‘Full of toads, frogs and marsh marigolds. I know.’

‘You found it. Good.’ She got up and started to separate the bunch of mint into two small ones.

‘And later on I’ll find the cesspit, won’t I? And the fuse-box?’

The small cloud of depression which had settled over my head down at the gate lifted. The fact that she had referred to ‘we’ when she spoke of Giles and his reaction to Jericho had given me infinite pleasure, but I contrived to look perfectly casual, ordinary, calm.

There was time. It would all take time. Aronovich, the canvases, James, always James, Jericho and then Giles.

After that, when I knew more or less precisely where we all fitted in this uncertain scenario, I could start the wooing. That would take longer, and be strewn with problems – the path to it – but I would go ahead.

Softly, softly … I wonder if you follow me?

By Thursday evening, just as the sun was about to slide into a threatening cauliflower of cloud in the west, M’sieur Simon and his sons Marc and Georges, who had long worked for James and had, indeed, assisted in the building of the wall which had given Jericho its false sense of security, sat down at the big table in the long room with me, three six-packs of Kronenbourg beer and a big bowl of potato crisps. We all shook hands, or rather they offered their elbows because their hands were grimed by moving furniture, carting things about, cutting back old bramble and nettles to find the well and the cesspit, and with caps pushed to the backs of their heads they sat, legs akimbo, arms on the table, and we laughed and congratulated ourselves on the amount of work and effort we had put into the two days. It had been a major achievement to get the three of them free – free that is for the time, not financially. I paid in ‘paper’, and that made a tolerable difference to things. Beds had been removed and taken away, then chairs and wardrobes, desks and tables, the long settee, a selection of odd wooden chairs, all had been dragged about, resited, approved or changed. They had even managed to slosh some whitewash over the walls in the kitchen, find the fuse-box, reconnect the oven, and generally, except for two beds, make the house almost, not quite but almost, come alive again.

‘And your brother, tell me,’ said M’sieur Simon, ‘will we ever know where he is? How sad for Madame Colcott, with the child …’

‘Perhaps he is dead? It’s possible,’ said Marc, the younger brother. ‘On the other hand, maybe he just went away. I know the feeling myself … to be alone.’