She heard footsteps outside, very close by. On a campsite, you get used to that sense that your neighbours are inhabiting the same space as you. Her eyes continued to scan the wall of photographs. She had spotted others from the summer of ’89, she was sure. She recognised her mother’s black dress from Benoa, the one with the red roses that Papa had bought her in Calvi. The photograph must have been taken a few days before the accident.

‘Your mother was beautiful.’

Clotilde turned around with a start.

An icy hand settled on her bare shoulder.

‘Gently, now, Clotilde, gently. Really, don’t you think your mother was beautiful?’

The snake had slithered its way in, silently. What the hell was he doing here? Even worse, why wasn’t he asking her what she was up to? He should have been surprised to find her here. Instead, he seemed to be interested in everything apart from her, was anxiously studying every corner of the mobile home.

‘Is Jakob here?’ was all he asked.

Clotilde shook her head.

‘Damn it,’ Cervone swore. ‘What’s that Prussian up to? Serge, Christian and Maurice are waiting for him at the pétanque court. He’s never been late in thirty years.’

He shrugged and lowered his eyes to the floor.

‘He’s past the age when you might follow a female tourist into the maquis, but we should still wait a bit longer before calling out the cavalry.’

Cervone examined the wall of photographs.

‘Maybe he just got fed up with always taking pictures of the same spot, and has gone off somewhere with his camera.’

Clotilde still didn’t reply, so Cervone carried on.

‘Because while the old kraut might be the most annoying client on the campsite, you have to admit he’s good at portraits. He can bring memories back to the surface better than if he’d filmed them. Look …’

Cervone pointed at another series of snaps.

A group of teenagers was standing around a campfire. Clotilde remembered that the photograph had been taken the day before the accident, late in the evening, on Alga beach. Nicolas was trying to play the guitar, with Maria-Chjara’s head resting on his shoulder; the whole tribe could be seen around the flames, Estefan with a djembe between his thighs, Hermann holding a violin, Aurélia gazing hungrily at the musicians with her olive eyes, and at Nicolas in particular.

‘Those were our years!’

Cervone seemed as happy as a little boy all of a sudden, but when he looked at Clotilde’s tight expression, he froze.

‘I’m sorry, Clotilde. I’m a total idiot sometimes.’

Sometimes …

‘Our years. I was thinking about my own teenage years, about the girls, the parties, but of course you …’

‘Forget it, Cervone. If I didn’t want to hear about it, I would never have come back to the Euproctes.’

‘Except that you want to know the truth.’