I headed back home so that I would not miss the phone call from my father; he had promised to get in touch after the long flight from Paris to Tahiti, around one p.m. Since long-distance calls were expensive, and he was never very talkative, our conversation that afternoon was short and a little cold, which rather summed up our relationship.

I managed to eat the chicken curry my mother had left and not throw up. Then I tried to focus on what I was actually supposed to be doing: studying math and physics. I tried to work my way through a number of differential equations but soon gave up. I could not concentrate. I could feel a panic attack coming on. My mind teemed with images of the murder. By early evening, when my mother called, I was in a terrible state. I was determined to confess everything, but she never gave me the chance. She suggested I come and join her in the Landes. On reflection, she had decided that it was not good for my morale to be on my own for two weeks. It would be less of a chore to study with family around, she argued.

I accepted the suggestion, if only to stop myself from foundering completely. In the snowy darkness in the early hours of Monday morning, I caught the first train, a commuter train from Antibes to Marseille, then a crowded Corail train that arrived in Bordeaux two hours late. By that time, the last regional train had already left and I had to take a bus to Dax. After a hellish journey, I arrived sometime after midnight.

My aunt Giovanna lived in a cottage out in the countryside. The old stone building was overgrown with ivy, the roof was beyond repair, and there were leaks everywhere. In the winter of 1992, it rained constantly in the Landes. By five in the afternoon, it was pitch-dark, and the sun never seemed to rise.

I have no clear memories of the two weeks I spent with my mother and my aunt. A strange atmosphere hung over the house. The days passed—short, cold, bleak. It felt as though all three of us were convalescing. My mother and my aunt looked after me as much as I did them. Sometimes, in the sluggish afternoons, my mother would make crepes and we would slump in front of the television watching old episodes of Columbo and The Persuaders or the umpteenth screening of Who Killed Santa Claus?