‘Was he dead?’ Theo asked.

‘Of course he was dead.’

‘His throat had been cut. There must have been blood everywhere.’

‘No, there was no blood.’

‘So he was simply stunned at that stage. Did you listen to his heart, or find a pulse, or put a finger in front of his nostrils?’

‘No, I didn’t. Do you think he was still alive, and was finished off later?’

‘How do you account for the cut throat?’

‘I can’t, I don’t. I don’t account for anything.’

‘You could tell if he was still alive when you saw him by how much blood he had lost. If he had lost a lot of blood by the time you found him in the morning, he was still alive and the blood was pumped out of the severed artery. If he had not lost much blood, then his heart had already stopped and he had been killed by the blow on the head. Think about how you kill a pig. It has to stay alive for as long as possible, so that the blood pumps out of the body. It’s the difference between Islamic and Jewish butchery and Christian slaughtering practices …’

‘Theo, what does it matter whether the blow or the cut killed him? He was dead. If he wasn’t dead then, as I thought, he was certainly dead in the morning.’

‘You didn’t think of doing anything for him that night? Helping him, removing him?’

‘No.’ She was speaking more slowly now as the pressure of memory slackened. She sounded exhausted. ‘No, I thought he was dead, so there was nothing to be done for him. The one thing I knew was that I couldn’t be the one to find him there. I had to get out of there and let someone else discover his body. So I ran away.’

Chapter Thirty-six

They walked towards the house, poised above them on its grassy ledge, between the cliff and the forest. Theo took the path that led along the edge of the lake and Ariane guessed his intention at once.

‘Theo, no, please.’

He made no reply, continuing on his route. Soon he heard her footsteps hurrying after him and stopped to let her come abreast of him.

‘I’ve talked to the children,’ he said, ‘and told them that you were working for the Resistance. I explained to them that you were trying to learn what you could from the SS.’

‘Oh, Theo,’ she protested, ‘what’s the point?’

‘It was the right thing to do. They know far more than you think, or would like. They used to spy on you and the major. I’ll show you how. Do you see that?’ He pointed to the clump of elm saplings and wild clematis in the field in front of the house. ‘In there is a rock chimney which drops into the winepress. They used to climb down there and hide in the loft.’

They climbed the path, single file, until they reached the double doors of the winepress. Theo pulled them open and stepped inside. It was years since he had been in here. When he was young, the great vat had still been in place, in the circle that marked the centre of the floor. The funnel used by the children had had a purpose then: the grapes had been loaded onto a cart in the vineyards and then brought to the cliff top where they had been tipped directly into the vat in the cave below. The wine had never been very good, sharp and dark, only fit for drinking on the estate. After the last war the vines had been pulled up and the equipment dismantled. Against one wall were the slaughter bench and all the utensils for pig-killing. Micheline had told him that the secret pig, Lou Moussou, was always slaughtered in the winepress, to hide it from the Requisition.