Page 37 of Villa of Secrets

Ground anis: for its antiseptic qualities.

Oil of grapefruit: for its Alpha male scent.

Aldehydes: that give No. 5 its blast of lioness-danger.

She turned the page for the recipe and found an envelope taped to the paper. Inside was a yellowing cutting from a magazine.

CHANEL No. 5

Pierre and Paul Wertheimer, brothers and directors of the Bourjois perfume house, joined with Chanel in 1924. While the new corporation name – Parfums Chanel – implied a fifty-fifty split in ownership, the Wertheimers in reality retained the rights to marketing, distribution, and – in return for full financial backing – seventy percent ownership.

With the onslaught of World War II and the seizure of all Jewish property, Coco Chanel saw an opportunity. Parfums Chanel had been operating with great financial gain, and Chanel used her Aryan heritage as leverage to petition for sole ownership. This petition was ultimately successful and cemented Coco Chanel as the sole owner of Parfums Chanel, leaving the Wertheimer brothers with nothing of the company they had built.

Naomi would never buy a bottle of Chanel again, then she realised she never had anyway. Far too expensive. She replaced the cutting and set about mixing Heleny’s perfume.

With the task completed and Bubba still sleeping, Naomi snatched ten minutes for herself. She sat outside with the diary, eager to discover if this Giovanni was the shepherd boy, and what put him in the same league as Bubba’s friend, sister, and daughter.

Chapter 18

Prostrate in the thorn bushes, I nodded at the shepherd boy. ‘Yes, I was supposed to be on the ship with my family, but I escaped.’

I caught a glimmer of admiration in his big brown eyes. ‘You hurt?’ he asked.

‘My wrist . . .’ Trying to lift it was excruciating. ‘I think it’s broken.’

‘Look at that. Broke as sure as eggshells. You want me to fix it, Jew Girl?’

I didn’t believe this shepherd had the knowledge to set bones. ‘I should go to the hospital.’ The pain made me gulp between words.

‘You do and they’ll just stick you on the ships with all the other Jews, see. I heard they’s killin’ them all.’ He nodded over his shoulder towards the distant sea.

‘What do you mean? How do you know about anything like that? You’re making it up to scare me. Well, it’s not working, Shepherd Boy. I’m not scared. Not at all!’

‘I saw the procession at sunrise, down to the harbour. I got a hammock in the tree up there, guarding your father’s sheep against feral dogs. I can see all the way out to sea from that tree.’ He lifted his chin towards a gnarled old carob on a rocky promontory above.

The horror of what he said welled up and filled by brain. ‘You liar! Why are you saying such things? My family’s on that ship! Mama, Papa, my brothers, and all my relations too.’

‘Just be glad you’re not.’

‘If it’s true, why didn’t you do something to stop the soldiers? Somebody should have done something! Where are they going? I can’t accept that you actually had that information and we didn’t.’

‘Of course I knew. Everybody knows. They’re shipping them to the prison camp. No one comes out of them places alive. We was told, “look the other way or you’ll be next”, so everyone did.’

‘You’re lying! How could people know and do nothing? If our neighbours had been taken away, we’d have fought for them! There must be a hundred Rhodians for every German.’ If it wasn’t for the pain in my wrist, I’d have hit him.

‘Ask yourself: why did they take your wireless? So you wouldn’t hear what’s happening overseas.’ He pulled the catapult out of his belt and laid it next to my arm. ‘This’ll hurt, but if you scream we’ll be in trouble. I need some material to tie your arm to my ’pult before we move.’

I hardly listened to him. My family were heading for an awful prison camp? It couldn’t be true!

‘Jew Girl!’ He pulled me from my thoughts. ‘What shall I use for strapping your wrist to the splint?’

Unable to concentrate on anything but my loved ones, I said, ‘We have to stop the ships! The Germans told everyone they were going to work on another island.’

‘We can’t do a thing until your wrist’s bound. Shall I rip a strip off your frock?’

‘No, take it off my petticoat.’ I was trying not to cry.

The shepherd boy’s words hurt as much as my wrist. How could they put my family in a prison, and where was this place? Would there be a doctor to care for my mother’s bad legs? Would there be a comfortable bed for my grandfather and his crooked back? Had Mama packed the hot water bottle for when Sammie got earache? My head was full of questions.