The Paris Bookshop Secret, page 1
About the Author
Iris Costello is the pseudonym of bestselling author Nuala Ellwood. She has a BA Hons degree in Sociology from Durham University and a Master’s in Creative Writing from York St John University, where she is a visiting lecturer. She is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels, the most recent of which was The Story Collector. The Paris Bookshop Secret is her ninth book.
Praise for Iris Costello
‘Beautifully written with a story that draws you in’
Jane Corry, author of Coming to Find You
‘An intriguing story which skilfully entwines the past and present’
Heidi Swain, author of The Holiday Escape
‘Richly atmospheric, evocative and moving’
Abbie Greaves, author of The Ends of the Earth
‘A beautiful story that illuminates the past and the present and brings every moment to vivid life’
Christi Daugherty, author of The Echo Killing
‘A rollercoaster ride of a novel … shows how ripples from the past can be felt right up to the present day’
Sinéad Crowley, author of The Belladonna Maze
‘A warm, comforting read infused with love of family, love of history and love of home’
Kit Whitfield, author of In the Heart of Hidden Things
‘Intricately woven and beautifully told, I can’t recommend it more highly’
Simon Lelic, author of The Search Party
‘A moving tale of love and loss’
Sophia Tobin, author of The Silversmith’s Wife
‘A mesmerizing tale about the enduring nature of female courage’
Michelle Adams, author of Little Wishes
Readers adore Iris Costello’s historical mysteries …
‘Another thoroughly enjoyable read from Iris Costello’
*****
‘Better than any history lesson, that’s for sure’
*****
‘Iris Costello’s writing makes you feel like you really know the characters’
*****
‘An enjoyable and thought-provoking novel’
*****
‘If you enjoy a historical mystery that involves a lot of heart, this one is for you’
*****
‘A well-written and beautifully crafted story’
*****
‘The perfect book for book clubs’
*****
‘It will make you shiver, smile, cheer and cry’
*****
‘I would 100% reread this book over and over again’
*****
‘Once you start you will find it very hard to put down’
*****
‘This book has everything I want … the writing is utter perfection’
*****
Iris Costello
* * *
THE PARIS BOOKSHOP SECRET
For Nerina
‘I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.’
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Prologue
Latin Quarter, Paris
July 1960
The night air was ripe with the scent of blooming jasmine and the smoke of Gitanes cigarettes as William Kenneally made his way down rue de la Bûcherie towards the bookshop. Beside him, his friend’s hand fell perilously close to his, so close he could feel the heat seeping from it. Sam was chancing his luck as always, but this time William didn’t feel the need to bat him away. In a matter of hours, he would be with her, the girl of his dreams, the love he had spent a lifetime searching for, and they would be setting out on a great adventure, perhaps the greatest either of them had ever known. Just thinking of her brought about an incredible sense of goodwill. The way she looked at him with those deep blue eyes, making him feel as though she could see inside his soul, the softness of her arms, the place where William felt safest, the soothing lilt of her voice speaking of distant shores. Perhaps one day he would be able to find the words to write of their great love story. He hoped so. But that was all for the future. Right now he was happy in the knowledge that they would soon be together. Knowing that, he felt little need to remonstrate with Sam and his advances. It didn’t matter any more. None of it did.
‘Shall I stay over at the bookshop tonight, William?’ said Sam with a wink as they reached the corner of the street, the hulking shadow of Notre-Dame looming from across the water.
William smiled and took out a Gitanes from his top pocket.
‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ he said, placing the cigarette between his lips. ‘It’s a full house. Looks like I’ll be hunkering down on the sofa in Old Smoky alongside that new fella, Allen, the poet, who’s taken residence in the big old armchair. And if Paula’s to be believed he’s a frightful snorer.’
‘Don’t tell me George has given away your bed again,’ laughed Sam. ‘I thought you were set for the summer.’
‘You know how it is,’ said William, patting down his pockets in search of a lighter. ‘He always says I can stay but then a pretty little Italian student arrives with a sob story about having to write a thesis on Edith Wharton and no place to stay and it’s “sofa for Mr Kenneally”. At least until Miss Age of Innocence moves on.’
He looked up at Sam, hoping that the story was convincing enough. He had promised Blythe that he wouldn’t tell a soul what they had planned. They were just to disappear. No tearful goodbyes, no awkward explanations. They couldn’t leave a trace, even with his dearest friends. William felt wretched for lying to Sam, for leaving without saying goodbye, but there was no other choice, it had to be this way.
‘Ah, that’s too bad,’ said Sam, striking a match and leaning in to light William’s cigarette. ‘Say, we could always go to my place. I’ve a bottle of bourbon that needs drinking and a new chapbook that could benefit from your expert appraisal. But remember, if old Ma Tournier is still awake, you’re my brother, got it?’
