‘A German officer murdered. They only just escaped the most terrible reprisals.’

Cazalle was not prepared to pay attention to local dramas. One dead German did not sound much in a world at war.

Gilles added, ‘His throat was cut.’

The commissar waited, as if for a sign of greater curiosity. The colonel did not gratify him, so he shrugged and let him go.

‘Not far now,’ the colonel said, speaking to himself rather than to the driver, as they got back into the car and set off once more.

‘I’m from here,’ he had said to the maquisards, claiming his rights as a native-born. His decision to go into exile at the time of the defeat had been immediate and visceral. He had never had any doubt, even at the most painful moment: leaving his home and his wife. Bonnemort was so remote that he had succeeded in imagining it untouched by the war, waiting for him to return to open the gates of the time-arrested castle and release its occupants to new life.

‘Slowly now,’ he said. ‘It’s on the left.’

With exaggerated care the driver turned the car onto a stone track, rutted with the run-off from years of rain. A bird flew down, as if strafing the car; the driver ducked involuntarily. It flew ahead of them, its greyish wings undulating like a white flag in a breeze. At the bend ahead he saw a large dog.

‘Lascar!’ he exclaimed aloud. The driver’s pressure on the accelerator eased and the dog was gone. The verges were wider here and before they swung to the left, the headlights touched the form of an upturned vehicle in the ditch. Another two kilometres and they were climbing steeply. Dorchin made his first unprompted remark of the journey. ‘Bloody hell, it’s the end of the world,’ he said.

They were over the crest now and descending sharply towards the house. He regretted arriving so late in the day. As a child he had liked to stop the pony and trap that used to collect him from the station and look down at the roofs and the smoke rising through the trees. He now recalled that vivid second when his heart seemed to loosen with relief that the place was really still there. He always feared that it might have disappeared, or never have been there at all, existing only in his imagination. This time he had no confirmation of its existence until the car drew up in front of the entrance, the headlamps shining through the wrought-iron gates, which were emphatically closed. He had never seen the gates shut, even during the Great War. In the courtyard a dog was barking.

‘Lascar,’ he called again, but it ignored him, joined now by a pack of rough-haired terriers, showing their sharp lower teeth and jumping on legs stiff with fury.

He could not open the gates, for a padlock and chain secured them. There was no bell. He looked at his watch. It was only ten past ten. They must be asleep. He rattled the gates noisily, shouting, ‘Henri, are you there, Henri?’ He turned back to the driver. ‘Sound your horn, will you.’