Once she’d got over her astonishment, Clotilde tried to collect the thoughts that were scattering around her head like sparrows after a rifle-shot, trying to line up the questions that jostled against one another. After the ‘who?’ she concentrated on the ‘how?’

How could Franck have known that she would be here? That he would find her here, since it would have been impossible to follow her without being spotted in this barren scrubland? So her husband had been waiting for them in front of this cabin lost in the maquis; he knew about their meeting-place. She pictured him sleeping, snoring, when she had tiptoed away from the Euproctes only an hour before. He’d been play-acting. He had organised this whole thing.

Franck landed the first blow.

‘Your tea’s going to get cold. You left it on the table before you went off.’

‘What are you doing here?’

He burst out laughing.

‘No, Clotilde. Not this time. We’re not going to reverse the roles.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Clotilde said again.

‘Stop that, Clo … When the thief is caught red-handed, you don’t ask the police why they were in the right place at the right time.’

‘But I’m not married to a policeman. So tell me, how did you know?’

‘I followed you.’

‘That’s impossible, try something else.’

Franck looked startled for a moment, as if reluctant to backtrack without saying anything else. He held back.

‘Please, Clotilde.’

‘Please what?’

‘OK, you want us to dot the i’s? So let’s do it. My lovely wife receives texts all day, and answers them; my lovely wife comes up with a thousand excuses, including a visit to her parents’ grave, to go and meet her lover; and since they still don’t have enough time, my lovely wife waits for me to fall asleep so she can go and spend the night with him.’

Clotilde exploded.

‘Were you trying to trap me? Is that it? The letter I found wedged under my windscreen wiper, did you write that? Modelling it on the first one?’

Franck sighed.

‘Of course, Clotilde, if that’s what you want to think, imagine that it’s been me, right from the beginning, that I’ve been assuming all the identities – your husband, the father of your daughter, your mother suddenly brought back to life. Your lover. I suppose I was even the one who wrote the texts from that guy Natale Angeli on your phone?’

Franck had read the messages on her mobile. He’d admitted it. Even worse, he assumed that it was OK.

‘I know I’ve disappointed you, Clo. You’re forcing me to do things I’m not proud of. That I would never have believed myself capable of. So yes, I did go through your phone, to read what that Angeli guy was saying, at least before you started keeping the phone on you at all times.’