So, anyway, that’s the first part of our diary. Rachel came back from Algeria completely changed. He was physically different. I didn’t see much of him back then, he was always travelling and, anyway, I had my own shit to deal with – I’d been hauled up before the courts again and this time it was serious – but even I noticed he’d changed. I saw him a couple of times at the supermarket, trailing around behind Ophélie, who was as excited as a bee who could smell flowers a wing-flick away. I always make a quick getaway. I hate talking to people in supermarkets. Just watching them pushing their shopping trolleys around like rats in some air-conditioned maze, talking about property prices and home improvement, makes me want to throw up. My attitude to supermarkets is to get in and out as fast as possible – I take what I want and use the emergency exit check-out. Supermarkets are so fucking hideous, I think it’s completely reasonable to steal from them. I remember laughing to myself and thinking, God, Rachel’s looking old, that multinational of his is obviously getting its money’s worth. This was the beginning of the end. The reason for the change was in the little battered suitcase Rachel brought back from Aïn Deb, the suitcase that contained all Papa’s files. His past. The rest of it, Rachel found out from books and from his trips to Germany, Poland, Austria, Turkey, Egypt and all over France.