Bertin opened the rear door, removed two crutches from the back seat and handed them to André. Everything about their movements was relaxed, their voices a low murmur that I couldn’t catch. In my mind the only explanation was that somehow the MGB agent had kidnapped my brother, but my eyes told me otherwise. This was no kidnap. This was my brother’s choice, to be in that car, to walk into that house, to be with this man. His battle for control of his legs as he crossed the road, forcing one foot in front of the other, stumbling on the cobbles, was agony to watch. He leaned heavily on the crutches and my instinct was to run and help, but my instinct could get me killed.

André shuffled his way inside the house, but Bertin paused, checked the street once more and drew a gun from a holster under his suit jacket. I crushed myself even tighter into my tiny pocket of blackness, but he didn’t linger in my direction. Instead he glanced up at the streetlamp, took aim and fired. A silencer reduced the sound to a dull thwack, followed by the brittle crack of shattered glass. The light went out. The door shut.

I was in the dark.

*

I heard a sound. So faint I thought it was the thump of my own pulse, but it came again. And again. A footfall?

‘Eloïse?’ A whisper. Barely a word at all. My palm was slick with sweat.

‘Eloïse?’

I gave no reply.

The soft footfalls were closer now. The darkness swallowed them and I couldn’t tell from which direction they were coming. A minute ticked past, two minutes. I listened harder and turned my attention to my right, where I heard the brush of a sleeve on a wall. A hand seized mine.

‘Eloïse, it’s me.’ A murmur against my cheek.

‘Léon!’

It was Léon Roussel, though it was so dark now that all we could see of each other was a black outline. How he knew it was me, I don’t know.

‘Eloïse, what the hell are you doing here?’ he whispered.

‘I could ask you the same question.’

It dawned on me then that for him to know what doorway I was concealed in, he must have seen me arrive before the streetlamp was shot out. It felt absurdly reassuring to know he’d been here all that time without my knowing. He stepped off the street and joined me in the shelter of my doorway.

‘Why are you here?’ I kept my voice low.

But he asked, ‘Did you see André?’

‘Yes, I saw him. It was a shock.’

‘And the man he was with? Do you know him?’

I shook my head, though it was pointless to do so in the pitch dark.

‘Do you know what’s going on here?’