There was a blaze of marigolds running along the path, humming with bees. We had reached the front gate, the little tin sign on which ‘Jericho’ was painted.

‘All rust,’ she said, pushing it open a little with one finger. ‘All rust … the garden a ruin and deserted. How we worked here! Like two peasants. Really, from dawn until dusk. And I was so sure it would be for ever. Ha!’

‘The wall still stands firm,’ I said. ‘The wall you built.’

She looked down at the stone blocks, the little brick pillars which supported the gate. ‘Not really,’ she said and turned quickly away, walking slowly towards the house. ‘It fell.’

It was perfectly clear to me then that she was deliberately being evasive: her sudden, swift movements, avoidance of face to face confrontation, when I had asked about the ‘punishment’ were obvious.

She was restless; the false marriage didn’t worry her so much for she knew that I had read James’s letter and also knew that her mother had told me the truth so there was no point in ducking the issue. That part was simple. What might follow was not.

I stood for a few moments by the marigolds and then walked up to the little terrace where she was occupied in clearing away the broom, the broken pot and the rusted tricycle. She pushed them all to the far end of the tiled floor, and sat down on the raised step, chin in her hand, looking towards me.

I decided on direct tactics: a sudden change of thought might catch her off the guard behind which she was hiding so deliberately.

‘Who was Daniel?’ I called.

‘Daniel?’ She looked genuinely surprised, her brow furrowed with a crease of incomprehension.

‘There are some photographs here, in the envelope at the bottom. I found them after all the rest of the stuff; a head, feet. Numbers one to seven. Obviously photographic studies a painter might make of a model. Was Daniel one?’

Her brow cleared suddenly. ‘Daniel Jacquet. Daniel … ah yes. There are photographs of him? I forgot –’ She looked away quickly.

I had reached her side by this time and sat on the step a little distance from her.

‘But you did know him?’

‘Yes, I knew him, and Martin and of someone called Jojo. Yes, I knew them, boys from Sainte-Brigitte … not from the village, James was too cautious for that, of course. They posed for him. Yes, you could call them “models”, I suppose. He was trying to alter his style at that time. I had sat for him many times – well, you have seen them – but he grew bored with the same face, and I was not very good at posing. I had other things to do anyway: the house, cooking …’ She waved a hand vaguely towards the garden before us. ‘And all this. He gave this up. After a time, when the glory and the dream began to fade.’