He found that out soon enough when he reached Bonnemort.

First there was this guy, naked as the day he was born, lying face down on the flagstones of the courtyard. Then women everywhere, Micheline and Florence, weeping in terror, Madame de Cazalle, with a face as calm as stone, two kids, the two old ladies, one on sticks, standing in a doorway inside the house. They were terrified. Understandable; so was he, after what had happened last night.

Micheline kept repeating hysterically, ‘They’ll come to shoot us, they’ll line us up and shoot us.’

Florence said, ‘We wanted to hide it, but we didn’t … We couldn’t … You must protect us. Where can we go?’

‘When did you find him?’ They were all standing well back from the body, as if it might be mined.

‘Just now, this morning, two hours ago, when we got up.’

‘Who is it?’

He began to move forward and he could feel Micheline and Florence following immediately behind him. When he bent down and turned the body over, he understood their terror.

The cutting of the throat had drained a huge quantity of blood out of the carcass, which was glacially white. The face was a darker colour, tanned by the weather, and was no longer in normal relation to the body. It flipped back like a lid on a hinge, exposing the severed carotid artery, out of which life had flowed. The cut, although long, had not been deep; the trachea was only partially severed. He had been hit on the forehead, which must have stunned him. The cropped dark hair was stiff with congealed blood. None of this could disguise the victim’s identity. Petignat had watched him the previous afternoon pinning a white piece of cloth to Henri Menesplier’s chest, as if awarding him a medal, and then stepping back to say so quietly that it was barely audible, ‘Fire.’

He looked carefully at the body. A fine man. The skin which had always been hidden by his uniform had a silky sheen. His chest was hairless, muscular, and a scar, puckered and cartilaginous, ploughed across his abdomen on the right side. His left hand was missing and the stump was reddish, gathered inward like pursed lips. Black body hair like a diamond-shaped shield covered his lower torso from genitals to navel. He was uncircumcised. Petignat took in all these details and then, with the toe of his boot, tipped him back on his face. For decency’s sake, with so many women about.

Micheline and Florence were standing immediately behind him; their sobbing had ceased. They had been inventorying the dead man with him. He turned and walked them away from the body.

‘And the rest of them?’ he asked.

‘They left during the night. They didn’t sleep here.’ This was Madame de Cazalle speaking. ‘They seem to have gone definitively. They’ve taken everything.’

‘It’s the same down below, in the village. The Milice have gone too. They’re on the run.’