I glanced over my shoulder at him. His hat was back on and he was gathering Tonnerre’s reins in his hand.

‘I will think about it,’ he said with formal politeness, and swung up into the saddle.

*

‘Do you think you’ll ever go back to ranching?’

I was making conversation. Coaxing my companion out of his silence, though the silence was not unpleasant. I’d led him along a low ridge to a more wooded area to show him where in the shade of a copse of ash and feathery willow a fierce young stallion was guarding his pretty-faced mares. As Joel Dirke observed them, the stiff lines of his face softened and I began to think he had horse-blood in his veins.

‘No, never,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s too much like hard work and brutal in the winter. No, there was never any question of it. As children my brother and I were obsessed with airplanes. We ate, slept, dreamed of aircraft at all times. Both of us trained as pilots and flew P-51 Mustangs during the war,’ he tipped back his hat awkwardly, ‘but my brother got shot down over Germany. Don’t look so pained, he survived, thank God, but had the good sense to give up flying and find himself a cosy desk job in San Diego instead, while I’m still hurtling through the skies at over six hundred miles per hour.’

‘I hope for his sake that his job is still with aircraft though. It’s important to work at something you love doing.’

He paused and ran a hand fondly over his mount’s neck, and eventually nodded. ‘Yes.’

Whether that was yes to his brother’s job or yes to working with what you love, I couldn’t tell.

‘It must be nice to have a brother with good sense,’ I laughed.

‘I met your brother the same night I met you. André, isn’t it? He came to a meeting at the air base. He didn’t speak much but what he did say seemed eminently sensible to me.’ He tightened the reins a fraction and flicked some flies from around Tonnerre’s ears. ‘I’m very sorry about the accident. Godawful for him.’

‘What was the meeting about?’

He shook his head at me with amusement. ‘Allow me to retain at least some professional integrity.’

‘If André was there, it must have been about Intelligence security.’

‘Why don’t you ask André?’

I skipped over that. ‘So why was Gilles Bertin there?’

‘You ask a whole heap of questions, Eloïse. Why are you so interested?’ He cocked a dark eyebrow at me. ‘A bit too interested, perhaps.’

‘Of course I’m interested. You come down here, take over a chunk of my father’s land and immediately the Caussade champion bull is slaughtered and our stables burned down. Wouldn’t you be interested?’

‘You have a point, I admit.’