Oscar nodded. “Go grab it for me from the tack room. His section will have his name on it – you’ll find it.”

I got the halter and came back and Oscar slipped the saddle, martingale and bridle off – he named them all for me as he worked – and put the halter on. Then he handed me the lead rope and showed me how to lead Claude. “Always stand on the left hand at his shoulder.” And I walked Claude over to the wash-down bays and Oscar showed me how to tie him off with a slipknot and how to hose him. It was a bit like watering the garden.

“Don’t be afraid to wash his face,” Oscar told me. “He loves the water.”

When I turned the hose on his head Claude flattened his ears a bit, but he seemed to enjoy it. The water had turned him glistening black. He looked so sleek in the sunlight, shining and wet, his eyes dewy. As Oscar walked him back to his stall I ran ahead and got my sketch pad out.

Oscar turned him loose in the box without his halter and went to clean his tack and I began to draw. It was very different to how I had sketched horses in the past. Claude was right there next to me now, so I could really capture every detail of his face. I didn’t bother with the rest of his body. Instead I just drew the head. I was trying to capture the tiny details, like the whiskers on his damp muzzle and the way his long, thick eyelashes trimmed his coal-black eyes, as if he were a film star. Oscar didn’t interrupt me as I worked. He must have gone to join the other guards – I could hear voices in the corridor from time to time. It was getting dark when at last he returned to the stall with Claude’s feed – Claude whinnied vigorously at this. Oscar put the feed in the wall bin, strapped up the haynet full of hay, then smiled at me and said, “Hometime.”

At the gates he offered to walk me home.

“I’m OK,” I insisted. But Oscar laughed and said, “I am offering you a police escort.” So I said yes and he walked me to the apartment door. It was dark by now, but the street lamps made everything look pretty, and the macaron shop had the windows all lit up so that the tiny cakes looked like colourful sparkling jewels.

Françoise was lying on the velvet sofa in the living room under a pile of cats.

“You’re home!” she said. “At last! Maman! She’s back! We can have dinner!”

Nicole burst out from the kitchen, looking quite relieved to see me. “I was about to phone the school and ask whether you were there,” she said.