‘What for?’

He said nothing. Anyway, while settling the bill at reception, he had learned that Désiré had not shown up for work that morning. There was another barman standing in for him, a tall redhead riddled with freckles.

‘I don’t believe in the dead.’

‘The dead? What do you mean?’

‘They don’t exist.’

‘Death doesn’t exist?’

‘No, “the dead”, people dying.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Listening to this news on the radio. This guy they’re talking about from the Académie Française – I don’t think he’s dead. Nor are the ones from the air accident or the terror attack in Egypt. They can say what they like, show us pictures on telly. It’s not true.’

‘No?’

‘No. They take people to one side, give them a new face and identity, and they go on living on islands far away. No one’s ever really dead.’

‘And why would “they” do that?’

‘To scare us. To give us a good reason to live.’

‘And who are “they”?’

‘I don’t know. Staff. I’ve had enough of their nonsense. I’m putting some music on.’

Anne started fiddling with the car radio, setting off a stream of jumbled frequencies, broken sentences and bursts of song. Still unsatisfied, she switched it off.

As the sun went down, the countryside rolled by like a naïve painting of valleys, clumps of trees, hamlets of houses clinging together to keep warm, yellow lights in windows and ribbons of smoke curling up from chimneys. Marc yawned and stretched, his arms taut on the steering wheel. Dusk had always made him want to go indoors and curl up in front of the fire. To be inside one of the houses they were passing, hearing snatches of trivial chitchat and smelling soup on the stove, would have filled him with happiness. Every so often he felt an irritating itch coming from the finger he had caught on one of the nails sticking out of the doll. It wasn’t painful but might become so. He would go to the pharmacist tomorrow. He switched on the headlights, catching a sign saying ‘Limoges 20 km’ in their beam.

‘I’m feeling a bit tired. Shall we stop in Limoges for the night?’

All towns are grey by night and Limoges was no exception. They could have been anywhere. Thanks to a big international conference in town, the only hotel they could find was a grotty place on the outskirts. Their window looked out on a ring road cutting through the retail park whose neon lights gave the sky a bilious green tinge. Pale puffy clouds floated above like the bellies of whales. They had to make do with floppy pizzas for dinner, bought from a van the hotel receptionist had pointed them towards. Marc had barely managed a quarter of his.

‘Aren’t you hungry?’

‘Not very.’

‘Can I finish it?’

‘Go ahead.’