All of which made the current quiet spell they were enjoying rather unusual. They didn’t exactly do holidays at Le Val, but since Ben and Jeff had returned from Australia, where they’d been attending to some urgent family business of Jeff’s, the two had each had their separate reasons for taking some time out of the normally hectic schedule. Ben’s reason was Abbie, with whom he’d been so preoccupied lately; while Jeff had needed the rest period to recuperate from a broken collar bone and a nasty injury to his hand, sustained during their eventful trip away. The hand had been attended to by doctors back in Australia but caused some concern to his surgeon here in France. After two delicate operations, it was on the mend but still not fully operational, though the prognosis was optimistic.

And then to cap it all, Jeff had now come down with some kind of summer flu bug that had reduced him to a sneezing, sniffling, watery-eyed, red-nosed miserable wreck for the last several days. Jeff being Jeff, though, he had fiercely refused to surrender to his condition and go to bed like a normal person, instead confining himself to the living-room sofa where he spent his days huddled under a blanket, slurping mugs of hot lemon juice with honey and whisky (Ben’s special recipe, made with an extra-generous slug of his favourite single malt scotch) and griping incessantly at the television.

Nobody would have denied that Jeff Dekker possessed a great many admirable qualities as a person, but he absolutely made for the world’s most cantankerous, irritable and difficult patient. Unable to stand it any longer, Tuesday had taken advantage of the quiet spell to fly off for a week to Jamaica, where he had about a thousand brothers, sisters, cousins and assorted other relatives.

So it was a much emptier house than usual to which Ben came home on his return from the airport – all the more depressingly so, now that Abbie was gone. Empty, but not silent. As Ben walked inside the front hallway with Storm trotting happily at his heels, he could hear the sound of the TV from down the long, narrow passage. It was a rare thing for anyone at Le Val to watch television, partly because Ben didn’t much care for idly goggling at a screen, and also because they were usually far too busy with more important matters.

He walked along the passage towards the living room. It sounded as though Jeff was watching the news, as he’d been doing virtually around the clock these last days. TV news was another thing Ben didn’t much care for, considering that much of what the mainstream media reported was a pile of barefaced lies and propaganda. Along with the sound of the commentator, Jeff’s voice could be heard raised in an indignant protest at whatever was being talked about.