Follow a Stranger

ridiculous. Why will women take these little things so

personally? Good night, Jean-Paul. By the way, are you

free tomorrow afternoon? My mother is in Paris for

shopping and would like you to take tea with her and

Pallas.”

Jean-Paul looked at him incredulously, eyes alight.

“Take tea? Why, yes, I should be delighted ... What hour?”

“Three o’clock? Good. Afterwards you might take Pallas

for a drive to Versailles. She needs some fresh air.”

Jean-Paul clasped his hands behind his back and

swallowed. “I ... yes ... I ...” he stuttered, visibly shaken.

Marc looked down at Kate, his grey eyes mocking her.

He marched her to the door and pushed her out in front of

him. She maintained a frozen silence while they were in

the shuddering, droning lift, but when they were out in

the street again, she shook his arm away.

“I’ll walk,” she announced, turning on her heel.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” snapped Marc, grabbing at her.

He pushed her into his car and slammed the door.

Rigid with fury, she stared straight ahead as he started

the car. But within minutes she realised that he was not

driving her to the Murray apartment, which was only two

streets away from Jean-Paul’s, but was heading out of

Paris altogether.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked him

angrily.

He did not answer, his face cool and remote in the dim

interior of the car, but some minutes later he pulled up at

the kerbside, near a small tree-lined square. The wind

gently moved the branches of the lime trees, and their