They escorted her to the stairs. She couldn’t see Dan, or her parents, or either of the lawyers, anywhere, as she passed through the desks of men. She almost ran down the stairs, and left the gendarmerie alone. On the pavement she texted Dan. Are you out yet? But she couldn’t wait, she wanted to get away. Walking fast, she passed low, stuccoed garden walls, then wrought-iron gates to courtyards, and narrower streets lined with parked cars, and then the shopping streets and cafes. She stopped and texted Dan again. Are you still in there? I’m in town. Call me.

Keeping the phone in her hand, she arrived at a square with a plane tree growing on a raised grass triangle, and the chairs and tables of two different cafes grouped around. She felt like an escapee. She checked her phone again. She decided to get a Coke, for the sugar, and scanned the chairs for a spare seat feeling jittery and strange. The smell of the gendarmerie was still in her nose, the questions, and the closeness of death. A bicycle sped past.

‘Attention!’

She jumped back. The cafe was busy. There were two young women at the nearest table, laughing. Their voices rose above the hum. Someone put water down for a dog. A man jogged a waiter’s elbow and spilled coffee on the tray. Bea walked to an empty table and sat down. She saw the JCB hitting Alex’s car as he lay sleeping across the front seats, knocking it, crushed, from the road into the field of young crops. She saw it swinging on chains in the empty afternoon like a hanged man. She ordered a Coke. She got a text from Dan.

Out now, where are you?

In a café, she texted back, and told him where. You OK?

Yeh. You?

Yes, she answered. See you in a minute. XXX

Yeh. He added hearts. Red ones.

He’d bothered with emojis. She pictured him doing it, fresh out of the interview room, on the pavement with the armed soldiers behind him, and she experienced one exquisite moment of joy, and then her father called.

‘Bea! Where are you?’

‘In a cafe.’

‘What? For Christ’s sake, this isn’t the time to go AWOL.’

‘I’m not. I’m waiting for Dan.’

‘Isn’t he out yet?’ He was shouting. She was sure everyone around her could hear every word. ‘Come to Chateau – what is it? Hold on,’ he yelled. ‘Arun?’

She could hear Arun’s voice in the background.

‘Chateau L’Orée des Vignes,’ said Griff. ‘I’ll send a car.’

‘We don’t need a car.’ The thought of it annoyed her, and then made her want to cry. As if he could make a difference to anything. Ordering cars. Staying in nice places.

‘Get a taxi then,’ he said. ‘It’s out towards Meursault. Come right now. Now. L’Orée des Vignes, yes?’

‘Got it.’