‘Why don’t I wait until something terrible happens?’ she shouted back, staring straight ahead at Alex’s door. ‘Then wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you I can’t stand living with you.’

She went to their room and slammed the door. She cried in the shower, and washed the blood and mud off herself, then watched herself in the mirror as she dried her podgy, dimpled body. She should forgive him but forgiveness wasn’t going to help. He didn’t want her without her money. She dabbed antiseptic on her grazes, thinking of the boy staring at her, and jerking himself off, and wondering distantly how much danger she had been in, and, if he hadn’t run away, how long she would have had to stay in the water. She made herself smile, thinking he couldn’t have had much of a look at her to get so excited. She should be relieved not to be hurt, but she didn’t care. She noted coolly that she wasn’t able to value herself, and she felt sad, because it was something she had worked on being able to do, but it didn’t really matter.

She got dressed again, and went out into the heat, and down the drive, to get her phone back. As she approached the gates, a blue car backed into the drive. It looked like a police car, and she began to prepare herself, but it wasn’t a police car, it was a different blue, much denser. It idled in the gateway as if the driver was deciding which way to go. She tried, but couldn’t see inside, past the reflections of the trees. The car drove off, and when it had gone she went out onto the road, to the lay-by, and got her phone from behind the log. There were a dozen missed calls from Griff, but no messages, nothing from Capitaine Vincent, no numbers she didn’t recognise.

‘Where were you?’ said Dan, when she came back in.

She ignored him, and started up the stairs.

‘I heard a car.’

‘It was just turning.’ She wanted to lie down.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m tired,’ said Bea. ‘I was up half the night, remember?’

‘I said I’m sorry,’ he said again, to her retreating back. Then he added, ‘Griff called.’

‘So what?’

She felt dread again. ‘Has he heard something?’

‘No. It was nothing like that. It’s OK. He just wants us to go and see them. Spend the day.’

‘Why?’

‘To be together?’ He said it sarcastically.

‘No.’

‘Bea, come on, what are we going to do here?’ He was exasperated. ‘Let’s just go up to Chateau Whatever –’

‘God. It’s called Chateau L’Orée des Vignes, Dan,’ she said. ‘It’s not that hard.’

‘Hey! You’re not better than me.’

‘I didn’t say I was –’