‘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 atThe Timeswas 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 warmwhile 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 Windsorswould relocate to the Côté-du-Sud permanently, a review of a prettyvin de Bourgogneand 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 touchedsomething 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.
Charlie needed to find out who Maisy Bell was associating with in Paris. Perhaps she left a diary or an appointment book in her room at the hotel? She glanced around the office, where a dozen men with their shirtsleeves rolled up were tucked in their cubicles, tapping away at their typewriters. Others spoke on the phone, while a pair in the far corner busied themselves with folding paper planes and angling them over the divider at each other with schoolboy laughter.
Charlie worked at her desk silent and alone. These newspapermen never included her in meetings or when they workshopped stories. The ancient subeditors returned her articles with illegible red scrawl top to bottom. The only attention Charlie received from these men was an occasional request for coffee or a wayward paper plane on her desk. Her only ally in the office was Violet.
Charlie tugged the corner of her scarf so it sat better across her lapel. She knew better than anyone that you could smother yourself with cashmere, but all the cashmere in the world did not protect you from misadventure. Or from bad people.
Charlie had once been a fresh-faced young woman with the dream of being a news reporter. As a junior reporter back in Sydney, she’d ached to cover the important stories, then she’d ached for a man and was torn between both. When her marriage soured and her career prospects looked dim, Charlie had chosen travel and adventure. She shuddered and pushed all thoughts of her ex-husband and her recent attack far from her mind.
‘James! Got that shoe paragraph for me to send through to page six?’ The square, ruddy face of George Roberts peered over her cubicle and locked on to the photos of Maisy Bell. ‘I don’t believe I asked for a society or actress piece today?’ he barked in his thick British accent.
‘Yes to the shoe piece. No to the actress piece.’ Charlie tapped the photo. ‘This is an American, Maisy Bell. Twenty-two and missing.’
‘Define missing?’ her boss snapped as he looked at his gold watch.
‘Nobody has seen Maisy Bell for over a week. She was staying with her aunt at the Ritz, went out sightseeing and didn’t come back.’
‘Says who?’
Charlie straightened her back and looked her employer in the eye. ‘Lady Ashworth.’
Silence filled her cubicle, as George scratched the back of his head with obvious annoyance. The tap of typewriters continued but Charlie imagined her competitive male colleagues leaning in, trying to determine if Charlie James was going to be taken off her penance stories or if one of the young men would be assigned the story of a missing woman.
‘Always bloody Ashworth. How’s she mixed up inthis?’
‘She isn’t, as far as I can tell. Simply the messenger.’
George snorted but his blue eyes twinkled. ‘And I’m the bloody Pope. Go on, James.’
Bingo, he was hooked. Charlie needed a fast pitch.