She told him in quick short sentences. To the point.

The hospital in Paris. When Piquet came close to ripping her cheek off. The sight of his bristly head in a photograph on the day of the demonstration. His role as Bertin’s muscle man and the way he’d darted at her on the marshes. The killer look on his face before he’d raced off on the motorcycle, aware of the American military man in the burning cottage.

Léon listened, his gut cold as ice. How close had she come to death? First in the street alongside Mickey Ashton, then at the fire with the officer who was too busy playing intrepid hero to look after Eloïse. When she’d finished, he anchored himself to the window, one hand on the latch as if thinking of opening it. But it was to stop him from running over there and shaking her, to stop him from throwing her in his car right this minute and driving her to Paris without stopping.

‘Eloïse, I am asking you again. Please will you return to Paris? It is not safe for you here.’

‘The question is,’ she was staring not at him, but at a streak of soot on her hand, ‘why would an MGB agent who works for Soviet Russia choose to burn down a meeting place for Communist activists? Surely they would work together.’

‘Eloïse, are you listening to me?’

‘Why would he burn it?’

‘The French Communist Party is made up of many factions and they are always falling out.’

‘Or had they been disobeying orders from Gilles Bertin?’

‘Now can we talk about you?’

‘There’s no need,’ she said, her voice low. She shook her head at him but with a slow smile that drew him forward. ‘You know I will not go back to Paris.’

The room seemed to peel away until there was just her, and he could taste the danger around her, like grit between his teeth. Outside his office there was the tread of police boots and a knock sounded on the door.

‘Not now,’ he called out curtly, but the sharpness of his tone was to do with her, not the man on the other side of the door.

‘You’re busy,’ she said, and rose. She moved quickly to leave but he reached the door before her.

‘Your friend from Paris is here, you said.’

‘Yes. Clarisse Favre.’

Her gaze was quick, examining each part of his face. He reached up and at last plucked the stub of charred straw from her hair, which was tied back from her face. He let his fingers run to the ends of it, and it felt dusty, but thick and warm.

‘Stay at Mas Caussade. I will go hunting for this Maurice Piquet. Stay at home with André.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘The pair of you together should be a match for anyone.’