She locked up carefully. She must remember to get someone in to change the locks again.

She crossed the road and walked along the quayside.

Now that the water was still, shiny as a pale-blue plastic sheet, it was hard to believe the terrifying antics of last night had actually happened.

Rather than walk alongside the front of Marcel’s brasserie, Theresa stayed at the water’s edge.

She had no idea where he was, but after telling the coastguards what had happened, she had no doubt he would at least have been taken in by the police for questioning.

The brasserie was all closed up, the shutters pulled across, tables and chairs all inside.

She entered La Mosaïque through the front door.

William and Benjamin were seated with Zoe at one of the tables.

‘Poor Theresa!’ William rose to greet her with a warm embrace. ‘Once you had gone off in that boat, I got talking to Cyril and we realised there had been completely crossed wires between you two. You and your bad French. And his bad English.’

‘When Cyril entered your house he was in a terrible panic,’ said Benjamin.

‘And his English wasn’t up to the crisis,’ added William.

‘Why did he tell me he’d drugged his wife?’ Theresa was winding back the conversation, attempting to make sense of it.

William laughed. ‘He was trying to explain that he and his wife were your friends and that they had given you a gift of their special home-made brownies.’

‘He really wanted to warn you about Marcel,’ said Benjamin, pulling out a chair. ‘He saw your front door open, the lights on, and so grabbed a knife from his van, just in case he needed it, to protect you.’

‘He was so shocked, you see,’ William said. ‘By what he’d just seen in that storeroom of Marcel’s at the Astra.’

‘He took us all up to see it,’ drawled Zoe. ‘Looks like some weird artwork that Tracey Emin might have cooked up.’

‘Anyway,’ continued William, ‘Marcel, I suspect getting the idea from us, has been doing a delivery-style breakfast for the Astra while their kitchen is being renovated this last week. It was meant to be just the normal Continental. But with so many English and Germans staying there, they needed meat: sausages, bacon. So then Marcel phoned Cyril who brought the meats around to the brasserie. But later Marcel remembered he’d forgotten sliced ham, a favourite with the Scandinavians, and asked Cyril to bring it over yesterday afternoon. He thought Cyril would bring it to him at the brasserie. But Cyril thought it would be quicker to go straight to the Hotel Astra. The desk clerk pointed out where Marcel’s storeroom was and . . .’

‘Marcel had that room to himself,’ explained Benjamin, ‘and obviously didn’t think that anyone else would go in there. Why would they?’