The man on the left was a young Father Jerome. The one on the right was my father.

Murderers or heroes? The words swelled inside my head.

I took the photograph just as the high heels stopped right outside the door. I snapped off the lamp, threw three of the envelopes containing their contents back into the secret drawer, the fourth one I pushed into my bag as I watched the door handle start to turn. I ran across the room for the blind spot behind the door so I would be hidden when it opened, but at the last moment the handle was abandoned and Captain Léon Roussel’s voice shouted out, ‘Vite! Call Nîmes for more reinforcements.’

Their feet ran down the hallway. I could taste the fear in the building.

*

The main street of Serriac had lost its mind. Its usual quiet sense of decency and discipline had been steamrollered by a crowd that was out of control. Havoc held sway. The demonstrators had cut loose. Breaking windows. Hurling stones and battling with police.

Whatever it was that Mayor Durand had said to them in his address had failed miserably to hold them and when two fighter jets streaked through the sky like a taunt to the demonstrators they set fire to a street bench in the middle of the road. Two cars were overturned, more shop windows shattered. As if the town were to blame for the nuclear warheads on its doorstep.

Locals struck back. Fights broke out with café seats for weapons, and rage rolled at me like a wave, setting fire to something dark within me that made me want to strike back. To defend my home. To protect my people. Something tribal and gut-wrenching. I helped a middle-aged woman back on to her feet, her head gashed, and tucked her into a shop for safety, but when I emerged I heard someone shout my name above the noise.

‘Eloïse!’

Léon was further down the road by the bank, working with five other officers to corral a section of the crowd. I raised a hand.

‘Go home,’ he shouted at me, ‘get out of here before . . .’

But I didn’t hear before what. He moved his group of demonstrators away, slicing them from the body of the crowd. Systematically weakening the collective rage. He looked calm as he issued orders, but I wanted to shout, ‘Be careful.’

And Isaac? Where was he?