The Girl You Left Behind

in French with Lefèvre as they head out of the
     office.
    Paul sits and stares ahead of him.
     ‘Hey, Miriam?’
    She reappears, holding a piece of
     sandwich.
    ‘Sorry. That was –’
    ‘It’s fine.’ She smiles,
     pops a bit of escaping bread back into her mouth, and adds something he cannot decipher.
     It is not clear whether she heard anything of the previous conversation.
    ‘Any calls?’
    She swallows noisily. ‘Only the head
     of the Museums Association, like I said before. Do you want me to call him back for
     you?’
    His smile is small and doesn’t stretch
     as far as his eyes. ‘No, don’t worry.’ He lets her close the door and
     his sigh, although soft and low, fills the silence.
    Liv takes the painting off the wall. She
     runs her fingers lightly over the oil surface, feeling the graduated whorls and strokes,
     wondering at the fact that they were placed there by the artist’s own hand, and
     gazes at the woman onthe canvas. The gilded frame is chipped in
     places, but she has always found it charming; has enjoyed the contrast between what was
     old and shabbily ornate, and the crisp, clean lines around her. She has liked the fact
     that
The Girl You Left Behind
is the only colourful thing in the room, antique
     and precious, glowing like a little jewel at the end of her bed.
    Except now she is not just
The
     Girl
, a shared piece of history, an intimate joke between husband and wife. She is
     now the wife of a famous artist, missing, possibly murdered. She is the last link to a
     husband in a concentration camp. She is a missing painting, the subject of a lawsuit,
     the future focus of investigations. She does not know how to feel about this new
     version: she only knows that she has lost some part of her already.
    The painting … was taken and passed into German possession.
    André Lefèvre, his face blankly
     belligerent, barely even bothering to glance at Sophie’s image. And McCafferty.
     Every time she remembers Paul McCafferty in that meeting room her brain hums with anger.
     Sometimes she feels as if she is burning with it, as if she is permanently overheating.
     How can she just hand over Sophie?
    Liv pulls out her running shoes from the box
     under the bed, changes into sweatpants and, shoving her key and phone into her pocket,
     sets off at a run.
    She passes Fran, sitting on her upturned
     crate, watching silently as she heads off along the river, and lifts a hand in greeting.
     She doesn’t want to talk.
    It is early afternoon, and the edges of the
     Thames are mottled with stray meandering office workers going back after long lunches,
     groups of schoolchildren, bossed andherded by harassed teachers,
     bored young mothers with ignored babies, texting distractedly as they push buggies. She
     runs, ducking in and out of them, slowed only by her own tight lungs and the occasional
     stitch, running until she is just another body in the crowd, invisible,
     indistinguishable. She pushes through it. She runs until her shins burn, until sweat
     forms a dark T across her back, until her face glistens. She runs until it hurts, until
     she can think of nothing but the simple, physical pain.
    She is finally walking back alongside
     Somerset House when her phone signals a text message. She stops and pulls it from her
     pocket, wiping away the sweat that stings her eyes.
    Liv. Call me.
    Liv half walks, half runs to the edge of the
     water, and then, before she can think about it, she swings her arm in a fluid motion and
     hurls her phone into the Thames. It is gone without sound, without anybody even
     noticing, into the slate-grey swirling waters that rush towards the centre.

20
February 1917
    Dearest sister
    It is three weeks and four days since you left. I don’t know if this
     letter will find you or, indeed, if the others did; the mayor has set up a new
     line of communication and promises he will send this on once he gets word that
     it is secure. So I wait, and I pray.
    It has rained for fourteen days, turning what remained of the roads to mud that
     sucks at our legs and pulls the horses’ shoes from their hoofs. We have
     rarely ventured out beyond the square: it is too cold and too difficult, and in
     truth I no longer wish to leave the children, even if just for a few minutes.
     Édith sat by the window for three days after you left, refusing to move,
     until I feared she would be ill and physically forced her to come to the table
     and, later, to bed. She no longer