“Rosita?”

And still the pan lids, the car horn, the chants in a terrifying rhythm. “Al-gé-rie Française! Al-gé-rie Fran-çaise!”

“I love that sound,” said a voice not David’s.

A shadow detached itself from the wall near the bookcase, moving across the mirror. A man stepped into the light of the burning car. He looked out of the window, not looking at her.

“Who the hell are you?”

The head turned and the orange light fell onto a large chin and close-cut hair. The hair was white, as if dyed. “Madame Amaral?”

“I am, yes. But where’s David? Who are you? Or are you from the hospital?”

He laughed and she could smell the anisette on his breath and what could have been merguez sausage.

“No, not from the hospital.”

“Then who are you?’

“Merimée. Just call me Merimée.” He spoke in mainland French, without the inflexions of Africa.

“Where’s Rosita?”

He put a finger to his lips. “In bed.”

“Where’s David?”

“Your husband?” His voice was solicitous. He tapped the window, the light bouncing off his eyes.

He said, “But isn’t that his car?”

That they had killed the wrong man, they would not know till morning. The man they wanted to kill was a Trade Union leader, Diego Amaral, who had spoken on television in favour of independence.

Merimée was in charge. He had come from Strasbourg in March. This was his first mission for the OAS. After he watched the television interview he had issued his ponctuelle. The name D. Amaral was written in red on a page torn from L’Echo d’Oran and delivered to the executioner, a maker of garage doors known as Le Cygne who looked up the name in a telephone book. There were two Amarals one with the initials A.D., the other D.P. He wrote down the address of the second, belonging to David Paco Amaral.

Returning from the hospital, David was ambushed by Le Cygne’s men. They poured petrol on the roof of the car and over the bonnet, and when he tried to open the door they kicked it shut.

That night, re-enacting the scene, the man called Le Cygne said, “It was like taking a photo.” He struck a match and as if to the car applied it to the paper on which had been written his victim’s name. When he discovered he had killed the wrong Amaral, he had a good laugh. Sometimes mistakes were made. He would shoot the right one two days later. He would draw up on his motorbike, its number plates smeared with lipstick. “Señor Amaral,” he would say, rapping the window of the official’s car. “Señor Amaral,” he would say again and hold up a woman’s handbag. Puzzled, the other Amaral would wind down his window. Le Cygne would shoot him four times in the face before driving off.

But that was later. Tonight, on the night of the mistake, there was one dead Amaral. “He was a coco,” Merimée told Marie. “A liberal. That’s why we rubbed him out.” Marie couldn’t remember her words. She wanted to rush to the street. Merimée held her wrists. The pressure seemed to hurt him – there was something wrong with his hands. She pulled away, but she couldn’t escape.