We fought the weight of the concrete, though our lungs were starting to beg for air. It should only have taken a second for me to seize the sheath knife strapped to my brother’s shin under his trousers, the one I’d felt when he’d nudged his leg against me in the saloon. He’d often worn one as a boy in the wilds of the marshes, to skin a snake or build a thatch. It should have taken me a second to extract it. It took me five.

My muscles were slowing. My brain was sluggish. The cold water stealing their strength. Bright lights were sparking behind my eyelids, my brain fighting for oxygen. Blackness curling in at the edges.

I started to cut the rope with the knife. Laborious aching movements. Jerky. Blind. Lungs burning and thoughts losing track as we descended deeper. But I should have known that any blade of André’s would be sharper than a scalpel and before I’d realised what I’d done, it had sliced right through. Suddenly we were flying up. An illusion. Of course. We had stopped descending, that was all. I told my legs to kick for the surface, but they didn’t hear. A hand wrapped itself around my arm and we started to rise.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

We lay on the muddy shore. Stretched out on our backs, gazing up into the murky blackness of the night sky as if it were the most beautiful sight on earth. Rain was pouring down on our faces and it brought my skin and my thoughts back to life. André had proved it again – the Caussades are immortal.

We were both breathing hard from the swim but one thing struck me. ‘Your legs did well,’ I said. ‘They didn’t seem to slow you up.’

A chuckle at my side startled me. ‘Oh, Eloïse, I thought you’d have guessed. I have been working them hard for months and regaining use of them steadily.’

‘But the wheelchair? The stumbling?’

‘A front. To make others believe I was finished, washed up.’

Always a pretence. Always hiding something. As if he was frightened to let anyone see him, really see the person he was. Did this brother of mine even know himself who he was?

‘You could have told me,’ I pointed out.

‘No, I couldn’t. You of all people had to believe I was crippled to convince others it was true.’

‘You were using me again.’ It was an accusation.