‘That’s not the point any more. The point is getting it back. I’m pretty certain it’s not in the bedroom. I stripped the mattresses. Emptied out the drawers. But she’s good at this now. It could even be in the garden. Can you talk to her? She likes you.’

‘What am I supposed to say? Give Daddy back his pill?’

‘Just try and get it into her head how serious this is.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I can’t believe you had it.’

Larry rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. ‘I feel like I haven’t slept in a year.’

‘What did you do with the others?’

‘Others? Flushed them away. A little late, I know.’ He shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

‘I didn’t know things had been so difficult,’ said Alec.

‘Since Sun Valley. Before then, I guess.’

‘You didn’t say anything.’

‘You’ve had troubles of your own.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

Larry laughed – sheer fatigue as much as the whisky. He put a hand on his brother’s knee. ‘You’re a complete fucking mess,’ he said.

‘I manage,’ said Alec.

‘Sure. Do you remember when I went to America for the first time and you were about to spend your year in Paris? You remember that?’

‘Yes,’ said Alec.

‘It feels like the last time I spoke to you.’

‘That was ten years ago.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

Alec shrugged.

‘Did you like it?’

‘What?’

‘Paris.’

‘Yes.’

Larry nodded. ‘That’s good.’ He was looking over the potato field to where night was finally tidying away the tower of the church. It was a view so long etched on to the retina of memory it made him soulful. He saw himself as a boy, and Alec too. He saw Alice as a vigorous woman, and even his father as a man not yet on the edge, his shadow striding across the garden. All of them, their lives flitting like the little bats that dived and swooped around the eaves of the house.

‘I suppose we should have a plan,’ he said. He was starting to drawl. ‘What do you think? Should we have a plan?’

8

On Thursday evening Kurt Engelbrecht returned to rue Delambre with two plastic bags of groceries in either hand. He carried them into the kitchen, put them on the table and called for László. He had bought more cassis, and there was still half a bottle of white wine in the fridge from the previous evening. At eight o’clock it was early and late enough for an aperitif.