the phone in my hand. The countryside blurs past the window, and I exhale slowly recalling my last meeting with Mr Lewis.
‘Boss,’ I started, ‘with all due respect, I do need space. With all that’s happened.
..’ I paused, knowing I had to choose my words carefully.
His gaze cut through the smoke-filled air of his office, waiting for me to speak.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even blink - just a statue of authority and power.
But I know him, and he was listening. I pressed on.
‘At the coto - perhaps your presence would be more useful there?’ His eyes narrowed, and I was careful to lace my words with respect but with a subtle assertion.
I continued, ‘Emma and Paul are volatile. They’re risks.
And while Mickey and the crew are quite capable, boss, a steady hand at the right moment can make all the difference in keeping things under control.
They’ll respond to you in a way they never would to Mickey. ’
I didn’t back down. ‘Meanwhile, I can handle the curator. I could do with a change of scenery, no offence.’
He exhaled sharply, but I caught the slight nod of his head – a signal of approval. I won that round, but the pressure to deliver had doubled. So I left before he could impose more restrictions. I had to do this my way.
The train ride feels interminable, each station blurring into the next as the countryside rolls by in a hypnotic haze of greens and golds and other warm tones of southern France.
When Montpellier comes into view, the sky is the colour of burnt copper, and as I step off the train I’m overcome with both excitement and trepidation.
It’s been a long time since I made an effort like this for someone – but then again, she isn’t like anyone else.
I follow the directions I’d hastily scribbled in my notebook, weaving through a network of boulevards. Finally, I find myself standing before Le Musee des Moulages.
To pass the time, I read about the museum on the train.
The subject matter is grotesquely fascinating, like peeling back the skin of history to find something still pulsing beneath.
And then there’s her. The goth girl. Where does she fit into all of this?
What is she doing here, drifting through these halls like a revenant?
She really is the skin girl. She belongs to this place in a way that makes my skin crawl.
The online records claim the museum first opened in 1865, though no one alive recalls the unlocking of its doors.
I imagine back then, it was a dimly lit gallery with its walls lined with sketches and sepia-toned photographs of blistering boils, and lesions that bloomed like cursed flowers.
The real transformation came with Jean-Michel Bernard, a fruit modeller, of all things, crafting wax fruit for aristocratic tables.
Pears so lifelike they drew flies. But, when his craft turned to flesh, his career shifted.
Over forty years, he sculpted more than 3,500 wax effigies: skin ruptured with puss, faces hollowed by plague, limbs flowering with decay.
Everyone has to have a hobby, I guess.
Today, the museum stands as the world’s most complete archive of dermatological horror. But I think it’s more than that. It’s a shrine, where both science and art collide in unsettling ways, no longer opposing each other, but fuse into something unholy.
My pulse thrums at the side of my neck, a frantic rhythm that’s betraying me. The sensation is maddening – like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing I might fall, knowing she’d catch me just to see me break.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t want to be here, but what alternative did I have?
Should I turn back? Go back empty-handed?
That’s not just failure – it’s an admission of weakness.
Boss wouldn’t just be disappointed - he’d question whether I’m still fit to be his right-hand man.
Ms Dubois isn’t the kind of ghost I can claim slipped through my fingers – but walking away without proof of kill?
Boss would haunt me far worse than she ever could.
The museum wasn’t hard to find, but I didn’t come here for art – not exactly. My ticket grants me swift access, and once inside, I spot her immediately – it’s hard not to.
There you are.
Her raven-black hair spills across her shoulders, black silk gloves hugging her hands, and gothic boots clunking softly against the stone floor.
I linger longer than intended, weaving and drifting through the gallery in a way that feels aimless but isn’t.
I watch her discreetly, noting her faint smile.
It’s a trap, sprung effortlessly, without warning, and for no reason. Unless...she knows I’m watching.
I see you, gliding through rows of wax skin like you were born to wander among the broken and preserved.
You don’t even flinch at the syphilitic faces.
Marguerite. The name itself sounds so poetic.
I watch. Not because I’m twisted, but because it’s my duty.
I see you – even here, surrounded by the grotesque, you remain the most human thing in the room.
Before I can stop myself, I step closer, and a crash shatters the quiet, the noise reverberating through the otherwise quiet gallery. My breath stills as I glance down at the fallen information stand – no damage done, but enough to draw attention.
Shit.
Thick, heavy black boots crunch against the stone floor. Silk-gloved hands rest on her hips, amusement curling at the edge of her lips.
‘Monsieur, c’est dommage...’ The French lilt is deliberate, her accent teasing at the syllables. I look up – too late to feign innocence. She leans down and continues, ‘Peut-.’
