I wanted to get the dust of Arles off my feet and the stink of its air out of my lungs. Worse, much worse, I wanted to get the image of a man with a hole in his chest out of my head. But I was so worried about Isaac and about Léon in his hospital bed that for one foolish slippery moment I forgot to be worried about me.

I’d parked on the wide main road again, not far from Clarisse’s hotel on the south side of the old town. My thinking had been this: it would make for a quick getaway. If I needed it. Today was Sunday, so the town was in a lazy mood under the overcast skies, quietly catching its breath after the bartering and trading and shouting of yesterday’s street market. On Sundays Arlesians stretched out their legs under a café’s small zinc table, sipped their wine and shuffled cards in a game of belote.

Sunday in Arles was not a day for holes in chests.

My 2CV was still where I’d left it under a mottled scaly plane tree, a pavement café murmuring contentedly nearby. My only thought was to get to Serriac as fast as possible. To confront the mayor. To speak to the police. To start laying out the facts in an order that made sense inside my pounding head.

That’s why I didn’t see it, not until I reached my Citroën, one hand on its door. The flat tyre. I walked around the car, inspecting it, and felt my gut twist. Not one flat tyre, but four flat tyres. I groaned and looked around me in a quick but thorough sweep. He was here somewhere, I was sure of it. I reached into my boot and removed the tyre iron.

‘Can I help you, mademoiselle?’

Each word was steeped in irony. They seemed to come from the shadow of a grey van parked in the side street next to the café, so I walked over, the metal bar tight in my fist at my side.

‘Bonjour,’ I said. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’

Maurice Piquet stepped forward into the light. I didn’t run. I didn’t run. Instead I did look to see if he had a knife, but he was holding nothing in his meat-cleaver hands. He was wearing a dark fedora over his spiky hair; a lightweight suit covered up his bulk and made him almost blend in among the tourists. Almost. How can you blend in when you have the eyes of a killer?

‘You’ve been restyling my car, I see,’ I said.

‘And you’ve been restyling your face. Pick a battle with a brick wall, did you?’

‘Something like that.’ I didn’t dare look away from his square face, not for a second.