Now would be the time to check Izzy’s room, I realised. See what she had hidden in there that could confirm my suspicions beyond any possible doubt. Even though I wasn’t totally sure what that might be. Something that belonged to him, perhaps, a note, a photo, a mobile phone – evidence, of whatever kind. I hurried upstairs and was about to let myself into her room when Daniel’s door opened across the corridor and he emerged, fully dressed, book in hand.

‘Morning, Mummy,’ he said. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Oh . . . just going to check whether Izzy had that book I wanted to read. Never mind.’

Lucy and Sean seemed determined to sleep in, so Daniel and I walked into the village, his little hand tight in mine as we weaved our way through ancient streets too narrow for cars, house walls of weather-beaten stone pressing in high on both sides. We found a playground behind the church, with benches in the shade of tall plane trees, and I sat and watched as he played on the swings and slides, the climbing frame and merry-go-round, wondering how I would explain to him what his father had done, and what it meant for our family. How could my boy possibly understand a betrayal so large, so far-reaching? Would he forgive his dad? Would he end up blaming me?

Eventually he tired of the playground so we walked into the village square for croque monsieurs and Oranginas in the shadow of the little town hall, watching a couple of old men playing endless games of petanque on a long rectangle of sand beside the bar.

Daniel asked to go to the shop after lunch, so we took a detour past the village’s crumbling medieval ramparts and into the air-conditioned cool of the small supermarché, crammed between an estate agent and a tiny antiques shop, both closed for lunch. The supermarket catered mostly for visiting tourists, its shelves lined with wine and beer, fresh fruit and vegetables, suntan lotion, beach toys and barbecue charcoal. I picked up a few bits and found Daniel in the sweets aisle, weighing two big bags of sweets in each hand.

‘Surely you can’t still be hungry after that big lunch,’ I said.

‘They’re not for me. They’re for Lucy.’

‘Well, aren’t you a lovely brother?’ I said, giving his fine dark hair a rub. ‘She’ll be very pleased.’

I remembered that we needed more bug spray and went around the other side of the aisle to look in the display. The local stuff was far more potent than anything you could get in the UK, which seemed to have almost no effect on the mosquitos here – I had already counted more than a dozen bites on my legs alone.

Through a gap in the shelves, Daniel said, ‘I’m trying to cheer her up.’

‘That’s nice of you.’