‘How can I leave it as it is?’

‘For Thomas, for me. Think of the pain it will bring. The questions, the police, the press. We have endured enough distress already. I beg you.’

‘If you are convinced that James is dead the least I can do is to find him, his body, if there is a body, and I am not as certain as you are.’

‘I am sure. Sure.’

‘Why did Aronovich want that group photograph? What could it mean to him? A photograph of a small boy?’

‘Perhaps he is sentimental …’

‘As a hanging judge.’

‘James always kept it. It was on his easel, by itself, the day I went up to clear the place.’

‘Exactly. Aronovich knew that, I assume?’

‘I don’t know.’ She got up wearily. ‘Is Giles at the hotel?’

‘Giles is with the Theobalds, at Marineland in Antibes. Florence?’

She turned towards me. I got up and went to her, my hands stretched towards her.

‘I love you. I hate you to be so sad.’

‘If you love me, stop. Please.’

‘I do love you, and I won’t stop.’

‘James longed for oblivion. He has sought it, it was his own wish.’

‘I lied to Aronovich, trapped him with the colour of his car, but it did force him to a confession that there might be a chance of finding James.’

‘It is too late. Too late now.’

‘That is negative.’

‘No. Positive. I know.’

‘You are always so certain! Let us wait for Aronovich to call.’

She set the watering-can down, buttoned a cuff. ‘Now you are so certain. When must he call?’

‘Tomorrow by noon. He will. He can’t ignore the facts.’

‘And if you should find James, you clever ones, find him in Corsica, Tunisia, find him anywhere, it will destroy him completely. We were not married, he has no reason to return, why cause such grief and pain? What has he left but his own secrecy?’

‘He has you.’

‘Ah no! No longer. That love died a long time ago and there is nothing so dead as the death of the heart.’

She opened the conservatory door, indicated that I should leave with a slight move of her head. ‘I am sure that you will call me? Tomorrow?’

I promised to do so, and crossed the dim hall, went out into the racing wind.

It was dismissal.

At breakfast the next morning in the empty dining-room with its trellised paper, the partridge and the Japanese fan in the empty grate, Giles was describing, for the tenth time, how amazing it was to feed a dolphin with a herring, when Eugène, carrying a pot of coffee, said that there was a telephone call for me, I could take it in the booth by the front door.

It was seven-thirty, early for Madame Mazine. Early for Aronovich.