‘Possibly. I know that he paid the rent for three years just before Christmas. He was paid quite a lot by Mr Aronovich for the paintings, you see, so he put it all to the house. My mother will know, it belongs to her. Her house, not really mine.’

‘But perhaps it could be mine for a little?’

‘You would like it?’

‘I don’t know. It’s difficult to tell just at the moment.’

She took a sip of her tea, set the cup down. ‘Are you married?’

‘I’m in the process of being un-married. My wife and I are separating after ten weary years. I have two children. So nothing is absolutely clear in my mind. I just came here out of curiosity, to find James if possible, to see the house, to rest.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s an amicable separation, we just don’t care for each other any longer, which may seem rather a callous way of stating the fact. But that’s what it amounts to, and it will be better for the children in the long run: it is no pleasure for them to live with quarrelling and sulky parents. Creates a bad atmosphere all round.’

She looked out through the large conservatory windows, across the gravel, to the lilac hedge.

One must consider children,’ she said, and then addressing me, but avoiding my eyes by taking another teabag from the box and pouring water on it, she continued, ‘I have a letter also from James. You realize. The one he left for me, telling me to send the key to you. There is also a packet of papers, bank statements, contracts for paintings, like the one from Mr Aronovich, a birth certificate even, stuff like that. Perhaps you would like to see all this?’

‘Perhaps. When you have time.’

I handed her James’s letter, which she read very slowly, not altogether understanding written English, but with a bit of translating here and there (‘What is “runt”?’ she asked at one point, and when I explained as best I could in my French she nodded and simply said, ‘Ah, yes, of course’) she managed to understand enough, and then handed it back to me.

‘And we have no idea where he has gone, or what has happened to him,’ I said.

She shook her head, ignoring her fresh cup of tea. ‘None. Only one thing I know is that he took his bicycle with him, it was the only thing that I could find which he did take. That, his wallet, his raincoat and a cap – it was in January, you see, and very cold as I told you – and just a little bag. Otherwise, he left or burned everything.’

‘His passport too?’

She looked startled. ‘I suppose so. I don’t know…perhaps.’