‘Make sure it’s what you really want, though,’ said Theresa. ‘My friends in London all think that to live somewhere like this means you lead a life totally without care. The thing is, if you’re running away from yourself, no matter where you go, you always bring it with you.’ She laughed at her own chocolate-box analysis. ‘What I mean is that you need to have an aim. Something to do.’

‘You’re absolutely right.’ Roger gripped the handle of the hire car. ‘Doing nothing is a pain in the arse.’ He held the driver’s door open, but before attempting to get in he said, ‘Perhaps I’ll go and sail the boat round here. I have to stick around a bit, while we’re waiting for my ex-wife to turn up. Would you recommend this hotel?’

‘Well . . .’ Theresa glanced into the car and she saw Neil’s eyes light up. ‘Actually there is no other hotel in the town, unless you go up to the top of the hill on the main road into Nice. There are many along that route. But it’s not very nice up there.’

‘It’s not expensive?’

Theresa shook her head.

Roger bent to talk to Neil. ‘If we stay here, on land, you promise to behave? No more lies. And no disappearing tricks?’

Neil nodded.

‘OK.’ Roger settled behind the wheel. ‘Maybe see you later, Theresa.’ He wound down the window. ‘Neil tells me you have a restaurant.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Great.’

With a loud rev, Roger pulled out.

As the car disappeared up the hill, Theresa waved then went inside and up to Imogen’s room.

Chloe sat, forlorn, on the end of the bed.

Imogen made a face of exasperation at Theresa.

‘Where are the other two girls?’ Theresa asked, hoping that it might soften the anguish if Chloe was with her sisters. She knew from her own experience that having the spotlight thrown on you while you were alone only exaggerated the blow of the loss.

‘Frances has taken them off on the train to Menton to see the Cocteau Museum and a weird place called the Salle des Mariages, though I rather suspect things like that will be of more interest to her than to them. They’ll probably be bored out of their skulls.’

Theresa walked across to the window and looked out. She was amazed that from here you could see the sea. She had imagined that her own building and the flat above it would obscure the view. She glanced down. She could see her own little courtyard, basking in the single hour of late-afternoon sunlight it got during the winter months. The buildings either side of her own were in shadow so that the panes of the windows seemed more like mirrors, reflecting only the walls of the hotel.