“I’m not going to wait around forever,” he warned.

“That’s your problem—”

I did not get to finish the sentence. Fanny had just appeared at the far end of the arcade, and, seeing us together, she froze. She waved to me—Come with me—then crossed the square and went into the church.

“I’m glad you came, Thomas,” Thierry Sénéca said as I got to my feet. “There has always been some unfinished business from back then. I hope maybe you’ll deal with it tonight.”

I left without saying goodbye, walked across the cobbled square, and stepped into the church.

3.

The moment I stepped inside, the smell of incense and wood smoke made me feel reflective. The church was beautiful in its simplicity, with stairs running from the main door down to the nave. Fanny was waiting for me, sitting at the bottom of the steps next to a massive brass votive holder on which dozens of candles were burning.

She was wearing the same jeans, the same shoes, the same blouse I had seen her in that morning. She had buttoned up her trench coat and was hugging her knees as though freezing cold.

“Hi, Fanny.”

Her face was ashen, her eyes puffy, her face crumpled.

“We need to talk, don’t we?”

My tone was harsher than I had intended. She nodded. I was about to question her about the theory I had come up with while driving here, but she looked up at me, and the pain I could see in her eyes was so terrifying that, for the first time, I was not sure I wanted to know the truth.

“I lied to you, Thomas.”

“When?”

“Today, yesterday, the day before yesterday, twenty-five years ago…I’ve always lied to you.”

“You lied when you said you knew there was a body walled up in the gym?”

“No, that part was true.”

The candles flickered above her head and the panels of a fifteenth-century altarpiece shimmered in the quivering light. In a gilt frame, Our Lady of the Rosary cradled the Christ Child; in one outstretched hand, she held a bloodred rosary.

“I’ve known for twenty-five years that there was a body walled up in the gym,” Fanny said.

I wished that time would stand still. Wished there were some way to stop her from speaking.

“But until you told me today, I didn’t know Alexis Clément was there too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There are two bodies in that fucking wall,” she spluttered, struggling to her feet. “I didn’t know about Clément. I lied; Ahmed never said anything to me. But I knew about the other body.”

“What other body?”

I knew what she was about to say, and my mind was already creating barriers to shield me from the truth.

“Vinca,” she said at length.

“No, you’re wrong.”

“This time, I’m telling you the truth, Thomas. Vinca is dead.”