‘The point was to make it look as if he had been dumped there. We were afraid that they would come back, the Germans, I mean, looking for him, when he failed to meet them. If it were clear that he had been killed here at Bonnemort, there would have been no hope for us. If it appeared that he had been killed somewhere else and brought back here, we might have stood a chance. It wasn’t a very good idea. I don’t suppose it would have fooled them, or that they would have even tried to work out the significance of where he was found. In the end, no one paid any attention to what had happened to him. The Germans had gone for good and Petignat just carted him off and that was that. And we were overwhelmed by Henri’s death.’

‘Don’t rush.’ Theo patiently brought her back to the facts. ‘When Micheline and Florence called you, where was he?’

‘He was lying on the cliff path. His feet were uphill, as if he had been dragged that far and then abandoned. We took him up to the courtyard and then cleared up. He had been killed in the winepress, which was like a slaughterhouse. We sluiced it with water. We burned his uniform and the girls’ dresses and my blouse in the fire under the linen boiler.’

‘The girls’ dresses? Were the girls there?’

‘Yes, they discovered the body in the winepress … They were covered … Look, Theo, I can’t talk any more about this, it was hideous, hideous, I’ve not spoken about it before now, never, we don’t mention it …’

She was gabbling, out of control. She stopped and turned her face away from him. Theo put his arm around her shoulders.

‘Anane, I have to know. You must see that. Now that I’ve got this far, I must know the rest.’ He could feel her listening to him. They began to pace again. ‘Let me get this right. The Germans came back for the last time after carrying out the executions in Lepech, loaded up their trucks and left in the middle of the night. I suppose they did so because they had actually been ordered to leave that day, 17 August, and had delayed their departure in order to hang the maquisards, so they had to reach wherever they had to go by first light next day. You say that you heard them leave, but after that you heard nothing and saw nothing else until you were woken by Micheline in the morning.’

He paused so that the significance of his summary was felt by them both. Finally, he said, ‘Ariane, I don’t believe you. I can’t conceive of anyone settling down to sleep in those circumstances.’

She made no attempt to convince him.

‘What you haven’t told me is whether you went to see him. Did you keep the appointment that he made?’

Reluctantly, she said, ‘I did.’

‘Tell me what happened.’