But this proved harder to do than say. It was some time before they could make him relax his grip on me and go off, unwillingly, turning back from time to time, with the stalwart Céleste dragging him for a walk. Only then could Florence and I relax enough to look at each other.

‘So. A moment of peace. But I had to bring him. She can’t have him all day, it’s too much. She’s not old, but you need a lot of strength for him.’

‘I can tell. Well, I have been to L’Hermitage.’

‘I knew. And?’

‘And … it was very strange indeed. I don’t know how much you know, of all that part of James’s life … it is difficult for me.’

She pulled a long blade of grass, smoothed it between her palms. Flat. ‘I think I know almost all. And you?’

‘I know all.’

‘More than I do, I imagine?’ She had a dust of tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose.

‘I imagine. I know things that only a witness could know.’

She looked at me directly, threw the blade of grass aside. ‘But you were not a witness? How?’

‘As near a witness as needs be. I have heard his story from Millar, read his papers, which Millar has. You know that? Millar has all his diaries or notebooks, whatever you call them. Did you know?’

She shook her head slowly.

‘I think I might as well tell you exactly what I know, when I think it all began, how it all started, and what happened up until the evening he went away. Do you want me to?’

She looked away across the parkland. Thomas and Céleste were sitting, picking buttercups. They’d be out of the way for a very little time.

‘Yes. Tell me quickly. Later tell me all. But for the moment tell me what you saw. Heard.’

‘It will be difficult.’

‘I know.’

And so I told her. It’s easy to say that so simply. It only takes up half a line, less, written down, but I condensed hugely. I began with the essentials. I did not go into intense details, nor did I mention the photographs, or my own feelings or my dream, and when I had come to the end, having got as far as defining a possible reason for this cruelly destructive aberration, Florence was sitting, head bowed, hands over her face, weeping, as well she might. I apologized, as far as I could, as far as was needed, and went down through the fields of buttercups and spring grass to Céleste and Thomas.

When we wandered back, Florence had pulled herself together a bit. She looked wan, exhausted, battered. And obviously she had wept. Céleste looked at me anxiously, touched Florence on the shoulder.

Florence said, ‘I’ll be all right now. It’s good to cry a little. A relief.’