‘I was riding in the back of the Chevrolet. I ducked down on the seat in the dark when I saw you standing there with him. I thought you were meant to be dancing,’ he laughed. It was no happier than mine.

‘Is the farm in danger? The killing of Goliath, the burning of the stables, was that the work of the MGB? Will the farmhouse be next?’

‘Gilles Bertin says no. He claims it was the work of angry anti-American, anti-nuclear locals.’

‘Do you believe him?’

‘No.’

‘So are you in danger? Tell me the truth, André.’

I kept it low-key. I stopped myself reaching forward and shaking an answer out of him.

‘Anyone in my business is always in danger, Eloïse.’

There it was again. An answer that wasn’t an answer.

‘I thought you’d finished with that business,’ I said.

He reacted as if I’d poked a stick at him. He sat upright and, using his hands, he swung his damaged legs over the side of the bed, feet on the floor. He sat there, shirt still clinging to his muscular frame, and studied me in silence. Just the mention of his business seemed to have brought him back to life, eyes glittering and focused. His hair was drying, bushing out in thick waves around his head. Once more he was a lion on the hunt.

He picked up the glass of red wine and drank half of it in one go. He handed it to me. I drank the other half.

‘You need rest,’ I said soothingly. ‘I shouldn’t have woken you, but I wanted the truth from you.’

‘You want honesty,’ he said, ‘I’ll give you honesty. Gilles Bertin turned up here last night to put a bullet in my brain, but I convinced him I was more valuable to him alive. But he won’t give me long.’

I locked my eyes on his. All I saw was hunger.

‘Eloïse, I have work for you.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LÉON ROUSSEL

In the Boulevard des Tanneurs a tractor had clouted a cart hauling hundreds of cabbages and traffic had ground to a halt in Serriac. The upturned cart and the disgorged vegetables, rolling around on the road like human heads, had resulted in chaos that it took Léon a good hour to sort out. Henri, the tractor driver, with a mouth as broad as his belly, refused to remove his brand new Latil tractor.

‘Not until that bastard turnip-head, Jean-Baptiste, admits he’s an arsehole and agrees to pay for the damage to my tractor. Look what his shit-heap has done to my radiator.’

A crowd gathered to watch the dispute. Any free-rolling cabbages were discreetly scooped into shopping bags and under shawls. With a curse Léon set one of his officers on cabbage duty and another to keep onlookers moving, while he banged the drivers’ heads together and organised the removal of the obstructing vehicles.