We were seated in Serriac’s smartest hotel, Le Karur. It was constructed by an adventurer who made his fortune from mining gemstones in India and possessed a tall crenellated viewing tower. That’s where we sat. Sipping our coffee, surrounded by ruby-red cushions and looking down like eagles on the town spread out below us. Only Father Jerome’s church tower rivalled ours.

I was overwhelmed by Clarisse’s kindness. I had not always been the easiest of employees to handle, I admit, especially since the crash that ripped my life to shreds last winter. She had been generous to me then. Keeping me on full pay while I hid, wounded, in my lair and waited for my bones to knit. I’d once asked when we were drunk together in Les Deux Magots whether she was married and she’d snarled a ‘Non’ at me, as if I’d asked was she a child-killer. And now this. This kindness.

‘You have a business to run in Paris,’ I pointed out.

‘Rubbish! I’m on holiday. Monique is handling it.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Monique couldn’t handle her way out of a paper bag.’

‘You are wicked, chérie.’

‘I don’t need baby-sitting.’

‘Monsieur le Capitaine thinks you do.’ She took her time lighting a cigarette and I could see her mind ticking over as she squinted at me through the fog of smoke. ‘Captain Léon Roussel believes you are in danger. So do you, or you wouldn’t be sitting here now. These thugs, Bertin and Piquet, need to be tracked down and thrown into prison. While the police try to find them, you must go into hiding. So I have decided we will go back to Paris.’

‘No.’

‘For God’s sake, Eloïse.’ She threw her hand in the air leaving a trail of smoke. ‘Have some sense. I don’t want you in danger. What are we going to do?’

André’s words whipped through my mind. One of us is going to have to kill Maurice Piquet. André was not exactly in a position to do so.

‘I am not returning to Paris until this is over,’ I said. Calm and quiet.

Her green eyes narrowed further, her lipstick staining her cigarette. ‘You stubborn little bastard,’ she muttered. ‘So get back to your horse-shit farm if you must and stay there. From all you’ve told me, it sounds as if you will be safest there. Stick tight to your brother and his hunting rifle. When you want to go anywhere, telephone me and I’ll come for you. Got that?’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Now I will escort you back to your piggery.’

‘We don’t have pigs.’

‘Pigs, bulls, chickens. What’s the difference? All the same.’ She shuddered melodramatically. ‘None of them smell of Chanel.’

‘Do you know what I love about you, boss?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Your perceptive mind.’ I grinned.