‘It was André who stepped up. Only ten years old. But André took care of us, he made us a family again, he held us together. He dealt with dirty nappies, he patched up our scrapes, read us books, taught us to swim and climb and to fight our own battles. He taught us loyalty. He sat up at night when we were sick and rocked us in his arms when we had screaming nightmares.’

She put a hand through the open window and curled it into Léon’s hair, gripping tight.

‘It’s not how you think, Léon. Papa taught us manners and how to sweat out hard labour on the farm and Mathilde taught us to laugh and cook. But it was André who put big ideas into our heads. He gave us ambition. He made us self-reliant.’

‘By throwing you in the river or abandoning you alone in the marshes to find your own way home.’

To his surprise, she laughed, delighted to recall that dangerous method of education, and he found himself smiling.

‘Yes, André made me who I am today.’

‘No, Eloïse. You made you who you are today, and you may not know André as well as you think you do. So please be careful.’

She scrubbed her hand through his hair, as if to rearrange his thoughts, and then released it. Her brown eyes in their bruised sockets fixed on his.

‘What is it, Eloïse?’

‘I recognised the gun on the floor in Bertin’s bedroom. It belongs to Mayor Durand.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it in his desk.’

Léon’s sense of foreboding deepened as he tried to slot that piece of information into its place in his mind without making things worse for her. He didn’t ask how or when she’d seen it in the desk.

‘Eloïse, Durand reported his gun as stolen last week.’

‘He’s lying,’ she said fiercely and walked away towards the house.

Léon watched her, each step, each determined swing of her arms. She kept shaking her head as though there was something inside that she was trying to dislodge. From the wide doorway of the new stables, still under construction to the right of the yard, Aristide Caussade stood with a claw hammer in his hand. He watched her enter the house.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

I knocked this time, though I knew André had seen me coming. He opened the door and stood back to permit me to enter. The air in the room was too stifling and stale to breathe and I headed quickly to the window to open it.

‘No, Eloïse,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t open it. Don’t make it easier for them than we have to.’