‘To see if I can discover any kind of clue about James. Where he might have gone. Why. I can’t sit about doing nothing. It’s my duty really.’

She hugged her body tightly with both arms folded hard against her breasts. She looked away far up the road to the crumbling church spire.

‘I wish you would not. Please don’t. Don’t go.’

‘They may know something. He knew them all, didn’t he?’

‘He knew them all. Yes. But you won’t find out anything that I don’t know myself. He went there often, in the last two years, since Thomas, he was very often there. Painting. He said. I knew of Jacquet. He came to the house, and I knew Jojo. He came to the house also. He came to our silly “wedding”. Jojo came there. You will find nothing in that house which will give you release.’

‘Was Jojo the one who took your photograph? On what James called Joy-Day? At Porquerolles? On the rocks? There is a long shadow of someone who took the picture.’

‘Jojo. James is dead, William. I am certain of that. I loved him so deeply. He was the first man, the only man I have ever loved. If he was still about, if he was alive, I would sense it. I know that. I am certain. But he is dead. He has gone. Please leave all alone. Leave it now. Please.’

‘I can’t do that. I must be absolutely certain for myself.’

‘Very well. I can only ask. I cannot stop you.’ She laughed, a caught little sound, more sigh than laugh. ‘Poor James. Even in death he will not find peace. He never found it in life. Oh, he tried. He thought, for a little time, that he had found it, but … Look about you here. He only saw this as grief, in agony. He translated this beauty into madness. You have seen the canvases in the studio? How could a mind find such torture, such pain, in so much glory? There was no sense, no security, no love in his work. Madness and despair. That’s all. And that is all that you will find at L’Hermitage.’

‘I just might find the reason?’

She switched on the ignition, began to reverse slowly down the torn track.

‘Never,’ she said. ‘Not the reason. The result of madness, but not the reason.’

Chapter 9