‘Ms Andressen?’ She breaks off the conversation and extends a hand. Moments later, she’s sliding open the side door of the van, and inviting me in. The youth with the notebook is evidently a local reporter.

‘That must help,’ I suggest. ‘Getting the word out.’

My comment falls on deaf ears. The back of the van has the makings of a small office, complete with a comms console. From a file on the fold-down table, Hollick produces an envelope. It has my name on and it’s been opened.

‘Would you mind?’ She hands me the letter. Seconds later, she’s talking to somebody on her radio.

I bend to the letter, three typed paragraphs in English on a single sheet of paper, with a light dusting of French phrases when she needs a bit of colour. The tone of voice is unmistakeably Christianne’s: direct, unfussy, warm, candid. By the time I’m reading this, she warns me that she’ll be gone. How and where to she doesn’t say, but the overwhelming implication is that this act of departure, of what she terms ‘signing off’, is for keeps. Under the circumstances, she writes, all is for the best.

Circumstances? I glance up but Hollick is still on the radio, her back turned.

I return to the letter. The second paragraph is full of regret. If only we’d met earlier in our lives when things were different. If only I’d been in MSF, or she’d been in what she calls ‘le showbiz’. If only we’d had the time to make the most of each other. As it is, she thinks she’s been lucky to meet me at all and if she’d ever believed in God, she’d say a little prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to let her guard down and be herself. The last thing she wants is to make assumptions, but she truly believes that I, too, shared this sense of re-discovery. We are what we are, she writes at the end of the paragraph. So thank you for making that possible.

The letter ends on a practical note. She wants me to keep an eye on Andy, and on Bill. They are, she writes, the two men who most matter to her, equally precious, though for very different reasons. Andy and I, in an intriguing phrase, have been co-pélerins, while Bill has been a surprise tour nouveau to a life far richer than she’d ever deserved.

The letter ends with an unsteady scribble that might have been her first name. Underneath, a single cross. I look up again to find Hollick studying me.

‘Co-pélerins?’ She nods at the letter.

‘Fellow pilgrims.’

‘Tour nouveau?’

‘I think she means “plot twist”.’

Hollick extends a hand and I give her the letter. She scans it for the briefest moment, then her head comes up again. A third question.

‘And Bill?’