to sob, letting go of all the fear and regret she’d held so tightly inside.
‘Why don’t you lie down for a while?’ he suggested with deep concern in his tone as he pulled back the blankets. ‘Get an hour’s sleep. We have a lot ahead of us. You’ll need all your strength.’
Taking her hand, he pulled her towards him and kissed her gently on the lips. The exhilaration of that feeling startled her, and for the first time, she felt aware that she was alone with this man in his apartment, in his bedroom. Even with the overwhelming surge of regret and emotion, it was exciting as he pulled her into bed next to him and enfolded her in his arms.
Nestled safely against him, she could hardly keep her eyes open but as she drifted off to sleep all she could see were the faces of the people that had worked with her in Paris, all coming back like ghosts.
29
Present day
The day after their visit to Alex’s family’s apartment, they visited La Musée de la Libération de Paris, and Sophie was heartbroken to see so many photographs of the faces of people who had sacrificed their lives during World War Two, many of them young, some only surviving a few weeks working undercover for the French Resistance because it was so dangerous. Sophie kept hoping she would see Vivienne’s name there somewhere, maybe under an obscure plaque, somehow hidden, undiscovered, identifying her as one of the war heroes, or perhaps giving clues to the message she still hadn’t decoded. But Vivienne wasn’t there. They walked around the exhibition listening to the audio of extraordinary stories. She was starting to build up a good idea of what Vivienne had done for France and was amazed to find out that the wireless operators, the kind Vivienne had been, only had a life expectancy of six weeks.
There was a little about the Germans too, information about the occupation. Sophie enquired about where to go if she wanted to research the war records of a German commanding officer who had been there during World War Two. The docent gave her more references to check on the internet, assuring her that the Germans had kept meticulous records. ‘We don’t keep that kind of information here. We are celebrating what the French did during the war in the Resistance,’ he informed her.
After they left the museum, Alex was full of all the stories they had read about as they walked again along the Seine. It had rained earlier in the day, but now the whole city was alive with a clean, fresh smell as the sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds. Sophie looked around, and was reminded that Paris was a delightful city. But as Alex chatted by her side, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of sadness as she gathered her coat around her. She and Matt had come here a couple of years before and walked this very path. It had been the summer then, so the weather had been much more accommodating and it had been a good weekend for them. They’d enjoyed themselves. Now she was alone, again.
When they got to Alex’s gallery he ducked inside to check his messages with the young woman he had left in charge. She followed him in as his assistant pointed to a picture she had evidently just sold for him and he nodded, nonchalantly. But when Sophie looked at the price she was taken aback – it was almost a year’s wages in her research job. She looked over at Alex, realising for the first time he was potentially much more wealthy than she had assumed. There was nothing of the starving artist about the price of that piece.
He seemed occupied with an intense conversation he was having with the young woman, so excusing herself, after arranging to meet Alex later for dinner, Sophie made her way back to her rental apartment.
As Sophie arrived at the restaurant a couple of hours later she noted it was a mild enough evening that she was able to sit outside, and she enjoyed watching people interact, listening to the hum of the distant traffic, and inhaling all the great food smells wafting out from the restaurant’s kitchen.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Alex said, arriving thirty minutes after she’d got there, finding Sophie snuggled deep inside her coat and on her second glass of wine. ‘A customer kept me late at the shop, and I wanted to get something for