‘You’re saying that there were dedicated Nazis in this region?’

She looked sly. Then she burst out, as if she couldn’t hold it back, ‘Committed Nazis, no, they weren’t so common round here. We knew nothing of the Germans before they came to Bonnemort in June last year. Someone in love with a Nazi, more like.’

He rose and kissed her hand, as if they were at a dinner. She had had her revenge, he thought, scattering her rancour as widely as she could. A wife betraying and a friend betrayed: if her object was to sow suspicion, she was successful. Her own suffering was repaid with his. Ariane was accused and convicted on both counts, of resistance and collaboration.

‘Your husband was one of the bravest men who served France in this war,’ he said. ‘It was my honour to have been his friend.’

Her twisted smile accepted his statement and denied his sincerity. ‘I’ve talked too long about the trivial incidents of the war here to someone who has been a witness of great events.’

‘I needed to know what happened here at home. Village war is not less significant than world war. In fact, village war is world war.’

She saw him out and watched him ride off, before turning back to her washing. She’d tried to have her revenge once before, on that b— at Bonnemort, but her letter, written anonymously, had produced no result. This had been more profoundly satisfying. Telling the story had comforted her. He had understood what she had said, and what she hadn’t said. She’d settled a lot of scores that morning.

Chapter Seven

‘Let me take that.’ Theo put out his hand for Micheline’s basket, filled with vegetable debris, cabbage stalks, carrot scrapings, leek tops.

‘Don’t be daft.’

He followed her into the yard where the rabbit hutches were stacked neatly in a double row. Flickering whiskers, quivering nostrils pressed against the netting at the sound of Micheline’s voice. She began at the top left-hand cage, opening the door, pulling out the occupant by its ears and slipping it into the cage below while she cleaned out its soiled straw.

‘Madame Maniotte told me about her husband’s arrest.’ Micheline was already talking. ‘Sabine usually does the rabbits. She and Suzie liked to gather leaves in the paddock and feed them every afternoon. They cleaned them out and gave them all names. Now I can’t get her to do anything.’

‘She’ll have to stay here a bit longer,’ Theo said shortly. ‘Paris is no place for a child at the moment. Madame Mamotte … Can we send her something, a rabbit, a chicken?’

Micheline shrugged. ‘If you want. It won’t make her like you any better.’

She had finished the second cage and the rabbit hung from her hand in a long rope of fur. She put her other hand beneath its scut to insert it into the cage and it bunched itself into a ball. Theo took some leaves from the basket and fed them to the freshly cleaned rabbits.