She might have known it would be Theo de Cazalle who would lead her husband into danger. At that stage Lucien still confided in her, and so she knew all about Cazalle’s supposed death, although she never let on to that b— at Bonnemort. She couldn’t formulate the epithet even in her thoughts, but she meant it all the same. And Cazalle turned him against the Marshal. As far as she was concerned, Marshal Petain was right in every respect. The country had been ruined since 1936 by socialists and radicals, and defeat was the result. The marshal was putting the country back on its feet. She felt safe when she looked at posters of that benevolent face.

Lucien knew how she felt and although he stopped telling her what he was doing, he could not conceal his odd hours, his comings and goings which had nothing to do with his practice now that he had set up as a general practitioner in Montfefoul. At least he didn’t bring his runaways to the house. These people were wanted by the police. For her, that meant they must be criminals. The Marshal was against communists from the start. Anyone known to have been a party member was rounded up. Jews, foreign ones, immigrants, were put in camps; and Republicans from the war in Spain. All these people were dangerous and needed to be sent back where they belonged, which seemed perfectly reasonable to her.

But not to Lucien, apparently. He hid them and moved them on to Spain. He worked with the printer, Monsieur Sarrazin in Montfefoul, and forged identity documents, ration cards, demobilisation papers. When she discovered this she almost died of fright. The bundle of food tickets that she had found in one of his suits was, for a joyful moment, like winning the lottery, too good to be true. Then she realised it was indeed not true: they must be false. The shock of his involvement in illegal activity on such a scale was terrible.

She remonstrated with him, angrily reproaching him with risking his family’s safety. He had sat with his back to her, hunched on the edge of their bed with its wooden headboard carved with true lovers’ knots. He had made no reply, for he knew he was in the wrong. So she tried a new tack. Who else was in it with him? Why couldn’t he just leave it to them? She had wept and pleaded and he had comforted her, while saying, ‘I have to do it. I can’t go back now.’

So she guessed. It wasn’t difficult. Recently he’d often had ham or butter from Henri Menesplier, whom they’d never really known before. Then she had a flash of real understanding.

‘She’s in it too, isn’t she? Madame de Cazalle? That’s why you’re doing it?’

‘Leonie, please don’t make a jealous scene.’

She knew that she had guessed correctly. ‘You should leave it to her. We’re not like that. We’re respectable, we obey the law, we don’t take risks.’