‘Ah, that sounds grand,’ said William, his heart pulsating at the thought of the morning to come, the moment when he would take Blythe’s hand and board that train. This was it, the future he had dreamed of. It was so close he could taste it. ‘But I’ve had a week of double shifts at the bar and I’m dog-tired. The sofa is calling my name.’
‘Another time then,’ said Sam, looking at him in that intense fashion that always made William feel uncomfortable. Did he sense what was going on? thought William, averting his eyes from Sam’s gaze. Did he know he was being lied to?
‘Another time,’ William replied, guilt churning his stomach as he threw his cigarette to the ground and stubbed it with his foot.
What happened next felt like an absinthe dream.
He had bid farewell in the European fashion, a peck on each cheek, but as he went to pull away Sam grabbed his shoulders. Next thing Sam was kissing him passionately on the mouth; the scent of beer and cigarettes almost made William gag, but he was frozen, trapped in his friend’s forceful embrace.
Then, suddenly, there was a flash of light. Stunned, Sam staggered backwards, releasing William from his grip. The flash came again, accompanied by a distinctive clicking sound.
William, temporarily blinded by the light, heard Sam mutter an expletive. He blinked but all he could see were white dots dancing before his eyes, all he could hear was the sound of Sam’s footsteps clattering across the cobblestones.
‘Sam,’ he cried, staggering into the middle of the deserted street. ‘Don’t run away. Come back, will you?’
It was then that he saw the figure, standing on the pavement behind a row of Vespa scooters, holding a camera. Click, click, click. Each one accompanied by a flash of light.
‘Hey, stop that,’ cried William, charging towards the person. ‘You’ve no right to be taking my picture. Quit it, you hear me?’
The figure lowered the camera and looked directly into William’s eyes, and in that moment the young man’s blood froze as he realized who it was.
‘What … what are you doing here?’ he stammered. The light from the street lamp illuminated the photographer’s face, the haughty expression, the thin-pursed mouth, the ice-cold eyes. ‘Why did you take those pictures and …’
He let the sentence hang as the perilousness of his situation began to dawn. There was nothing else for it, he would have to run.
‘It’s too late, William,’ the photographer cried after him, menacingly. The voice was one of power and privilege, of money and corruption. ‘You can’t undo this. You’re dead, now, you hear me? Dead.’
PART ONE
1
ALEXIS
Kent
March 2025
‘Another false lead,’ I sigh as I walk away from the gates. Climbing reluctantly back into my camper van, I cross Lustrum Manor off my list. Fifteen months after embarking on my quest, I am still no closer to solving the mystery of my mother’s whereabouts or uncovering the secret of why she left us.
It has been over thirty-six years since that fateful Christmas Day when she climbed into her sunshine-yellow VW camper van and drove away from me and Dad, and yet it is only now – after leaving my own seemingly happy life and setting out on the road in an ancient but dependable camper van that is a near replica of my mother’s – that I am finally trying to confront the past. I’d found her diary when clearing out my dad’s house after his death.
It was a TV programme that had given me the idea. Two nights ago, parked up in the van, I had curled up to watch one of those family history shows on my iPad. The ones where celebrities investigate their ancestry. I was half watching, my mind drifting to earlier that day and yet another fruitless search. I’d spent the morning tracking down and then meeting a reiki teacher named Kimberly Harper in Andover who I’d found on Instagram and who, with her tie-dyed skirts and posts extolling the virtues of holistic living, appeared to tick every box until I turned up to meet her and found that she had been born and raised in Hampshire and had never left her small village in fifty years. Another dead end, another blow. As the programme played out, I asked myself how long I could carry on with this quest, how many disappointments I could take. But then my attention was caught by something on the screen: the celebrity, a soap star I didn’t recognize, was reading through an online census. ‘If anything can help me find where my great-grandad was in 1911,’ he grinned at the camera, ‘it’s this.’ I spent the rest of the evening signing up to an ancestry site and paying for premium access that would allow me to search my mother’s name on the census records. It took me until the early hours of the morning, squinting at the screen with tired eyes, but as the sun rose, I had a date, 21 March 2021, and an address, Lustrum Manor, Kent.
This was it, I told myself, as I hurtled down the motorway the following afternoon. I was finally going to find my mother. Then, after catching up on some sleep in the back of the van on the Sussex/Kent border, I set off early this morning for Lustrum Manor.
When I first arrived, I thought I’d read Google Maps wrong. The location it had directed me to looked like deserted farmland. Only as I drove closer did I see a set of heavy metal gates, a rusted sign hanging from the hinges. Parking the van at the side of the road, I made my way to the gates and saw, to my relief, the name Lustrum Manor engraved on the sign in copperplate lettering. To the right of this was an intercom with a buzzer. I pressed it and waited, my stomach fizzing with nerves and anticipation.
