Before my coffee even arrived, punctually at seven-thirty, I was washed, shaved and dressed, and had written a card to the children and another to Helen simply to tell her that I was working away at finding the lost ewe lamb and would, probably, be returning by the end of the month. It might give her a slight nudge, I hoped, to get herself, and the kids, together.

I then wrote a short note to Mr Millar explaining who I was and why I was in the place, and that I was desperately anxious to try and find any possible clues which might help me to locate James, or at least try and discover where he was, and if possible why he had left so precipitately. I added that I would be at the Maison Blanche until I had managed to get a lead to James’s discovery. It was a very polite note, begging his pardon, and saying that I would be happy to meet him anywhere he suggested which would be convenient to him.

I left the hotel on a brilliant morning. The air was light, clear, invigorating after the stuffiness of my little room and the writhing distress of nightmares. Birds were singing in the little copses and the trees already, in early May, filigreed in jade. Here and there, in the fields, great sheets of tiny golden narcissi lay on the slopes exactly like laundry spread out to dry. The heavy scent of the miniature yellow flowers filled the air. They – or rather, I suppose, it – made me almost forget the word hate. Far too strong, I realized in the bright light of morning, to harbour in my mind. Nonetheless it stuck.

Stuck quietly at the back all the way into Saint-Basile-les-Pins, and to the rusting gates of L’Hermitage. Screwed to the gates a green-painted mailbox. No sign of life. The long track led away up from the lodge into the gloom of the trees. I slid the note into the box, reversed, and drove away. No sign of anyone or anything living.

All quite still.

At Jericho I saw, for the first time, that the garden was not quite as desolate as at first I had thought. I was, I admit, seeing it in a very different light. Brilliant sun, a cerulean sky, sparkling air.

And I was, or liked to think that I was, in love; middle-aged love, but nonetheless love. It coloured everything. One behaved like a youth. To be sure there were the rows of withered sunflowers, seedless and pale; there were dead cabbage stalks, the arms of old men sticking out of the dry earth; last year’s leaves had blown around from the giant cherry tree, and come to rest in rusty piles in furrows and corners; there were clumps of dusty grey lavender here and there, and one solitary rose swinging a bud, frosted and brown, on a skinny unpruned stalk, timid.