‘Thank God, you’re back.’

‘What is it, Papa?’

‘André has gone missing.’

*

Léon could feel a pressure the moment he stepped inside the house. As though something was ready to blow. Years ago, under a willow tree on a river bank, he and André had heated up an unopened can of beans over a campfire to see what would happen. They’d watched transfixed as the metal sides bulged and then the whole thing exploded with a thrump, beans ripping high up into the foliage. That’s what it felt like in the Caussade house. That kind of pressure.

Eloïse shot up the stairs in front of him two at a time and he followed, his back protesting, but she halted in the doorway of André’s room with a cry. The room was in chaos. Only the bed and wardrobe stood in place. Everything else had been thrown or smashed or trampled and the smell of violence was overwhelming.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ Léon said. ‘This looks like a crime scene.’

But Eloïse didn’t enter. She pinned herself to the doorframe and watched him pick his way carefully around the debris on the floor. The chair and cabinet lay on their sides, broken, books strewn, lamp in pieces, and even the mattress was on end on the floor, resting against the wardrobe.

Had André used it as a shield? A battering ram? How many had come for him? It sickened Léon to his core to imagine what had gone on here but he did a rapid check for weapons or blood. He found neither. Outside, the high wind was rattling the window and the rain battered at the glass, but the catch was firmly locked, so no forced entry that way.

He looked up and saw Aristide Caussade standing behind his daughter. He looked stricken, his shoulders were hunched under the oilskin, head low and thrust forward.

‘What happened?’ Léon asked.

‘I came back from the fields,’ Caussade rumbled, his mind on the devastation of the room rather than on his words. ‘The front door was banging open in the wind and Louis lay unconscious at the bottom of the stairs.’

‘No rifle?’ Eloïse asked. Her voice was stiff and awkward. ‘How is he?’

‘No, no rifle. Louis will survive. His head is made of solid bull hide, he says.’

‘How many men?’ Léon asked.

‘Three.’

‘Did they come in a car?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he see them leave with André?’

‘No. He saw and heard nothing. He was out cold.’

Aristide Caussade shook himself, spraying water from his oilskin like a dog. He was a man of action, not words. ‘Enough questions. We have to search. The men have scoured the outbuildings and the nearby area, but this fucking rain is washing away all tracks.’