‘How can I help you?’
The voice, male and rather abrupt, crackled out into the chill air.
‘Oh, hi,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat, nerves getting the better of me. ‘I was wondering if you might be able to help. I’m looking for my mother and I’ve been informed that she was living here in 2021. Her name is Kimberly. Kimberly Harper?’
There was a long pause on the other side and for a moment I feared the intercom connection had cut out.
‘Hello?’ I said loudly. ‘Are you still there?’
‘You must be mistaken,’ said the man. ‘There’s no one of that name living here.’
I opened my mouth to reply but was met with a sharp buzzing noise, signalling that the man had ended the call. With a heavy heart, I returned to the van and picked up my mother’s diary.
According to this, I have one last lead to follow. I read her final entry dated Christmas Eve 1988, the day before she left. I don’t know who I am any more, she writes, in faded black biro. Everything I thought was real was just a lie. Maybe if I can find them then I can put myself back together again, fix what is broken inside me. Maybe if I can get away from here, head to my soul’s home, then everything will be all right. The words sting just as much as they did when I first read them. To think that my mother had felt so hopeless, so broken that she would up and leave her husband and child like that, without warning or explanation. But who was she trying to find? And where was the soul’s home she was heading for? A physical place? Or – and this is something I really do not want to entertain – somewhere beyond this mortal coil?
These thoughts whirl around my head as I drive away from Lustrum Manor and head for the coast. I’ll park the van up by the sea tonight, let the waves soothe me to sleep, then in the morning I will work out what to do next. After all, as I keep reminding myself, I no longer have a busy work schedule to stick to, a nine-to-five job restraining my movement. Like my mother, I am as free as a bird, and I will find her, whatever it takes.
It’s a beautifully sunny day and I decide to take the scenic route to the coast, detouring from the motorway and its endless traffic queues. In my old life, I would be chairing the morning meeting right now, anxiety welling up inside me as I nodded my agreement to every request, my lifelong fear of delegation pressing on my shoulders as I punched dates and times into my burgeoning spreadsheet, wiping out evenings and weekends and quality time with my wife, and filling them with urgent edits, Zoom meetings with the New York office, replying to emails from an inbox that never seemed to deplete. Thank God that’s all behind me, I think, as I catch a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror. My skin, once grey from the daily interminable Tube journeys, face pressed against strangers’ sweaty backs, is now clear and glowing, my eyes that developed heavy bags from squinting at a screen for twelve hours a day are now twinkling and bright. And though I spend my days driving a battered old camper van I have not succumbed to slobbing it in hoodies and joggers, preferring to stick to my favourite classic vintage attire which today includes a pair of Chanel cigarette pants, black vintage Miu Miu pumps and my beloved red Bella Freud 1970 sweater. When I set off on this journey, I truly thought that I was broken. But bit by bit I am putting myself back together again and a huge part of that is the search to find my mother. I should have done this a long time ago instead of burying my pain in work.
I realize now that, much as I loved it, my high-flying job as senior editor of a big five publishing house took so much out of me, not least the ability to read for pleasure, though I am hoping to remedy this. I glance at the book on the passenger seat beside me and smile. I’d found my old Time Traveller’s Journey paperbacks in my childhood bedroom when I cleared out the house, and they have stayed with me all through this trip. One day, when the fog clears, I will be able to read them again and feel the magic ripple through me just as it did all those years ago. Written by the literary megastar of the eighties Maeve O’Malley, each instalment of the series took the young reader on a whirlwind tour of a particular period of history in Paris, from the court of Louis the Sun King to the bloody days of the Revolution and the headiness of the Belle Époque. Those stories had not only ignited my love of reading when I discovered them as an abandoned seven-year-old, they had also taken me away from the real world with all its confusion and sadness and transported me to a time and place where anything was possible. When I saw The Time Traveller’s Journey to Belle Époque Paris, starring the bold and glamorous historical sleuth Darcy Diamond – the woman I wanted to be when I grew up – while sitting in my dad’s cleared-out house that day almost forty years later, it felt as though Maeve O’Malley and her fantastical story was soothing my sadness all over again. I remember the look on my mother’s face when I opened it that Christmas morning, the happiness in her eyes as I whooped with delight, though as far as I was concerned it was Santa and not my parents who had left the book in my stocking. ‘It has a funny picture inside,’ I said, opening the book to show my mother the strange but beautiful black-and-white stamp on the title page. ‘That’s because it came from a special bookshop,’ she told me. ‘One that only Santa Claus knows about. Perhaps one day you will get to go there yourself.’ I remember so little about that day, pain and grief serving to block out most of it, yet that exchange with my mother, the sadness in her voice as she told me about the bookshop, has stayed with me all these years, seared on my heart, a scar that won’t heal.
