I continued to hold him close as he manoeuvred the crutches back under his armpits. For this moment, while I supported his weight and smelled the farm on his skin, he was my brother again. I was his sister. I let my cheek brush his, and for no more than a heartbeat I felt his body sag against mine, before he pushed himself upright and slid from my grasp.

‘André, who is Piquet?’

His eyes widened and his lips pulled back, baring his strong white teeth.

‘He came to the hospital in Paris,’ I continued. ‘Looking for you. Eyes of stone and an attitude that needed a lesson in manners.’

He almost smiled. ‘Did you give it to him?’

‘I was tempted.’

He nodded. Looked at my scar. ‘He didn’t hurt you?’

‘No. He wanted to, but his sidekick stopped him.’

His face hardened. ‘Have you seen him around here?’

‘No.’

‘Let me know if you do. Don’t go anywhere near him.’

‘Who is he?’

‘A nobody,’ he replied, and swung himself on his crutches in the direction of his room.

I noticed how strong his arm muscles had grown, bulging under his shirtsleeves to compensate for the damage to his legs. I let him go and shut the door but an ice finger touched my throat in the darkness. Piquet was not a nobody. And he could be here.

Tomorrow I would put a strong bolt on my door.

*

‘My Eloïse, ma chérie, you have come home.’

A kiss was stamped on each of my cheeks by my father’s tiny housekeeper, Mathilde. She was a small wiry woman in her mid-fifties, as skinny and fussy as one of our hens. She plonked a bowl of coffee on the kitchen table in front of me and I could smell the familiar lavender water she always sprayed on her short iron-grey curls. Alongside the coffee sat a tartine gleaming with her homemade apricot jam. The warmth of this woman could melt an iceberg. She wore a chin-to-toe cotton apron bright with sunflowers printed over it and her hair was bound up in a sunflower-yellow scarf. She brought sunshine into the dark corners of the house and I gave her the set of lavender soaps I’d brought for her from Paris. They were in fact made in a lavender distillery just up the road from here in Avignon, but I knew their fancy Galeries Lafayette box would please her.