Bea didn’t remember ever calling her mother Mummy. She used her mother’s name as little as possible, and they almost never touched. In the last three years she may have felt her mother’s lips politely brush her cheek twice, perhaps. Now, half dressed in the corridor between their two rooms Bea took both Liv’s hands. It came to her clearly and for the first time there was something greater than her mother’s crime. She held her and told her that her son was dead, and felt, despite herself, only pity. Liv’s face turned white, as if the skin was pulling back and shrinking. She stared. Gaping, she gripped Bea’s hands. Her legs gave way. Her fingers clawed to stop herself falling, but she fell. Bea knelt with her, feeling her mother’s spine against her palm, her shoulder blades.

‘No, no, no,’ Liv moaned.

Bea heard Dan say her name, behind her.

Liv writhed and pulled away. Bea let her go and she went limp. She seemed to disappear, her body lay discarded on the floor like rags. Bea stood up. She turned towards Dan.

‘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.