‘Exactly, chérie. Bertin was becoming too troublesome.’ She gave me a slow smile intended to provoke. ‘You’re not the only one who knows how to pick a lock.’ She turned to André but my brother wouldn’t even look at her. ‘A lesson for you too, mon ami. I stole Durand’s gun and set your baby brother up to take the fall for that job, so that you’d know not to step out of line in future. Especially when your lovely sister was in such danger now. But somehow the little Houdini got out of there before the police arrived.’ She switched her attention back to me with sharp suspicion. ‘Did you have anything to do with that, Eloïse?’

‘No.’

Clarisse was a killer. A cold-blooded killer. This woman who had helped me and cared for me and brought flowers when I was ill. Who was she? It was only extraordinary good fortune and lucky timing that had saved my younger brother Isaac from rotting in a gaol cell right now. The pain of it cut too deep and left too many parts of me in tatters. Oh André, what have you done to me?

‘After the accident—’ Joel started to say.

‘It wasn’t an accident.’

‘Okay, after your brother was injured, we had to change to doing the handover in church on a Sunday and Clarisse came down to set up a new courier to Paris.’

‘So now you know,’ Clarisse said. ‘Satisfied?’

‘No,’ I said. I wished André would speak. He sat silent, eyes on the concrete block. ‘Who killed Goliath and burnt down our stables? Was it you, Clarisse, giving more of your “lessons” to my brother?’

She looked surprised. ‘No, I had nothing to do with it. But I know who did it. Don’t you?’

I shook my head, but André looked up, his face part dead already. I could not bear to see him so defeated.

‘I can guess,’ he said.

‘Who?’ I asked quickly. ‘Who?’

‘Mademoiselle Madeleine Caron.’

‘The headmistress? Why would she do that?’

Clarisse nodded. ‘You always were a good guesser, André. Yes, it was Madeleine Caron. She loathed you Caussades. Claimed you represent everything that is unequal in Western society and wanted your farm broken up and distributed among the gardians.’

André groaned. ‘Her four nephews are gardians, aren’t they? They will be the bastards who killed Goliath. You and your Communist principles are evil, Clarisse.’