‘I’ll have to take my laptop to reception,’ Jakob explained, ‘that’s where they’ve got the best connection. I’ll ask Cervone Spinello to reserve me some space this evening. I’ve got a printer here to print them out. If everything goes according to plan, you’ll have your photographs tomorrow morning. Does that work for you?’

Clotilde almost threw her arms around him.

The radio went on wailing its silly jingles. She found herself wishing that the presenter would ask another question so that she would have an excuse to leave.

To rush away. To turn her mobile phone back on and read the message in her cave.

For the first time a song came on the radio.

‘Can I offer you some tea, Mademoiselle Idrissi?’

~

Jérôme was looking after Valentine’s descent. He had wrapped the abseiling rope around her waist, and was letting it out in little bursts, ten centimetres at a time.

She was a pretty girl, with a sparkle in her eyes.

He checked her descent. Another five metres and she would reach the platform where she could let go of the rope and throw herself into the waterfall, as they had taught her, stiff and straight as a rod, so that she entered the water feet first without breaking her back or her neck on impact.

Little Valentine really was pretty.

Jérôme lost his concentration for a brief moment. If it had been longer, it wouldn’t have changed anything.

First he felt the rope slacken, as if it wasn’t supporting any weight. Then, in the same second, he saw it hanging in the void like a runaway snake.

Valentine’s body was falling.

Not like a rod, but rolled up in a ball, head first, dropping like a stone.

29

Saturday, 19 August 1989, thirteenth day of the holidays
Mischievous-smurf blue sky

Time: exactly midnight.

Place: Euproctes campsite, Alga beach, far away from my parents.

Agenda: The 23 August 1989 Plot.

Present: everyone invited by the plotter-in-chief.

Pay attention, my invisible confidant, this is the plan, it’s a secret plan, so I’ll tell you everything because I trust you, but no one else must know!

Cross your heart and hope to die?

OK, in all likelihood you’re going to be reading this after 23 August 1989, but you never know, perhaps you’ll be reading it after the year 2000, but they’ll have invented some kind of time machine that will let you go back to 1989, a few days before the plot, and intervene.

I assure you, there is nothing lethal about this plot.

The head of the gang is Nicolas. Yes, my brother. Little Nico, playing his cards close to his chest. As nice as pie in front of our parents, in front of the grown-ups, in front of the girls. But he’s the one who’s up to all kinds of schemes. He’s the provocateur, the ideas guy, the mastermind.