‘What I now have to ask myself is this. If there was a light fall of snow, if he was on a bicycle, apparently ill-dressed for a winter trip, what the hell was he doing? How did he expect to go anywhere. At dusk? In snow. In January?’

‘You use the past tense all the time when you speak of him. Deliberate?’

I shuffled about on my upturned box. ‘I don’t know. Instinctive, I suppose. I have no proof of “was” or “is”.’

The dog, who had slumped down beside her, raised his head, rose to his feet and trotted slowly up the drive.

‘Daniel has finished that part of his labours. Does he know that there is more to do down here? Avoiding us perhaps?’ She suddenly shouted up to him in French. ‘Daniel! Don’t forget down here. It’s like the army came through.’

I did not turn to watch him, but heard him whistling, the boots crunch in the gravel, the prongs of the rake rattling through the little stones.

‘I have filled these pots’, Martha said, ‘with petunias. Blue and white. The blue ones have a sweet scent. In the evenings … Don’t just sit and stare at me, William! I don’t know any more. Really I don’t.’

She began to stuff her shirt-tail back into her jeans, the cigarette hanging from carmined lips, good eye squinting against the smoke. I rose. The box clattered over. Daniel was raking away; a small silver crucifix hanging from a chain glittered at his throat.

‘He left. Just like that. In the dark. In snow? You saw him go?’

She patted her stomach, took the cigarette from her mouth, trod on it and then bent to cup it in the hollow of her hand. ‘With the beady-eyed one I can’t really scatter litter, can I?’

She began to walk slowly towards the gates. ‘There was a car,’ she said, and threw the butt into the road.

‘A car?’

‘Parked beyond the gates. It was there for an hour or so before he came down. Not riding the bike. Pushing it. When he got halfway down he switched on his headlamp. The car started up.’ She was standing with her back to me, one hand on the left-hand gate.

‘What kind of car, Martha?’

‘I don’t know what kind of car. Solid. Probably a Peugeot 604.’

‘What happened to his bike? No room in the car surely? A roof rack?’

Martha swung wide the gate to let me pass through. The meeting was over.

‘He left the bike by the wall here. Just here. It’s in my shed. You want to test it for fingerprints? Some other time, William.’

Out on the road I said, as the gate closed, ‘Which way did it go? The car. Right or left?’

‘To the left. Where you have come from. It had an 06 registration.’

‘Shit. Where is 06?’