He looked slowly around the hall, then behind the desk and swung the room keys with his index finger to read the black letters scrawled on the varnished board.

‘Gluttony?’ he read. The English lying clumsily on his tongue. ‘Lust. Wrath.’

‘It was sort of a joke of Alex’s,’ said Bea, also in English.

‘Another joke?’ He was inscrutable.

‘Yes. How long are they going to keep Dan? What do they want with him?’

He shrugged. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

He went outside, leaving the front door open, and put Alex’s blue notebook in the car, then he made a phone call, standing on the driveway, and then another. Bea sat at the reception desk in the swivel chair, as he talked on the driveway. She texted Dan but got no response. The two detectives came down the stairs, together, with all their equipment. They were as companionable and cheery as before. They didn’t say anything to her as they passed, but talked to Vincent for a few moments, outside, then Lecuyer came back in and unplugged the computer.

‘Ooph!’ he said, lifting it, the cord and plug with its adaptor socket dragging on the floor behind him.

He put it in the van and they all stood talking again. They seemed to be enjoying themselves. Bea got up, and ran up to Alex’s room.

Everything was different. The air had changed. There was no trace, no feeling of him left. The overhead light was on. A side table stood abandoned on the rug. His clothes were heaped on a chair, T-shirts, jeans, all piled together. Books that had lain about naturally were now in a stack, and the duvet bunched in the middle of the mattress.

She heard Vincent coming up the stairs and wanted to shut the door and sit against it, so he could not come in, but it was too late. He stood in the doorway and watched her pick up the duvet, shake it out, and lay it straight. She went to the window and opened it, then she turned back to the room.

‘They’ve moved everything,’ she said in English. ‘What do you want?’

In a rage, she kicked the pile of books, noisily, to the floor. Some of them landed open, crushing pages.

‘That’s not like me,’ she said.

She knelt and tidied them again, just for something to do and to get control of herself.

‘Madame,’ said Vincent, ‘I assure you, we are doing everything we can. We are working very hard to discover what happened to your brother.’

He came further into the room.

‘May I?’ He gestured to the chair.

He was waiting for her permission. She got up from the floor and picked up Alex’s clothes. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, with them on her lap.

‘Thank you.’ Vincent sat down, crossing his legs and brushing something from his jeans.