I studied her as she took the flour and a cake tin from the cupboard. Annabelle had never been the sort of woman whom men could easily pick up. Everything about her signaled that they would be blown off. She gave the impression that she was somewhere else, on a distant planet, utterly inaccessible. Growing up with her, I had always found her too much—too sophisticated for the mediocre life we lived, too brilliant to be sharing her life with Richard Degalais. To me she seemed as though she belonged in the heavens, among the stars.

The sound of the entry-phone buzzer made me flinch.

“That’ll be Maxime,” Annabelle said, pressing the button to open the gate.

Where had this sudden burst of joy come from? While she headed off to greet my friend, I went out onto the terrace. I put on my sunglasses and watched the maroon Citroën drive through the electric gates, go up the concrete driveway, and park behind my mother’s convertible. As the car doors opened, I realized that Maxime had brought his children, two cute, dark-haired little girls who seemed to know my mother very well; they ran to her, arms outstretched, and hugged her with charming impulsiveness. Maxime must have just gotten back from meeting with Vincent Debruyne at the precinct. The fact that he was here and that he had brought his daughters obviously meant that the interview had not gone too badly. As he got out of the car, I tried to read the emotions on his face. I was about to wave when the phone in my pocket vibrated. I glanced at the screen. Rafael Bartoletti, my official photographer.

“Ciao, Rafa,” I said, picking up.

“Ciao, Thomas. I’m calling about that photo of your friend Vinca.”

“I had a feeling you’d find her fascinating.”

“Oh yes. In fact, I was so intrigued that I got my assistant to enlarge the photo.”

“And?”

“As I was looking at the enlargement, I realized what it was that bothered me.”

I could feel a tingling in my stomach. “Tell me.”

“I’m almost certain that she’s not smiling at her partner. She’s not even looking at him.”

“I don’t get it. Who is she looking at, then?”

“Someone about six or seven meters in front of her and a little to her left. If you want my opinion, Vinca’s not even dancing with the guy in the photo; it’s just an optical illusion.”

“Are you saying it’s been Photoshopped?”

“No, not at all, though it has obviously been cropped. Take my word for it, your pretty little ragazza is smiling at someone else.”

Someone else…

I found this difficult to believe, but I thanked Rafa and promised to keep him in the loop. I texted Pianelli and asked whether he had managed to contact Claude Angevin, the former Nice-Matin editor who might know who had taken the photograph.