The Perfume Collector(39)

‘She thinks we’re thieves,’ Monsieur Tissot translated, inserting himself between them.

‘Maybe because we’re acting like thieves. Pardon, madame,’ Grace pleaded. ‘Nous cherchez l’information à Madame d’Orsey!’

‘Pardon? Que voulez-vous?’

‘Nous . . . nous cherchons . . .’ Grace couldn’t think fast enough. ‘We need your help, madame,’ she blurted out.

The old woman eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why? What do you want?’

‘You speak English!’ Grace gasped in relief. ‘Pardon,’ Monsieur Tissot stepped forward. ‘I am Edouard Tissot and this is Madame Munroe, from London. I’m a lawyer, madame, representing the estate of the late Eva d’Orsey.’

‘What?’ The old woman’s expression changed.

‘I’m a lawyer. For the estate of Eva d’Orsey,’ he repeated.

Grace took a tentative step forward. ‘Did you know her?’

But the woman seemed not to hear her. ‘Eva . . . Eva d’Orsey is dead?’

‘Oui, madame,’ Monsieur Tissot said softly.

‘Eva . . .’

The information seemed to strike her like a physical blow. For a moment it looked as though she might lose her balance. ‘Get out of here.’

She said it so quietly that at first Grace thought she’d misheard her.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Get out!’ the old woman shouted, raising her stick again. ‘Get out! You’re not the first people to come breaking in here, trying to plunder and steal.’

‘What people? What are you talking about?’ Monsieur Tissot wanted to know.

‘I’ve seen them, in their big black cars. Liars, all of you! Now leave!’ She cracked the stick on the counter again, this time dangerously close. ‘Get out of my damned sight!’

They turned and stumbled out of the building, into the bright afternoon of the street outside.

Heart pounding, Grace turned round to look at the shopfront again.

The dog continued to bark. The front door slammed behind them but not before she caught a glimpse of the old woman’s face, her features angular and gaunt; large round black eyes, staring into nothing.

The torn awning fluttered and flapped, tossed by gusts of cold spring wind, the faded gold outline of the name of the shop just barely visible: Recherchez-moi.

Look for me.





New York, 1927

The woman in room 512 was Russian and known by the name of Madame Zed. She was what the French would describe as jolie laide; with an oval, rather long face and dark, heavy-lidded eyes. Her mouth was small, with a tendency to smile on only one side, when she smiled at all. But mostly she sat and drank, smoking long black cigarettes and talking in either Russian or French to a small coterie of devoted followers who came to visit her at the Hotel each day. Sis said many of them were Russian aristocracy, displaced by the Revolution. They travelled from country to country, hotel to hotel, searching for anyone who remembered who they used to be.

An inner gravity dominated Madame Zed. Her voice was low and resonant, pulling in those around her like an undertow. Her figure was very tall, rail straight and angular but she had a way of moving which was fluid and eminently watchable, and she knew how to dress simply so that these movements were emphasized. There was in her, for all her physical failings, an ambiguous, otherworldly sensuality. When her black eyes took you in, her capacity to stare unblinking, without any emotion, was both shocking and mesmerizing.

She’d come directly from Paris and shared a suite of rooms with her assistant, a young man named Valmont. Slightly built, he had brooding features and large, serious brown eyes. He stood in her shadow, listening, nodding in agreement, laughing in appreciation of her wit, managing her appointments, overseeing her preferences. The door was always left open between their rooms in case she wanted something.

One of his many duties was to ensure that the curtains of her room were drawn at all times and the rotary fan turned on high. Madame Zed was incredibly sensitive to smells. Almost everything offended her refined sensibility. This meant she was also incredibly picky about what sorts of cleaning supplies were used. Before Eva could start, Valmont would smell them, his upper lip curling in a pantomime performance of revulsion. ‘For you, it is nothing. But for her, it’s crucial. She has to spend all night with these foul odours!’

Eva had never heard of anything so ridiculous. ‘Bleach is the only way to remove a soap ring completely from the bath. Wouldn’t she rather know that the room was really clean? The smell of the bleach lets you know that it’s clean.’

He looked at her as if she were something foul, stuck to the bottom of his shoe. ‘When I need your advice, I’ll ask. And don’t speak to me with that tone again.’