She took them up the stairs. When you’re gone, and you look back, this will feel like a dream Alex had said. She opened his door. They went inside and looked at everything but picked nothing up. Bea watched, with her arms across her body. They bent and read the spines of his books. They looked from the window. They stared at his bed and the snakeskin, fluttering on the wall. Then Vincent turned to her.

‘May we see the rest of the hotel?’

He was mask-like and incomplete, showing only a part of himself, but she sensed intelligence. And she liked him. She and Dan exchanged a look, and they walked the two detectives through the hotel, from room to room. The four of them stood briefly on the terrace, like prospective housebuyers, then came inside again.

‘Can you tell us what’s happening?’ she said.

‘The circumstances of your brother’s death are unclear,’ said Capitaine Vincent.

That phrase again. ‘What does that mean?’

He seemed not to hear her. Her phone buzzed. Grateful for the interruption, she took it out.

‘Griff.’

‘I’ve had some news from Philip Roche,’ said Griff. His booming voice escaped the phone, and both policemen turned to look.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘Are you there?’ said Griff’s voice. ‘Bea?’

‘Yes. Hello?’

‘Roche says a judge or a magistrate or something ordered a full post-mortem. Autopsy. Whatever you call it. They moved Alex’s body on Wednesday.’

She covered the phone and turned, and walked away to face into the corner. ‘Sorry, can you say that again?’

‘Roche says they moved Alex’s body from Bourg-en-Bresse to a bigger hospital, in Bordeaux, the day before yesterday. They’re doing a post-mortem. He says the doctor at the scene of the accident wasn’t satisfied, for some reason. Hello?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought you were breaking up.’

‘No. I’m here,’ said Bea. ‘What did they find?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘OK.’ Her voice shook.

‘OK?’

‘Yes,’ she said more firmly. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

‘Good girl. Roche is looking into it. I’ll call you if I hear anything.’

‘Bye,’ she said. She turned back to the room. ‘They moved Alex’s body to a hospital in Bordeaux on Wednesday,’ she said to Dan, forgetting the other two men. ‘They did a post-mortem. The doctor who saw him after the accident wasn’t satisfied.’ She felt sick.

Vincent walked towards her. ‘Didn’t you know this?’ he said.

She focused on him. ‘No. No one has told us anything.’ She thought he looked embarrassed.

‘We have only just been brought in,’ he said.

‘The accident was early Monday morning. Today is Wednesday,’ said Bea. She felt irrationally humiliated. ‘I’ve been calling the hospital. Why didn’t anybody tell us he wasn’t there any more?’

‘It happened in a different district,’ he said. ‘Excuse me.’