‘Alex has been in a car accident,’ she said. ‘He’s dead.’

The hard wave hit her. Her face did not feel like hers. Tears fell so fast her eyes hurt and she couldn’t see. Dan put his arms around her.

‘No, I can’t,’ she said. She pulled herself back. ‘Help me.’

She meant Help me to not lose control. He was steady.

‘All right, come on,’ he said.

He got Liv up from the floor and Bea wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands. Together, they took her downstairs.

In the hall, the gendarme, Blanchard, explained what they knew about the accident, and the timing and what had happened. He had to repeat himself because they couldn’t take it in. All the time he was talking, Liv’s voice accompanied him, interrupting, full of rage, instructing them. Automatically, Bea tried to comfort her, and Griff held her. When she was helped to sit, she stood, when left alone, she screamed. At times she dropped her head and moaned.

‘Tell me again,’ said Griff, over her crying. ‘Where? Bea? Make him say it.’

Bea obeyed. Dan with his arm firmly around her, said nothing.

At six o’clock that morning, a JCB had hit Alex’s Renault on a slip road, not far from Bourg-en-Bresse. The Renault had been parked across the road, with Alex inside it. They thought he must have died quickly, but the officer, Blanchard, didn’t like to say too much. He didn’t know. The doctor examining at the scene had made a preliminary report, but he couldn’t tell them any more than that. He was there to inform the next of kin, and collect them. It was hard to be clear, or to make a plan, Liv needed management, even in her silences.

‘Poor woman,’ Bea heard the second gendarme saying. ‘A mother. My God, poor woman.’

‘It will be necessary for at least one of the family to identify the body,’ said Blanchard. ‘Would it be possible for you to come with us to Bourg-en-Bresse?’

‘They need us to identify him,’ Bea said to Griff.

‘Fine,’ said Griff. ‘And tell him I want to see where it happened.’

Bea did as she was told. ‘He doesn’t know if that’s allowed,’ she said. ‘We need to identify him first.’

‘They may have got the wrong person,’ said Griff. ‘They’ve probably made a mistake.’

She realised her father was in shock, too, and hadn’t taken in what had happened. None of them had. They were at the beginning. They were nothing in the face of it.

‘I don’t think they’ve got the wrong person,’ she said. ‘I think they’re sure.’

‘Ask him, Bea,’ said Griff.

‘All right,’ she said, but she didn’t, she just asked the officers to wait, so they could get dressed properly.

Blanchard wouldn’t let Griff drive himself, and Griff wouldn’t allow anybody else to drive his car. Nobody wanted to directly contradict him, or tell him he wasn’t in his right mind, and there was an awkward, circular argument. In the end, Dan and Bea went in the police car, and Blanchard drove Griff’s Porsche, with Griff sitting furiously in the passenger seat and Liv in the back, alone.