Nobody from Vincent’s team called. They both kept checking their phones. Bea found a small hotel in Beaune for them to spend the night. It was a little like Paligny, but in the town, by the medieval walls. The woman offered them a room on the first floor, or a bigger one in an annexe in the garden. Bea took the one in the main hotel. She didn’t want to be isolated. She wanted people. She imagined a dining room, with busy waiters and the companionable voices of strangers.

She went upstairs to say goodbye to Alex’s room, and heard Dan’s voice in the hall.

‘Bea! Let’s go!’

She heard a car go by.

‘Hold on,’ she called.

She stood in the bedroom doorway. Her mother would strip it for keepsakes, fetishise and fawn over them. She wanted to take just one thing for herself, something he would want her to have. She switched on the bedside light, looking around the room, and questioning the air. The seconds passed, but she had no sense of his presence at all. She heard the growl of a car and saw headlights approaching, shining straight onto the hotel, then the scrunch of the gravel. Quickly, she turned off the bedside light and went to the window. She couldn’t see Dan down there. The car stopped below her and the engine was switched off. The door opened and a man got out. She could see the top of his head, hair buzz-cut almost to the scalp, and balding. He looked up – and she dodged behind the curtain. She heard him walking to the door. She left the room just as the doorbell rang.

She didn’t know where Dan was. She stood very still at the top of the stairs, waiting.

‘HELLO?’ called the man, American. ‘Hel-lo?’

She didn’t move. She heard Dan’s voice, and talking, muffled, and then receding. She pulled her phone from her pocket but dropped it, thudding, onto the floor. Scrabbling to pick it up she heard footsteps coming into the hall. She gripped her phone, panic in her blood and brain, quick and slow, trying to listen, trying to think.

‘Through here,’ said Dan.

‘Oh, great.’

She couldn’t hide and leave Dan on his own. She went downstairs.

The stranger had his back to her, with one hand in his pocket and a large black backpack at his feet. He turned.

‘Hi,’ he said, and smiled.

He was in his late thirties, tanned and unshaven, with a high, bony forehead and a wide smile, as if his small teeth ran straight across his mouth. He wore a brown leather jacket and a red T-shirt with a faded symbol on the front.

‘I have some stuff, but it’s in the car,’ he said.

She couldn’t see Dan’s face behind him.

‘I’m Russ. Is Alex here?’

Bea’s mind was blank.

‘Are you a friend?’ said Dan.