Involuntarily she saw the false hand that they had found in the corner of the winepress, the cobbles running with blood, the dogs licking the water in the runnels of the drain. ‘Don’t ask, Theo. What I’ve told you is the truth. It’s really too much to describe it. Skip it if you can. It would take me from now to eternity to explain it to you and still you wouldn’t understand.’

‘If the bit you want to leave out is the story of how you came to be the major’s lover, that’s fine, we’ll skip it. We’ll take it as read that he forced you. Go on from there. What happened when you went to meet him?’

As she waited for the appointed time, she had told herself that she would not go. This was the end and there would be no consequences to fear from now on. She was about to be free. But, although she struggled to persuade herself to stay where she was, she knew that she would go for the last time. She went out of the tower, across the courtyard and down to the winepress, like a bead on a string. The moon was a quarter full, low in the cloudless sky, the stars clear and brilliant, lighting her way with the curious dark brilliance of summer nights. Hating herself, doing what she could not prevent herself from doing, she ran down the path. The doors of the winepress were half-open, so she knew he must be there already, waiting for her. Although she paused for a moment, her hand on the worn wood of the door, sensing his presence, she had no premonition of what she was to find as she pulled open the doors. Her eyes were already accustomed to the dark, and she saw him immediately, stretched out at her feet. It was as if her wishes had been full of power and she had felled him by her thoughts alone.

Her heart began to race with grief and terror. She had had moments of fear before. When she had hidden in the ditch watching a German patrol pass; when she had been stopped by the Milice and had had to explain her reasons for being out on her bicycle forty kilometres from home; but never had she experienced the terror she felt now. Sweat broke out on her body, turning instantly cold. She crouched down beside him. His eyes were wide open and there was a mark in the centre of his forehead. She passed her hand in front of his eyes; his glassy stare remained fixed on the rock roof of the winepress. She remained beside him for no more than a minute before she closed the doors and raced up the path, back into the house, into her room.

The question for her was never who killed him, but why hadn’t she done it herself. She should have done. She had every reason to kill him. Why had she gone down to the winepress? He was leaving. What could he do to her? But she had gone. And it had never even occurred to her to kill him.