After two solid hours the noise of the crutches finally ceased. It was three-thirty in the morning, still another three hours till sunrise, but I gave André no respite. I wanted him exhausted. I wanted his defences low, his ability to lie to me at its weakest ebb.

I opened the door to his room.

I was carrying a glass of wine in my hand. The light was on and the two wooden crutches lay discarded on the floor. My brother was sprawled on the bed face-down, arms spread, legs trailing to the floor. He was lying just the way he’d fallen, too weary to move a muscle, and his shirt was clinging to his back with sweat. I wanted to go to him, to rip the sweat-stained shirt from his back and make him comfortable on the bed, but I didn’t allow either of us that luxury.

I placed the wine beside his bed and touched his shoulder. He spun over on to his back, his hand sweeping a gun from under his pillow, its muzzle directed at me.

‘Put it down, please, André.’

‘I’m sorry. I was asleep. I didn’t know it was you.’

I took the gun from his hand and placed it on his bedside table beside the wine. I dropped down into the chair and waited while he arranged himself on the bed, half-sitting, his pale hair as dark as sand when the tide has come in.

‘What is it you want, Eloïse? It’s the middle of the blasted night. Can’t it wait?’

‘No, I’m sorry, it can’t.’

His face looked grey and haunted by pain, but I didn’t let myself look away.

‘I saw you with Gilles Bertin last night,’ I stated.

His eyes widened. My words had punched a hole in the air between us, so big I could put my fist through it, but he was quick to recover.

‘You couldn’t have.’

‘Believe me, I did.’

‘Where?’

‘In Arles. What were you doing with an MGB agent?’

‘Oh, my little sister, I should have known better than to underestimate you.’

He smiled, the warm big-brother smile I remembered from our childhood. I loved that smile but I wasn’t a child now.

‘Make me understand,’ I said quietly.

‘It isn’t easy. Because you have to accept that in the world of Intelligence nothing is as it seems. It is all smoke and mirrors, and layers behind layers, secrets hiding secrets.’

‘Tell me clearly, André. Why were you in the Chevrolet with Gilles Bertin last night? It can’t be hard.’