Page 28 of Be Less Panda

‘He’s not taken Christa anywhere since he started meeting you for English lessons,’ Olivia said. ‘I thought you were in pole position to be his new love interest. Do you think this woman’s a girlfriend?’

‘She might be an old flame. Or it could have been a first date though she knew him well enough to sit right next to him. Whatever she is, he wasn’t happy to see me. Weird that she just walked off, though. If they were an item, wouldn’t she have stuck around to find out who I was? I know I would. And why bring a newspaper?’

‘He might have been telling the truth about her being a work colleague. You’ll have to see what you can find out at your next English lesson.’

14

Nancy had had plenty of time over the weekend to work out the best way to subtly quiz Hans about the mysterious woman in the Louvre. She was ready with her plan of action when Hans met her outside the shop on Tuesday afternoon.

‘Shall we cover office vocabulary today?’ Nancy suggested as she walked with Hans towards the cafe in the park.

‘I’m not sure how useful that would be,’ he said. Was she imagining it, or did he look worried? Perhaps he’d guessed what she was really interested in discussing.

‘Seeing your work colleague in the Louvre at the weekend made me realise that you know exactly what I get up to in the bookshop but you never talk to me about what you do at work,’ she said.

‘That’s because my job is not very interesting,’ he assured her. ‘It involves creating lots of paperwork that gets sent to the head office in Berlin.’

‘What sort of paperwork?’

Hans shrugged. ‘Filling out forms. Writing reports. That sort of thing.’

‘Export forms?’

‘Yes, exactly that?’

‘And what sort of things do you write reports on?’

‘Oh, um, things going on in Paris.’

‘Why would your headquarters in Berlin be interested in that?’

‘It helps them to decide what they need to export in future.’

Nancy nodded. It sounded reasonable. But she couldn’t care less about the paperwork really. Time to cut to the chase. ‘Does your work colleague do that too?’

‘Which colleague?’

‘The one you met in the Louvre on Saturday. Does she visit Paris often? Or does she work in the Paris office with you all the time?’

‘She works in Berlin. She visits here occasionally.’

‘It’s a shame your employers expect her to work on a Saturday.’

‘Lots of Germans work on Saturdays. You work most Saturdays,’ he pointed out.

‘Yes, but you expect that with shop work. I wouldn’t like to have to do that in an office job. Why couldn’t she talk to you in the office?’

‘It was something confidential.’

‘That sounds intriguing?’

‘Not really. Shall we walk the opposite way around the lake today?’

‘Good idea,’ she said. But she wasn’t going to let him change the subject that easily. ‘When will she be visiting again?’

‘Not for several weeks, I think.’

‘And does that bother you?’

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