The salient memories about Tomas were still reliable but, as time passed, she struggled to remember the smaller details, or the precise texture, of their time together. Could she recall, truthfully, the fervour and fever of emotion, the aching lust, her delight in the rightness of it? No, but also yes. Yes. Could she pinpoint the moment when she understood that her feelings for him and, by extension, the cause were so intense that she felt liberated from herself, the Laure Carlyle from Brympton?

If she was truthful, and truthful she should be, the memories of the political resistance hidden in Anatomie’s lyrics tended to be sharper. So, too, were the performances at the marionette theatre.

But, never forgotten were the subversion, the secrecy. The hilarity. Tomas warned her to be careful and never to repeat what she knew to anyone. Yeah right, she remembered thinking at the time. How discreet was discreet? Most of Tomas’s circle made their political affiliations known and were careless with their talk. Anatomie had only to strike up a chord and everyone knew what they were on about.

She wondered if they ever understood how innocent she had been. Certainly, she had failed to understand the layers of complicity existing between the watchers and the population on which they spied which ensured tiny sprouts of rebellion were ignored. Until they weren’t.

Simon was waiting for her answer. She lifted her glass and said lightly, ‘Because in this wicked world it’s good to know.’

She made the taxi driver drop her at the canal and walked back home through the violet night, the kind that normally made her feel glad to be alive. Tonight, it was different as she was dragged down by a feeling that she could only describe as misery.

For God’s sake, what was one small, feral cat?

Answer: it could have been her one small, feral cat.

The dispirited shrub in a corner of the courtyard had somehow managed to produce a few white blossoms. Oddly, she found it a comforting sight and Laure stopped to admire their glimmer in the dusk. This was a mistake. Madame Poirier rose from her chair outside her flat where she kept vigil.

‘Madame, you should be aware that you left your window open today.’

Laure stared at her. For a hopeful second, she thought Madame Poirier was about to tell her that a cat was on the loose. ‘It’s very warm for this time of year, madame.’ She barely managed her customary politesse and, turning around, fled for the refuge of her front door.

Upstairs, she stood for a long time at the window of the sitting area, straining to see if a cat shape was padding across the roofs. After a while, she turned back to the room and her gaze rested on the black-and-white photograph of a beach with the spumy sea running up it.