‘Did Mayor Durand extract payments from you?’ I asked.

‘Yes, he did. He knew that I would be tried and sentenced, probably to death if the truth were known.’

I could feel the tremor that shook him. ‘Is that why you sold part of our land to the Americans? Because Durand insisted?’

‘It is. He was getting a rake-off from them for persuading me to agree to it.’

‘Papa, I am so sorry. You should have told me before.’

I stepped right up to my father but still he didn’t turn to look me in the face. I leaned my forehead against his broad back and I could smell the bulls and the horses and the rich earth of Mas Caussade on him, not just on his shirt but deep in the marrow of his bones.

‘I love you, Papa,’ I whispered.

Neither of us moved. For this brief moment we were father and daughter, and I felt a warmth flood into somewhere inside me that had been ice cold.

‘Thank you for the newspaper cutting, Eloïse. We will never speak of this again.’

He straightened up and without a glance at me he strode out into the yard where his faithful Juno was waiting to greet him, snuffling her muzzle into his hand. I watched him scratch her slender neck, light one of his filthy cheroots that stained his beard, and take a long look up at André’s bedroom window before making for the ruins of the stables.

*

It is a joy to hold something beautiful in your hands. It possesses a strange power to bring comfort. Is that what Father Jerome feels when he holds the Bible?

In my room – a bare, unloved kind of place – I sat holding two things of beauty. My subminiature camera. And my developing tank. Both created to perfection by the German-Latvian genius called Walter Zapp and marketed under the name Minox. I lined the equipment up neatly on the dressing-table surface and set to work at once. I planned to have the 9mm film developed and dried by the time André returned from the doctor.

I snicked open the elegant little silver camera, removed the tiny cassette of thirty-six frames and placed it in the recess in the glossy black developing tank. The tank itself was a cylinder about half the size of a wine bottle with a screw interior that made it simple to use. Which was just as well, because my hands disengaged from my brain and took over the job smoothly and efficiently. My mind went into freefall. Ripping through my day.

Isaac. My skinny little brother Isaac.

Father Jerome in his black soutane, yearning for Papa’s soul.

My fingers turned the drum to engage the film-keyhole, then inverted the tank, pressing firmly into the sealing ring. The tank, with the cassette of film inside, was now sealed and lightproof.

Mayor Durand’s office.

The busy clicks of the camera.