Clotilde leaned forward and flicked through the pages of her book, A Climate of Fear, the latest Vargas. It occurred to her that A Nice Cool Climate of Fear would have been a better title for a summer best-seller.

Clotilde’s sense of humour.

‘I don’t know,’ she went on. ‘It’s just a strange impression. Looking at the road just now, I had a sense that even driving too fast, even at night, my father would have had time to brake, to turn the wheel. And that impression, weirdly, matches the memory that I’ve been carrying in my head since the accident.’

‘You were fifteen years old, Clo.’

Clotilde set down the book again, without replying.

I know, Franck.

I know that these are only fleeting impressions, that everything happened in the space of two or three seconds … But listen, Franck, if you can hear me, down in the depths of your brain. If you can still read in the hollow of my eyes.

There’s no question about it. It’s an absolute certainty!

Papa didn’t turn the wheel. He drove straight towards the precipice. With us inside.

Clotilde stared for a moment at the lamp swinging gently above her head, the swarm of moths frying their brief lives against the bulb.

‘There’s something else, Franck. As the accident happened, Papa took Maman’s hand.’

‘Before the turn?’

‘Yes, just before. Just before we crashed through the barrier, as if he understood that we were going to fly across the void, as if there was nothing he could do to prevent it.’

A faint sigh. A third bolt yielded.

‘What are you saying, Clo? That your father wanted to kill himself? With all of you in the car?’

Clotilde replied quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

‘No, Franck. Of course not! He was angry because we were late. He was taking us to see a concert of polyphonic music. It was also the anniversary of the day my parents first met. We’d been for drinks with the whole family, his parents, his cousins, the neighbours. So no, it wasn’t suicide, of course it wasn’t …’

Franck shrugged.

‘Well that’s sorted then. It was an accident.’

He switched to a 12 mm wrench.

Clotilde’s voice dropped to a murmur. As if she didn’t want to wake the neighbours. From the next plot came the distant sound of an Italian television series.

‘There was Nicolas’s expression as well.’

Franck stopped what he was doing. Clotilde went on.

‘Nicolas didn’t look surprised.’

‘What do you mean?’