A low gut-wrenching sob broke loose from me and relief coursed through me with such force that my knees buckled and only my grip on my father kept me upright. I clamped my other hand over my mouth to stop the sounds that threatened to come out of it. I didn’t realise that the pain inside me had to come out somewhere and it flooded out in my hold on my father’s arm. My fingers sank deep into his muscles, digging in between his tendons, gripping with all my strength until our Caussade flesh for that brief moment merged together again.

‘Eloïse,’ Papa said and I could hear an odd hitch in his deep voice.

I forced my fingers to release him. Somehow I stayed on my feet. ‘Is he here?’ I asked.

‘He is.’

I pushed past my father in the hallway, running for the stairs, but he halted me with an abrupt, ‘André is not in his room.’

‘Where then?’

He walked away into the living room. I followed him, impatient, into the room where the ancient sideboard had stood on the same spot for three generations and where the floor tiles were the exact same colour as my father’s eyes.

‘Papa,’ I started, but halted.

A figure rose politely from one of the chairs and I became aware of his dark uniform and gun holster on his hip. A gendarme. What were the police doing here?

My father gestured at the officer. ‘You remember Captain Roussel.’

But I didn’t hear the name. Instead my eyes were fixed on my father’s hand. It was covered in dried blood.

‘Bonjour, Eloïse.’

I regarded the police officer with surprise. ‘Of course, Léon Roussel.’ I held out my hand. ‘I apologise for not recognising you. You look different in uniform.’

He smiled and I noticed that he didn’t fight to keep his eyes off my scar the way most people did. He looked at it openly but without pity and I liked him for that. Léon Roussel and I had been at school together, though he’d been in André’s class six years ahead of me. I was surprised to see him in uniform now, as he had always been something of a hell-raiser. He was tall with brown hair clipped short like a GI and calm eyes, not exactly good-looking, but there was something about his face that held my attention. A quiet authority that had certainly not been there the day he set fire to our geography teacher’s desk.

‘I’m here about the attack,’ he said.

‘What attack?’ I swung round to my father. ‘On André?’