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watched him glance at her apron and take in its absent flowers.
    ‘Well, we’ll have to see if you do better today, won’t we?’ He smirked.
    ‘Yes, Chef.’ She nodded. No, it was no good. He just wouldn’t shrink to the size of one of her pupils. He had been born a fully fledged pain in the bum, she was sure of it.
    ‘I have my eye on you,’ he said as he strode away.
    Rachel made the mistake of glancing to her right and saw Lacey raise her brows with disdain.
    The day started with pastry. Filo, short, flaky, puff, choux. Savoury and sweet.
    ‘You know nothing about pastry. Everything you think you know, you don’t know,’ hollered Chef.
    All morning they sweated over it. Chef coming over and screwing it into a lump, slapping it across the room to the bin, shouting, ‘Too much flour. Start again.’
    Abby cried. George had a coughing fit and Tony cut another finger, rendering him useless for the afternoon’s challenge.
    ‘After lunch you make me something. I spend the day teaching you, now you give it back to me. I want to see what you have. In here.’ Chef bashed his chest with his fist. ‘Now leave, it is lunchtime.’
    Rachel walked out with Abby, both bundled into their coats and scarfs ready for the wintry cold that had hit last night.
    ‘I’ve left my family at Christmas for this guy. He’s a nightmare,’ Abby whispered as they left the room.
    ‘You have kids?’
    ‘Two. Little girl and boy. One year apart. Glutton for punishment, me. I’ve told them I’m off meeting Santa—we need to discuss how good they’ve been this year.’ Pulling out her purse, she showed Rachel a picture—a passport photo strip in a plastic wallet of two bright blond children, aged about six or seven, could have been younger, and a fun-looking surfer-type guy holding them on his knee.
    ‘He looks nice.’
    ‘Doesn’t he? Jane from number seventeen thought so, too. He left last year, bought a boat, said family wasn’t for him, he felt suffocated, and he’s sailing round the world now—with her. Have you seen those boats? If anything’s suffocating I’d say it’s them—can’t even stand up half the time. He sends postcards from places like Mauritius and the kids think he’s all exciting and glam. Not like boring old Mum.’
    ‘You’re cooking in Paris. That’s glamorous,’ Rachel said, and they both turned to look back up the stairs at the peeling paintwork and blown light bulb and giggled.
    Marcel was just jogging down the stairs and gave them a funny look when he passed them laughing. ‘It is something about me, no?’
    ‘No, not at all.’ Rachel waved a hand to show that it was nothing.
    Marcel shrugged, pushing open the door to the street. ‘You could give a man a complex,’ he said, smiling as he strolled out, lighting a cigarette behind hands cupped against the breeze.
    ‘You could give me anything you want, Marcel,’ whispered Abby. ‘He’s so pretty, isn’t he? Like a model for Gucci.’
    Rachel nodded as they watched him disappear up the road.
    ‘I find him very distracting,’ Abby mused. ‘I have to consciously not look at him during baking, otherwise I’d be all over the place.’
    ‘You have to get a grip—’ Rachel leant on the door, letting in a shock of icy air ‘—or he’ll sense your weakness.’
    ‘Please, God.’ Abby clasped her gloved hands heavenward. ‘Let him sense my weakness.’
    Passing the pâtisserie, Rachel saw the guy she’d seen in the corridor earlier standing drumming his fingers lightly on the counter. No one seemed to be serving. Where was Françoise? Had her boyfriend arrived already? She glanced from the shop back to Abby and said, ‘Do you think I should go and look for Françoise…?’
    ‘No. Absolutely not.’ Abby shook her head. ‘Stay out of it.’
    They walked on a step but Rachel found herself turning back. ‘I think I should. Look, he’s waiting. And I don’t want her to get into trouble.’
    Doubling back in through the side