‘I’ve never heard of her before now.’ But he recalled Florence’s words, The children are asleep, of course. I didn’t wake them. ‘She’s the daughter, or rather the granddaughter, of a friend of mine. Her grandfather was one of our suppliers for years; he was in metallurgy in Düsseldorf. His son became a prof at the university, and in thirty-three or thirty-four, right at the beginning of Hitler, he was sacked. He left Germany altogether, came to Paris and worked as a journalist. So when the Germans arrived here, he sent his wife and child to the free zone, where he thought they would be safer, to Clermont Ferrand, for some reason. In forty-two he came to see me, to ask if I knew anyone in the Auvergne who could help his wife who was sick. There were money problems, too. He was desperate, but he didn’t want to bring her back to Paris. The only person I could suggest was Ariane. She went there and brought the child back to Bonnemort.’

Theo’s mind had not engaged with this story and he could not understand why his father-in-law was telling it in such detail. Then he grasped that this child was a witness, had been at Bonnemort, had seen everything.

‘And she’s living with you here?’ he asked.

‘Yes, we put her into the lycee around the corner. I found out that she hadn’t been at school the whole time she was down in the country. God knows why, Ariane taught her and Sabine herself.’

Theo imagined questioning the child, then realised that there were some things he could not do. Wolff was standing up.

‘It’s been good to see you, Theo. My advice about Ariane, for what it’s worth, is to leave her alone for a while. As the President says, we have to learn to forget.’

He shrugged on his old Burberry and stepped out of the restaurant, bidding his son-in-law goodbye with a wave of his folded newspaper.

Theo made his way back to the rue St Dominique. The important information that he had gained from this encounter was that he was free to return to Bonnemort. Ariane was not there; he could go home without having to confront her.

Chapter Four

This time he arrived at Bonnemort before dusk and saw the golden stone of the walls glowing in the winter sunshine. January had come before he could leave Paris. His prediction to Pascal Wolff that the Germans would have been driven out of France before the end of the year had been proved wrong, and Strasbourg itself had come under renewed threat in December. He had spent Christmas with the Big Man in Alsace and only well into the new year could he obtain a few days’ leave of absence.

His home had been built in the eighteenth century as a hunting lodge, on the site of some minor medieval fortification. The fortress had disappeared, leaving only its little Romanesque chapel abutting the newer dwelling. At the other end of its regular facade rose a large square tower and from it sprang an archway leading into the farmyard. In front of the house the land spread out as far as the cliffs edge, at the foot of which lay a lake reached by a steep and rocky path. Below the water the land fell again, less abruptly, to the valley of walnut orchards. In the field he could see Ariane’s two horses grazing with the aunts’ apricot-coloured donkeys.