‘Yes, you have every reason to be angry with me,’ I said, ‘for what I did to you in Paris, to rant and rage at me. I do it myself every night. Yes, you can banish me back to Paris, but first let us hunt down the killers who tried to destroy you and who are now stalking this farm. And whoever wrote this note.’

From my pocket I drew out the anonymous square of paper that I’d found tucked under my windscreen wiper in Serriac. André took it, unfolded it, and read it with a face that gave nothing away. Yet when he looked up at me, for one bright flash, he was my brother again, his eyes burning with a feeling that I’d thought was lost between us. He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket and came out with the bloodred Victorinox Swiss Army pen knife he had carried around since he was a boy. He flicked open the blade and I knew what was coming. He cut a nick in the ball of his thumb, and when I held out mine, he did the same to it, then we pressed the two together. It was a childhood ritual, the blood of the Caussades.

‘If you retreat to Paris,’ he murmured, ‘they will only come after you. It’s what they’re trained to do.’

At that moment two gunshots rang out from the yard and I dived to the window. Two of the injured horses hadn’t made it. Grief churned in my chest as I sat down once more on the rush seat.

‘Names,’ I repeated. ‘I need names.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘The death-threat letter changes everything,’ André said.

‘You have to realise that we are living in a peace that is no peace.’

My brother was talking to me. Sharing wine with me, swig for swig. It dawned on me that he had missed this as much as I had, our talks. ‘I have no close friend,’ he once told me in Paris. ‘I keep them at arm’s length. Friends are a risk I cannot afford, a luxury that is too dangerous. Friends come with curiosity and questions. Instead I travel light. Instead I have acquaintances.’

I loved the way his face came alive. The death-mask had vanished and his passion turned him once more into the lion I remembered.

‘The war is over but we are still at war, Eloïse, a permanent war.’

‘The Cold War,’ I acknowledged. ‘I thought it would all end. When Stalin died last March, I believed it would die with him.’

‘Quite the reverse. It intensified. Malenkov seized Stalin’s titles but he is locked in a vicious power-battle against Nikita Khrushchev. I warn you, Eloïse, these men are seriously dangerous. Committed to taking over not only the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but the whole world. They are determined to spread Communism like a plague across the globe. Whatever the cost.’