Back in the car, I headed toward the village of Biot. I found it difficult to concentrate on the road. My mind was still buzzing about the photograph I had seen in the school paper. In her red wig, Fanny—who was a blonde—looked unsettlingly like Vinca. It was not just her hair color; it was her manner, her facial expression, the way she held her head. This twinship made me think of the improv exercises my mother used to have students in the drama club do, lively scenarios that the kids loved to perform. The basic idea was for them to play real characters they had met in the street, at a bus stop, in a gallery. They called it the Chameleon Game, and Fanny was a natural.

A theory began to form in my mind. What if Fanny and Vinca had switched places? What if, on that famous Sunday morning, it was Fanny who caught the train to Paris? It seemed far-fetched, but it was not impossible. I could still remember the statements gathered during the various investigations. What exactly had they said, the school caretaker, the garbage collectors, the passengers on the TGV, the porter at the hotel? That they had seen a young red-haired girl, a pretty redhead, a girl with pale blue eyes and rust-colored hair. Descriptions that were vague enough to fit my theory. Perhaps I had finally found the lead I’d been searching for all these years. It meant there was a real possibility that Vinca was still alive. All the way to Biot, I mentally played out this scenario in order to make it real. For some reason I did not know, Fanny had faked Vinca and her lover’s elopement. Everyone was looking for Vinca in Paris, but she had probably never even caught that train.

As I arrived in Biot, the sun was dipping below the horizon. The public parking lot was full, and a stream of cars, hazard lights blinking, were double-parked, all of them waiting for someone to leave. Having driven around the village twice without finding a spot, I gave up and coasted down the chemin des Vachettes toward the valley of Combes. I finally found a parking place some eight hundred meters downhill, next to the tennis courts. I had to trudge back up the steep gradient, which was agony on the legs and brutal on the lungs. I had almost reached the summit when my father phoned again.

“I’m worried, Thomas. Your mother still isn’t home. I don’t understand. She only popped out to do some shopping.”

“I assume you’ve tried calling her.”

“That’s the thing—she left her cell phone here. What am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Are you sure you’re not getting worked up over nothing?”