She pushed the wrapped sugar towards me. ‘God knows what league he’s in. He has his own opinion, of course, and he sells. I just know his books take a hell of a long time to write and you can almost not get them on to a plane, let alone leave one behind. They are brick-thick. I suppose I was excessively rude that time you came to the house.’

‘A handful of gravel and a threatening rake can hardly be considered as signs of a pleasurable reception.’

‘That kind of behaviour frightens away the blue-rinses from Tulsa and Portland, Oregon, as well as those godawful Japanese-camera-freaks. We get them all summer. If Brent Millar ain’t so well known in France, he sure as hell is in the US of America and Japan.’

‘Where do they come from?’

‘Oh, they rent those little buses, you know? Drive up from Sanary and Toulon, sometimes as far as Marseilles. I think half the concierges in the area have L’Hermitage on the counter at Reception.’

She shrugged, stirred her coffee, one steady blue eye staring me out. ‘No eye patch, you are saying to yourself? No. 1 wear it when I am working in the garden. Dust, or twigs, stuff like that. Otherwise I face the world thus. People get used to it.’

‘I really wasn’t wondering.’

There was a sudden spark of amusement in the bright blue eye. ‘Shame on you! You must: I like telling people.’

‘Okay. Then I wonder.’

‘Well, I wear the patch for Best. At suppers and with company. One does try not to offend. But I don’t bother here, marketing, in the village, and I hate to drive with the thing. I find it restricting.’

‘I’m still waiting to be told something. Wondering.’

‘I was a news photographer. For WWP, the agency, you know them? My last assignment, surprise, surprise, was Beirut. I got this there. Splinter from a mortar. That put paid to my activities quite a bit. You can’t shoot with one eye, for God’s sake.’

‘I’m sorry. Lame. But I am.’

‘Be sorry for the other guys with me. I walked away.’

‘You live here permanently now?’

‘Semi. Brent was supportive. The lodge was empty. I needed peace for a while. He gave it me. In exchange for throwing gravel at tourists and taking in the mail and so on. I make myself useful. Try to.’

‘You look very daunting.’

‘I didn’t know your brother. I saw him often enough; I have, among other things, to open the gates. He was very blond. Slender. You are not the least alike.’

‘Not alike in anything, I’m afraid. A twelve-year difference between us. He was what you might call the changeling in the family.’

‘The cuckoo in the nest?’

‘In one. We were not in the least close.’

‘Then why the search? Maybe he just wanted to drop out? People do.’