I swallow, straightening my back. ‘Sorry, I don’t speak French.’ I murmur.
Something shifts in her gaze – recognition, intrigue, maybe amusement. ‘Ah,’ she muses. ‘Perhaps you prefer English, hmm?’
I pause, fumbling to find my voice. ‘I – err.’
‘I hope zat you are not...how do you say...lost?’ Her smile is faint, teasing, like she already knows the answer.
‘No, not lost. Just drawn here.’
Her brow arches slightly. ‘Drawn ‘ere?’ She repeats, leaning into her accent. ‘Zen I must ask, monsieur...what is it zat draws you ‘ere? Ze art - or somesing else?’
‘The blend of beauty and brutality, I guess.’ Her presence is enough to knock me off balance, and her English tinged with French keeps me guessing.
There’s definitely more to this girl than meets the eye.
Then, as I’m mulling together her mystique, she slips.
Her voice shifts into something sharper, clipped.
It’s the same accent, but suddenly more familiar – less foreign.
‘It’s not like this museum to see many visitors who aren’t students.
’ Her tone has lost some of its practiced lilt, revealing an unmistakably English cadence underneath.
I blink, the realisation hitting me. ‘You’re English! ’ I reply, incredulously.
‘Errr...’ Her lips twitch, her kohl-lined eyes boring into mine. ‘Guilty,’ she sighs.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask, without a second thought. She pauses. Just slightly. Just enough for me to register the flicker of amusement in her dark eyes before her lips twitch upwards.
‘Impatient, hmm?’ She muses, tilting her head. ‘Or just eager?’ There’s a tease in her gesture, a kind of performance, before she shrugs with feline grace.
I exhale slowly, forcing myself to hold her gaze despite the heat creeping to my cheeks. I could recover, but something tells me, she’s already decided exactly what kind of fool I am.
Her gloved fingers tap against her arm, deliberately, teasing before she shrugs. ‘Marguerite Dubois,’ she says smoothly. ‘I’m the curator here.’
Of course she is. The name rolls off her tongue like it’s been practiced in front of mirrors for years, but I know it’s not real.
Not really. No one who looks like that is called Marguerite Dubois.
Her skin – what little I can see – is pale, not porcelain but waxen, not unlike the sculptures she looks after.
Her eyes are the colour of bruises, dark and beautiful, and her mouth curves in a way that suggests she’s tasted things no one should.
Her gloves are clean, too pristine for someone who works with artefacts, or bodies, or whatever it is she curates here.
She doesn’t blink enough, that’s what unsettles me the most. Instead, she watches me, memorising me like she’s deciding where I’ll fit in her collection.
‘I know,’ I say quietly. ‘But I want your real name.’
Something sharp flickers across her expression – it’s barely noticeable, but I noticed. I notice every glance, every twitch her face makes. Her posture doesn’t change, yet suddenly, she’s a different woman as if I’ve already undressed her.
‘Stella,’ she says, finally. The name slips out like it has cost her one of her nine lives. ‘Stella Anderson.’
Stella Anderson. And just like that, I know I’m fucked – I’ve crossed into something far more dangerous than simple flirtation. I’m fucked. Truly. I’m flirting with the woman I’m here to kill.
Might kill.
Will kill.
Well, not right away.
Not now. Not yet. Later.
The moment hangs. ‘Well, Ms Anderson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ I nod, turning on my heel to walk away.
I wonder if she’s flirting too. I wonder if she’s planning on killing me too. But not now. Not yet. Later.
‘Wait!’ she calls out, but I keep walking, as if I didn’t hear her, and she’s hurrying behind me.
She’s watching me, not obviously, but I feel it.
And I play along because this is a game of cat and mouse; only I’m not sure which one I am.
I’m here to kill her. Eventually. But if she suspects, she might vanish or worse – she’ll strike first. And having seen her crossbow, I have the distinct feeling that Marguerite Dubois doesn’t miss.
Her fingers wrap around my arm. ‘I didn’t catch your name?’
I could lie. Give her a name that means nothing. But something in the way she looks at me makes me hesitate. ‘Does it matter?’ I say, my voice low and controlled.
Her grip tightens. ‘It does to me.’
I exhale, eyeing her, analysing her expression. ‘Call me whatever you want, Stella,’ I say, finally. ‘You’ll figure out the truth soon enough.’
‘Who are you? Tell me,’ she asks.
‘Sal,’ I reply.
She eyes me, a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth. ‘Are you here to hurt me...Sal?’ she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
‘Hurt you?’ I exhale slowly. ‘Darling, Marguerite, mon cheri, I want to tear you apart, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left untouched.’