They progressed up the hillside, amidst low-lying undergrowth. Opposite them, in the distance, brightly lit, the citadel of Calvi looked like a fortified island linked to the land solely by the neon strip of bars in the harbour. They walked on for a long time, turning their backs to the sea, and after plunging into the forest once more they reached a small clearing. Orsu lit a path through a carpet of cistus flowers, climbed some steps cut into the slope, then stopped. He directed his torch ahead of him.

Clotilde thought her heart was about to explode.

The beam picked out a little shepherd’s cabin, right in the middle of nowhere, or that was how it seemed to her. Perhaps Orsu had led her round in a large circle to bring her back to somewhere very close to the starting-point. The cabin seemed to be well looked after, and Orsu aimed his spotlight as if to display its state of repair, the perfectly cut dry stones, the tiled roof, the closed shutters, the rough wooden door. Clotilde managed not to rush towards the cabin, grabbing the torch from his hands; or, even better, to throw it on to the ground so that it broke and she could check that there was indeed a thin thread of light filtering out beneath the door and through the grooves in the shutters.

Because someone lived here.

Because there was someone inside waiting for her.

Her.

Palma.

Maman.

She was very close, Clotilde could sense it.

Orsu was her ally.

He will lead you to my dark room. I won’t be able to open the door. But perhaps the walls will be thin enough for me to be able to hear your voice.

Outside the cabin door, the land was flat and clear. Orsu, as if reading her thoughts, took a step back and turned off the torch. Clotilde walked on, keeping her eyes on the ray of light, waiting for the door to open.

What would her mother look like?

She hadn’t calculated how old she would be today. Her hair would be grey, of course, but would her face be wrinkled, her back bent? Unless her ghost hadn’t aged, unless she was still the gorgeous woman that she remembered, the one she was jealous of, the one Natale was in love with.

You have grown into a very pretty woman.

Your daughter too, perhaps even more beautiful.

She looks like me, I think.

Yes, only her mother, only her ghost, eternally young, could have written such hurtful words to her daughter. But the door was going to open, and they would throw themselves into each other’s arms. Clotilde stepped forward.

But the light wasn’t coming from the cabin in front of her; or from Orsu’s torch behind her. It came at her from the side, aiming straight at her temple, then settled right between her eyes, like the sights of a sniper.

Footsteps.