It was almost 4:00 o’clock when a small, dirty man exited Alexandre Dumas and, without pausing to check the weather (it had rained hard all weekend), marched left down Charonne, head down, hands crammed into the pockets of an old olive overcoat flecked with dried mud.

As he walked the man reached into a canvas bag which appeared to have grown hump-like on his back and removed a red diary. He brought the tiny book eye-level, close to his face, tracing the words with his stubby fingers while smacking his rubbery lips. After re-reading the selected page several times, a smirk crept meanly across his face, contorting his features.

An unseen woman watched the man leave the station. Let’s call her Martha. She’d arrived thirty minutes earlier and taken shelter in a doorway across the street. Martha wore a camel trench and flat patent leather shoes. Her pale legs were bare. She wasn’t used to this sort of thing and her small efforts to appear inconspicuous, a wide brimmed hat and large dark sunglasses, felt (and looked) foolish. Nevertheless, she knew that her fate was bound to this man and that she must follow him.

Once in the cemetery she increased her pace to match his speed: she could not afford to lose him among the tourists seeking out the graves of the great and good. The man climbed the cobbles with unwavering purpose, chest heaving with effort as he pushed past the fan boys and acolytes gathered around Wilde’s lovingly adorned final resting place. His pace slowed as he reached the top of the hill and walked towards a second woman sat alone, bare legs crossed on a low wooden bench.

Martha hung back, not wanting to be noticed by the now embracing pair. She felt strange, nauseous; she shouldn’t be there. The woman’s appearance, her careful gestures: she’d seen them before.

Inspired by a Guardian list of the 10 best famous graves