‘Fairfax, mon ami. I had to think very hard about whether or not to leave this recording … I may have imposed on you enough already. I may have loaded you up with a grief you can never be free of. But I need you to know something that you will never learn unless I say these words … forgive me, my voice must sound strange to you. I am bleeding. A sick man, hurt by one bigger and younger and stronger … I’m sorry, I must say this right … he said his name was Pike and that I had no business near his ‘stash’. Forgive me, I do not know what this word means.

‘This recording, yes … I noticed you admiring the Dictaphone as we spoke. I believe it will be my gift to you. That seems right, somehow. It will be very useful in your work. And useful work it is. You are a storyteller and your son would be very proud of the way you honour him. But you are a splendid listener too. Is that the word? The English word? Splendid. That is how I would describe you, mon ami. A splendid fellow. We talked for only a short while but I found in you a man who understands what it is to be one thing on the outside and another within. When I knocked on your door I was in distress. Though I had come here to offer forgiveness, the sight of my abuser almost undid me. I wanted revenge. But that is not why I came here. I have carried such hatred inside me, Fairfax. That hatred has made me ill. I know you saw that illness in me. You remarked upon it – my cough, my pale skin, the sweat on my head. What a sight I must have made at your door. And yet you invited me into your home. You spoke with me of Gilsland and its history and you listened as I spoke to you. I was not certain I was right to do so and I was – how do you say it? – cryptic? Evasive? I told you much without telling you anything at all. I saw distrust in you, even as you offered friendship.

‘So I tell you now, mon ami.

‘My name is Marcel Defouloy. During the war I was a member of the Resistance. I was a Maquis. A proud man, willing to die not so much for France but simply to stop a movement I knew to be against goodness. A movement I knew to be wrong and which had ripped a blade into the belly of my comfortable life.